MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[79jaybird]

I spent some time with the Ruch's at Portillo's after the Elmhurst game last night.  The entire family are pleasant, classy, and rather quiet people.   Brent's parents told me a little about Brent's hardships and how he has battled back through injuries.  Brent tore his ACL in 1 knee, rehabbed and got back to the gym.  30 seconds into his first game back, he tore his other ACL!  He rehabbed again and played Senior year.  His High School went 1-24 when he was out of the lineup, and 23-6 upon his return.
Ill. State, Millikin, Purdue, and some other notables were after Brent.  In the end, it was up to Millikin or Elmhurst,  and well the rest is history.  He is enjoying playing basketball at Elmhurst/CCIW and just a great kid.

[BRLHSFAN]

Thanks for fixing that quote for me Titan Q, wasn't sure how to fix it after I had posted it.

[79jaybird]

Bears 27
Seahawks 24
R. Gould wins it in OT!!!   

[tjcummingsfan]

Greg,

I totally agree with you about the Park being the more talented team from top to bottom.  Raymond was without question the difference in this game.  Hopefully we can hold him to the 20pts range when we go out West.

Viking Blue,

I'm with you on the gym being alot quieter than it was years ago, but if you're talking about last night I think you have to realize that 90% of the students aren't back on campus yet.  There are at least 70 students various who either returned from a missions trip around halftime of the game (myself included) or will be returning tonight.  The fact that the student section was that close to full blew me away and I'm pretty proud of those that are here.  Give it a few conference games before you call out a student section that hasn't had a chance to show up yet.

[usee]

Greg,

I totally agree with you about the Park being the more talented team from top to bottom.  Raymond was without question the difference in this game.  Hopefully we can hold him to the 20pts range when we go out West.

TJC,

you are the second poster to make this assertion with no support for it. I don't understand where this comes from. I haven't seen NP play so I can't comment on their roster. a look at the stats for the game shows the following:

Wheaton starters:
163 minutes, 67pts, 24 rebnds, 6 A, 3 Blks, 6 steals, 6 TO

NP Starters:
136 minutes, 46pts, 12 rebnds, 8 A, 2 Blks, 4 steals, 12 TO

clearly significant more production from the wheaton starting 5 than NP.

Bench comparison is a little more revealing:

Wheaton Bench:
37 minutes, 6pts, 0 rebnds, 4 A, 0 Blks, 1 steals, 5 TO

NP Bench:
65 minutes,14pts,11 rebnds,2 A,  1 Blk, 1 steal 1 TO

you can certainly make the arguement that the NP bench sees more minutes but no one ever accused Harris of going deep on his bench. Mohan had 20 of the 37min from wheaton's bench.

based on the stats it appears wheaton's lineup "top to bottom" was more productive than NP. again, this was one game and I didn't see it. just trying to see where this assertion comes from.

[tjcummingsfan]

Since you haven't seen it why do you think both Greg and I are wrong?  Take away raymond from the numbers of the Wheaton starters and its a completely different story.

[diehardfan]

Congrats to Ryan, our new leader in the CCIW fantasy league. Results and new starter info will be posted to wheatonhoops.googlepages.com/cciwfantasyleague shortly.

Thanks to Raymond finally being healthy again and earning as much as everyone else's first team picks, and largely due to Michael Fiddler's strong performace, I have vaulted into second in the Fantasy League despite the poor showing from my NPU player. Thank you Michael!!! Maybe someday if you keep playing this well, someone else in this league will finally see how much you've improved this year besides us Wheaties. 

[tjcummingsfan]

Likewise, April I'm sure you have a bias that couldn't admit if Greg is right on his NP is more talented top to bottom that Wheaton statement, to be fair. 

[robberki]

Exactly tj, people typically aren't very gracious when discussing their team. From what I've seen, NPU is more talented but the more talented teams don't always win and they don't always play better.

[Gregory Sager]

thanks for your analysis. well done. the bolded words represent a pretty strong statement. can you elaborate on why you think this is true?

Because he's a NPU fan? 

Usee, I have come to learn that Greg's word is gold... on everything except how NPU stacks up against Wheaton. Whether it's how "horribly slanted the refs were toward Wheaton", or how talented his players are etc....

Uh, I beg your pardon, April, but can you please show me where I said that the refs were horribly slanted towards Wheaton? In fact, please show me where I mentioned the refs at all.

You put words in my mouth, and I don't much care for that. If you want to say that I'm too biased to give a straight account of last night's Wheaton @ NPU game, fine. That's your right. But don't accuse me of making excuses for NPU's loss that I never made.

No, I don't have particularly warm feelings towards Wheaton College. That comes with the territory when you bleed royal blue and gold. But I strongly respect the Wheaton men's basketball program in general and this year's Wheaton team in particular, and I think that I've been more than fair towards them over the years. Without tooting my own horn, I can say that I doubt anyone on CCIW Chat has sent more kudos in Bill Harris's direction over the years than has yours truly. And I'm dead certain that I was more than fair towards them in my analysis of last night's game.

Oh, and it's the Carlson Crazies ... not the Carleton Crazies. NPU is not located in Northfield, Minnesota.

To answer Usee's question, I simply think that NPU has better athletes and better ballhandlers up and down the lineup than does Wheaton, and more of them as well. I would give Wheaton the slight edge in terms of shooters, and because Wheaton is (as usual) the best-conditioned team in the league the depth edge is pretty much nullified. Wheaton did not look gassed at the end of last night's game, even for all the defensive pressure that the Vikes were putting on them in crunch time. Also, Wheaton has Kent Raymond -- a player who is so good that he can be, and on more than one occasion has been, a one-man equalizer. But, yes, overall NPU has the more talented team.

This is not idle boasting about NPU's physical prowess, or an attempt to gain some solace from a tough loss by building up the Vikings at Wheaton's expense. It's simply an honest observation made by someone who has seen both teams a number of times. In fact, if it's anything it's an indictment of the Vikings -- when you have a physical edge on a team and you lose the game because the other team played both smarter and harder than you, I think that it makes the loss even more of a black eye. And that's compounded by the fact that the loss took place in the NPU gym.

[Gregory Sager]

This is in response to some talk about the famed "Carlson Crazies" at North Park.

There once was a time when North Park was a feared place to play.  That I am sure of.  Far before my time, national championships were won, and the "crackerbox" was a place to be reckoned with.

In the years I attended North Park ('96-'99), and a couple of years thereafter, THE North Park Gym was a phenomenal place to watch a game, and a pleasure to be a part of.  The noise in that place was unbelievable.  I can remember announcing an IWU-NP game there in 2000 and, during the starting line-ups, having the mike go out on me when announcing Rick Alspach because the noise was just too much to get over the 1500 screaming idiots in the gym.

After coming back last year, the feeling just is not the same.  And SHAME ON the NPU students!!  I looked up the numbers the other day, just for kicks.  North Park has the highest student population of any school!  For years, North Park athletes fought for the facilities that are currently available.  You've got 'em.  For years, we fought for respect.  You've got it.  Hey North Park students....STEP UP! 

Someone needs to get the ball rolling over there, and get the Carlson Crazies back to where they were in the late 90s........

Or else a great CCIW is going to step all over North Park again, as it has been doing for years and years....

2001 - 4-10
2002 - 6-8
2003 - 2-12
2004 - 3-11
2005 - 0-14
2006 - 2-12



If you build it, they will come.

No, I have to go with VB on this one. The point that I made the other day, and that VB made again yesterday, was that student support for the men's basketball team at NPU in the past was great even when the program was in the dumper. Take a look again at the years referenced in VB's post: 1995-96 thru 1998-99. Those were the last three years of the Keith Peterson era and the first year of the Rees Johnson era. NPU went 11-45 in CCIW play during those years -- not quite as dismal as the last four years have been, but pretty dismal nevertheless. In spite of that, the students turned out in great numbers and gave the team terrific support, just as VB said they did. I've commented more than once on CCIW Chat that NPU's student support was absolutely remarkable in light of the fact that the teams for which they were cheering were so awful. It was certainly true during VB's student days, and it was true right up until about two or three years ago.

Why the students stopped coming in great numbers, I don't know. Perhaps constant losing brings about its own sense of exhaustion. Perhaps the fact that the school is located in the big city, where there's always a million things to do besides go to a basketball game, finally superseded the basketball tradition on campus. Perhaps the team just wasn't reaching out enough to the campus (I expressed my displeasure with the cancellation of Midnight Madness this year for that very reason; the team, which organizes the event every fall, needs to do all the PR work it can to draw the students to the crackerbox, and not getting Midnight Madness organized was thus self-defeating on the part of the team). Perhaps the exceptional support in the face of all that losing just wasn't something that could be sustained forever.

But the point is, VB is right. The students really got behind the Vikings even though the team kept losing season after season. But that's disappeared. Now the support is down to the Carlson Crazies, the other student-athletes (especially the football team and the women's basketball team), and a tiny handful of others. That has to change. Perhaps Bob is right that only winning will suffice with regard to enticing the NPU students back into the gym. But when you've seen such remarkable support for teams that were much, much worse than this year's team ... well, you kinda wish that the students would just give the 2006-07 Vikes a chance to show them that they finally have a team they can get behind.

One note about NPU's student population, though. Even though the total number of NPU students is now up around 3,000, that's an all-inclusive number. It includes seminarians, grad students, non-traditional undergraduates, and undergraduate commuters as well as undergraduate residents. The rule of thumb is that undergraduate residents are by far the biggest supporters of any D3 school's student fan base. I think that if you ask people from Elmhurst and NCC, the two other schools in the CCIW besides NPU that have large commuter populations, they'll tell you that there's a vast difference between the amount of support their teams get from their residents as opposed to what they get from their commuters. NPU has about a thousand undergraduate residents, and it may even be a somewhat smaller number than that. As far as I know, that's the smallest residential student base among CCIW schools, and it makes basing any judgments about comparative student attendance a bit askew.

Aside from that, tjcf is right that the student support last night was both surprising and gratifying. Because classes don't start until Tuesday, and because most NPU resident undergrads are out-of-staters, I don't think that anyone was expecting to see students at the game at all. Like tjcf, I was both surprised and gratified to see as many students there as I did -- and, as I said last night, the presence of the Carlson Crazies was particularly great to see.

[Gregory Sager]

thanks for your analysis. well done. the bolded words represent a pretty strong statement. can you elaborate on why you think this is true?

Uh, I beg your pardon, April, but can you please show me where I said that the refs were horribly slanted towards Wheaton? In fact, please show me where I mentioned the refs at all.

You put words in my mouth, and I don't much care for that. If you want to say that I'm too biased to give a straight account of last night's Wheaton @ NPU game, fine. That's your right. But don't accuse me of making excuses for NPU's loss that I never made.

Well, perhaps if you'd supply a little context to your statements -- as with the "Wheaton wins easy" comment this weekend -- I wouldn't have to read it as being a baseless accusation made against me. We were talking about last night's game ... how am I supposed to know that you were segueing into a comment about a game three years ago without even a hint that that's what you were doing?

Just let me know which game it is that you're talking about at any given moment. I don't want to be Mr. Mean Tough Guy. That's what the NPU contingent on CCIW Chat has Dennis Prikkel for.

Well, I admit that I am not particularly pleased at having my objectivity called into question. I agree that it's a sore spot for me, and it's very easy to push my buttons in that regard. Yes, I know that like everyone else I'm not immune to bias, and I do thank you for the kind words about my relative lack of it. But I honestly don't see where I deviated from that objectivity and fell into bias in terms of my comments about last night's game. I mean, come on. You and Usee are questioning my comparative analysis of the talent levels of the two teams ... but have either of you even seen NPU this season? I've seen Wheaton play three times now, and I've seen NPU play eight times. I think that I have a pretty good handle on both teams, and I'm certain that the blue-and-gold goggles were off when I posted last night. Besides, as I said, I think it's even more damning of the Vikings that they lost in spite of the fact that they have more overall talent than Wheaton.

[AndOne]

Since you haven't seen it why do you think both Greg and I are wrong?  Take away raymond from the numbers of the Wheaton starters and its a completely different story.

"Take away Raymond from the numbers" (tj--just using your example, no personal slam intended)

As any mathematician, including the one I live with, will tell you, you can make statistics do anything you want them to!

Statistics can be especially deceiving when the sample, such as with a basketball team, is small. Also, because of the small number of variables (players) to begin with, one player (Raymond in most of the conversations here) can skew the analysis disproportionately.   

I think the bottom line here is that unless you have seen both teams play, ideally against a common opponent, you can't really compare them---especially by just using statistics----when it comes to something like comparing athletic ability. 

[Gregory Sager]

I think the bottom line here is that unless you have seen both teams play, ideally against a common opponent, you can't really compare them---especially by just using statistics----when it comes to something like comparing athletic ability. 

Amen! Well said, AO.

[tjcummingsfan]

Yeah, maybe it didn't come across as such, but that's the point I was trying to make, thanks.