MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[mr_b]

According to Mount St. Joseph's website, NPU lost 82-80, in OT.

Wow!  That's a strong showing by the Vikings against a team that finished 16-11 last year.

The MSJ website link is http://www.msj.edu/athletics/mens/basketball/schedule/index.asp

[robertgoulet]

Just got back from the North Central/East-West University contest. North Central won handily....and when I say handily I mean they were up 20-1, then 49-24 at halftime, and ended 97-58.

Walton finished with 29 points, and I would bet 20 of those came in the first half, and 12 boards. Krumtinger had 18 and 6.

East-West is not good....at all. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Highlight of the game came in the first half when North Central soph. forward Chris Drennan drove the lane and threw down a hard 1-handed dunk ON an East-West defender who tried to block him.....bucket and the foul.

Guard play, as has been mentioned, looked really suspect (I know it's only one game).  Freshman Brandon Smith could be a player in a year or two, but he played out of control. Decision making by the Cardinals guards left something to be desired (13 TOs from the guards alone).

Simmons didn't play, rumor is he is suspended.

One thing I think the other CCIW teams should take note of...looks like Dan Walton put on about 15 lbs of muscle. He absolutely destroyed E-W on his own tonight. Once Simmons gets back, look out. The Cardinals look bigger AND more athletic than I have seen them in some time.

[devildog29]

I'm anxiously awaiting Q's review of the game.  I didn't get to listen to any of it, so going only by the score and the quick post on the updates board, sounds like IWU won pretty handily.  I'm interested to hear if the Titan pipeline had a little more talent than we expected and should be excited about, or is Clarke not that talented of a team?  Or, as with most things, probably a little bit of both?

[Titan Q]

IWU 86
Clarke 59


* Zach Freeman: 18 pts, 13 reb (7-10 FG)
* Andrew Freeman: 16 pts, 7 reb (3-5 3-pt)
* Mike Harrigan: 11 pts (3-4 3-pt)
* Andrew Gilmore: 10 pts, 5 reb, 6 assists (0 T.O.)

- IWU rebound advantage: 48-27

http://www.uww.edu/athletics/mbasketball/statistics/clarkiwu.htm

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/11/18/sports/doc455e999a1018d564753448.txt


The Titans looked good last night.  They jumped out to a 20-point lead in the first 15 minutes of the game and it was basically over from there.  Clarke was not a very good team - probably a 7th place CCIW team.

In the early going, Clarke had 2 and sometimes even 3 defenders on Zach Freeman down low which really opened up the floor.  IWU was getting great looks from the perimeter from the get-go, and actually struggled from beyond the arc in the 1st Half (5-17).  In the first, Z. Freeman, despite all of the attention, was just too much for the Crusaders on both ends of the floor -- he finished the period with 10 points and 10 rebounds.  Andrew Freeman matched his brother in the 1st with 10 points and played very well.  6-3 sophomore Andrew Gilmore, IWU's starting point-guard, had a nice half as well and looked very comfortable on the floor.  Had IWU shot it better from 3 early, the margin at halftime would have been 30+.

The 2nd Half was kind of sloppy, as you might expect.  The IWU lead got to 29 a few minutes into the half and it wasn't much of a game to watch after that.

A few thoughts...

* Andrew Gilmore has a chance to be a very good CCIW player.  In his first start, he had 10 points, 6 assists, zero turnovers.  He is a lefty "combo guard" who just does a lot of good things on the floor -- good ball-handler, good shooter from 3 and the mid-range, good passer.  Gilmore may not be Kent Raymond or Drew Gensler, but in terms of scoring guards in the CCIW, I'd say he is right in that next tier.

* Andrew Freeman also has a chance to be an All-CCIW type performer.  He is a 6-6 and extremely athletic perimeter player...shoots the 3 well, the 15 footer, and also handles the ball well.

* Zach Freeman is just a ton.  Every team IWU plays - even the ones with size -  will have to gameplan specifically for him. 

* IWU got good minutes off the bench from 6-5 sophomore Brett Chamernik, who had 8 rebounds in 15 minutes.  Chamernik plays very hard when he's there.

* The Titans have a lot of offensive weapons.  Zach Freeman, Andrew Freeman, Andrew Gilmore, Darius Gant, and Mike Harrigan (the starters) are all guys are capable of scoring a bunch of points, and the perimeter guys off the bench (Sean Dwyer, Tyler Smith, and Jordan Morris) can put it in the basket too.  As the non-conference season goes on, I think we will see this Titan team evolve into a pretty balanced team.  IWU definitely has enough offensive talent to make teams pay for doubling Z. Freeman.

* IWU's motion offense looked really crisp -- even when the Titans weren't knocking down shots, the offense looked good.

[Titan Q]

Tonight will be a totally different story for IWU.  Nationally #4-ranked UW-Whitewater, as you'd expect, is enormous.  Like every good WIAC team I have ever seen, it seems like they just keep rolling 6-7 (and wide) guys off the bench.  Now, I will say that I wasn't overly impressed with the Warhawks to where I think IWU can't play with them.  A lot of that may just be because their offense didn't look very crisp on opening night.

IWU can play with Whitewater if:

1) Zach Freeman stays out of foul trouble and is able to play 33 minutes or so.

2) The perimeter guys make shots.

3) The Titans can defend the perimeter -- this will be a big challenge with all of the effort it will take to handle the big guys.


We'll learn more about this Titan team tonight as they face a very good team.

[Gotberg]

According to Mount St. Joseph's website, NPU lost 82-80, in OT.

Wow!  That's a strong showing by the Vikings against a team that finished 16-11 last year.

The MSJ website link is http://www.msj.edu/athletics/mens/basketball/schedule/index.asp

Game stats are up on St. Joseph's website.  Mike Church didn't play in the game - I'm assuming due to an injury.

It seems like NPU won all the statistical battles except turnovers.  I assume this probably cost them the game.

Looks like a lot of minutes played by 3 freshman, Capalbo, Stevens and Williams.  Capalbo, in particular, had a nice stat line.

http://www.msj.edu/athletics/mens/basketball/schedule/North_Park_University_mbb_06.doc

[dansand]

A pretty good season-opener for Augie last night. They got off to a slow start, but got going after a while and handled a scrappy St. Norbert team as expected, 78-57.

The Green Knights ran kind of an open post offense that really spread the floor well and gave Augie fits early. I was very impressed by their freshman point guard, Tony Jandron. He's not much to look at but was completely unrattled by Drew Wessels' pressure for most of the game and his pentration really keyed St. Norbert's success early. Dain Swetalla picked up three fouls and only played five minutes in the first half. SNC had their biggest lead at 25-16 with just under 10 minutes left in the first half. From that point on, it was all Vikings, outscoring the Knights 56-18 over the next 25 minutes to put the game away.

As expected the scoring and playing time were really spread around, with Nate Swetalla leading them with 12 point and 23 minutes. The Vikings are big and very deep this year. I don't expect Coach G will shorten the rotation much if everyone keeps playing the way they did last night. They used full court pressure most of the game and although they didn't force a huge amount of turnovers with it, they really wore down a much smaller and less-deep SNC team.

After the slow start the offense looked good and was nearly flawless in the second half, hitting 78% from the floor (62.5% for the game). Individually, they really got contributions from everyone in their 11-man rotation. I think Jordan Delp will really benefit from moving to the off guard spot, although he was still the primary ball-handler when Wessels was out. If I had to single out some bench players, I'd say Alex Washington, Chandlor Collins and Dan Rukavina all looked very good. Rukavina looked like a completely different player than last year. Much more active and aggresive, especially on offense. Collins is a little raw, but relentless on the boards. Washington looked very smooth.

All in all a solid season-opening performance. Hopefully, they can continue to play this way as the quality of their competition increases.

[Late nite]

Augie handled a BAD St. Norbert team---Norbert's had NO post presence and managed to stay in the game until the 2nd half beause of some 3's and silly fouls on the Augie big men trying to block every shot---The Vikes showed good depth and there were contributions from some of the new guys, as well as the old---Tough to get a read on the newcomers performance, because the competition was so weak----If the contributions are there against the likes of Wash U, Coe and Stevens Point, Augie will be a force---Discounting the height advantage the Vikings had, the athleticism inside of Rose, Rorer, Collins and Rukavina was impressive

[devildog29]

Q, you mentioned IWU running their motion offense.  Is Coach Rose going back to more of Dennie's style of offense and is this his philosophy if you will?  Or is this more of just fitting the offense with the type of players he has at this time? 

[Titan Q]

Q, you mentioned IWU running their motion offense.  Is Coach Rose going back to more of Dennie's style of offense and is this his philosophy if you will?  Or is this more of just fitting the offense with the type of players he has at this time? 

This is from the preview I wrote for IWUhoops.com:

Many of Ron Rose's coaching philosophies stem from his playing days at Illinois Wesleyan.  As a starting point-guard in 68 games as a Titan, Rose played on two CCIW championship teams, and three NCAA Divison III tournament squads. The 1987-88 squad that went 15-1 in the CCIW and 24-5 overall - falling in an Elite 8 heartbreaker at Ohio Wesleyan - is considered one of the best IWU squads ever.  "I think back to when I played here for coach Bridges. We were an up and down team that got easy shots in transition, easy shots in the halfcourt with good execution. We got the ball in the post, scored on backdoors, and were very efficient" he said. "My senior year, we averaged 92 points a game and that wasn't because we were run and gun," Rose explained. "It was because we had skilled players who could make shots and we were a smart transition team that took good shots."

Rose wants to implement a similar offensive style as IWU's head coach. "If you look at how I'd like to play longterm at Illinois Wesleyan, it's smart, efficient transition basketball," he said. "We will run a motion offense that hopefully creates easy shots and high scoring opportunities."

http://www.iwuhoops.com/prev07.htm

[devildog29]

And there you have it.  Sorry, some of us are inherently too lazy to look those things up.

[Cardsfan4life]

Coach Raridon sat out Simmons so the game wouldnt be a complete blow out. Just kidding. Simmons most likely violated a team rule and he is suppose to be playing tonight against Bluffton.


Go CARDS!

[Gregory Sager]

Looks like Wheaton had the most impressive result last night, nipping HCAC preseason favorite Franklin, 81-78, in the opening round of the Pfund.  The game had 19 ties and eight lead changes -- sure sounds like a barnburner. Kent Raymond didn't show any rust from his year-long layoff, posting a 27 pt / 6 reb / 5 ast stat line. Johnnie Standard scored 20, Ben Panner added 12, and Michael Fiddler chipped in 10. The Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance will face Whitworth in the Pfund title game this evening; Whitworth demolished Eastern last night, 95-67. I'm heading out to Wheaton for the conso and championship this evening; should be a fun night of basketball.

As expected, the only player who was worth a tinker's dam for East-West in their loss to North Central last night was T.J. Jackson. His 21 points made him the lone EWU player to break the double-digit barrier, and his 7 boards also led the team. Why do I bring this up? Because he almost was a North Park Viking this year. After deliberating about his decision all summer, he decided to follow the money and take the athletic scholie EWU offered him. I'm biased, naturally, but I think he made a big mistake; EWU is a rinky-dink program that plays a rinky-dink schedule, and he would've received a much better education (and played a much more competitive level of basketball) if he'd opted for NPU instead.

[Gregory Sager]

I have mixed feelings about NPU's loss to MSJ last night. On the one hand, I absolutely hate to see the Park lose a game, no matter what; and this one looks like an especially tough loss, as MSJ forced overtime by making two free throws with only 7/10ths of a second left on the clock in regulation.

On the other hand, a two-point overtime defeat in the gym of an opponent who was pretty good last year and brought back a lot more experienced returnees than did NPU carries with it some positives. I was especially encouraged to see that the Vikings shot well from behind the arc (6-11, 55% -- a lot of that due to freshman Joe Capalbo's 4-5 performance) and at the line (18-23, 78%). The Park's 43-31 rebounding advantage was also a welcome sight, and it was good to see Anthony Lenoir (16 pts, 6 rebs) have a strong game after he was so invisible in the Dominican scrimmage last weekend. On the downside, as Gotberg said it appears that turnovers (26 to MSJ's 14) was the Park's undoing, and neither Sheldon Evans nor Jason Gordon appeared to have much of a game (especially Gordon, who only played 14 minutes).

The Vikings play Kalamazoo in today's conso at MSJ, the Hornets having lost a surprisingly not-very-close game to Heidelberg last night.

[BeastMaster]

Millikin defeated MacMurray 88-76 this afternoon.  The score was not as close as the game really was.  Millikin played a great first 30 minutes going up 40-20 at the half.  The big blue were up 30 in the 2nd half.  Very sloppy game as the officials did not allow any flow with a lot of questionable foul calls.  62 fouls called total.  30 on Millikin and 32 on MacMurray.  I guess at least they were consistent.  Drew Gensler poured in 25 and any other stats were not available as Mac did not have a stat system for the game and everything was done by hand.  Mike Gavic had I believe 15 hitting 4 3-pointers in the first half.  Foul trouble led to a lot of odd lineups for both teams.  MacMurray is much improved from a year ago because they are no longer playing the "Grinnell" style.  Vince Brock, playing his first college game in a few years, was very impressive defensively.  We counted up at least 5 steals that he had, simply just taking the ball from his man. 

All in all, scoring 88 points was good, giving up 76, not so good.  It is a young team and they will continue to grow, but going on the road and playing through 30 fouls is a positive.  The Big Blue travel to IU-NW in Gary on Tuesday.