MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Here's another reminder to tune in tonight at 7:30 to NPU's live webcast to watch the Vikings take on Trinity International. At halftime I'll be playing part one of a multi-part interview I taped with North Park head coach Paul Brenegan.

[augiefan]

NPU beats Trinity International 85-82 in OT.

[Mr. Ypsi]

NPU beats Trinity International 85-82 in OT.

Forget that almost irrelevant score against a non-d3 opponent.  I was out and missed it: I want a report of Greg's broadcast!   And could Dennis' heckling be heard?!

[dansand]

Didn't hear Dennis, but I was surprised how calm Sager was when Nick Williams' potential game-winning 70-footer at the regulation buzzer went in and then was waved off.

[kenoshamark]

Has anyone seen the 2 freshmen post players at Carthage?

CCIWFAN3,

I've seen them in a scrimmage and two games...what would you like to know?


And technically, there are now three freshmen post players since Mitch Thompson is also starting

[Gregory Sager]

NPU beats Trinity International 85-82 in OT.

Forget that almost irrelevant score against a non-d3 opponent.  I was out and missed it: I want a report of Greg's broadcast!   And could Dennis' heckling be heard?!

You can listen to the broadcast any time you'd like and critique me yourself, Chuck. It's archived, as are all of NPU's broadcasts. Of course, the game itself was a great big steaming pile of ugly, so you might not be inclined to set aside 70 minutes to watch it unless you want to tell Rob Berki just how badly he was missed on the play-by-play tonight.

Didn't hear Dennis, but I was surprised how calm Sager was when Nick Williams' potential game-winning 70-footer at the regulation buzzer went in and then was waved off.

That's 'cause I had just gone to all the trouble of explaining to the viewers that referees typically won't allow a catch-and-shoot with only four-tenths of a second left on the clock. The rule of thumb is that six- or seven-tenths of a second is necessary to catch the ball and then get it out of your hands, and that any increment of time smaller than that requires a tip-in off the inbounds pass for it to count as a basket.

I explained all that in light of what I thought would be a tip-in attempt by 6'9 TIU center Ignas Verbas off a 90-foot inbounds pass. TIU did try to tip it in, but not with Verbas, and the pass didn't go nearly far enough. Nick Williams caught it at the free-throw line while in mid-leap, came down and landed, and then heaved the 80-footer that went in. I had not a single doubt that it would be waved off, so I didn't see any reason to get all hyper over it.

[kenoshamark]

CCIWFAN3,

I see that I replied to your question prior to seeing your comment.   Although I would agree that part of it might be some conditioning, a couple of games it was more a matter of being in foul trouble.   Three of the games he played in the upper 20 minute range and the last game was a blowout which resulted in clearing the bench early.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 85, Trinity International 82 (OT)

* Nick Williams: 22 pts, 6 asts
* Shaun Collins: 12 pts, 5 rebs
* Davone Robinson: 11 pts, 7 rebs
* Nick Hoekstra: 10 pts, 5 rebs
* Emmanuel Crosby: 9 pts, 11 rebs

Another ominous night in the crackerbox, as the Vikings had to fight tooth and claw to beat a 2-9 team that had a lot of holes. In fact, this game was so much like the disappointing win over Spalding the other night that I'll simply paste in some of what I had to say about that game for this game:

This was one of those wins in which you walk out of the gym feeling as though your team lost.

TIU has a fine array of set shooters, a modestly good shooter/penetrator in off guard Tyrone Smith, a soft European 6'9 center who is a lot more comfortable shooting treys than he is hanging around the basket, and one extremely gifted point guard (Patrick Atkins: 15 pts, 13 rebs, 7 asts, and a monster tip-in dunk that he swooped in from about eight feet out to slam). They run a five-out motion offense for the most part, with a weave play thrown in every now and then, and do little or no posting up. And yet they got plenty of open looks all night, in part because Atkins was such a good penetrator, but also in part because the Vikings still don't rotate well on defense. TIU went 7-13 from downtown in the second half, and that's why it was a ballgame -- that, and the fact that NPU didn't get back in transition at all and gave up a whole bunch of 2-on-1 and 3-on-2 breaks that led to easy TIU baskets.

North Park had a spotty first half, but picked it up towards the end to open up an eight-point lead at the half, 38-30. After the Vikes scored the opening bucket of the second half to garner their first double-digit lead of the game, I thought that they'd be on their way. It was not to be, because:

Unfortunately, this team doesn't seem to be able to put together two good halves.

TIU went on a run to cut the lead to a deuce just under the 17-minute mark, and from that point on it was a close game. Offensively, NPU once again couldn't finish at the basket. At least this time, however, the Park got as many chances as a team would like: 21 offensive rebounds on the night. The Vikings had lots of open looks on the perimeter as well, but were stone-cold most of the night. I think that the frustration over their bad shooting was starting to creep into their back-pedal movement after they'd miss shots -- lots of momentary stomping of feet and disgusted head-bobbing -- which helps explain the bad transition defense.

In the end, it was Nick Williams stepping up and providing the razor-thin margin of victory in a game that never should've been that close.

Williams, who had a bad first-half performance (2-9 from the field and a couple of ugly fouls), once again picked it up in the second half (5-10), as his work down in the blocks spelled the difference. His three-point play with NPU down five early in overtime sparked the Vikings into taking control, and after Crosby dunked the ball following a missed shot at the other end by the Trojans, Williams was fouled in the low post and knocked down two FTs that gave NPU the lead for good. TIU did have one final possession in which the Trojans attempted what would've been a second-overtime-forcing trey, but the Vikes defended it well and TIU didn't get a good look at the basket.

Crosby really played well, as he was required to play a career-high 34 minutes in the absence of Phil Schniedermeier (who hurt his knee in the game's first couple of minutes and left for good; word is that he should be OK). Nick Hoekstra gave North Park a good first half, and Ryan Beigie was solid on defense. Ro Russell and Issa Avery had bad shooting nights, and Christian Alsing was uncharacteristically off as well. Help is on the way, as Jorge Gonzalez looks recovered from his leg injury (he had something like 24 points and 20 rebounds in his minor-league rehab assignment the JV game), and Kendall Greer should be back in the lineup soon as well as he's healing up from his foot injury.

All things considered, it was just a sorry night of basketball by a North Park team that should've won this one big. This season's beginning to frighteningly resemble last year, in which NPU barely beat bad teams in November and December and paid the price in January and February. Which brings me to my last paste-in from the last game:

Tonight's affair was almost as disappointing for North Park fans as was the loss to Concordia, as hard as that is to believe. This game shouldn't have been anywhere near as close as it was. It's another night in which one leaves the gym with a lot of doubts about this North Park team. If the Vikes don't start to pick it up soon, it'll be January and therefore too late to stop the CCIW steamroller from flattening them.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

North Park vs Trinity Unintentional

OY

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Just curious if any posters here are headed to Hope for the CCIW/MIAA games this weekend.  If so, safe travels through the snow (anywhere from 5-10 inches of the white stuff fell overnight).

[Dennis_Prikkel]

I'm not going to cut and paste GS' story about last night's game, but just a comment from reading his posts over the years...

GS is all thumbs - and has a rule for each of them.   

[wheels81]

Just curious if any posters here are headed to Hope for the CCIW/MIAA games this weekend.  If so, safe travels through the snow (anywhere from 5-10 inches of the white stuff fell overnight).

Was really hoping this global warming, oops,  climate change thing was more than a theory.

[andrewmp]

I laughed a little bit last night listening to ESPN radio and an interview with the coach of Texas Tech, Pat Knight, after their big overtime win over Washington.  He kept refering the big "preseason" win, and how important it was to have these "preseason" wins heading into the Big 12 conference play.  I know that there has been a debate on this board (or maybe no debate, just a stickler ), and now we have the son of Bob Knight give us his view on it.  (For the record, I do not think that out of confrence games are "preseason")

[mwunder]

CCIWFAN3,

I see that I replied to your question prior to seeing your comment.   Although I would agree that part of it might be some conditioning, a couple of games it was more a matter of being in foul trouble.   Three of the games he played in the upper 20 minute range and the last game was a blowout which resulted in clearing the bench early.

Not that I would EVER disagree with K-mark, but in the Wi Lutheran game, he looked gassed   He played well while in the game, but I seem to recall him waving to come out of the game at least once.  Wi Lutheran did push the tempo in that game in the 2nd half.

The Platteville game was certainly a case of foul trouble however.

[sac]

miaa.org has links to the broadcast and livestats for this weekends MIAA/CCIW Challenge.