MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

I've seen schools do the "men's game first, women's ame follows" and it always leads to an embarrassing result.  (I've seen it in basketball and soccer.)  What will happen will be a mass exodus after the men play, and the women will observe it while they are warming up.  American culture is not going to change, at least in any of our lifetimes.

I'm watching the NPU @ WC women's game on WETN, and the gym is practically empty. I feel sorry for both teams. I think that the Wheaton administration stuck it to them by scheduling them for the late game, because your prediction came true -- mass exodus during the women's warmups, and they had to watch all those people leave.

It might have appeared empty, but I stuck around for the first half of that non-game

It didn't turn out to be a non-game, Pete. NPU came back from being 21 points down at the half, cut the Wheaton lead down to one, and had the ball in the last half-minute, only to lose possession -- and the game -- on a charging call that could've gone either way.

[Gregory Sager]

Jorge "Joe" Gonzalez played 22 minutes last night and scored 9 points while pulling down 10 rebounds.  I think he's proving himself...just don't know why his minutes are coming in the second half of the season.

His defense has not been up to par, Mark. It still isn't. It's what's restricting his minutes.

Jorge is an intriguing player because he's got such fantastic athletic ability and such a high motor, but he only played one year of high-school ball at Niles North and one year at Lincoln CC before getting a few cameo minutes in half a dozen NPU varsity games two years ago. He is still very raw in terms of his court sense and his ability to defend off the ball.

 I believe a starting front line of  Crosby, Schneidermeier, and Gonzalez will be the best in the league next season.

Uh, Mark, you can't put Crosby and Schniedermeier on the floor at the same time. They're both true centers, back-to-the-basket players who don't have the mobility or the jump-shooting ability to be converted to power forwards. All you'd end up doing if you played the two of them together is that you'd clog the lane on offense with two guys who never move further than five feet from the basket (except for when they come out to set high screens for penetrators), and you'd give up a ton of points on defense because neither would be able to get out to the perimeter to guard a quick 6'5 player.

In addition, Schniedermeier will be coming into next fall's preseason practices still in recovery mode after having had surgery on a torn ACL in January. If he's a typical torn-ACL athlete, which means he's willing to put in all of the grueling hours of work necessary to rehab his knee -- and I have no doubt that Phil fits that description, as everyone connected to the NPU basketball program praises Phil's work ethic -- he won't get clearance from the orthopedist to start playing basketball again until fall semester stats in August, or shortly before that. And he probably won't be his old self for as much as six months to a year after getting the green light. I would be very cautious about projecting any expectations onto Schniedermeier's 2010-11 season. On the other hand, I expect bigger and better things out of Nick Hoekstra next season, as he will have put a full two years between him and his ACL reconstructive surgery.

Plus, Gonzalez is ideally not a small forward. His skills are best suited for the 4, and there's a good chance that if his game progresses enough he'll inherit the starting 4 spot from Nick Williams next season.

"Shooter" Collins is a grand 8-24 in trey attempts in his last five games.

First of all, that's not his nickname. That nickname's retired at NPU now, as far as I and anyone else who saw Rick Alspach play are concerned. Second, Collins is fourteenth in the league in trey shooting percentage right now, which is about league average in terms of qualified players. He's not distinguishing himself, but he's not embarrassing himself, either. Like a lot of outside shooters, he's streaky. Now that he's had a year to get used to CCIW play, I think he'll be better next season.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg- I hope the Vikings don't have the same approach you do. If you think the conference tournament is all set you should think again. Wheaton has struggled on the road this season (they are 1-3 in conference and 3-5 overall) and with games @Augie, @IWU and @Elmhurst (only home v Millikin remains) as a Wheaton fan I am more than worried about Wheaton's conferenct tourney bid down the stretch.

NPU finishes vs. NCC, @Elmhurst, @Carthage and v IWU. They should be favored in 2 of those games and only the game @ Carthage looms large for the Vikings. If they can go 2-1 in those first three games while Wheaton struggles, there is every reason to believe they may be playing for a tourney bid vs IWU in their last game.

But even if NPU can pull off a two-game swing from the current standings (Wheaton 6-4, North Park 4-6), Wheaton is probably going to own the tie-breaker...Wheaton's win over Augustana is big (NPU was swept by Augie).

Wheaton can probably go 1-3 the rest of the way and still get in...as long as NPU loses @ Carthage.

This is part of the reason why I said on Saturday evening that NPU is out of it. The other part is that the Vikings looked, as I said, as though they couldn't wait to get back on the bus and get out of DuPage County. If you can't get charged up to play your biggest rival in the biggest game of the year in front of a couple hundred of your student peers who made the trip in order to cheer you on, then you're not going to summon up the perseverance to climb the Everest you now find yourself facing.

As far as an analysis of the Titans, I think it can be said that this is a gifted offensive team with nice depth. They have a great 1-2 punch in Sexauer & Johnson. However, their Achilles heel is unquestionably defense. North Central's Raridon, Barringer, and Twyman continually went around and over the Titans to the tune of 28,26, and 19 points respectively. It was as if the Titans feet were glued to the floor. They seem to have too many players who either can't play defense of don't care to. I think playing Dwyer more in defensive situations toward the end of the game would be beneficial. He also won't hurt you much offensively.

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/article_bda4bcb0-13a5-11df-bfad-001cc4c002e0.html

"Lawson just killed us. He was a minor point of emphasis in the scouting report," Elmhurst coach Mark Scherer said. "He gave them a big boost."

Grey Giovanine had a similar quote after IWU beat Augie in Bloomington:

Wesleyan had a very unpleasant surprise waiting for the Vikings, too – the return of John Koschnitzky. He came off the bench and drilled all four of his 3-point attempts en route to a team-high 18 points.

"He hadn't been playing and wasn't even in our scouting report,'' said Giovanine of the swingman who also grabbed a team-high six rebounds. "That was far and away his his best outing of the year.''

http://www.qconline.com/archives/qco/print_display.php?id=477307


IWU's depth is quite a luxury.  Last night in the 1st half, IWU's bench outscored the entire Elmhurst team. 

Agreed. I think it would be pretty hard to find a team with more offensive depth than the Titans. As I said though, I think the majority of their problems are found on the defensive end of the court.

... which likely explains the aspect of that EC @ IWU game that we haven't heard about yet -- the spirited Bluejays comeback that cut a 23-point Titans lead down to a vulnerable eight-point lead in less than four minutes, with just under six minutes still left in the game when it ended, before an eight-point run by the hosts that began a minute and a half later put away the game. During that 15-0 run by the 'jays, they went six-for-six from the field (two layups, three jumpers, and a trey), with the other two points coming off of free throws after a technical foul on John Koschnitzky.

[AndOne]

North Central won a close encounter of the third kind late yesterday afternoon, eking out a 71-69 win over the Millikin Big Blue in beautiful downtown Napper-ville.

After leading by 11 at the 17 minute mark of the 2nd half, the Cardinals saw the Millikin men slowly chip away at that lead and reduce it to 5 with 9:45 left. The Big Blue's Joscar Demby, who the NCC 5 had no answer for all evening, then tipped in a missed shot, followed closely by a Charles Warren steal and dunk, and a Demby dunk to give the visitors their first lead of the game with 8:23 remaining. Two driving layups by Brian Evans jumped the Cardinal lead back to 3, but another Charles Warren steal and layup and 2 Colby Long free throws restored the visitors 1 point lead. A Derek Raridon free throw tied it again before 2 Demby charity tosses put the Big Blue up by 2, and brought things to a pivitol point in the game. Millikin's Rodney Clark then stole yet another sloppy NC pass and fired an outlet to a streaking Corey Mitchell for a dunk and a four point advantage. However, rather than just accepting the gift, Mitchell then turned hot dog, grabbing and swinging from the rim in a taunting like manner for which he was quickly hit with a T. NCC's Raridon hit both of the resulting free throws, followed quickly by a long bomb from Reid Barringer off the ensuing in-bounds play to put NC back up by 1. Each team then hit the front end of a one and one, maintaining the home team's 1 point lead. However, with 32 seconds left, Demby deposited yet another layup, putting the Big Blue back up by 1, and setting the stage for some game winning heroics from NCC freshman Derek Raridon. With 16 ticks left on the clock, Raridon drove into the lane from out on the right wing. Approaching the basket, he let go with a one handed runner just as he was hit by a hard foul that sent him to the floor. The ball kissed glass before finding the hole. The resulting free throw sealed the 2 point win as a long heave by Millikin at the buzzer fell far short.

Millikin was led by Joscar Demby who went 10/12 and 6/7 for 26 points. The vast majority of his points were off layups as he was seemingly unstoppable inside. Demby added 6 rebounds. The only other Millikin player in double figures was Rodney Clark with 10.

Game high scoring honors went yet again to Raridon with 33. David Twyman, among the league leaders in several categories added a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds, and Barringer hit for 10. They were supported by Brian Evans with 9 points and 7 rebounds and Jonny Knapczyk who turned in a solid floor game featuring 4 assists without a TO.          

The visitors were able to hang in mainly as  result of Demby's excellence, the fact that they committed only 9 turnovers, and the Cardinals miserable 62.5 percent free throw shooting.

[Gregory Sager]

AndOne, I have no insider knowledge, but knowing Tony Ladd from my days at Wheaton I am not at all surprised that he would want the women to get the late game simply out of fairness. He has always been extremely pro-female athletics to the point where it sometimes irritated a few men's programs (not that they would openly admit).            

That said, I don't think they pull this switch on a Saturday night with IWU in town.

... although they might move the game to a 4 pm tipoff in order to make the IWU fan contingent miss the early-bird specials at the local restaurants.

I was comfortable with the explanation that Tony Ladd switched the games in order to reward the Wheaton women's team with the marquee time slot. I still think it was a bad decision, since it led to a mass exodus that must've felt like an insult to both schools' women's teams (the Crazies didn't stick around to watch their female peers play, either, so both the NPU and Wheaton women probably felt unhappy about the time switch as they watched everyone leave while they were in their shootarounds).  But I never really thought that Ladd did it in order to avoid a potential (perceived) problem with the Crazies.

[74impala]

If the Wheaton -NPU game was moved earlier to keep the Crazies in check,  that doesn't explain the fact the Wheaton - NCC game was at 4:30 on Jan 9th.

[CCIWFAN3]

It wasn't because of the Crazies!  Very few of the women's teams don't want the double header games...and those few will do it if they are the headliner at times.  

[AndOne]

If the Wheaton -NPU game was moved earlier to keep the Crazies in check,  that doesn't explain the fact the Wheaton - NCC game was at 4:30 on Jan 9th.

Yes, but the Wheaton administrators knew they could only expect gentlemanly and lady-like behavior from the cultured NCC fans from beautiful downtown Napper-ville as opposed to the invading hoard of Crazies from the east, who the Wheaties described as "not yet having learned to channel their aggressive drives into socially accepted patterns of behavior!"   

[AndOne]

It wasn't because of the Crazies!  Very few of the women's teams don't want the double header games...and those few will do it if they are the headliner at times.  

CCIWFAN3---

The women don't have a choice about the double header games. Playing a double header with the men's teams on Saturdays is a directive that was agreed to by the conference ADs as a result of a directive from the schools presidents to reduce expenditures. The home team has the choice of starting times for the 2 games. 

[CCIWFAN3]

I'm impressed, and all in one complete sentence.  

I have to admit the student sections from both teams were very entertaining.  I missed many plays because I was laughing and watching the student sections.

[CCIWFAN3]

Yes AndOne I agree.  There was some resistance a few years back though....to keep the headlining time a little more...should I say 50/50:)

[AndOne]

A few years back there was strong resistance to even having women's-men's doubleheaders. In fact the resistance was so strong, I doubt whether much consideration was given to the doubleheader idea until recently. That resistance, at least on the part of several of the men's teams, continued right up through this season's directive. I don't know if the women's teams were historically as opposed as the men's teams.

[CCIWFAN3]

Oh there was resistance from the women's side. ..taking a 2nd seat to the men issue.  If the women play the 7:30 game then all the men's fans leave after the 5:00 game, just like what happened Sat, but if the women play the 5:00 game at least they will draw from the men's fans coming early.  This might perk some interest from the men's fans and maybe help draw some new fans. 

[Gregory Sager]

If the Wheaton -NPU game was moved earlier to keep the Crazies in check,  that doesn't explain the fact the Wheaton - NCC game was at 4:30 on Jan 9th.

Yes, but the Wheaton administrators knew they could only expect gentlemanly and lady-like behavior from the cultured NCC fans from beautiful downtown Napper-ville as opposed to the invading hoard of Crazies from the east, who the Wheaties described as "not yet having learned to channel their aggressive drives into socially accepted patterns of behavior!"   

... which is why they called in the local gendarmerie to "nip it in the bud" two years ago.

[wheels81]

 Come on GS still with the Barney Fife references.  Remember behind every Barney there's a wise Andy Taylor.
(Campus security isn't even allowed to carry guns or even the one bullet that Barney was allowed.)

I think maybe the Scottish wear of the Crazies inspired the Sophmore with the Bagpipe friendly last name.


The "Wheaton rowdies" kicked out of the Carthage home game were friends of McCrary.   So maybe the Carlson Crazies have rivals in the Trevian Hooligans?