MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

There lies an entire 50,000+ word story written without any e's! I believe that has to be the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Someone has way too much time on their hands; on the other hand, this is a feat that Guiness might actually put in the book.


(Please refrain from all beer related jokes here; that would be too obvious.)

[matblake]

There lies an entire 50,000+ word story written without any e's! I believe that has to be the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I don't think I could do a solitary wording with no e's.  Darn, I just did it.....   

[Knightstalker]

Know what I mean?

fur shure dude

[veterancciwfan]

Dennis P.- Bayard Forrest, I remember him well. He was a Mormon from Oregon who wound up playing for Ben Lindsay at Grand Canyon, a tiny school then in Phoenix. Grand Canyon beat IWU and Sikma 66-63 in 1975, Sikma's sophomore seson, at the NAIA tourney in KC. He looked like a GreeK god then. Looked like he just got off his surfboard. And Sikma outplayed him. It took Lindsay several timeouts in the 2nd half to try to figure out a way to stop Sikma as Forrest couldn't do it alone. That Grand Canyon team also had a D1 transfer from Southern Cal who was even better than Forrest. It was a great team. The NAIA tournement-the real thing as opposed to the way D3 runs its year-end tournament.

Stat: Bosco must be ill. I've been to Arlington 3 times and haven't seen him yet. Must still be recruiting or maybe taking his son to b'ball camps.

Greg: Regarding who is a D3 athlete and who isn't. Since this is the "CCIW Chat" board, can't we simply say Sikma was the greatest CCIW player ever and forget everything else?

Bob: Regarding the Spanish newpaper article-precious!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Musings on a summer night:

When they were my age,

Keats had been dead for 32 years
Shelley had been dead for 29 years
Mozart had been dead for 23 years
Gershwin had been dead for 20 years.

These keep me humble when I'm feeling a bit too full of myself. 

On the other hand,

Picasso was essentially my age when he painted Guernica (IMO, the greatest painting of the 20th century)
'Ike' Eisenhower was 4 years older than me when he won his first ever try for public office (if I plan to start at the top like him, perhaps I'd better win a world war!)
Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses) sold her first painting when she was 20 years older than me.

I'm too confused about my relative age to have a mid-life crisis!

(Of course, if anyone has a cheap Mazeratti convertible, I could try....)

[Mr. Ypsi]

Since CCIW Chat is #1 on views (#4 on posts), I am truly remorseful that I seem to have 'broken it' with my musings!  Jeesh - 46+ hours (aside from my amendment) since the last post.

I realize that this is a largely NL board (Cubs and Cards), but let's check out the AL.  Assuming no West team is a candidate for the wild card (they would have to have TWO teams go 75-80% to contend), here are the standings (top 3 advance):

Tigers       66-32
White Sox 59-38  -6.5
Red Sox    59-38  -6.5
Yankees    56-40  -9.0
Twins        56-41  -9.5
Blue Jays   55-43  -11.0

[Gregory Sager]

Greg: Regarding who is a D3 athlete and who isn't. Since this is the "CCIW Chat" board, can't we simply say Sikma was the greatest CCIW player ever and forget everything else?

No, because that's not a given. Dennis Prikkel probably goes back as far as anyone who posts on CCIW Chat, and he says that Millikin's Jesse Price was the greatest CCIW player he ever saw. And there are probably some old-timers who would opt for Wheaton's Mel Peterson or North Central's Bill Warden over any of those young whippersnappers.

[emeritusprof]

I guess I go back a good distance, since it became CCIW after Carthage moved to Wisconsin--constituting the one of the two Wisconsin schools that caused CCI to become CCIW.

Yes, Jesse Price was a great "small college" ball player.  I won't say "D III" 'cause I don't want to argue that one. 

I gained a lot of respect for Sikma after his college years, as I remember one skinny Carthage center doing quite a job on Jack.  I didn't see enough of him to proclaim "best" ever in the CCIW.

My vote would have to go to Jack Lutz.  At Carthage he was most often a forward (6' 3"), but had he played guard thru four years of college, I'm certain he would have made it with the Milwaukee Bucks.  The year they drafted Lutz is the same year they drafted Alcindor and Dandridge.

In one-on-one situations, no one in our conference could stay with Lutz.  And, opposing coaches knew that and tried hard to keep such occasions to a minimum.

But, I've seen a lot of really fine basketball players from all of the conference teams and I would be hard pressed to try to name an all-time greatest player, or, to try to name an all-time all-star team spanning more than a generation.

[Titan Q]

Greg: Regarding who is a D3 athlete and who isn't. Since this is the "CCIW Chat" board, can't we simply say Sikma was the greatest CCIW player ever and forget everything else?

No, because that's not a given. Dennis Prikkel probably goes back as far as anyone who posts on CCIW Chat, and he says that Millikin's Jesse Price was the greatest CCIW player he ever saw. And there are probably some old-timers who would opt for Wheaton's Mel Peterson or North Central's Bill Warden over any of those young whippersnappers.

Like most debates here, it probably comes down to semantics to a large degree.  You could word the "best ever" topic a lot of ways and the discussion would change with each.

If one uses post-college basketball success as any measure in determining the "best CCIW player ever", then it is almost impossible to argue against Jack Sikma.  He wasn't only drafted in the NBA...he was the #8 pick overall.  And he wasn't only successful in the NBA...he was a 7-time all-star and a key performer on a championship team.

I never saw Sikma play a CCIW game and I also did not see many of the CCIW greats mentioned here.  I do know that based on the complete basketball body of work, Sikma is one of the best small college players ever.  He selected IWU at the time over Purdue, Illinois, Kansas and other major Division I programs...we won't see that again in the CCIW (and probably not in the small college ranks altogether).



http://www.nba.com/sonics/news/retired_jerseys_sikma.html

http://www.nba.com/sonics/roster/jack_sikma.html

http://www.databasebasketball.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=SIKMAJA01

[emeritusprof]

My guess is that quite a lot of folks away from IWU were surprised at how well Sikma did as a pro.  And, those of us at other schools made a point of telling folks he was out of "our conference."  (Some of us even said some nice things about Augustana's Ken Anderson after he made his pro football mark.)

I saw Sikma only four times, the road trips he made to Carthage.  That's not much of a measure for making "greatest" claims.

[Pat Coleman]

I didn't see any of the players mentioned either (other than (edit) Coon) but I would say, too, I don't know if someone's post-graduate exploits should necessarily go towards measuring the greatest CCI/W player.

I leave that determination to the local authorities but I think that's what's behind some of the discussion here.

[Titan Q]

Korey Coon has a national championship ring and a Josten's trophy but continues to have one of the CCIW's most misspelled names!

[Mr. Ypsi]

The CCIW website only lists records for conference games (which is probably not surprising), so overall games records may differ, but neither the all-time career scoring leader (Leon Gobczynski of Millikin) or the all-time career rebounding leader (Steve Clum of Wheaton) has been mentioned much.

Only two players are top five in both scoring and rebounds - it doesn't surprise me that they are Jesse Price and Jack Sikma.  What does surprise me (although I've noted that Jesse Price was easily the best I ever saw while in the CCIW), is that Price is above Sikma in each category: 3rd in scoring (1343) and 2nd in rebounding (894), while Jack is 4th in scoring (1307) and only 5th in rebounding (811).

That last number floored me - I'm sure that Sikma was higher than 5th in the NBA on several occasions!  So Pat is probably correct that post-CCIW performance is shading our ratings (since Q is certainly correct that IF post-CCIW performance is taken as a factor, the debate is moot).

[Titan Q]

Sikma's collegiate stats...

Fresh - 15.4 ppg, 10.6 rpg (148-306 FG, .484) - IWU 12-12/10-6 (3rd)
Soph - 20.3 ppg, 13.8 rpg (265-537 FG, .493) - IWU 23-7/14-2 (1st)
Junior - 20.0 ppg, 11.6 rpg (204-385, .530) - IWU 23-7/15-1 (1st)
Senior - 27.0 ppg, 15.4 rpg (324-602, .538) - IWU 25-6/15-1 (1st)

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbbrec08.html

The danger of just looking at statistics however is that they don't tell the whole story obviously.  I'd rather rely on someone who saw, say, Thomas and Sikma play and listen to their opinion than to try to compare stats from different teams and eras.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Dennis, you make some good points on the stat comparisons (and another reason Q is correct that stats alone can be misleading or incomplete).  In comparing just Price and Sikma, Price had the opportunity to play 8 fewer conference games (I couldn't find whether either missed any games their teams played); on the flip side, Price was generally still in at the buzzer, while Sikma no doubt sat out many 4th quarter blow-outs (besides which, Millikin usually NEEDED Jesse to hit 30 or more points, and 15 or more rebounds; IWU only rarely needed Jack to shoulder the load alone).  These to some extent cancel each other out, but I suspect Jack had the greater obstacle to great individual stats.

Switching for a moment from players to coaches, the debate is cloudy ONLY if someone has the discourtesy to bring up national titles!  Dennie Bridges has two records that (IMO) will NEVER be broken.  If Carthage wins 8 or more games this year, someone will finally have won HALF as many conference games as he did!  And his 17 championships is totally out of reach - second place (7) is held by the guy who hired him (Jack Horenberger); the highest for an active coach is Bosko Djurickovic with 5.  We will not see the likes of Dennie again!