MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[und63]

"Congrats to Miss Carthage on Miss America.  Lovely looking woman with a set of beautiful..."

There could be a number of ways to complete this!

[iwu70]

und63, down boy,down boy.

IWU70

[iwumichigander]

Here is a pic of IWU sophomore Nick Anderson from the Carthage game...

http://www.iwuhoops.com/nick.jpg


I think Anderson has a nice upside due to his height and ability to get off the ground.  Saturday was the first time it all seemed to click for him.  I'm hoping he can emerge as a consistent low post scoring threat as the season goes on.

Agree with the upside.  Nick still needs time in the weight room and needs to work on using his height/size to leverage against bigger opponents.  Against Augie, he got caught in switches defending against smaller and shorter guards who duped Nick into fouling them.   He got whistled up for reaching down with his hands when he should have just used his body (similiar situations against NPU).  He will figure it out soon (with a little coaching up).

[iwu70]

Agree on upside for Nick Anderson, actually for all the IWU bigs.  All have their strengths and areas of needed improvement.  Hope they continue to learn from each other, feed off of each other, help each other, receive the coaching from the current staff, and from other alum bigs that might be brought in, be it Sikma, Lipic, Freeman, Crabtree, Kasten, Sexauer.  All of whom might be around at various points this season and over the summer.  I think Reed and Zeimnik see the floor, pass the best.  Good hands and good vision.  Andrew a pretty good trey shooter.  Key to the Titans success so far this season has surely been the consistent and solid play of Kevin Reed.  Of course Victor Davis has great shooting touch, even from three, strong crashing the glass, though he can play out of control, force the ball into places where it can't go, lower his shoulder and get called for charges.  Floor vision and judgement when running the floor needs improvement.   Dortch is the best on-ball defender, but hasn't really developed a good mid-range shooting game, basically a slasher, taking it to the rim.  Molinari has the good mid-range shooting game.  Would love to see Eric improve his three point shooting.  Mentoring from Zimmer? All of these bigs could benefit from the mentoring of Kman and his mobility and court vision, putting the ball on the floor at key moments when there is space.  Add Musselman and Wiggs to this group and you have quite a range of talent in the IWU bigs.  Musselman's three point shooting is most impressive to date, and solid rebounding, filling space on D, in the post.  Wiggs is very good 15 feet and in, good positional, rebounder.  Yes, weight room, quickness and strength, but seems there could be alot of "skills" and "footwork" development by these players in the coming year.  Bigs camp with Sikma?  Yes, study McCrary and his post moves.  Seems many of the IWU bigs, while excellent players now, have great up sides, in the coming one or two seasons.  Wing players and PGs, likely to be the focus of Coach Rose's recruiting for the coming year.  Coming back:  B. Zimmer, Molinari, Overstreet, Mayberger, Heyen, Azuogu, and Wheeler . . . of course Eric Dortch plays the wing, but plays very big given his jumping abilities.  IMHO, biggest upside in these players coming back is:  B. Zimmer, Overstreet and Heyen.   Lots of good talent in the pipeline.   Sadly, Molinari still in street clothes, still not back in the rotation, apparently still not cleared from the earlier concussion. 

Keep it rolling Titans.  Good luck at NCC on Tuesday.  Another big game, another good challenge, perhaps another new Titan stepping up to push the team to another win. 

IWU70

[CCIWFAN6]

Tomorrow's matchup of IWU @ NCC has major regular season title implications.  As I have said earlier about IWU playing tough teams at home, to me this is a must win for NCC if they hope to win a regular season CCIW title.  This game is much more important for the Cardinals as they already have 1 loss (albeit on the road against a very good Wheaton team).  If they were to lose a second at home when they still have to go to The Shirk Center, it would be a difficult hole to dig out of.

I also see this as a huge test for IWU.  These are the games that separate you from being a very good team to possibly an elite team.  Their ability to go on the road and beat a very talented team would help me believe in this team having a legitimate chance of making a run in the postseason.  It would also give them a very nice lead in the overall standings. 

[CCIWchamps]

Elmhurst has the Zack Boyd game winner online now...

http://www.elmhurstbluejays.com/index.aspx?tab=basketball&path=mbball

Wheaton's tip in to force overtime is online too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prf80oC_3BA&feature=youtu.be
Great job by Schultze.

[iwu70]

Congratulations to Mssr. McCrary, CCIW Player of the Week.  Indeed.

Big one tomorrow =  IWU @ NCC.

Go Titans!!!

IWU70

[petemcb]

Is that really what you want Titans? 
If he gets T'd up, that likely spells an Augie win.
You might want to rethink that one. 

Well the only thing we know for sure is that a T would have led to an Augustana player shooting a couple wide-open shots from 15 feet.  CCIW scouting reports generally encourage that.  So who knows.

Ouch.  I love it.  +k.

[augiefan]

Who would have guessed Luke Scarlatta would be Augie's half season MVP this year? His departure and Brian DeSimone's bad play have trashed Augie's chances to win the CCIW regular season title. The struggle now is for the 4th seed in the conference tourney, which wiill be easier said than done after watching the QC Vikings against Elmhurst Saturday night.

[iwu70]

It is pretty stunning Augie's fall from pre-season CCIW grace.  Still lots of games to go . . . they just have to sort it out and work themselves back into the CCIW race.  They surely have the talent, if that talent can play at the level expected and needed.  Seems the chemistry isn't the best, and the Scarlatta departure was pretty big.   But they better hurry.  I'm of the view that a few of the teams considered in the lower tier of the CCIW will actually put some losses on those considered in the upper tier, i.e. EC beating Augie.  I think there could be more such nights -- from NP, Carthage, or EC.  Not likely from Millikin.  As in previous seasons, there's no night off in league play, especially in road games. 

Would be interested in keys to the IWU-NCC matchup, if any comrades here wish to venture some thoughts.  I've not seen NCC this year and don't know much about them other than the stats and reports from earlier games, mostly the rough ride they had in the pre-CCIW phase.  How are the match-ups this time, as NCC has sorted out its issues and has played well in the last 4-5 games.

More tomorrow.  I would think the new DIIIhoops.com poll will be out later tonight or tomorrow, right?

IWU70

[iwu70]

New poll just posted: 

IWU 17th  -- up from 25th
Augie 19th  -- down from 6th
Wheaton 22nd

NCC -- one person thought them "votable."   

Women's poll coming out soon too, I presume.

Nice to see more CCIW teams in the top 25.

IWU70

[sac]

New poll just posted: 

IWU 17th  -- up from 25th
Augie 19th  -- down from 6th
Wheaton 22nd

NCC -- one person thought them "votable."   

obviously did not see Q's post from earlier. 

[John Gleich]

Q, I take your point about NCC and the number of losses they already have.  But, they are coming on strong now, as many on this board predicted. 

My point was simply in response to your statement...

"Seems NCC should be getting more attention, more votes now too."

With a win @ Augie and a 2 OT loss @ Wheaton, it's clear that North Central has its non-conference issues figured out...and is a contender for the 2012 CCIW title.  But you are just not correct about them being slighted in the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll.  They are not "votable" right now due to their entire body of work (which is not good).

The IWU @ NCC game Tuesday should be another great one - both regular season games last year were thrillers.  Unfortunately I will be on the road for work and not able to follow, but really hoping for a Titan win.  The starting lineups seems very, very even to me...I think IWU is deeper...I hope depth is the difference.

I understand and generally accept the "body of work" argument... but is there a point where it is brought too far?  Should a team who had a bad start be able to earn their way into the poll on the weight of their current play, as opposed to their play from now... and several months ago?

I think the Augie discussion is an interesting one... and it's similar to when Kent Raymond went down with his injury and was out a few games for Wheaton.  Were the Thunder still a top 25 team without him?  IIRC, they lost some (most?) of the games while he was out... but then he came back and they made quite a run. 

Carrying it forward with Augie... their record includes several wins with Scarlatta... their current play without him hasn't been nearly as good.  Does it make sense to talk about the body of work... when the whole body isn't intact?


I'm not trying to argue for NC in this case... I'm more thinking generally.

What type of improvement would it take to override a horrid start?  Beating two top 5 teams? 

I think back to 09-10... UW Stout beat UW Whitewater, then #6, and UW Stevens Point, then #4 on back to back games and earned a single vote... changed the mind of one voter.  They then lost a game and lost their vote... but all told, though they started 4-7, they finished on a 12-3 tear... before losing their final game in the conference tournament. 

Now, one could easily argue that a 16-11 team shouldn't be ranked at any point in the season (unless they started 16-2 and lost their last 9 or something like that...).  But if they had STARTED the year 12-3, beating two top 10 teams back to back, they certainly would have been ranked.

And their final record was not indicative of the quality of basketball they were playing for the latter 2/3 of the year.

I seem to recall Lake Forest having a similar stretch... maybe in that same season, where they were something atrocious... like 1-7 to start the year, but then turned it around and had a tremendous second half.  Perhaps there's a difference in that the MWC is not the WIAC and the teams that LFC beat were not top 10...

But... what does a team have to do to to overcome their poor start?  Or is there just no hope?

[Mr. Ypsi]

PS, interesting points.  I think it has a lot to do with perception of some particular factor that could explain the 'horrible stretch'.  With Wheaton, it was losing a NPOY candidate (IIRC, they went 1-2 without him, and lost one more in his first game back when he was clearly not yet KENT RAYMOND; they lost a lot of ground in the polls, but bounced back once they showed who they were WITH him healthy).  If a team has a new coach, and starts very poorly, but then gets on fire, allowances may be made.  But there probably has to be a 'story' explaining the bad stretch.  (NCC has the injury story, but whether or not it is widely known and whether or not it is compelling enough ...)

IF (God forbid! ) NCC beats IWU on Tuesday, I suspect that 1 point will become 30-40 points, despite their overall record.  If the 'good guys' win, NCC is probably gonna have to hope to win the conference tourney.

You could put your thoughts into action by rejoining the PP!

[sac]

The more important question for NCC/IWU is will there be a JV game and will NCC be taking a coach or vans?