MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

I had assumed IWU was completely out of the conference tournament race, but looking at remaining schedules, the Titans actually have life. 

Big game in Bloomington Saturday - the veteran Thunder fighting for a conference title and the young Titans trying to scrap their way into the CCIW tourney.  Should be a great atmosphere at the Shirk Center. 

[usee]

Wheaton won this game in the first 10 minutes of the first half. They seemed to come out determined to set the pace and, in particular, to dominate play in the backcourt. Raymond and Panner played intense defense and the Thunder built a double digit lead on the back of 13 1st half bluejay turnovers. Raymond definitely seemed determined to send a message and the Thunder held their 20th opponent under 50% shooting for the game. Ruch wasn't a factor as Wheaton limited his touches (2 first half shots and 6 total points) by swarming Bainter, Childs and any other Bluejay guard. The Thunder played with a chip on their shoulder let by #24 who seemed on a mission scoring 16 in the first half. Jake Carwell was great on defense taking 3 charges, getting 5 boards and a couple steals. This was the Thunder's best game to date (certainly the 1st half was their best half) and they have taken charge of this race with wins at Augie and at Elmhurst in the last 10 days.

With an ominous trip to Bloomington this Saturday they will need the momentum created tonight to beat the Titans. This is the one game I am worried about down the stretch for the Thunder.

[CCIWchamps]

The winner of tomorrow nights game between Wheaton and Elmhurst will almost certainly get the MOP as well. To the victors go the spoils.

It will be an interesting last 2 weeks. I like Wheaton's chances, although they have a tough schedule. None of the remaining teams have faced the Thunder at full strength. Ironically, the game I am most worried about is @IWU.

Wheaton will be on a mission to avenge their 3 losses against Elmhurst, Carthage and NCC. The IWU game is their only victory and if the Thunder don't go down to Bloomington with a chip on their shoulder, prepared for a war they will most certainly lose.

Chalk it up for Raymond then.  29 points and a W vs. Ruch's 6.  Unless you want to give it to Wiele for controlling the paint so well.

[thunder38]

Statement victory  tonight for Wheaton.  Even though his performance might be overlooked on the stat sheet, Jake Carwell was the leader for the Thunder.  He set the tone with his hustle on both ends of the floor and seemed to be everywhere defensively.  I think we can end the debate between Ruch and Raymond for M.O.P. because there was no question who the best player on the floor was tonight.  Wheaton seems to be back to their pre-injury form and if the North Park game was any indicator, Wheaton won't be looking past IWU to get to their rematch with Carthage.

[voxelmhurst]

The Wheaton team was better....their student section  was better....and I think the popcorn I just popped came out more orange than it usually does.

That is about all there is to say about this one...from an Elmhurst perspective.

[kenoshamark]

Quoting Coach Bosko Djurickovic on the Feb. 11 North Central Game:  "We weren't good enough to win this game," said Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic, "and that's my fault.  The product we put on the court isn't as good as it needs to be, and I couldn't be more disappointed or frustrated.  We had a wonderful crowd, but we we're just not good enough.  We rely too much on one player, but that's neither here nor there.  Somebody else has to step up.  Give North Central credit—they're a very efficient team.  They're not pretty, they're not great rebounders, but they do a nice job.  The better team won tonight.  To even think about getting to the conference tournament, we have to win two of our last three games."

Boy, seems like this same quote has come out at least once a year for the past five years.....sure would be nice if something was actually done about it !!!!

[Gregory Sager]

Pantagraph article on tonight's IWU-NPU game...

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2009/02/11/usports/doc49924b29ea27d121213652.txt

"Anytime you play at the 'Crackerbox' you better be ready to play," Rose said of North Park's cozy confines.

And you need a cardiac team on site - while IWU holds a 7-3 record at the "crackerbox" it did not come easy - Games decided by 1 Point (2); by 2 Pts (2); by 3 pts (1); by OT (1) with NPU winning 2 of those 6 tightly contested battles; and, the Titans have lost the last two contests in the 'box' to NPU's credit

... none of which is relevant to tonight's game. ....

I understand Ron Rose's need to play up his opponent, but the fact remains that NPU is going to have an uphill struggle to stay in tonight's game, much less win it.

Would you like to retract your statements now or later?  IWU 67 NPU 64

I'll retract it now, but with three minutes left in the first half and IWU up by 21 points over an NPU team that looked like a flock of headless chickens, I was all set to give you an "I told you so."

[markerickson]

If IWU plays a MTM defense, it is the most unusual that I've seen.  I see lots of rotation, but the zone was clearly present a vast majority of the time at tonite's game in Chicago.  Maybe the version that I love has "evolved."

Once again, NP could not defend the trey.  IWU's front line isn't going to beat you...the team needs the trey.  Unfortunately, they got so many uncontested shots beyond the arc against NP that the former bball players sitting behind me easily recognized that fact midway through the first half.  IWU's guards are not tall (except for Zimmer) or speedy.  Therefore, they will rely on the trey.  I am also perplexed why NP diidn't press until very late in the game.  (Their press was very effective.)  Why doesn't NP press more...have they at all...except for tonite?

NP was not effective on offense in the first half.  In the second half, NP figured out that Williams and Phil S. should dominate, and they produced.  Too little, too late.

And the subject we all love to hate:  the refs.  One ref (the one with the least amount of hair) refused to call anything NP's way.  It really sucked.  He really pissed me off.

IWU deserved to win tonite.  However, this game was no doubt another game NP could have won.

I cannot recall a game that had fewer fans.  I don't think more than 5 IWU students made the game.  IWU's grey contingent had approx. 50.  I wish NP would get 50 grey-haired folk at a home game.   

[Gregory Sager]

Illinois Wesleyan 67, North Park 64

Nick Williams: 20 pts, 8 rebs
Phil Schniedermeier: 14 pts, 8 rebs
D.J. Cooper: 12 pts
Ro Russell: 9 pts, 6 rebs

John Koshnitzky: 14 pts, 5 rebs
Doug Sexauer: 11 pts, 7 rebs
Travis Rosenkrantz: 11 pts, 6 asts

This one got away from NPU. After coming all the way back from that 21-point first-half deficit I mentioned in the above post to cut the IWU lead to one in the final half-minute of the game, the Vikes failed to send the game into overtime as Nick Williams rimmed out what would've been the game-tying trey at the buzzer. Actually, if the Titans had lost, IWU fans would've been saying that this was one that got away from their team -- it was clearly a case of two very young teams playing a high-energy, exciting, but nevertheless deeply flawed basketball game that neither will want to paste into the ol' scrapbook.

Both teams looked like they wanted to give it away. The Titans would run out to a double-digit lead, and then play defense with their hands instead of their feet at one end while bricking free throw after free throw at the other end, letting NPU make a counterattacking run. And the Vikes would nibble that double-digit lead down close, and then muck it up by taking poorly-selected shots early in their possessions while failing to get back with a sense of urgency on defense, allowing IWU to attack the basket in transition.

IWU had its foot on NPU's neck in the first half, after an absolutely defense-free sequence of about nine minutes by the Park sent the Titans on their way to a 25-6 run. To be fair, the Titans ran a great halfcourt offense during that stretch -- but it sure would've been nice if NPU had actually made the visitors work for all of the open looks from downtown that they were getting. The one statistical area in which IWU clearly dominated -- three-point shooting (9-25 to NPU's 4-14) -- was the key during those nine minutes, as the Titans made five of their nine treys during it.

But NPU responded with an 11-0 run of its own over the final 2:43 of the opening stanza to cut the lead to only ten at the half. Part of the reason for that was because Ron Rose took his foot off of the gas pedal by bringing the likes of Duncan Lawson and Eliud Gonzalez into the game rather than going for the kill by using his regulars to stretch the lead even further and take the heart out of the psychologically fragile Vikings. But part of the reason was because Phil Schniedermeier really stepped up and became a dominant force inside during those last two minutes and change.

NPU continued to peck away in the second half, cutting the lead down to four (42-38) at the 15:12 mark. But another stretch of shoddy North Park defense put the Titans back into a double-digit lead, which seesawed back and forth between six and twelve for most of the rest of the game. IWU was up 64-52 with 3:26 left when the entire visiting team started to get a case of the yips at the FT line while the Vikes, energized by a very vocal student section and a sense that they were capable of winning this game, charged back to cut the lead to one and eventually set up that doomed last-second attempt to tie.

A few thoughts:

* Roshawn Russell didn't play all that well tonight, but it's interesting to note that at about 5'7 he outrebounded all but one Titan (Sexauer had seven boards, Russell had six)

* If Nick Williams played like this every night, he'd be an All-CCIW first-teamer for sure. Tonight he was the best player on the floor, and he looked like he wanted that win more than anybody else on the team

* Jordan Zimmer looked very one-dimensional, but John Koshnitzky looked like an absolute stud in the making

* When are NPU's big men going to learn that the way to stop Doug Sexauer is to take away his left hand?

* Phil Schniedermeier was a horse tonight; he was making layups even over double-teams

* Sean Dwyer didn't have much of a statistical night, but IWU doesn't win the game without him -- the Titans needed his toughness and his defensive intensity very, very badly

* D.J. Cooper needs to improve his shooting percentage; he's not getting enough points for all of the shots that he's taking, and a lot of the shots he got tonight were very good looks

There are no moral victories in basketball. This was a disappointing night for the Vikings. But there were glimmers of hope here; the (extremely) young talent is there, sure, but now NPU is beginning to mentally catch up to the pace of the CCIW and figure things out. More importantly, the Vikes never quit on themselves in spite of that huge first-half hole they dug themselves, and they had stretches in the second half where they actually looked very good at both ends of the floor. Baby steps, I guess. Baby steps.

[Thunder Dutch]

I was at Elmhurst tonight; some observations:

1. As mentioned before, the wheaton fans did much better than the elmhurst fans, which must have been really discouraging for the elmhurst players. at times it felt like a wheaton home game. not only was the team humiliated in their building, so were their fans. even more so, perhaps
- the thunder fans were all in orange gear and stood the whole time, as opposed to the elmhurst fans, who were barely wearing elmhurst stuff, and didn't stand at all the first half, and only some stood for even parts of the second half (when elmhurst cut the deficit to twelve, there was some excitement, which was quickly gone as wheaton pushed it back to 20)
- the thunder fans were loud throughout, really made it a wheaton atmosphere. getting on the refs, supporting their players, coming up with tons of different cheers. i don't think i heard really a single chant from elmhurst.
- an example: wheaton fans started a shotclock countdown, about 5 seconds ahead of the actual clock. it actually caused chris childs to throw up a terrible shot with 6 seconds left on the clock. true "6th man"
- i hear that the elmhurst dean of students actually came up and complimented the wheaton fan section during halftime. any truth to that?

2. when wheaton is playing its best defense, i think they can beat anyone in the country. they held elmhurst to 34% in the first half. 40% for the game. 22 TO's. brent ruch was a non-factor, they either pushed him out of the post or doubled him on the catch, leading to lots of passouts, turnovers, etc. the quick wheaton guards, especially pflederer, are getting their hands on lots of passes, leading to steals or tips, slowing the opponent's offense. Burks seemed to hit every open shot he got, but he was only 4-9, so Panner (and raymond after panner rolled his ankle) held him under control.

3. Every time Elmhurst did get a turnover, Wheaton would get it right back. It seemed Elmhurst never could capitalize on turnovers; Pflederer or Raymond would steal it right back and trigger a wheaton basket. Every time Elmhurst made a meaningful three or potentially momentum changing basket, wheaton would match it, and by a variety of players. Every run was stopped and met by another, bigger run, until it was too late.

4. wiele got a quiet 13. he didn't even do that much on offense, and in the last three games he will have no one close to ruch's ability to contend with. sexauer is good, but he is no ruch.

5. wheaton still needs to work on its free throws. a respectable 7/9 in the first turned into an unacceptable 12/19 in the second. even raymond missed two, and wiele went 3/6. I remember at the end of nonconference, wheaton was in the top 10 nationally for free throw percentage. oh the good old days.

6. elmhurst is still a very dangerous team, but they go as their guards go. and they were simply dominated by wheaton's guards today. granted, raymond/panner/jahns/pflederer is an impressive and well-complimenting guard set, but elmhurst's guards will have to play better if they want to beat wheaton in the tourney.

7. might seem cliche, but wheaton simply seemed to want it more. they were more motivated. kent raymond is an unstoppable competitive force (so unstoppable, in fact, that the boxscore says he played 43 minutes), and i believe that if we can keep up the intensity, and play like we can, we can legitmately win it all. We have great defense, a great go-to player, both the ability to play outside and inside, playoff experience - seems like all the ingredients are there.

8. Wheaton got great contributions from everyone in the 8-player rotation. Sure, Raymond's 29 stands out, but Wiele played exceptional defense on Ruch, Carwell drew 3 charges, Pflederer deflected countless passes and played the point well, Jahns hit a couple big shots and played tough defense, Panner played great defense, got injured, came back and hit shots, Brad had a solid game with nifty passes, McCrary also played a solid all-around game despite not getting tons of stats, though he did have some nice blocks.

All in all, a great game for Wheaton. Essentially a game or more up on everyone (cause they have the tiebreaker with Augie) with three to go. If we win out (reasonable) or even go 2-1, it's likely we will host the tournament, which would be great. I don't think Wheaton loses that one, not if its in King, not this team. Then on to hosting several rounds of nationals...? Wishful thinking at this point; there are lots of games left to play, especially since they are CCIW games, so we have no idea what could happen. Predictions are, as always in the CCIW, premature.


IWU is going to be a completely different game. a much more perimeter oriented game. Perhaps Wiele will have a monster game. and the IWU fan section will be better than Elmhurst's (although it is on Valentine's)

[voxelmhurst]

I was at Elmhurst tonight; some observations:

1. As mentioned before, the wheaton fans did much better than the elmhurst fans, which must have been really discouraging for the elmhurst players. at times it felt like a wheaton home game. not only was the team humiliated in their building, so were their fans. even more so, perhaps
- the thunder fans were all in orange gear and stood the whole time, as opposed to the elmhurst fans, who were barely wearing elmhurst stuff, and didn't stand at all the first half, and only some stood for even parts of the second half (when elmhurst cut the deficit to twelve, there was some excitement, which was quickly gone as wheaton pushed it back to 20)
- the thunder fans were loud throughout, really made it a wheaton atmosphere. getting on the refs, supporting their players, coming up with tons of different cheers. i don't think i heard really a single chant from elmhurst.
- an example: wheaton fans started a shotclock countdown, about 5 seconds ahead of the actual clock. it actually caused chris childs to throw up a terrible shot with 6 seconds left on the clock. true "6th man"
- i hear that the elmhurst dean of students actually came up and complimented the wheaton fan section during halftime. any truth to that?

Elmhurst has never been a student section school.  Actually...the numbers we've had in the last couple of years are pretty good, but this year this is no vocal element to the section.

A few years ago, back when I was doing the games on WRSE....the Elmhurst fans had a group of guys who went to every game and seemed to get the rest of the student section going.  They also made Blue Crew shirts and it started to look like a decent college basketball student section.  The peak of this was probably 2005/2006 - Chris Martin's last year.

This year though.....it seems a bit apathetic.  My friends and I would try and help but our days of being in the student section have long since passed.

6. elmhurst is still a very dangerous team,

I was banking on this game saying a lot about this Elmhurst team.  I may not have expected them to win but I didnt expect them to lose this big and play this badly.  In the last several years, Elmhurst has been that sorta team that I guess you could compare to the Lovie Smith Bears.  They can dominant at times, they can usually find ways to win, but in those big games, they can get picked apart and be made to look very, very, very average. 

[Pat Coleman]

http://www.cciw.org/general/Basketball_Links.php

gives you all the links and

http://www.northpark.edu/athletics/livestats/mbasketball/xlive.htm

i believe is the correct link for the NPU - IWU game

Thanks.  That what I get for relying on Pat's site to have EVERYTHING!

Yes. The schools still have to put info up here -- we don't have enough people to do every link for 800 programs. I did draw the line tonight at the game between the sixth-place and eighth-place team. Every school has a login to post links for audio, video and stats along with the scores and releases. If they don't, then it's up to Gordon, Dave or me to add them and I tend to focus on the Top 25 on the rare opportunities I have time to do so.

[thunder38]

I was at Elmhurst tonight; some observations:

1. As mentioned before, the wheaton fans did much better than the elmhurst fans, which must have been really discouraging for the elmhurst players. at times it felt like a wheaton home game. not only was the team humiliated in their building, so were their fans. even more so, perhaps
- the thunder fans were all in orange gear and stood the whole time, as opposed to the elmhurst fans, who were barely wearing elmhurst stuff, and didn't stand at all the first half, and only some stood for even parts of the second half (when elmhurst cut the deficit to twelve, there was some excitement, which was quickly gone as wheaton pushed it back to 20)
- the thunder fans were loud throughout, really made it a wheaton atmosphere. getting on the refs, supporting their players, coming up with tons of different cheers. i don't think i heard really a single chant from elmhurst.
- an example: wheaton fans started a shotclock countdown, about 5 seconds ahead of the actual clock. it actually caused chris childs to throw up a terrible shot with 6 seconds left on the clock. true "6th man"
- i hear that the elmhurst dean of students actually came up and complimented the wheaton fan section during halftime. any truth to that?

Elmhurst has never been a student section school.  Actually...the numbers we've had in the last couple of years are pretty good, but this year this is no vocal element to the section.

A few years ago, back when I was doing the games on WRSE....the Elmhurst fans had a group of guys who went to every game and seemed to get the rest of the student section going.  They also made Blue Crew shirts and it started to look like a decent college basketball student section.  The peak of this was probably 2005/2006 - Chris Martin's last year.

This year though.....it seems a bit apathetic.  My friends and I would try and help but our days of being in the student section have long since passed.

6. elmhurst is still a very dangerous team,

I was banking on this game saying a lot about this Elmhurst team.  I may not have expected them to win but I didnt expect them to lose this big and play this badly.  In the last several years, Elmhurst has been that sorta team that I guess you could compare to the Lovie Smith Bears.  They can dominant at times, they can usually find ways to win, but in those big games, they can get picked apart and be made to look very, very, very average. 

I was surprised by the numbers of the Elmhurst student section but also by their lack of participation.  It seemed that the only contribution they made was consistently flipping off the Wheaton student section, who chose to actually support their team.

[Titan Q]

This one got away from NPU. After coming all the way back from that 21-point first-half deficit I mentioned in the above post to cut the IWU lead to one in the final half-minute of the game, the Vikes failed to send the game into overtime as Nick Williams rimmed out what would've been the game-tying trey at the buzzer. Actually, if the Titans had lost, IWU fans would've been saying that this was one that got away from their team

I was not able to listen last night, but I'm pretty sure that's a safe bet -- that IWU fans would have been saying the same.  Based on the play-by-play, IWU...

* led the final 34 minutes of the game
* led by 21 in the 1st half
* led by 12 with 7:46 to play in the game
* ledy by 12 again with both 4:26 and 3:26 to play
* missed 5 FT's in the final 2:35

I think I'd have a real big case of "This one got away..." had Nick Williams made that 3 at the buzzer and NPU won in overtime!

[Titan Q]

* Jordan Zimmer looked very one-dimensional, but John Koshnitzky looked like an absolute stud in the making

Zimmer is definitely one-dimensional this season, although I will say that his one dimension is very good.  On the season he is 42-83 from 3 (.506).  In CCIW play he is 19-41 (.463).  He can really shoot it, and at 6-5, has great height for a guard.

I saw Zimmer play several times last season, and in high school, he did it all.  In his final game, in the tournament, he scored 44 points and I'm not sure I've ever seen a kid score more ways.  He hits 3's, put it on the floor and hit pull-up mid-range jumpers, posted up and scored several times, scored in transition, attacked the basket and shot a bunch of FT's, etc.  The 3-point shot was his bread and butter in H.S., but he could do it all.  His senior year stats:

244-504 FG (.484)
123-293 3-pt (.420)
125-137 FT (.913)

So 42% of his FGA were 2's at Delavan.  As a freshman at IWU, only 27% of his FGA have been 2's. 

I believe as Zimmer gets stronger, and more experienced, he will become multi-dimensional, like he was in H.S.  He is in the process of making a huge leap from IHSA Class 1A to the CCIW and I think he's done a nice job this year.  I think we've all seen kids transition from being catch-and-shoot guys to adding the ability to put it on the floor, score in the mid-range, get to the basket, etc.  I think when Zimmer is a JR and SR he will be much different player -- still primarily a 3-pt shooter, but a player who can do a lot more offensively as well.  I think Zimmer has a chance to be a very good player at IWU.


Regarding Koschnitzky, Greg, curious if you view him as a 3 or a 4 in the CCIW.  I go back and forth on that.

Finally, let's hope those two young, inconsistent teams you saw last night are much different squads in 2009-10.  I think there is a real good chance both will be very good down the road.