MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

Sideline Fan- impressive use of the quote function as well as length in your early posting career. Some would even call it "Sageresque".

One of the most impressive 2nd career posts I can remember.  

[oldnuthin]

Thanks for the greetings, TitanQ and USee. My apologies for the miscalculation. Carthage should indeed be 4-2, +1.

CCIWFAN3, with all due respect to your philosophical outlook, let me offer a rebuttal in an attempt to rise above a "junior high quote." (I'd lose all credibility can't let myself get shot down quite that easily on my first post.) Please keep my original quote in mind, "However, it is very difficult to beat a competitive team three times in the same season. Each IWU game has been extremely competitive."

I've never believed in the "it's hard to beat a team 3 times in a season" theory. That's just an excuse.  I hate that phrase.  My philosophy is, if I've beat you twice this season, then I know how to beat you...you don't know how to beat me.  Every  game... whether it's the 1st meeting, 2nd or 3rd all comes down to execution, playing hard, and who wants it more.

To begin with, I agree with you provided you are the more talented team in the matchup. If that is the case, then indeed the outcome almost without exception comes down to "execution, playing hard, and who wants it more." So, you'll notice I referenced competitive matchups assuming roughly equally talented teams. Both IWU-Wheaton matchups have been decided in a few late possessions (Jan. 20: 66-65, 5 ties, 4 lead changes, both teams led by as many as 7, but a one-possession game with 12 seconds remaining. Feb. 13: 66-59, 2 ties, 4 lead changes, Wheaton led by as many as 9, but a one-possession game with 5 minutes remaining). Now, I wasn't at either game in person, but did watch online. It appeared to me that Wheaton had some measure of control in both games, but each was highly competitive. That said, let me take your philosophy, "if I've beat you twice this season, then I know how to beat you...you don't know how to beat me," and use it in relation to your next quote.

The coaches in this league are all so well prepared.  They have a main strategy and counters for it...plan b, c etc.  "It's hard to beat a team 3 times" is a junior high quote.

As you state, the team that has won twice knows how to beat the other team. In your second quote you reference the quality of coaches in the league, specifically in preparation. I'm sure you would agree the four playoff coaches are among the best in the league as well. The inverse of your statement is precisely the basis of my belief it is difficult to beat a competitive team 3 times: the losing coach knows exactly how the opponent is winning. In the first matchup, a coach must rely on tapes of other opponents to develop a strategy. So, at that point, the strategy is an untested theory of how to beat an opponent. In the second, there is tape from the previous matchup to confirm the success of the strategy. However, in the third matchup the losing coach has tape of both previous matchups  to break down the victor's strategy. Given the level of coaching in the league, which is particularly excellent among the playoff teams, and, again assuming competitive teams, this situation provides the losing coach a strategical opportunity. He knows the opponents strategy and has a full season of tape to come up with the correct counter-strategy. Or, if he believes he has the correct counter-strategy, but previous execution was poor, he has the time to work specifically on his team's execution complete with video examples of their poor previous execution resulting in defeat. Additionally, one would expect a team's execution to improve in the second, or third, attempt at a strategy. (Note that this supports your claim on execution. My caveat being that execution of a strategy improves by the third matchup.) Given the quality of coaching in the league, this would seem to be a common occurrence. Again, remember, I'm talking about competitive teams with roughly equal talent.

Now, as TitanQ has pointed out, there are certainly examples of competitive matchups where one team wins three times (or more). However, there are also numerous historical examples of competitive matchups that split 2-1 over the course of three games.

My apologies for the long post, but I wanted to be sure I at least rose to the level of a high school freshman in my response. All teasing aside, I'm hoping for an exciting CCIW tournament.

I would say that he has out Sagered Sager. His veracity is only eclipsed by his verbosity. I'm a football guy but follow this board also. No offense to Mr. Sager, but he could he put these kind of numbers on his second post? I am too new to  know but this is definitely freshman first team material.

[WUPHF]

I would say that he has out Sagered Sager. His veracity is only eclipsed by his verbosity. I'm a football guy but follow this board also. No offense to Mr. Sager, but he could he put these kind of numbers on his second post? I am too new to  know but this is definitely freshman first team material.

It was a great post, but I was able to understand all the references without a dictionary and several Oxford publications on history and literature and Greek Mythology, etc, so I think Sager probably still stands alone.

Incidentally, I agree: it is hard to beat a team three times in one season.  It seems even harder at the high school level where I have seen this all too many times.

[oldnuthin]

I would say that he has out Sagered Sager. His veracity is only eclipsed by his verbosity. I'm a football guy but follow this board also. No offense to Mr. Sager, but he could he put these kind of numbers on his second post? I am too new to  know but this is definitely freshman first team material.

It was a great post, but I was able to understand all the references without a dictionary and several Oxford publications on history and literature and Greek Mythology, etc, so I think Sager probably still stands alone.

Incidentally, I agree: it is hard to beat a team three times in one season.  It seems even harder at the high school level where I have seen this all too many times.

i don't know WUH i still have to see Sagers second post.

[oldnuthin]

I would say that he has out Sagered Sager. His veracity is only eclipsed by his verbosity. I'm a football guy but follow this board also. No offense to Mr. Sager, but he could he put these kind of numbers on his second post? I am too new to  know but this is definitely freshman first team material.

It was a great post, but I was able to understand all the references without a dictionary and several Oxford publications on history and literature and Greek Mythology, etc, so I think Sager probably still stands alone.

Incidentally, I agree: it is hard to beat a team three times in one season.  It seems even harder at the high school level where I have seen this all too many times.

i don't know WUH i still have to see Sagers second post.

On second thought, let's look at the Film.

[WUPHF]

On second thought, let's look at the Film.

You can't see or hear it, but I am laughing out loud to the point that my chest is starting to hurt! 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Sager's second post would have been in 1999.  Alas, it is lost to the ages as Pat did not have the capacity to archive posts until 2005.

I well remember the days of being sure to be at my computer on Wednesday and Saturday nights, lest the game commentaries 'scroll off' before I ever saw them!

[ball]

Are you going Q?

Trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to get from Columbia, MO to Kenosha, WI in the most efficient fashion, but yes, wouldn't miss it.

I live in Columbia, Missouri and I am a student in Kenosha. I always take the Mega Bus and then metra...

[usee]

I definitely think SF= all frosh team. Most impressive board debut I can recall and I have been on the boards since inception. Come to think of it maybe a name change is in order....SF= Sideline fan and could be SF=Sager Fan or SF=Sager Freak.

I had forgotten the days of the scrolling boards. It was common that you would be off for a few hours and miss entire discussions. I also remember when your IP number would show up alongside your post and you could have multiple aliases. Guys used to come on the football board as players all the time. We are so sophisticated now.

[Gregory Sager]

Sager's second post would have been in 1999.

It was in the early fall of 1998, not 1999, Chuck. That's when I started this room, which was originally a discussion thread entitled, "Has the CCIW declined in recent years?" (1997-98 was a low point for the league as a whole in terms of non-conference record.) I have no idea what the content of my second post was, but it was probably an expression of gratitude that NPU had given a pink slip to the head coach who had presided over the capsizing of the Vikings longship, Keith Peterson.

There was no applause or smiting, therefore no karma. Nor could you vote yea or nay on a specific post, as you could under the software setup previous to the current one. The whole D3 basketball discussion board was a topic tree with, as Chuck indicated, no permanent archiving of anything that had scrolled off. A fellow NPC alumnus who had stumbled across d3hoops.com while doing a search for online material about NPC's national championships alerted me to this site's existence, and when I got here I noticed that the topic tree had no branch specifically addressing the CCIW. So I tried to start one by posing what I thought was a valid but controversial question about the then-current overall state of the CCIW. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Gregory Sager]

Sideline Fan, let me welcome you as well and echo the sentiments of others who were impressed by that second post of yours.

I don't like the tough-to-beat-a-team-three-times cliche. This is the time of year in which it always crops up on the boards, and in my usual persnickety way I typically challenge it on at least one board. Like most cliches, it's frequently spouted as a substitute for clear or original thinking -- but, unlike most cliches, it's not really true. It's impossible to verify the cliche in terms of actual game results; when challenged, a poster will sometimes dig a little and find an example of a team that won a third matchup between two squads after losing the first two, but it doesn't hold up in terms of being true on a most-frequent-result basis.

But it's important to draw a distinction between those who use it thus -- "It's tough to beat a team three times" -- and those who type it out as "It's tough to beat a good team three times." Those who say it the first way tend (I think) to simply be regurgitating something that sounds like a profound insight, and they have never really thought about it and are unprepared to defend it. Those who say it the second way tend, like Sideline Fan, to have a clear idea of what distinguishes good teams from ordinary teams (coaches capable of tactical adjustments, players who can adjust physically and mentally to changes in game plans, etc.), and to envision how a good team can counter tactics used against it in previous meetings and adjust to deficiencies in its own previous performances.

Nevertheless, the point that Bob makes is important: Even among good teams, often one team has the advantage over the other in terms of individual matchups, and that isn't going to change no matter how well the disadvantaged coach plays the chess match and how adept his players are at responding to tactical shifts. The other thing to remember, the thing that I usually end up emphasizing every time that I challenge the cliche, is this: If you're the winning team, it tends to be increasingly easier to beat the losing team as you keep playing it more and more. Beat a team once, and any number of random variables can be used to explain the outcome: Bad bounce of the ball, bad officiating, injuries, illnesses, home court advantage, etc. Beat a team twice, and the random variables, explanations, and excuses decrease. Dominance is more clearly asserted. The third win should therefore be easier, since random variables are less likely to figure into the performance gap between the two teams the third time around than they were the second time, just as they are less likely to figure in the second time around than during the first time around. One team is clearly better than the other head-to-head, and that's why it keeps beating it.

[sac]

We're gonna need a bigger board

[John Gleich]

GS,

I agree with your statement except in the instance where the first two games were nailbiters... Say overtime games or games decided by a shot at the buzzer.  I don't necessarily think that asserted dominance could really be claimed in an instance where a team was either losing in the final minute or tied (either to win on a last shot or to plat an extra period).

One team will have a higher score at the end of the game, but it doesn't  mean they had either game in hand until the final buzzer... and I would wager to guess that the losing tea, could very well have an even bigger chip on their shouder if they came close to winning twice, only to be denied at the last second.

When two good teams play, there are going to be mismatches on both sides... and it may come down to who can exploit it better.  Sometimes it comes to a force of wills, especially if there is a contrast in playing styles.  Usually, neither team is able to assert itself in the way they are able against lesser teams... and many times whichever team can find more success with the OTHER tean's style, while still trying their best to assert their own, will come out on top.

I see your point about the random variables can be decreased as one team learns how to beat the other in more and more efficient ways... but in a game where the teams are effectively equal and would continue that way if the teams played a third 20 minute period (until key players started to foul out or get hurt), I think those random variables could come into play more, not less.  Now, yes, this is a small subgroup of all of the instances where team A beats team B twice... but I think SF's comments are valid in this case (oh, and I approve of the post length and depth too!!)

[Gregory Sager]

I agree with your statement except in the instance where the first two games were nailbiters... Say overtime games or games decided by a shot at the buzzer.  I don't necessarily think that asserted dominance could really be claimed in an instance where a team was either losing in the final minute or tied (either to win on a last shot or to plat an extra period).

[snip]

I see your point about the random variables can be decreased as one team learns how to beat the other in more and more efficient ways... but in a game where the teams are effectively equal and would continue that way if the teams played a third 20 minute period (until key players started to foul out or get hurt), I think those random variables could come into play more, not less.  Now, yes, this is a small subgroup of all of the instances where team A beats team B twice... but I think SF's comments are valid in this case (oh, and I approve of the post length and depth too!!)

I agree with your post, but, as you said, this is a a small subgroup of the instances where Team A beats Team B twice. The two-nailbiters situation is the exception that proves the rule.

[Titan Q]

We're gonna need a bigger board

Tremendous post, sac!