MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[AndOne]

Raymond just broke 2000 pts for the year. He will move into second on Wheaton's all time list in the next game or two.

If Wheaton makes a nice playoff run, and Raymond averages 30ppg, he could break the current Wheaton all time points record of 2542.

Wow!

Problem is... Raymond got hurt tonight.  Looks relatively serious.

Wheaton's top two all-time scorers, Marv Johnson and Mel Peterson (a Covie, by the way from the UP), both played in the fifties.  Johnson started his career in the late fourties.

Kudos to the WETN radio play-by-play guys for an excellent job.

DGP

No doubt Raymond is a fabulous player and an All-American. His record stands on its own merits.
HOWEVER, we shouldn't really be surprised when a current or fairly recent player breaks scoring marks, given that for the last many years the players have had the advantage of the 3 point shot. Thats something Johnson & Peterson, and all the other old timers never had. We can only guess how many points these guys and other big scorers in the "old Days" might have had if the 3 point shot would have been available to them.

[Gregory Sager]

No doubt Raymond is a fabulous player and an All-American. His record stands on its own merits.
HOWEVER, we shouldn't really be surprised when a current or fairly recent player breaks scoring marks, given that for the last many years the players have had the advantage of the 3 point shot. Thats something Johnson & Peterson, and all the other old timers never had. We can only guess how many points these guys and other big scorers in the "old Days" might have had if the 3 point shot would have been available to them.

Exactly. The two members of the North Park 2,000-point club, Michael Thomas and Justyne Monegain, both predate the three-point shot as well. In fact, an even more remarkable thing about Thomas's 2,085 points is that he scored them while playing alongside two multiple-season All-Americans for three years, Michael Harper and Bud Greer. Of course, NPC got to play a few extra games every March back then.

I'd be great if schools asterisked their records to indicate pre- and post-trey scoring records, or at least footnoted the fact that the three-point shot was not installed as an NCAA rule until 1986-87.

[wheels81]

Raymond just broke 2000 pts for the year. He will move into second on Wheaton's all time list in the next game or two.

If Wheaton makes a nice playoff run, and Raymond averages 30ppg, he could break the current Wheaton all time points record of 2542.

Wow!

Problem is... Raymond got hurt tonight.  Looks relatively serious.

Wheaton's top two all-time scorers, Marv Johnson and Mel Peterson (a Covie, by the way from the UP), both played in the fifties.  Johnson started his career in the late fourties.

Kudos to the WETN radio play-by-play guys for an excellent job.

DGP

No doubt Raymond is a fabulous player and an All-American. His record stands on its own merits.
HOWEVER, we shouldn't really be surprised when a current or fairly recent player breaks scoring marks, given that for the last many years the players have had the advantage of the 3 point shot. Thats something Johnson & Peterson, and all the other old timers never had. We can only guess how many points these guys and other big scorers in the "old Days" might have had if the 3 point shot would have been available to them.

BLAH,BLAH,BLAH,BLAH,BLAH
woulda, shoulda, coulda,  They also played before it was considered ok to dunk, they probably could have scored more if they were dunking the ball too. Raymond still makes a lot of 3's the old fashioned "And 1" way.

NO mention of the Kentucky player (sorry forgot his name) who didn't have an asterisk put on his record by any announcer, who broke Dan Issel's college single game record which stood at 52 before the 3 point era as well,  What about Pistol Pete at LSU and etc.,etc.......
Sorry to offend some of you with the stream of consciousness (sp) and the grammar or spelling stuffff.  I know how hard it is to reed somtines

[wheels81]

Coach Grey did not disappoint toinght.  He did keep his jacket on longer than usual but removed it shortly after Wiele entered the game.  Coincidence.. I think not

Wheaton had trouble hitting the open 3 tonight except for Raymond.  Their defense helped them out and Wiele contributed no small effort in keeping the Thunder 14 and 0. 
Now Panner and company in the backcourt will have to carry the burden of scoring as it appears that Kent will be out for a while.  Wiele has a little bit to go to get back to 100% but if tonight is any indication he is farther along than some had anticipated. 
Augie scrummed and scraped tonight and although Delp and Wessels kept at it their shots didn't fall as they usually do.  Haven't looked at the box score yet but Delp seemed to be off on his 3 point shooting.   Wessels picked Panner pocket pretty proficiently perfect pre-half time.  (sorry ran out of "p" 's)

[Thunder Dutch]

great game at king tonight...

what do people think about Wheaton's chances Saturday at Millikin? Millikin is not a bad team at all, and Wheaton will definitely be without Kent... We'll have Wiele completely back though, which is nice, and if we continue playing good defense and making good decisions, I think we can take it... but I don't know Millikin's team well enough to judge that

in a similar vein, what about Carthage? it's home, and we did beat them twice last year.. Panner will do a great job on Stevie D as he did last year, but it will be really close without Kent.

thoughts

[thundermike11]

Kent Raymond's injury is a chance for other people to step up. It is nice that Andy Wiele is back now to help shoulder a good deal of the load left by Raymond's absence. It's going to have to be guys like Andrew Jahns and Jeremy Pflederer who step up big.

Without knowing the extent of the injury to Raymond, let's just say he misses the next three games. At Millikin is no easy breeze for the Thunder. They struggled there last year and it seems that Millikin is an improved team from a year ago. Then you have Carthage, a team which could easily steal a win at King Arena. Ben Panner will do a fine job on Steve D, but what concerns me more is stopping Sean Fendley from having a big game. When I watched Hope play Carthage the Dutchmen let Fendley have a huge game. If Wheaton can make Carthage Steve-dimensional, they should be fine, but that's a big if. And then you have Elmhurst coming in, which would be very daunting without Raymond. The freshman guards from Elmhurst are the type of guys who give Wheaton problems (the small, quick Rosenkranz/Johnson types). So once again, while Panner should be able to hold Burks in check and Wiele ought to be able to handle Ruch, the Jays have other sources of scoring to be contended with.

Filling Kent Raymond's shoes is impossible, but I think Wheaton has enough talent and depth that they should be able to withstand his absence. But without him in the lineup for these next few games, teams are going to smell blood and come at Wheaton hard.

[AndOne]

great game at king tonight...

what do people think about Wheaton's chances Saturday at Millikin? Millikin is not a bad team at all, and Wheaton will definitely be without Kent... We'll have Wiele completely back though, which is nice, and if we continue playing good defense and making good decisions, I think we can take it... but I don't know Millikin's team well enough to judge that

in a similar vein, what about Carthage? it's home, and we did beat them twice last year.. Panner will do a great job on Stevie D as he did last year, but it will be really close without Kent.

thoughts

Thunder--

Its not just you. Nobody really knows Millikin very well, because there aren't any Millikin posters active to keep us informed about the makeup and progress of the team.

One thing about Millikin is that they were supposed to play at North Central tonight but the game was postponed until tomorrow (Thurs) night, I believe at the request of Millikin as they were experiencing even worse weather than in the Naperville/NCC area. Now they face the prospect of playing Wheaton after a fairly long bus ride tomorrow night, and playing WC 2 days later, while Wheaton will have an extra day of rest.

Lastly, they have more to worry about than Wheaton, as tomorrow they face a North Central team thats firing on all cylinders, and coming off an impressive road win over the #19 rated team in the country.

[andrewmp]

Every Wheaton fan in that gym tonight was holding their breath when Kent was on the ground.  I didn't get a good look at what had happened, because I was towards the other end.  It was right after he scored a wide open lay up, and it didn't make sense that he would just be on the ground hurt all by himself.  My initial reaction was that it could have been a cheap shot, because things had gotten rather physical at that point.  It also didn't look like an ankle injury at first.  Ankles are a lot more common to bust just stepping the wrong way.  Just a few minutes before, bodies were flying all over the court in a classic "who wants this more" scene.  I am pretty sure more than half of the players were on the floor, and one of the Augie players' head hit one of the bottom steps at their end.  A very physical game.
Although Raymond was amazing in those first few minutes of the half (one three pointer was put up more like shot put as the shot clock buzzer went off), I thought Wheaton's D became more focused and physical, possibly responding to the way that Augie plays D.  I felt that helped them take control of this game in the second half as well.
Wiele's first half performance definately looked rusty, but his aggressiveness payed off in the second.  It is good to see him have that kind of game, especially since Kent is most likely out for a bit. 
Ultimately, just as Wiele's absence may have proved a blessing for the development of the other bigs, Raymond's absence may prove helpful for the development of the guards, and the whole offensive flow.  They have the ability to still win every game, but it just got that much harder.  I would be content if the Thunder lost two games in Raymond's absence, as I expect that he would be out for 4-6 games. 

[wheels81]

great game at king tonight...

what do people think about Wheaton's chances Saturday at Millikin? Millikin is not a bad team at all, and Wheaton will definitely be without Kent... We'll have Wiele completely back though, which is nice, and if we continue playing good defense and making good decisions, I think we can take it... but I don't know Millikin's team well enough to judge that

in a similar vein, what about Carthage? it's home, and we did beat them twice last year.. Panner will do a great job on Stevie D as he did last year, but it will be really close without Kent.

thoughts

Thunder--

Its not just you. Nobody really knows Millikin very well, because there aren't any Millikin posters active to keep us informed about the makeup and progress of the team.

One thing about Millikin is that they were supposed to play at North Central tonight but the game was postponed until tomorrow (Thurs) night, I believe at the request of Millikin as they were experiencing even worse weather than in the Naperville/NCC area. Now they face the prospect of playing Wheaton after a fairly long bus ride tomorrow night, and playing WC 2 days later, while Wheaton will have an extra day of rest.

Lastly, they have more to worry about than Wheaton, as tomorrow they face a North Central team thats firing on all cylinders, and coming off an impressive road win over the #19 rated team in the country.

+1,

You seem to have something against Wheaton,  you've qualified the last two statements concerning Raymond's 2000 point acheivement with a capitalized "however" and now you are qualifying a Wheaton victory in Decatur because the Big Blue play your beloved redbirds Thursday night and have to "endure" a bus ride home with 1 less day to recover from it.  Wheaton doesn't have an "extra" day as you put it, it's the regular time off.  Milikin has 1 less day. It might be an issue if they were coming to Wheaton on Saturday.  Wheaton has a heck of lot more to overcome than Milikin, not even mentioning the 3+ hour bus ride.  So thanks again for diminishing any type of effort Wheaton might put out Saturday if they do in fact win, your efforts are appreciated and noticed.

[thundermike11]

It wasn't really a wide open layup--Kent grabbed an offensive board and went back up, stepping on Alex Washington's foot on his way down after shooting the layup and rolled his ankle. It wasn't a cheap shot at all, just one of those freak things.

[usee]

great game at king tonight...

what do people think about Wheaton's chances Saturday at Millikin? Millikin is not a bad team at all, and Wheaton will definitely be without Kent... We'll have Wiele completely back though, which is nice, and if we continue playing good defense and making good decisions, I think we can take it... but I don't know Millikin's team well enough to judge that

in a similar vein, what about Carthage? it's home, and we did beat them twice last year.. Panner will do a great job on Stevie D as he did last year, but it will be really close without Kent.

thoughts

Thunder--

Its not just you. Nobody really knows Millikin very well, because there aren't any Millikin posters active to keep us informed about the makeup and progress of the team.

One thing about Millikin is that they were supposed to play at North Central tonight but the game was postponed until tomorrow (Thurs) night, I believe at the request of Millikin as they were experiencing even worse weather than in the Naperville/NCC area. Now they face the prospect of playing Wheaton after a fairly long bus ride tomorrow night, and playing WC 2 days later, while Wheaton will have an extra day of rest.

Lastly, they have more to worry about than Wheaton, as tomorrow they face a North Central team thats firing on all cylinders, and coming off an impressive road win over the #19 rated team in the country.

+1,

You seem to have something against Wheaton,  you've qualified the last two statements concerning Raymond's 2000 point acheivement with a capitalized "however" and now you are qualifying a Wheaton victory in Decatur because the Big Blue play your beloved redbirds Thursday night and have to "endure" a bus ride home with 1 less day to recover from it.  Wheaton doesn't have an "extra" day as you put it, it's the regular time off.  Milikin has 1 less day. It might be an issue if they were coming to Wheaton on Saturday.  Wheaton has a heck of lot more to overcome than Milikin, not even mentioning the 3+ hour bus ride.  So thanks again for diminishing any type of effort Wheaton might put out Saturday if they do in fact win, your efforts are appreciated and noticed.

I didn't read AO's posts that way at all. He made a great point about the pre-post 3pt line, and I think in his description above he was trying to say Millikin has it tough as they have to ride to Naperville today, play a tough NCC team in the hangar, drive 3 hrs home tonight and only get a day really before having to face Wheaton. The Thunder drive down on Saturday not having to worry about classes and have a full 2 days rest before the Millikin contest. There is no opinion in here, just facts.

[dansand]

Every Wheaton fan in that gym tonight was holding their breath when Kent was on the ground.  I didn't get a good look at what had happened, because I was towards the other end.  It was right after he scored a wide open lay up, and it didn't make sense that he would just be on the ground hurt all by himself.  My initial reaction was that it could have been a cheap shot, because things had gotten rather physical at that point.  It also didn't look like an ankle injury at first.  Ankles are a lot more common to bust just stepping the wrong way.  Just a few minutes before, bodies were flying all over the court in a classic "who wants this more" scene.  I am pretty sure more than half of the players were on the floor, and one of the Augie players' head hit one of the bottom steps at their end.  A very physical game.

It wasn't really a wide open layup--Kent grabbed an offensive board and went back up, stepping on Alex Washington's foot on his way down after shooting the layup and rolled his ankle. It wasn't a cheap shot at all, just one of those freak things.

Actually it was an open layup off an inbounds play. I can't say for sure whether he landed on Alex's foot or not, but I didn't think so at the time. It looked to me at first, also, like it was his knee, but that's why I'm not doctor.

Also, let me assure April that no one's safety was in jeopardy. The roads were fine and other than getting momentarily stuck in a restaurant parking lot, there were no travel issues whatsoever.

As far as the game goes, you can analyze and analyze, but it's pretty simple. The difference was Raymond going off for about 3 1/2 minutes early in the second half, scoring 14 straight Thunder points and taking it from a tie game to a 12-point Wheaton lead. I remember how exciting it was when Kirk Anderson or Rick Harrigan would go on stretches like that...It sucks to be on the other end...Augie could just never quite recover from that. A real key possession was just under 10 minutes left (I think probably the sequence that andrewmp was referring to) when several Vikes (and Thunder) hit the floor in a court-long loose ball scrum. Matt Pelton ended up making a great save under the basket, but Augie missed a layup that would've cut the lead to 3, and Wheaton pushed the ball upcourt and got an old-fashioned 3-point play by Raymond to push the lead back to 8. That was a huge sequence that I think took some of the wind out of the Vikings sails. I thought Andy Wiele was really jacked up in the first half, but he settled down in the second half and had a really nice game.

Wheaton is a very well-rounded team. Panner, Jahns, McCrary and Carwell all perform their roles very well and when you add the two stars, it's easy to see why they've gotten off to the start they have. The big question I would have about them is their depth, but it obviously hasn't hurt them too much so far this season.

Augie's 2-2 in the league now. The same record they had last season after the first two weeks. We'll see whether they can finish as strong as they did a year ago. A bit of a statistical oddity is that Bryant Voiles became the ninth Viking to lead them in scoring this year. He gave them a nice lift off the bench with 14 points.

[thundermike11]

Every Wheaton fan in that gym tonight was holding their breath when Kent was on the ground.  I didn't get a good look at what had happened, because I was towards the other end.  It was right after he scored a wide open lay up, and it didn't make sense that he would just be on the ground hurt all by himself.  My initial reaction was that it could have been a cheap shot, because things had gotten rather physical at that point.  It also didn't look like an ankle injury at first.  Ankles are a lot more common to bust just stepping the wrong way.  Just a few minutes before, bodies were flying all over the court in a classic "who wants this more" scene.  I am pretty sure more than half of the players were on the floor, and one of the Augie players' head hit one of the bottom steps at their end.  A very physical game.

It wasn't really a wide open layup--Kent grabbed an offensive board and went back up, stepping on Alex Washington's foot on his way down after shooting the layup and rolled his ankle. It wasn't a cheap shot at all, just one of those freak things.

Actually it was an open layup off an inbounds play. I can't say for sure whether he landed on Alex's foot or not, but I didn't think so at the time. It looked to me at first, also, like it was his knee, but that's why I'm not doctor.

Ah, you're right it was an inbounds play (my memory was a bit fuzzy on how the play had developed, thanks for the reminder). But he did step on Washington's foot (that's what Kent said to the team so I'll take his word for it). Washington rotated over after Kent had gone up and then he came down and rolled the ankle. Even Kent thought it was his knee at first, so I guess we can all feel better about being wrong on that one.

I didn't read AO's posts that way at all. He made a great point about the pre-post 3pt line, and I think in his description above he was trying to say Millikin has it tough as they have to ride to Naperville today, play a tough NCC team in the hangar, drive 3 hrs home tonight and only get a day really before having to face Wheaton. The Thunder drive down on Saturday not having to worry about classes and have a full 2 days rest before the Millikin contest. There is no opinion in here, just facts.

I agree with USee on this one. The whole 3-pt line thing is a common thing to bring up at any level of basketball when scoring records are broken by current players. It's not a knock on their accomplishments (at least I don't think that's what AO's intent was), but just stating the fact that the three point shot allows for a player to potentially score more points--especially a player like Raymond who takes a fair portion of threes.

And while having their game postponed does adversely affect Millikin, I am pretty confident that not having Kent Raymond is a bigger loss for Wheaton than not having an extra day off is for the Big Blue.

[usee]

Lots of story lines in King arena last night as #11 and #1 faced off in a key CCIW contest. Wheaton got going early on open shots from Panner, McCrary and a layup by Raymond. Augie came right back on the strength of 4 early offensive rebounds and held a decided edge on the boards at the 10.30 mark of the first half (9-5 with 5 offensive boards) as the vikings built a 6 pt lead 23-17. Wheaton again had trouble off the pick and roll as the Augie guards were able to get into the paint for easy jumpers and/or offensive boards by their bigs. Collins and Bertrand were controlling the middle at this point. Then King arena came alive as Andy Wiele checked in for the first time in 5 weeks. His enthusiasm was apparent and his first action was a big defensive rebound off an Augie miss. He quickly got his spot in the post, demanded the ball and shot a turn around airball to which his teammates and him giggled as they ran back up the floor, a Wheaton steal and the big fella was running the middle for a layup but got called for the Lebron crab dribble. So Wiele made a bit of a splash witha big board, airball and travelling violation in his first action. The biggest boost Wiele gave the Thunder was energy as they came alive on the boards. From the time Wiele checked in, although he played just 5 min in the first half, to the end of the half the Thunder outrebounded Augie 16-4 for a 21-13 edge at the break and a tie game of 33-33. Raymond had just 7 in the first stanza and Wheaton turned it over 10 times while shooting 46% to Augie's 41%. Augie did not shoot a free throw in the first half mainly because they didn't need to. Their penetration was unchallenged by the Wheaton big men.

The second half was not the defensive struggle you would have anticipated from these two teams. Wheaton scored 46 pts to 38 for the vikings. Wheaton displayed what has become a bit of a trend for them, going on a early run to start the second half. Raymond took over from the get go by breaking down the defender and looking like he was going to drive. But with the Augie guards scrambling to recover and the big men stepping up to stop him, Raymond created shots as he pulled up and/or back (ala Chauncey Billups) and buried jumper after jumper to score 14 of Wheaton's 16 pts and a 16-4 run to give Wheaton a 49-37 lead. His last 3 pointer of this sequence was a fluke. With the shot clock winding down Plfederer had nowhere to go under intense Augie pressure and gave the ball to raymond on a handoff about 6 ft above the 3pt arc with 5 seconds on the shot clock. Kent could do nothing but heave up a shotput style shot with 2 Augie defenders in his face and he swished it. The crowd went nuts and Wheaton was in control at 15.20.  Dr Grey called timeout to stomp his penny loafers on the floor and yell at anyone he could find (refs, players, fans). Augie then methodically climbed back into the game playing their best, fundamental basketball and made it 54-50 with 12 min to go. That's as close as they would get as Wiele made some huge plays down the stretch and Wheaton limited their turnovers against the tough Augie pressure (only 5 turnovers in the second half). Wheaton made their free throws down the stretch and Wiele had some huge rebounds and put backs. Some other observations:

-Bryant Voiles (6'8" soph) went 4-5 from 3 pt land to lead the vikes. He had it going and I don't know why he didn't touch the ball more given his hot hand
-Andrew Jahns was the anti-Voiles going 0fer 5 from the arc, all of them wide open looks that he often makes. In fact, Raymond was 5 for 6 from three and the rest of the Wheaton team was 0-9 (panner 0-2, pflerer 0-2). Jahns needs to make those without Raymond in the lineup
-We got a taste of just how good Wheaton can be with Wiele and Raymond on the floor together. In the IWU game Raymond would post up smaller guards and IWU would sag a big to help. Augie tried that w Wiele and Raymond found him on the weakside for an easy layup. Wiele also got 2 other weakside layups from penetration as well as 2 put back baskets. He makes such a difference.
-Coach Grey's act hasn't changed and it is tired. I can't believe he doesn't get more technical fouls.
-46 pts in the second half and 53% from the field is not a standard Augie is used to on the defensive end.
-I have always liked Jordan Delp. I just like the way he plays. His shot was off last night but his intensity and leadership is evident.

[thundermike11]

Great recap USee!

As far as Voiles goes, one of the reasons he didn't get the ball more was because he wasn't in the game that much. He only played 13 minutes. I didn't notice his defensive play, but I would suspect that perhaps his defense might not be up the the madman's standards. Otherwise there is no good reason why he wouldn't be on the floor more. Wheaton had no answer for him last night.