MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[usee]

Coebball70 and AndOne must be related!!

seriously, Brian Evan has been nothing short of impressive over the course of his NCC career. I hope he takes a night off on Saturday but He is a great example of D3 success through work ethic and opportunity.

[coebball70]

The only thing I have in common with AndOne is good looks!

[AndOne]

Thank you coebball. While your's is, I'm sure, a minority opinion, I appreciate the sentiment. And yes, I did have more hair in my previous life long long ago in a galaxy far far away.
Oh, and your check is in the mail!   

[AndOne]

Just to toot Brian Evans' horn a little more (as he would never do so himself), in addition to excelling on the basketball court, Brian is the true definition of a student-athlete, having won the scholarship award at the annual team banquet each of the last 2 years.
On top of everything else, Brian has a much more beautiful, intelligent, and personable girl than he deserves.   

[wheels81]

Just to toot Brian Evans' horn a little more (as he would never do so himself), in addition to excelling on the basketball court, Brian is the true definition of a student-athlete, having won the scholarship award at the annual team banquet each of the last 2 years.
On top of everything else, Brian has a much more beautiful, intelligent, and personable girl than he deserves.   

Don't we all

[Gregory Sager]

Rules are made to be broken, or is that records?  My normal rule is to talk about teams because basketball is a team game.  Leave critical comments about individuals aside because I've been there, done that and everybody has a bad game at some point.  But here comes a post that I have been meaning to make for at least two years.  Brian Evans, most of you don't even recognize the name.  But Brian Evans is why I watch D3 basketball.  His performance in an overtime loss to Illinois Wesleyan must have been a thing of beauty. 10 rebounds, 8 points and 4 assists in 42 minutes.  His rebounding performance doubled every Titan player except for one who had 6 boards.  I have watched the North Central senior play since his travel basketball days in 7th grade.  In my experience playing and watching the game, only about 50 years, I have never seen a player make so much out of so little talent.  Like the crack comment goes, Brian is small and he's slow, too.  But does he play with brains, character and guts.  If you could clone Brian Evan's 'heart for the game' and distribute it, the game of basketball would be better off.

I, too, have expressed my admiration of Brian Evans on CCIW Chat in the past. He's the kind of player that I love to root for -- unless North Central's playing North Park, of course -- and he's sort of a poster boy for what the D3 experience is all about.

[Gregory Sager]

I suppose using the word "terrible" is an unfair exaggeration. Certainly, Augie is not a pretty team to watch, but that wasn't really the point I intended to make. 

While watching the game last night, I felt that a good team should have beat NP by 20+ points.  I have no problem giving credit where it's due -- and Augie is certainly an imposing defensive team. However NP didn't go themselves any favors. As hard as they worked to get back in the game, there were numerous short jumpers, layups, and free throws that NP clanged all game along.  They seemed to lose composure very easily, especially the project they have playing center this year. It'll be interesting to see how Augie fares when they match up against a more offensively proficient squad. Maybe they make everyone look bad? 

I certainly agree that NPU has composure problems; I mentioned the "chuckeritis" that occurred in the last five minutes of Wednesday's game that contributed heavily to NPU's inability to cut into what had become a low-double-digits Augie lead. The Vikings badly need to develop the sort of discipline that will keep them from squandering possessions with ill-advised shots (25-footers ten seconds into the shot clock; off-balance runners by a penetrating ballhandler whose best option is to pass the ball back out, etc.), and the problem is especially acute at the ends of games.

As for Augie, the proof is in the pudding; the Doggies have been the most successful CCIW program in league play over the eleven years that Grey Giovanine has been in charge. I think it's safe to say that, while the basketball philosophy of other teams is that they want to look good, Augie's philosophy is that they're more interested in making you look bad.

[Titan Q]

Not a bad showing by the IWU JV vs Lincoln College, which won a national championship last year, and features 7-0 Florida State recruit Kyle Turpin (Mel's son)...

http://www.lincolncourier.com/sports/x315800268/Lynx-top-Titans-JV

But this is a very good JV team. Last year, they really put us on our toes. ... A lot of times, you schedule JV teams for an easy win. Any time you play (the Titans) it's not going to be easy. This is one of the best JV teams I've ever seen."


To get to the game, the IWU JV team walked 3 miles down Main St. to Highland Park Golf Course, where they boarded 6 golf carts (courtesy of the city of Bloomington).  They drove the carts single file down I-55 to Lincoln on the shoulder.  Getting home was a bit dicey since golf carts don't have headlights.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Q, I noticed the article mention Jordan Zimmer as a JV player.  I assume this is an attempt to get him back into game shape (and a chance to team with his brother)?

[Gregory Sager]

Because of the Saturday women's/men's doubleheader situation and the fact that Millikin is so far away from the North Park campus, the Millikin @ NPU game will be at 4:30 pm tomorrow afternoon. We've sometimes discussed on CCIW Chat how cool it'd be if there were afternoon games as well as evening games, enabling fans in Chicagoland to catch a CCIW men's basketball twofer in one day. Well, it's possible tomorrow, since Wheaton @ North Central is a standard 7:30 pm tipoff, although you might be pushing it if you had to get out of the crackerbox at game's end and make it all the way to Naperville in time to watch the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance and the Redbirds take the opening jump in the airplane hangar.

Since the game between the Big Blue and the Vikings is the only afternoon game on tap tomorrow, I wonder if Rob and I are going to get a bigger online audience for the gamecast than we usually get. Too bad that we used up all of our "A" material (i.e., the "Who would win a one-on-one game between Teen Wolf and Air Bud?" debate) on Wednesday night's gamecast.

[AndOne]

Q, I noticed the article mention Jordan Zimmer as a JV player.  I assume this is an attempt to get him back into game shape (and a chance to team with his brother)?

Based on his performance Wed. night, it appears Jordan already IS back in game shape.
However, as the NCAA permits a player to appear in 25 games (including both varsity and JV games), and Jordan missed some varsity games due to his injury and initial rehab, it makes sense for Wesleyan to have him participate in a few JV games as he can do so and still stay within the 25 game rule.
As we often see reported in the newspapers, its basically like a major league team in several different sports sending a player coming of the IR list, to the minors on a "rehab assignment" for a few games.

[Titan Q]

Q, I noticed the article mention Jordan Zimmer as a JV player.  I assume this is an attempt to get him back into game shape (and a chance to team with his brother)?

Just a mistake by the newspaper.  The only Zimmer that played was freshman Brady.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Q, I noticed the article mention Jordan Zimmer as a JV player.  I assume this is an attempt to get him back into game shape (and a chance to team with his brother)?

Just a mistake by the newspaper.  The only Zimmer that played was freshman Brady.

Thanks, Q.  Though AndOne's comments made a lot of sense if he HAD played!

[Titan Q]

Thanks, Q.  Though AndOne's comments made a lot of sense if he HAD played!

I guess the "rehab assignment theory" would have made made sense if Jordan Zimmer was a professional baseball player.  But not sure much sense in a player recently back from injury playing 27 minutes in a game Wednesday, with a huge conference game Saturday, playing in an absolutely meaningless game Thursday.  That would be kind of nuts.

[iwumichigander]

Q, I noticed the article mention Jordan Zimmer as a JV player.  I assume this is an attempt to get him back into game shape (and a chance to team with his brother)?

Just a mistake by the newspaper.  The only Zimmer that played was freshman Brady.

Right - the reporter should have caught the mistake if proof read correctly as he got it correct in the last sentence "The Titans were led by Brady Zimmer with 15 points" -- Hmm, my sports writer mentor would have marked that one up with his red editors pencil!