MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[NCF]

NewCard, I'll likely make the CCIW track meet in early May, esp. if it's a beautiful sunny two days out there.  Nice place to hold it, great facilities now in the revamped football/track area of Wilder Field at Tucci Stadium.  I'll watch for you.  I'm tall, grey/silver-haired, and look something like a slightly chubby Abraham Lincoln (yes, with the beard!).  IWU and NCC women will surely be in a dogfight for the top trophy.

For IWU coming back, we'll have a pretty good, more experienced, but still pretty young group.  Only seniors next year are Reed and Oswald.  Good, experienced upcoming Junior group:  Davis, Ziemnik, Anderson, Dortch, and Mayberger.  This means of the frontline players that featured majorly in this year's deep tourney run, we only lose Kman.  So five (including Reed) of the six IWU bigs in the rotation are coming back, can fit into the lineup, take on new or similar roles.  Will depend greatly on style of play and, of course, improvement over the summer, weight work etc. IWU is again going to have to find scoring and a good point guard, hopefully all folks who can play good D.  Key surely is how healthy Brady Zimmer will be next season, for a shot at the 2, with perhaps Oswald backing him up, taking the trey bombs . . .and how the potential PGs develop -- Overstreet or Molinari?  Other pine-sitters, JV guys coming back:  Overstreet, Azuogu, Molinari, Heyen, Wheeler, Musselman and Wiggs.  Possible future bigs in the rotation would be surely Musselman, perhaps Heyen and Wiggs.  Again, depends on off-season work, training, lifting and skills development.

If I were guessing (without any newbies, recruits in the picture), I would say:

1- Overstreet, Molinari, Wheeler
2- Zimmer, Overstreet, Azuogu
3- Ziemnik, Dortch, Heyen, Mayberger
4- Davis, Musselman, Wiggs
5- Reed, Anderson

Good depth again a feature of the Titans in 2012-13. 

Of course way to early to really mean much, but just guessing:  Starting Lineup of:  Overstreet or Molinari, Zimmer, Ziemnik, Davis, and Reed.  Key questions, issues are on the perimeter, at the 1 and 2.  Can the defensive intensity stay as high?  Not so many issues in the front court.  Sure will miss Gonzalez and Rudnicki . . . and J. Zimmer's shooting stretching the floor.  Let's hope Brady is a worthy successor.  Key issue is how much improvement these guys can make in the off-season, in skills development, strength and conditioning.  Still tremendous upside to a number of these players -- esp. Molinari, Anderson, and Dortch, IMHO.   I would expect Anderson, Dortch and Musselman to get more minutes next year.  Ziemnik is not a traditional 3, in my view, so there might be some other options, possiblities tried out there . . . perhaps.

Surprise performers next year, IMHO, =  Overstreet, Musselman and Heyen.  Best returning defender = Dortch.  Most in need of offensive improvement = Dortch.  Further big improvement likely = smart guy Anderson.  So glad he's still on our side = Victor Davis.  (and, of course, Coach Rose).

Enough of my nonsense.  Q, you can tell me where I'm all wrong.

IWU70

Awesome description of youself!!How can I miss Honest Abe-in Central Il no less. I am one of a kind-that's a good thing!Hahahahahahahahaha. The women's meet will most likelu come down to the 4x4 between IWU and NC. the men's should be a dogfight (LOL) between the Doggies and the Redbirdss. Hope to see you there.

[Titan Q]

On Wheaton recruit Michael Berg...

http://www.pekintimes.com/sports/x1231828924/Berg-among-Midwest-Central-s-best?zc_p=0

[iwu70]

IWU celebration for both teams -- announced now for March 27th, 7 p.m. at The Shirk.

Let the celebrations commence.

IWU70

[Gregory Sager]

I'm not Greg, but I'll venture a guess.

?

NPU returns 2 former D1 players in Mike Gabriel, and Mark Holmes. At that point, the Viking ship sails off the edge of the world and into the Laurentian Abyssmal.

The 3 and 4th best players from this year's team will graduate.
Josh McNaughton shot .369, including .143 on 3s
Trent Kucera shot .255 and .258
Reggie McGee's numbers are .345 and .373
Mike Rice comes back at .267 and .095!
Brent Peterson's numbers were .206, and .000.

NPU had 90 less assists than their opponents, and 59 more TOs than their opponents.

Unless NPU brings in a very talented freshman class, they might actually be worse next year. Gabriel & Holmes need a ton of help.

Your post is basically a restatement from a different angle of what I posted about a month ago:

North Park needs no fewer than five CCIW-varsity-ready newbies next year. The Vikings need a starting center (or starting power forward; Gabriel's versatility allows the coaches to recruit in either direction), a starting shooting guard, and a starting point guard. They also need a bench big and a bench wing, both of whom can play heavy minutes and start if needed. Whether they will need a backup point guard or not really depends upon whether or not Josh McNaughton can develop the ability to be stronger on the ball and to at least shoot the ball minimally well enough from the perimeter to make his man guard him semi-honestly. If he can do that, then he's probably not going to hurt NPU for six to ten minutes per game off the bench at the point. If he can't ... well, then that means that the NPU coaching staff will need to bring in six CCIW-varsity-ready newbies next year, rather than five.

(I'm not discounting the idea that one or more returnees not named Holmes or Gabriel will dramatically improve his game to the point of being able to fill one of those needs, but IMHO it's not very likely to happen. At the very least, the coaching staff can't assume that it will happen.)

North Park has a very, very, very steep uphill climb ahead of it, and right now that climb is all about getting in guys for next year who can excel in this league.

I framed the question looking forward rather than looking backward, because I'm not interested in calling out the inadequacies of the current Vikings by drawing attention to their individual struggles.

This will be where the rubber meets the road for Dylan Howard and his staff. As focused as everyone always seems to be on X's and O's, starting lineups, and substitution patterns, the fact of the matter is that recruiting is somewhere between 70% and 90% of coaching in terms of importance (the percentage seems to depend upon which coach you ask). I don't care if you're John Wooden or Bobby Knight; if you don't have players who can compete at your league's level, you're going to have a losing basketball team. Since this is the first year that Dylan is the man in charge (and the first year that Allen Odum and Kevin Holmes are working alongside Chris Edquist in the recruiting trenches), we will get our first glimpse of what he can do, both in terms of the quality of the players he brings in and the types of players that he brings in (inasmuch as that's a read on the type of team he wants to build).

BTW, it's Brett Peterson, not "Brent".

Also, BTW, great pun on "Laurentian Abyssal" and "abysmal" ... if that's what you were going for.

[Gregory Sager]

You can't simply jettison the league's bottom quartile because it's convenient for your argument. For one thing, you're calling for an arbitrary cut-off point. Why the top six? Why not the top seven? Why not the top four? Why not the top one?

Second, and more importantly, the CCIW is an eight-team league, not a six-team league. In other words, you can't re-shape the forest to your liking by chopping down one-quarter of its trees.

I would submit that I am not reshaping the forest -- I'm painting a more accurate picture.  Was the conference down?  No, Millikin was down.  North Park was down.  Suggesting something more is to some extent just projecting guilt-by-association on the schools who were right where you would expect them to be record-wise in the out-of-conference schedule.

First of all, did Millikin and North Park leave the league prior to 2011-12? No, they didn't. They have to be considered along with the other six teams as part of the CCIW's resume this past season, whether people like it or not. They make up a full one-quarter of the league! The guilt by association is built right into this conversation, because that's what a league is ... an association. Heck, some leagues even use the word "association" in their name (hat tip to our friends from the UAA, the MIAA, and the SAA here ). If you're a fan of a CCIW school other than NCC, Wheaton, and IWU, and you found yourself rooting for those teams in the tourney for the sake of seeing the conference as a whole benefit from their success in terms of the CCIW's reputation, then you are merely expressing the flip side of the frustration that comes from seeing teams like Millikin and NPU drag down the league like anchors. We're all in this together, even though nobody really wants to take ownership of Millikin's toxic 1-24, 1-13 performance. Why else would you think that so many of us have expressed our desire on CCIW Chat to see the Big Blue improve?

Second, you can't pin this all on MU and NPU. By your own numbers in your previous posts, you demonstrated that other slots in the CCIW standings were down this year by comparison to the past dozen or so CCIW seasons. Our champion, North Central, was one team that you singled out in particular. Carthage and Elmhurst, as well, had atypically down years for fifth- or sixth-place CCIW teams, as both went a mere 6-5 in non-con play. This wasn't just a case of the bottom not doing well, as you yourself demonstrated.

[Gregory Sager]

On Wheaton recruit Michael Berg...

http://www.pekintimes.com/sports/x1231828924/Berg-among-Midwest-Central-s-best?zc_p=0

Always nice to see one of our regular posters get quoted in the print media!

[AndOne]

NPU returns 2 former D1 players in Mike Gabriel, and Mark Holmes. At that point, the Viking ship sails off the edge of the world and into the Laurentian Abyssmal.

The 3 and 4th best players from this year's team will graduate.
Josh McNaughton shot .369, including .143 on 3s
Trent Kucera shot .255 and .258
Reggie McGee's numbers are .345 and .373
Mike Rice comes back at .267 and .095!
Brent Peterson's numbers were .206, and .000.

NPU had 90 less assists than their opponents, and 59 more TOs than their opponents.

Unless NPU brings in a very talented freshman class, they might actually be worse next year. Gabriel & Holmes need a ton of help.

BTW, it's Brett Peterson, not "Brent".

Also, BTW, great pun on "Laurentian Abyssal" and "abysmal" ... if that's what you were going for.

Yes, indeed. An inspiration from The Hunt For Red October.   

[NCF]

NPU returns 2 former D1 players in Mike Gabriel, and Mark Holmes. At that point, the Viking ship sails off the edge of the world and into the Laurentian Abyssmal.

The 3 and 4th best players from this year's team will graduate.
Josh McNaughton shot .369, including .143 on 3s
Trent Kucera shot .255 and .258
Reggie McGee's numbers are .345 and .373
Mike Rice comes back at .267 and .095!
Brent Peterson's numbers were .206, and .000.

NPU had 90 less assists than their opponents, and 59 more TOs than their opponents.

Unless NPU brings in a very talented freshman class, they might actually be worse next year. Gabriel & Holmes need a ton of help.

BTW, it's Brett Peterson, not "Brent".

Also, BTW, great pun on "Laurentian Abyssal" and "abysmal" ... if that's what you were going for.

Yes, indeed. An inspiration from The Hunt For Red October.   

Great movie! when was the last time you watched it-it's not on very often

[BlueJay21]

On Wheaton recruit Michael Berg...

http://www.pekintimes.com/sports/x1231828924/Berg-among-Midwest-Central-s-best?zc_p=0

Always nice to see one of our regular posters get quoted in the print media!

Gonna be a little odd for me in the next 4 years. As an Elmhurst alum, I'm obviously always going to have strong ties and feelings to the Bluejays, but I'm going to turn into a HUGE Wheaton fan for the duration of Berg's career there. I am looking forward to watching him in the CCIW, and I know he is looking forward to his career at Wheaton. I'm not completely sure what coach Mike Schauer's plans for him are, but I know that he has some big shoes to fill with the loss of Tim McCrary. Go Thunder!

[NCF]

On Wheaton recruit Michael Berg...

http://www.pekintimes.com/sports/x1231828924/Berg-among-Midwest-Central-s-best?zc_p=0

Always nice to see one of our regular posters get quoted in the print media!

Gonna be a little odd for me in the next 4 years. As an Elmhurst alum, I'm obviously always going to have strong ties and feelings to the Bluejays, but I'm going to turn into a HUGE Wheaton fan for the duration of Berg's career there. I am looking forward to watching him in the CCIW, and I know he is looking forward to his career at Wheaton. I'm not completely sure what coach Mike Schauer's plans for him are, but I know that he has some big shoes to fill with the loss of Tim McCrary. Go Thunder!

That's gonna be alot of odd, LOL.

[Gregory Sager]

NPU returns 2 former D1 players in Mike Gabriel, and Mark Holmes. At that point, the Viking ship sails off the edge of the world and into the Laurentian Abyssmal.

The 3 and 4th best players from this year's team will graduate.
Josh McNaughton shot .369, including .143 on 3s
Trent Kucera shot .255 and .258
Reggie McGee's numbers are .345 and .373
Mike Rice comes back at .267 and .095!
Brent Peterson's numbers were .206, and .000.

NPU had 90 less assists than their opponents, and 59 more TOs than their opponents.

Unless NPU brings in a very talented freshman class, they might actually be worse next year. Gabriel & Holmes need a ton of help.

BTW, it's Brett Peterson, not "Brent".

Also, BTW, great pun on "Laurentian Abyssal" and "abysmal" ... if that's what you were going for.

Yes, indeed. An inspiration from The Hunt For Red October.   

Yes, when I got to that part of your post, Mark, I stopped hearing your voice in my head and heard those words instead in a Scots burr mangling a Russian accent.

On Wheaton recruit Michael Berg...

http://www.pekintimes.com/sports/x1231828924/Berg-among-Midwest-Central-s-best?zc_p=0

Always nice to see one of our regular posters get quoted in the print media!

Gonna be a little odd for me in the next 4 years. As an Elmhurst alum, I'm obviously always going to have strong ties and feelings to the Bluejays, but I'm going to turn into a HUGE Wheaton fan for the duration of Berg's career there. I am looking forward to watching him in the CCIW, and I know he is looking forward to his career at Wheaton. I'm not completely sure what coach Mike Schauer's plans for him are, but I know that he has some big shoes to fill with the loss of Tim McCrary. Go Thunder!

Yeah, as I myself have learned from time to time, those last two words aren't really a phrase that flow easily off of one's tongue, are they?

[toooldtohoop]

its really easy.  go thunder!

[Mr. Ypsi]

A sure sign of spring - the basketball boards begin their drift down the page!

[NCF]

A sure sign of spring - the basketball boards begin their drift down the page!

YES!  not that basketball moves down-but that it is spring.

[Pat Coleman]

Yeah, basketball remained No. 2, but I swapped baseball into the "No. 1" spot and hockey to third.