MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

MU over Aurora tonight in Decatur, 79-70.  Big Blue are 3-0 and off to a good start.  The reconstruction and recovery process is well under way. 

IWU70

[sac]

Final moments of the Wheaton/Loras game...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvmUSkyEUkw

That sequence starts with Wheaton up 1.

November court rush     


Nice Gym!

[Titan Q]

I watched the final 10 minutes or so of the Millikin/Aurora game.  There are definitely some very good things happening in Decatur.  They had a good crowd (disclaimer - the curtain was down) that was very loud and into the game. 

As for the Big Blue, they are still pretty rough in a lot of ways, but they have a lot of talent.  That was a pretty good Aurora team they beat tonight. 

Millikin is without question on the rise.  Matt Nadelhoffer is building it the right way.

[Greek Tragedy]

North Central wins by 57 tonight while Grinnell wins by 45 and 50 recently. Where's the outcry???     

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Grinnell.  Not much else to say about the coach's attitude or approach, but I will say this.  After last year's debacle against a team from Faith (Christian/Baptist/whatever), I contacted the AD and the head coach at Grinnell.  Both defended the basketball program and said they have no problem in embarrassing an outmanned opponent. 

I say that Grinnell needs to re-read the principles that govern Division III.  Isn't there anything in there about respecting your opponent and displaying sportsmanship?  I guess maybe these principles don't apply any place where illiterate and/or insensitive people are running the circus.

The only alternative is for schools to not schedule Grinnell in hoops.

Are you sure you heard from Sr.? He is known for having his son answer questions without telling people it's Jr.

[BlueJay21]

Elmhurst 77
Benedictine 76

Coach John Baines gets his first win at Benedictine last night. Bryant Ackerman came off the bench to score 20 points. Nick Sanford had another double-double with 17 and 10. Kyle Wuest also dropped in 17 to help the Bluejays get a road win.

Elmhurst is starting freshman Tucker Harlan from Washington, IL. He played 35 minutes last night and had 8 points. I believe that makes 3 players starting in the CCIW from the same high school team. Impressive, to say the least.

[cciwrabblerouser]

Grinnell.  Not much else to say about the coach's attitude or approach, but I will say this.  After last year's debacle against a team from Faith (Christian/Baptist/whatever), I contacted the AD and the head coach at Grinnell.  Both defended the basketball program and said they have no problem in embarrassing an outmanned opponent. 

I say that Grinnell needs to re-read the principles that govern Division III.  Isn't there anything in there about respecting your opponent and displaying sportsmanship?  I guess maybe these principles don't apply any place where illiterate and/or insensitive people are running the circus.

The only alternative is for schools to not schedule Grinnell in hoops.

Are you sure you heard from Sr.? He is known for having his son answer questions without telling people it's Jr.

I sent my question by e-mail to their G-nell accounts.  I cannot vouch who may have answered the questions but their replies were sent from the AD's and the head coach's e-mail accounts at "The Circus."

[iwu70]

Congrats to John Baines on his first win of his head coaching career at Elmhurst.  I'm sure as time goes by there will be many more to come.  EC will be in a re-building mode too -- though it seems the process at MU is further along now.  MU's win over Aurora last night is a pretty good win. 

Sure have had a bad week this week in "Pick'em" -- and I think most of us participating will have a pretty bad record this week.  CCIW has not had a very strong start -- I think something like 11-7 so far.  Women are doing much much better in the pre-CCIW portion -- at 16-5 so far.

IWU70

[AppletonRocks]

Grinnell.  Not much else to say about the coach's attitude or approach, but I will say this.  After last year's debacle against a team from Faith (Christian/Baptist/whatever), I contacted the AD and the head coach at Grinnell.  Both defended the basketball program and said they have no problem in embarrassing an outmanned opponent. 

I say that Grinnell needs to re-read the principles that govern Division III.  Isn't there anything in there about respecting your opponent and displaying sportsmanship?  I guess maybe these principles don't apply any place where illiterate and/or insensitive people are running the circus.

The only alternative is for schools to not schedule Grinnell in hoops.

Are you sure you heard from Sr.? He is known for having his son answer questions without telling people it's Jr.

I think that the NCAA or the MWC needs to give Little Dave a new moniker, like "D-Mac".   Mr. McHugh, what do you think?

[John Gleich]

Elmhurst 77
Benedictine 76

Coach John Baines gets his first win at Benedictine last night. Bryant Ackerman came off the bench to score 20 points. Nick Sanford had another double-double with 17 and 10. Kyle Wuest also dropped in 17 to help the Bluejays get a road win.

Elmhurst is starting freshman Tucker Harlan from Washington, IL. He played 35 minutes last night and had 8 points. I believe that makes 3 players starting in the CCIW from the same high school team. Impressive, to say the least.

There was likely a reunion of sorts at this game... Benedictine Assistant Steve Kollar (who I played with at Wheaton North in the late 90's and who played for Elmhurst in the early Oughts) was an assistant at St. Francis under Baines for the last few years.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Grinnell.  Not much else to say about the coach's attitude or approach, but I will say this.  After last year's debacle against a team from Faith (Christian/Baptist/whatever), I contacted the AD and the head coach at Grinnell.  Both defended the basketball program and said they have no problem in embarrassing an outmanned opponent. 

I say that Grinnell needs to re-read the principles that govern Division III.  Isn't there anything in there about respecting your opponent and displaying sportsmanship?  I guess maybe these principles don't apply any place where illiterate and/or insensitive people are running the circus.

The only alternative is for schools to not schedule Grinnell in hoops.

Are you sure you heard from Sr.? He is known for having his son answer questions without telling people it's Jr.

I think that the NCAA or the MWC needs to give Little Dave a new moniker, like "D-Mac".   Mr. McHugh, what do you think?

Already taken and I think I may need to now trademark it LOL.

[Greek Tragedy]

D-Mac^TM   

[Gregory Sager]

Wisconsin Lutheran beats North Park 89-83. Aaron Weaver led the Vikings with a game high 25 points.

No, he didn't. Weaver did score 25, but the scoring leader for the game was NPU freshman Juwan Henry, who had 31 points on 12-19 shooting from the field. He also had eight steals, which ties the school record set by Danny James against Bethel in 1989-90. Henry also had a very tidy 3:0 assist:turnover ratio.

It was a dismal affair. The young Vikings were again badly outplayed for a good chunk of the game, and the rebounding bulge in favor of WLC was a truly horrible 48-24. North Park is just getting eaten alive on the boards. It's not really fair to pin the blame for that on Nate Rummel, because, as hard as he tries, he's basically just a role player with a very limited game. And the freshman bigs are much too raw to contribute anything at the varsity level as of yet. But it's not just about the bigs. Nobody's hitting the boards at all for NPU -- and nobody's boxing out, either.

The lone bright spot, aside from the scoreboard heroics of Henry and Weaver, was the six-and-a-half-minute sequence in the second half in which the Vikings simply stole the ball at will from WLC at the top of the key or at halfcourt, turning an 11-point deficit at the 17:31 mark to a four-point lead with 11 minutes to go on the strength of ten steals out of the 16 possessions that WLC had in that sequence. It was really something to see. Seven of those ten steals were by Henry. NPU has several freshman who might amount to something in this league, but Juwan Henry is clearly already a CCIW-caliber player.

Unfortunately, the Vikings expended too much energy on that comeback, and the Warriors slowly prevailed down the stretch. A lot of shots by the Vikings late in the game fell short, the time-honored sign of a weary team. That's the problem with coming back from being down by double digits in the second half -- you often just plain run out of steam at the end, even if you catch your opponent, because you had to work that much harder on defense than you would've under normal circumstances.

For the most part, though, it was just an unpleasant loss to an opponent that should never beat a CCIW squad, but which has now beaten North Park two years in a row. This is going to be the fourth straight season in which the Vikings are not going to be competitive. It's just plain tough to watch. Plus, I had to call the game while nursing a cold, which wasn't much fun, either.

[Iwufan]

IWU Brady Zimmer could play this weekend

Dylan Overstreet out 3-4 weeks with torn mcl suffered at practice Wednesday

[robberki]

Wisconsin Lutheran beats North Park 89-83. Aaron Weaver led the Vikings with a game high 25 points.

No, he didn't. Weaver did score 25, but the scoring leader for the game was NPU freshman Juwan Henry, who had 31 points on 12-19 shooting from the field. He also had eight steals, which ties the school record set by Danny James against Bethel in 1989-90. Henry also had a very tidy 3:0 assist:turnover ratio.

It was a dismal affair. The young Vikings were again badly outplayed for a good chunk of the game, and the rebounding bulge in favor of WLC was a truly horrible 48-24. North Park is just getting eaten alive on the boards. It's not really fair to pin the blame for that on Nate Rummel, because, as hard as he tries, he's basically just a role player with a very limited game. And the freshman bigs are much too raw to contribute anything at the varsity level as of yet. But it's not just about the bigs. Nobody's hitting the boards at all for NPU -- and nobody's boxing out, either.

The lone bright spot, aside from the scoreboard heroics of Henry and Weaver, was the six-and-a-half-minute sequence in the second half in which the Vikings simply stole the ball at will from WLC at the top of the key or at halfcourt, turning an 11-point deficit at the 17:31 mark to a four-point lead with 11 minutes to go on the strength of ten steals out of the 16 possessions that WLC had in that sequence. It was really something to see. Seven of those ten steals were by Henry. NPU has several freshman who might amount to something in this league, but Juwan Henry is clearly already a CCIW-caliber player.

Unfortunately, the Vikings expended too much energy on that comeback, and the Warriors slowly prevailed down the stretch. A lot of shots by the Vikings late in the game fell short, the time-honored sign of a weary team. That's the problem with coming back from being down by double digits in the second half -- you often just plain run out of steam at the end, even if you catch your opponent, because you had to work that much harder on defense than you would've under normal circumstances.

For the most part, though, it was just an unpleasant loss to an opponent that should never beat a CCIW squad, but which has now beaten North Park two years in a row. This is going to be the fourth straight season in which the Vikings are not going to be competitive. It's just plain tough to watch. Plus, I had to call the game while nursing a cold, which wasn't much fun, either.

....and your partner was MIA as well!