MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[petemcb]

This is for all those discouraged, disheartened, and/or disaffected (place yourselves under any of those adjectives that may apply) North Park fans/former fans out there in chatland.  

Besides the facts of a still new coaching regime and a legion of injuries to players being counted upon to form part of this season's nucleus, this really may be CURF's best roster, with more talent AND depth, than any in memory.  (Which begs the question: ARE there any CURF rosters in anyone's memory?)

Bobby Smith is a 6'3" or so horse under the glass who knows how to establish himself on the block, and who has as much determined strength to power the ball up off the glass and in as any CCIW player who comes to mind at the moment.  He is a tireless rebounder/worker who keeps his mouth shut and never quits.  He is a CCIW quality player.

Justin Gray, a sophomore transfer from Loras College, is an interesting combination of a 3 and a 4, who checks in at roughly 6'4", 200 plus, and brings a nice inside/outside game.  He has tended not to be as consistent as Bobby Smith, with whom he played at Prospect High School in Mt. Prospect, IL.,  but when he's on, as he may have been last night, he's also a CCIW level player.

Dave Mikrut is a 5'6" (at best) sparkplug at the point who is born to be a team leader.  He is a freshman who prepped at  Lake Park High School in Roselle, IL.  He played significant minutes since at least his sophomore year at Lake Park, and was clearly a team leader at that time.  He is vocal, fearless, and a tenacious defender, who doesn't hesitate to hit an NBA range 3ball.  He has a history of leading bigger, more talented athletic teammates to higher levels.  He was being recruited last year by Benedictine, among others.

I ran into Concordia this summer in the Des Plaines league, and got talking to their head coach.  If I remember correctly, he had been an assistant out at Lake Forest College.  He shared my excitement about the surprising talent level at CURF this year, and also talked about 3-4 very athletic wing players he was looking forward to integrating into the lineup.

All this to say that I'm not so sure this is a typical CURF team.  Combine that with NPU's injury list, and a committed attempt to establish a new work ethic at the Park, and you guys may have sufficient reason to slow the desperation talk on the North Side, and give this season a chance to unfold.

[robberki]

I guess I am in the minority here. I've seen the Vikings play on a couple of occasions this season and watched some practice time and I see a young team with a ton of potential that makes mistakes that a young team makes. When I see those players on the court, I see a team that is going to get better and better as the season goes on and come conference time is going to be a middle of the pack squad. Flame away if you like but I see something different in this years Viking squad.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention this years "rally toad" in the crazies section. There weren't a lot of crazies there last night, probably related to the Thanksgiving holiday, but I saw the funniest, and most innapopriate, carlson crazy probably ever. I'm not sure if Greg had as good of a look given that he was on the other side of the gym, but someone was dressed up as a kangaroo. A complete costume with a huge head piece and everything, when he made his entrance 15 minutes or so in to the game I wasn't even sure what he/she was or who he/she was rooting for. Then I noticed the viking hat on top of the huge head and the mace and shield, I figured he was a viking supporter. He went running up the sideline for his grand entrance and entertained the crowd during timeouts with some dance numbers. I won't repeat here the other "moves" displayed, but let's just say it ended in the kangaroo having a meeting with the AD. My section couldn't stop laughing and I can only hope that his behavior is under control and is allowed to participate the rest of the year. Truly words can't describe what the scene last night, I wish I had a video.

[Knightstalker]

Greg, you need to wander over to the NJAC board once in a while.  Other posters and I have ripped into players for being selfish, playing stupidly and into coaches for really screwing up things.  You should have read the things I wrote about Samar Battle for being stupid and not maintaining his grades his junior season.  NJCU had there best chance since the mid nineties to go deep into the tournament that year until he got booted off the team by coach brown.  It amazes me sometimes how players think Coach Brown will pull strings so they can keep playing when he tells the players and parents interested in the program that they will go to class, they will pass and they make progress towards graduation or they will not play.  He will also bend over backwards to get them the academic help they need, whether it is remedial work, tutors or even discussing with a professor what a player needs to do to improve their classroom performance.

Regarding states known as Commonwealths:
Commonwealth - all the common people work to make everyone else wealthy.

[markerickson]

Let's give CURF a little credit, having made 15 treys.

HOWEVER, I cringe when players get open looks from beyond the arc. 

[Warren Thompson]

Wonderful! First we had the Nordic-Punic Wars. Now we have the next chapter of the Viking inter-tribal fracas. 

[Knightstalker]

Please Warren, in these days of Politcal Correctness and NCAA sensitivity they should be called the Nordic Aggressors and not Vikings.

[Drake Palmer]

Why I love to lurk on the CCIW board:

Is it just me, or is Sager turning into Winston Churchill?

I've already got the wordiness down. I just need to work on the jowls.

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Winston Churchill

...And yet I have "blue and gold glasses"? I have no idea what color the sky is in your world, Dennis, but I'm pretty sure that whatever it is it's very dark. You would consider Socrates to be an unrealistic and incurable optimist even as he put the cup of hemlock to his lips....

Now Greg admit it - you loved typing that little zinger didn't you?  Nicely stated! 

[mr_b]

Ralph,

This is the same handle as I have always used.

[tjcummingsfan]

I'm not going to lie, after reading that North Park lost to CURF i just about cried.  Now that was probably mostly due to the fact that I was going on 3 hours of sleep, and was just completely drained, but even still...  While I was extremely sad to hear about a loss to a team we, without question, should have beat I find comfort in a couple things. We are an extremely young team, with the exception of Mathisen, there were underclassmen, or newbies starting.  These are players who have been at North Park for very little time, and have played all of 1 game together.  Coach Brenagan (sp?  sorry my internet is too slow to check name spellings) has only really recruited this one full year.  We are only beginning to see the kind of players he can bring in.  I'm already impressed with the players he got for this year's campaign, and I have faith, like Rob, that they will eventually learn to play together. We're two games into the season, it wuld be rediculous to count the Vikings out now.  I, like Rob still think we have a good chance to pick up a handful of conference wins.  One this line-up is healthy, and has some time to play together, fixing the young-team mistakes our young team has, I think people will be very surprised. 

[robberki]

Tj,
Didn't you get the memo? There's no reason for optimisim and in fact you should have your head examined if you think North Park will score another point all year long. We should just board the gym up and forget about it, it's not even worth playing the games. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Tj,
Didn't you get the memo? There's no reason for optimisim and in fact you should have your head examined if you think North Park will score another point all year long. We should just board the gym up and forget about it, it's not even worth playing the games. 

I don't think even Dennis went quite THAT far!

[tjcummingsfan]

I'm pretty sure even if we tried to board up the gym, we wouldn't get the permits approved for a good 2 years.

[robberki]

Never mind, it's just not worth it.

[Titan Q]

Interesting halftime score...

St. Xavier (NAIA) 41
Illinois-Chicago (D1) 29


(IWU's next game is against St. Xavier - Monday at the Shirk Center.)

[Gotberg]

Does anyone know if there was a reason Eric Samuelson didn't get into last night's NPU game other than just 'coaches decision'?