MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

Halftime:

IWU 44
MC 9

* Andrew Ziemnik: 14 pts, 6 reb, 3 assists

Full stats:  http://livestats.hope.edu/bb/

[Mr. Ypsi]

Ummm.... IWU leading 37-5 with 4 minutes left in the half?  Seriously?

Is that a Livestats glitch or a brutal discrepancy in bball skill?

It's an absolute boatrace.  It's 41-5 IWU right now.

How did this team beat Hope??

IWU leads 44-9 at the half.  Ouch!

Uh oh - Mississippi College won the last two minutes, 4-3!

Seems to bode well for IWU/Hope tomorrow!

[Titan Q]

Seems to bode well for IWU/Hope tomorrow!

I wouldn't factor in anything about the Hope/MC and IWU/MC games in assessing tomorrow's game.  Totally different matchup...should be a great game.

[AndOne]

IWU leads 44-9 at the half.  Ouch!

Did I read somewhere that Ms. College is going to D2 next year? If so, they seem really well prepared to compete at that level.      

[John Gleich]

Ummm.... IWU leading 37-5 with 4 minutes left in the half?  Seriously?

Is that a Livestats glitch or a brutal discrepancy in bball skill?

Mississippi is 1 for 20 from the field.  A whopping 5% shooting, which one could almost do with their eyes closed.

I clicked on the link that Sac posted a little bit after it started, and IWU was up 18-0.... yikes!

[Titan Q]

Final:

IWU 67
Miss College 50

* Andrew Ziemnik: 17 pts, 9 reb, 3 assists (5-8 3-point)
* Pat Sodemann: 13 pts

IWU won in a laugher, despite being outscored by 18 in the 2nd half.  The Titans had 19 assists in the game...many coming with MC playing zone in the 1st half (after struggling to stop the Titans in man-to-man) and IWU knocking down 3 after 3.

IWU (7-2) plays Hope tomorrow @ 3:00pm ET/2:00pm CT.

[iwu70]

Great first half for the Titans, though MS-College played so poorly for sure.  Thought we had the "breakout game," I was hoping for, but then the Titans let up and cruised in the second half, with TOs, sloppy play and getting outscored by a bunch.  Still a good game.  Now Hope.  Should be a good test.  Surely need these two wins in Florida and @Franklin before the CCIW opener @ Wheaton.

Nice game by Zman tonight, also you can see the good contributions there now by Sodemann.  Sure would like to have Mayberger and Zimmer back for more offense, more stretching the defenses. 

More tomorrow in sunny Florida.  16 degrees here tonight in B/N.

IWU70

[AndOne]

Watched NPU down UW-LaCrosse 84-82 on a buzzer-beater in OT. Chris Benjamin hit the game winner. Mark Holmes had 32. NP had 22 assists and only 10 TOs!
NP's best game of the year?
I'll let Mr. Sager provide the details.

[Mr. Ypsi]

According to a post on the WIAC board, NPU beat LaX in OT.  Scoreboard has nothing posted yet, and their livestats link took me to Knox @ Rhodes (!), so I don't know yet if this was a case of "Cold Hands Lukes".

Congratulations to the Vikings on apparently taking down a VERY respectable opponent.

(I see now that AndOne has confirmed the earlier post.)

[Mr. Ypsi]

Seems to bode well for IWU/Hope tomorrow!

I wouldn't factor in anything about the Hope/MC and IWU/MC games in assessing tomorrow's game.  Totally different matchup...should be a great game.

While I try not to put TOO much weight on common opponents, to say "I wouldn't factor in anything about ..." is ridiculous overkill the other direction.  Despite a high early ranking, Hope appears to be a train-wreck at this point, while IWU seems to be finally finding their stride.  I certainly am not expecting the kind of result these two games would point to, but I already thought IWU would win and am even more confident now.

[AndOne]

I see no reason for you not to be as confident as you evidently are, Mr.
Pass the ball to whoever Snuggerud is guarding and have that player go right at him. JMHO

[Gregory Sager]

Overtime final from the crackerbox:

North Park 84
UW-LaCrosse 82

Mark Holmes: 32 pts, 10 rebs
Zach Cassita: 18 pts, 6 rebs, 11 asts (1 to)
Chris Benjamin: 12 pts, 7 rebs, 4 asts
Ryan Hyrn: 11 pts, 4 asts
Aaron Weaver: 10 pts

Chris Benjamin hit a baseline ten-footer as time expired in the extra session to give NPU the upset win over an 8-1 UW-LaCrosse team that's been getting votes in the d3hoops.com Top 25 poll. It was not a fluke win -- the Vikings played hard, executed well, and really did some things at both ends of the floor that I wasn't sure this team was capable of doing. It was a huge, richly-deserved win.

It was a very close game most of the way: 23 lead changes, seven ties, and neither team ever had a double-digit lead. But the Vikings did face a serious gut-check time, as the Eagles built their largest lead of the game -- eight points (75-67) -- on a layup with 1:57 left in regulation. But Mark Holmes hit a trey, the NPU full-court press forced a UWL turnover, Zach Cassita put in a layup, the NPU press forced another turnover, and Chris Benjamin buried a triple with 53 seconds left to tie the game. UWL rebounded their own missed trey with 27.6 seconds left to garner the last possession with the shot clock turned off, but coming out of a timeout the Eagles were unable to execute a sound play -- credit the Vikings with good, strong, clean defense -- and a 12-foot fadeaway at the buzzer by UWL's Braden Tice was airballed.

In overtime the lead continued to swing back and forth. NPU was up by one at 82-81 going into the final minute of OT and had the ball, but Benjamin went up too strong on a layup attempt and the ball was deflected out of bounds in favor of the Eagles. UWL's Michael Barrett got off a runner in the lane with eight seconds left that missed, but Brett Peterson fouled him on the arm on the play. Barrett missed the first free throw, made the second to tie up the game at 82 apiece, and that set the stage for Benjamin's heroics. North Park SID Kevin Shepke said to me later that he thought the ball might not have left Benjamin's hands before the buzzer went off, but the coaches and I watched the shot later on the game DVD, and the ball was a good four or five feet out of Benjamin's hands when the backboard lit up.

Zach Cassita was a major hero, as his penetration and passing skills were magnificent this evening. He was so deadly tonight that on the game's final play the entire UWL defense sagged to cover the lane to stop Cassita. He made great decisions with the ball all night, and the last one he made was to flip the ball to the wide-open Benjamin on the baseline for the game-winner. Tonight I saw the Zach Cassita that I have been expecting to see. He's still a little ragged-looking at times as far as point guard duties go, but it's hard to find fault with someone who goes 11:1 on the assists-to-turnovers ratio for the night.

Mark Holmes continues to be a quiet assassin. Tonight marked the second occasion this season in which he's gone over 30 points. What I especially liked about tonight's performance is that he didn't turn the ball over a single time. In fact, the team as a whole turned the ball over only ten times, and this was a North Park team that had really been plagued by turnovers this season. As Mark mentioned, the team's a:to was an unbelievable 22:10 this evening -- a case of great ball distribution and, frankly, a lot of all-out efforts to retain possessions of balls that occasionally bounced off of NPU hands, legs, feet, etc.

Benjamin played a strong game, even without the buzzer-beating heroics, and Ryan Hyrn kept the Eagles honest just by being a three-point threat whenever he was on the floor. Brett Peterson, as usual, had little to show for himself on the stat sheet, but his defense forced several late takeaways on UWL that were credited to other Vikings. He's a very necessary glue player for the Park.

I don't know yet if this was a case of "Cold Hands Lukes".

The Lukes went a collective 15-29 tonight for the Eagles, so that wasn't it.

Tonight I got to call my first-ever buzzer-beater. My apologies if I burst anybody's eardrums on the webcast, as I was screaming my fool head off after Benjamin made the shot. Let me tell you ... it's a lot of fun to call a buzzer-beater on the air for your team. Pete McBride was rooting for a Benjamin miss so that the game could've gone into a second overtime (it was a very entertaining game, after all), but I don't know if I could've handled another five minutes of that kind of tension.

Great win. Very encouraging, and very gratifying. Just when I was ready to throw up my hands and count out the Vikings, they surprise me like this. My response to them is: More like this one, please!

[veterancciwfan]

The last time I used the term "twilight zone" (all hail Rod Serling-wasn't that his name?) was to describe IWU's 1st half performance against Roanoke College in the 3rd round of the 1996 D3 tournament, a road game that saw the Titans up 70-19 with less than a minute left in the half. IWU led 70-22 at half. Tonight's first half was a repeat. Some 1st half absurdities: The Choctaws had one field goal with 12 seconds to play and made thier 2nd FG to cut the 44-7 lead to the 44-9 halftime score; I don't think the losers had one single 1st half offensive board; IWU was up 21-0 at the 9:40 mark; IWU had 3 TOs but 2 of those came in the final 1:45 of the half when the starters were on the bench.

IWU played perhaps its best 2 halves since the D3 tournament games last year with the 2nd half of the Chicago game 6 days ago and tonight's first half. I know, it took 2 games to acomplish the feat, but the play of Victor Davis, Andrew Ziemnik, and Nick Anderson tonight was extremely encouraging. And Dylan Overstreet's point guard play was impressive in spite of scoring only 7 points. Patrick Sodemann was also good-he is simply a very smart player who maximizes his strengths.

Give Ron Rose a lot of credit for having IWU ready to perform in spite of injuries to key players. Ron Rose trivia: His D3 tournament record is 8-3 record with none of the 11 games at Shirk. Pretty impressive.

[Titan Q]

Illinois Wesleyan and Hope will meet today in men's basketball for just the second time ever.  The first contest - IWU's double overtime win in Holland in Round 2 last March in front of a raucous crowd of 3675 - is considered by IWU fans to be on the short list of "most memorable Titan games ever."  The box score: http://www.iwusports.com/custompages/MBB/MBB2012/HTML/ncaa2.htm

After finishing 27-2 last season, Hope was ranked #7 in the preseason.  They've since lost 5 games:

* @ #3 North Central, 49-60
* vs NAIA II #24 Cornerstone, 63-66
* @ #14 Wheaton, 75-79
* vs Spring Arbor, 73-77 (OT)
* vs Mississippi College, 73-82

The top 8 for both teams...

Hope (4-5)
Starters:
G - Colton Overway, 6-0/170 Sr (12.4 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 6.3 apg)
G - Billy Seiler - 6-2/200, Sr (8.9 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 2.1 apg)
F - Chase DeMaadg, 6-3/190 Sr (4.7 ppg, 1.8 rpg)
F - Nate Snuggerud, 6-5/225 Sr (15.1 ppg, 5.2 rpg)
C - Nate VanArendonk, 6-10/255 Jr (6.2 ppg, 5.1 rpg)

Bench:
G - Alex Eidson, 6-2 Fr (6.8 ppg, 1.9 rpg)
C - Brock Benson, 6-8/230 Fr (5.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg)
F - Chris Ray, 6-6/200 Sr (2.7 ppg, 1.0 rpg)

Illinois Wesleyan (7-2)
Starters:
G - Dylan Overstreet, 6-3/180 So (8.6 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 3.2 apg)
G - Pat Sodemann, 6-3/190 So (13.5 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.0 apg)
F - Andrew Ziemnik, 6-4/230 Jr (10.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg)
F - Victor Davis, 6-5/235 Jr (5.8 ppg, 4.5 rpg)
F - Kevin Reed, 6-6/230 Sr (10.0 ppg, 8.1 rpg, 2.9 rpg)

Bench:
F - Eric Dortch, 6-3/210 Jr (4.2 ppg, 4.3 rpg)
C - Nick Anderson, 6-9/200 Jr (3.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg)
G - Bryce Dolan, 6-0/155 Fr (3.4 ppg, 1.7 apg)

IWU will once again be without key perimeter players Brady Zimmer and Mike Mayberger...I'm not sure what the Hope injury picture looks like.

Illinois Wesleyan and Hope are two of the most successful programs in NCAA Division III history.  I'm glad Ron Rose and Matt Neil scheduled this series.

The game (3:00pm ET/2:00pm CT) can be heard on WJBC with Eric Stock on play-by-play: http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/wjbc.portal#. 
Live stats here: http://livestats.hope.edu/bb/

[Titan Q]

Article from the Holland Sentinel about the IWU/Hope game...

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/sports/sports_hope/x1353224373/Hope-mens-basketball-faces-tourney-rematch-with-Illinois-Wesleyan


A WJBC piece about Andrew Ziemnik's hair...

http://www.wjbc.com/common/page.php?pt=Illinois+Wesleyan%27s+Ziemnik+lets+his+hair+down+to+lift+Titans&id=22702&is_corp=0

"Without consulting the record books, it's safe to say Andrew Ziemnik has the longest hair of any Illinois Wesleyan basketball player in history.

At least any men's player."