MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

AndOne, I saw one of the key IWU players on campus today and he thought they'd only be taking 15 players to Winona State, but he wasn't entirely sure.  FYI.

IWU70

[AndOne]

Makes sense. Long trip and an exhibition as opposed to a scrimmage. Assuming most of those being left home will be freshmen.

[John Gleich]

One of the difficult things with rankings, especially preseason rankings, is rating teams of a certain level against our perceptions of what a team ranked at #5 or #12 "should be."

I know I've had to fight against this when doing the posters poll, especially because there oftentimes seem to be a slew of teams all at the same level, but none of them rises to the top and none of them fit my perception about what a team ranked #9, or #10 should be.

I've finally had to simply list the teams out and decide which team was the best among the slew... and rank them the highest among the group, no matter what ranking that makes them be.

It's led to some dissatisfaction in my rankings... some teams seem to high and others too low... but there can only BE one team ranked at #12, even if I fell like 6 teams match my perception of what a #12 team should be.

[Greek Tragedy]

Throw off the poster's poll this year by ranking 5 teams at #10 to see what Ypsi and Co. do! 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Throw off the poster's poll this year by ranking 5 teams at #10 to see what Ypsi and Co. do! 

Troublemaker!

You planning to be a voter this year?

[newCCIWfan]

2013 CCIW Preseason Men's Basketball Poll
Illinois Wesleyan - 48 (6);
Wheaton - 44 (2);
Augustana - 36;
North Central - 30;
Carthage - 22;
Millikin - 21;
Elmhurst - 16;
North Park - 7.

[iwu70]

This poll is about what many in this room expected, right?

The coach's poll gives more respect to Wheaton than I did, but we're all pretty clear on the top four:  IWU, NCC, AC and WC.  I had MU above Carthage, as I recall.

Let the games begin . . . only about two weeks now 'til tip-off.

IWU plays D2 Winona State up in MN. this weekend in an exhibition tune-up.  I bet Coach Rose is starting to settle on a starting five and on the possible 4-6 player rotation, still testing out some combinations.  Hope Brady Zimmer's back is behaving, allowing him to get some minutes to prep for the season. 

Nelson still recovering, Marietti likely on injured reserve (knees). 

IWU70

[iwu70]

Some very interesting ideas, options for where future men's and women's Final Fours may be held -- 2014-2018, a five year deal?  See D3hoop.com lead story.

IWU70

[AndOne]

Last night North Central hosted the inappropriately named Concordia University-Chicago Cougars of River Forest in a scrimmage, the result of which was a fairly lopsided 30+ point victory (1st 2 halves) which was a rather easily arrived at forgone conclusion. The Cardinals were paced by a 28 point performance by sophomore Kevin "Hondo" Honn whose point total was achieved by a nice combination of 3 pointers, drives to the basket, and mid range jumpers. Vince "Bomber" Kmiec had 17 including 2 or 3 treys from well beyond NBA distance. "Big" Jack Burchette scored 15, ""Little" Jack Merrithey 12, and soph Tyler "T-Sut" Sutton 8.

Of equal interest to the scrimmage action was the referees interpretation and application of this season's new set of rules which leave little doubt that they were designed with their primary intent being to severely limit physical play. Should they be universally enforced, you may as well substitute the Rules Of Golf Handbook for the Basketball Rules Handbook as "gentlemanly" play will be the (new) name of the game. A large degree of grinding and bumping will now be outlawed. In a historically tough, physical conference such as the CCIW, the new rules are going to cause a sharp contrast between what fans have gotten used to seeing and the new reality.
Between the 2nd and 3rd halves last night, a couple of other fans and I engaged one of the refs in a discussion and demonstration of what is and isn't allowed under the new directives. In summary, it seems like a player stands a very good chance of having an infraction called against him should he do little more than breathe to heavily on his man.
It won't be a surprise seeing a big man or an aggressive perimeter defender occasionally foul out before halftime. And, if you plan on attending a game, be prepared to spend an average of 10-20 minutes more in the gym each time than you have become accustomed to over past years. 

[iwu70]

AndOne, share your assessment entirely -- saw the same exercise during the IWU Green/White scrimmage, with Coach Rose spending a lot of time explaining to players, having the refs working the scrimmage explain to players, then demonstrating the new realities.  The scrimmage was then broken up by many many calls -- a very broken, disjointed flow, or lack thereof, and the good defensive players who play good tight D, having many calls on them.  Gonna hurt a strong defensive team, and guys who like to play good tough on-ball D like Dortch and others.  They could easily be in foul trouble in the first half.  This will also help quick guys, offensive slashers and also put a greater premium on teams who overall shoot FTs well.  The games will be longer by 10 minutes or per half, IMHO.   It could be a new type of game for the CCIW.  Can't say I really welcome this, as IWU has been in recent years a very good, tough defensive squad and has not been the best from the charity stripe either.  (Some Titans are excellent FT shooters, but others are below 70%). 

We'll see.  Surely going to require some adjustments and re-think by many players and teams.  For some, I think a pretty hard adjustment to make. 

Thanks for the write-up on the NCC scrimmage.

IWU70

[iwu70]

Text of the Ron Rose's CCIW coaches chat up on the IWU site now.  I'm not surprised that, when asked about replacing Kevin Reed at the 5, Rose mentioned Anderson, Marietti and Trevor Seibing. In talking about a possible "different look" with smaller guys, he of course mentioned Davis, Zman, Dortch and Ryan Coyle. Not surprised at all about these young guys getting mentioned.  It's possible that Seibring and Coyle will get some minutes, esp. if others in front of them in the depth chart have injuries or issues.  When asked about back-ups for Overstreet, who averaged 32 minutes a game last year, Rose mentioned Doyle, Nelms and (when returned) Nelson.

Any other particularly interesting or salient news from the other coaches in the CCIW coaches chat?

IWU70

[sac]

Last night North Central hosted the inappropriately named Concordia University-Chicago Cougars of River Forest in a scrimmage, the result of which was a fairly lopsided 30+ point victory (1st 2 halves) which was a rather easily arrived at forgone conclusion. The Cardinals were paced by a 28 point performance by sophomore Kevin "Hondo" Honn whose point total was achieved by a nice combination of 3 pointers, drives to the basket, and mid range jumpers. Vince "Bomber" Kmiec had 17 including 2 or 3 treys from well beyond NBA distance. "Big" Jack Burchette scored 15, ""Little" Jack Merrithey 12, and soph Tyler "T-Sut" Sutton 8.

Of equal interest to the scrimmage action was the referees interpretation and application of this season's new set of rules which leave little doubt that they were designed with their primary intent being to severely limit physical play. Should they be universally enforced, you may as well substitute the Rules Of Golf Handbook for the Basketball Rules Handbook as "gentlemanly" play will be the (new) name of the game. A large degree of grinding and bumping will now be outlawed. In a historically tough, physical conference such as the CCIW, the new rules are going to cause a sharp contrast between what fans have gotten used to seeing and the new reality.
Between the 2nd and 3rd halves last night, a couple of other fans and I engaged one of the refs in a discussion and demonstration of what is and isn't allowed under the new directives. In summary, it seems like a player stands a very good chance of having an infraction called against him should he do little more than breathe to heavily on his man.
It won't be a surprise seeing a big man or an aggressive perimeter defender occasionally foul out before halftime. And, if you plan on attending a game, be prepared to spend an average of 10-20 minutes more in the gym each time than you have become accustomed to over past years.

I'm interested how these new rules are enforced, but I think the real test comes once the post-season games begin.  Will they maintain their point of emphasis or will they regress to previous levels of physical play?

[Titan Q]

Pantagraph article on the CCIW preseason poll...

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/iwu-men-picked-to-win-cciw/article_8cd6e530-418d-11e3-8ade-0019bb2963f4.html


IWU 6-8 sophomore center Mike Marietti had knee surgery this week and is out until at least January.  A healthy Marietti would have very much been in the mix to start at the 5.

[Gregory Sager]

Last night North Central hosted the inappropriately named Concordia University-Chicago Cougars of River Forest in a scrimmage, the result of which was a fairly lopsided 30+ point victory (1st 2 halves) which was a rather easily arrived at forgone conclusion. The Cardinals were paced by a 28 point performance by sophomore Kevin "Hondo" Honn whose point total was achieved by a nice combination of 3 pointers, drives to the basket, and mid range jumpers. Vince "Bomber" Kmiec had 17 including 2 or 3 treys from well beyond NBA distance. "Big" Jack Burchette scored 15, ""Little" Jack Merrithey 12, and soph Tyler "T-Sut" Sutton 8.

Of equal interest to the scrimmage action was the referees interpretation and application of this season's new set of rules which leave little doubt that they were designed with their primary intent being to severely limit physical play. Should they be universally enforced, you may as well substitute the Rules Of Golf Handbook for the Basketball Rules Handbook as "gentlemanly" play will be the (new) name of the game. A large degree of grinding and bumping will now be outlawed. In a historically tough, physical conference such as the CCIW, the new rules are going to cause a sharp contrast between what fans have gotten used to seeing and the new reality.
Between the 2nd and 3rd halves last night, a couple of other fans and I engaged one of the refs in a discussion and demonstration of what is and isn't allowed under the new directives. In summary, it seems like a player stands a very good chance of having an infraction called against him should he do little more than breathe to heavily on his man.
It won't be a surprise seeing a big man or an aggressive perimeter defender occasionally foul out before halftime. And, if you plan on attending a game, be prepared to spend an average of 10-20 minutes more in the gym each time than you have become accustomed to over past years.

I'm interested how these new rules are enforced, but I think the real test comes once the post-season games begin.  Will they maintain their point of emphasis or will they regress to previous levels of physical play?

I don't think it'll even take that long. I've seen plenty of these "point of emphasis" dealios come and go in recent years, and they always seem to take hold for about three or four weeks and then slowly vanish, as refs revert back to calling games the way that they always have.

I appreciate the fact that Mike Krizman made sure that both sessions of coaches were asked about this point of emphasis. The answers that the coaches gave were pretty revealing, and well thought-out. Grey Giovanine made a great statement that the point of emphasis has mostly affected perimeter hand-checking at the D1 level, with all of the banging inside being largely unaffected. John Baines seems to agree with me that there's some uncertainty as to whether the point of emphasis will be enforced with continuity into January and February, and he also made a trenchant reference to "our strong core of officials" -- the CCIW is reffed by a veteran bunch, by and large, many of whom have been calling games in this league for decades. Will this be a case of "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"? I guess we'll soon find out.

Bosko answered very candidly, saying that a more tightly-called game will benefit his squad, as he foresees coaching a finesse-oriented Red Men squad (which seems to fit the lack of big men currently in the program). I also agree with him -- and I'm guessing that Mark's gonna disagree with me on this -- that the college game has gotten too physical and that all of the excessive contact needs to be dialed back in order to bring creativity and flow back into the game. Mike Schauer's on board with that as well, and he agrees with Grey in terms of the likelihood of a perimeter-vs.-interior discrepancy in terms of how the point of emphasis is, uh, emphasized. Tom Slyder raises an interesting point about D1 trickle-down vis-a-vis the point of emphasis; several of our CCIW refs also call D1 games, and it will be interesting to see how that affects the way that those particular refs call our games.

It will be something to watch for, that's for certain.

[Titan Q]

IWU is definitely dealing with some adversity, health wise, to start the year.

* D1 transfer Jordan Nelson is out with an ankle that doesn't seem to be healing very well

* Brady Zimmer, the team's returning per-game leading scorer in CCIW play, is out indefinitely with ongoing back issues

* Mike Marietti had knee surgery and is out until January


Coming into the start of practice, those were 3 guys very much in the mix to compete for starting jobs.