MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

IWU's JV beat Lake Land JC tonight...

http://jg-tc.com/sports/local/we-didn-t-play-lake-land-basketball/article_60955d90-5bd1-11e3-a4dc-0019bb2963f4.html

[URockets]

Wow, good win for Carthage tonight over Wash U. Congrats to them.

IWU has Wash U at The Shirk on December 7th.  Titans need the time off, need to get more guys healthy and back in the mix, esp. Rossi and Overstreet.  Any word on when these guys and the others might get back?


IWU70

Brandon Heyen gets x-ray of his leg (stress fracture) on Monday, Dec. 2nd in hopes be cleared to play.

X-Ray looked good, bone is healed.....To be sure and not reinjure, Dr. has Brandon on regiment that is basically in 25% increments leading up to 100% activity in the 4 week.

[mr_b]

Final from Alma: North Park 79, Alma 75

[mr_b]

The Vikings kept Alma winless with a 79-75 victory in Michigan.  With the Vikings up by one with 5 seconds left, JayQuan Lee stole the ball and Reggie McGee sank two free throws to put the game in the win column.  Weaver (19 points), Gatz (18), and Henry (15) led the Viking attack.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 79, Alma 75

Aaron Weaver: 19 pts, 10 rebs
Garett Gatz: 18 pts (4-8 trey)
Juwan Henry: 15 pts
Jay'Quan Lee: 11 pts
Reggie McGee: 6 rebs

NPU fought back to win a nailbiter in the middle of the mitten tonight. It wasn't pretty, but the end result was a sigh of relief and a peaceful busride home.

The game was a close one most of the way, except for a 12-point lead run up by the Scots late in the first half that the Vikings quickly erased, as they only went into the locker room trailing by two.

Nobody led by more than four points throughout the second half. Alma had the upper hand in the seesaw affair after making a pair of FTs to go up, 74-73, with 47 ticks remaining. But Juwan Henry made a nice layup after driving the right side of the lane with 00:24 left, and Jay'Quan Lee made a huge steal in the near corner with five seconds on the game clock. He quickly passed the ball to Reggie McGee, who was immediately fouled. His two FTs put the Park up by three, and Garett Gatz then made a good foul at halfcourt with two seconds left before Alma could get off a potential game-tying trey. The Scots made the first free throw and deliberately missed the second, but Lee came down with the rebound, was fouled, and his two FTs closed out the game.

NPU got burned repeatedly with backdoor cuts; it looked as though the Vikings had never seen them before. That, and a well-chosen strategy by the Scots to back in the smaller Vikings on a lot of possessions, resulted in Alma shooting 57% from the field, with most of the shots taken by the hosts being right at the rim. The reason why NPU hung with Alma, and eventually won, was because the Vikings are just a much quicker team than the Scots, and they continually beat the home team off the dribble; NPU shot a whopping 36 free throws tonight, connecting on 26 of them (72%). The Vikes also took good care of the ball, turning it over only eight times while dishing out ten assists on the night. Any time that NPU, a team that relies much more upon dribble penetration than passing, has a positive team a:to for a game, I'm happy.

This wasn't an especially noteworthy win. Alma is winless for a reason. But the young Vikings will, quite frankly, take any win that they can get any way that they can get it.

[Gregory Sager]

In what may be the head-scratcher of the year, winless Principia defeated Millikin tonight, 83-74. T.J. Griffin, who is averaging 24 ppg for the Big Blue, didn't play.

It must've been a weird deja vu moment for Matt Nadelhoffer, as this snapped a 57-game losing streak for Principia that dated all the way back to February 2011.

[AndOne]

You would think that T.J. Griffin's presence would not be needed to defeat a team with 57 straight losses.
Besides the loss itself, its noteworthy than MU was ahead by 7 at the half, and was then outscored by 17 in the 2nd half. 17!
Wonder why Griffin didn't play. Definitely a bummer for MU should his absence be an extended one.

[Pat Coleman]

Eureka appears to be the only college  known as the Red Devils.
There are 26 high schools around the country that use Red Devils as their nickname/mascot name.

Little behind on this board, but Dickinson is also the Red Devils.
http://www.d3hoops.com/teams/Dickinson/men/2013-14/index

[Gregory Sager]

You would think that T.J. Griffin's presence would not be needed to defeat a team with 57 straight losses.

My thoughts exactly.

Wonder why Griffin didn't play. Definitely a bummer for MU should his absence be an extended one.

I think that that would exceed "bummer" status and go straight to "catastrophe" if you're a Big Blue fan. Griffin and Deavis Johnson are MU's bread and butter.

The MU website says that Griffin missed the game due to illness. Nothing more specific than that was included in the game story.

Eureka appears to be the only college  known as the Red Devils.
There are 26 high schools around the country that use Red Devils as their nickname/mascot name.

Little behind on this board, but Dickinson is also the Red Devils.
http://www.d3hoops.com/teams/Dickinson/men/2013-14/index

Nice catch, Pat. I should've remembered Dickinson; I even know somebody who graduated from there.

[Titan Q]

Interesting game tonight in Kenosha between the Red Men and last year's NAIA D2 national champions - Cardinal Stritch.  The Wolves are currently ranked #4 in NAIA D2.

http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=206741768&DB_OEM_ID=27900

http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=27900&ATCLID=209331585

The Wolves are 7-2 with losses @ NCAA D2 UW-Parkside and @ NAIA D2 #19 St. Francis (IN).  They have a win over NCAA D2 Winona State.

Cardinal Stritch is led by 6-3 Sr G Derek Semenas (19.6 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 3.9 apg) and 5-11 Jr G Tony Smit (13.6 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 5.2 apg).  In the frontcourt they start a 6-7 F and a 6-9 C.

Carthage is probably a 7-8 point underdog at home in this one - heck, maybe more.

[Titan Q]

Augustana 67
Loras 65


Cardinal Stritch 70
Carthage 69


Wheaton 84
Chicago 61


Elmhurst 78
Kalamazoo 75

[bopol]

Carthage put up a heckuva fight tonight and would have subdued many teams.  Stritch has some excellent three-point shooters and that was the difference (Stritch hit two threes near the end when a miss would have buried them).  It's hard to tell over the internet how good a team is, but I think Stritch would definitely do well in the CCIW (how do you guys rate NAIA D2 vs. NCAA D3 anyway?). 

Good game for Donte Logan who was really attacking the basket (20 pts, 5 RBs, 5 AS).  Marlon Senior had a great first half, but didn't do as much in the 2nd.  Good game for Reese Herth (19 points) Cameron Van Wyk gave some quality minutes off the bench with quite a few good rebounds (6 in 11 minutes).  Mike Kastel had a great line (6 pts, 6 rebounds, 4 blocks, 4 fouls).

I've seen enough to say that I think this Carthage team looks better than last year's team as they are getting exceptional play out of Donte Logan and Marlon Senior so far and solid play out of new big Mike Kastel and returning guards Kevin Sykes Jr and Reese Herth.  With Malcom Kelly back after the end of the semester, I'm seeing a very competitive CCIW team. 

[Titan Q]

Carthage put up a heckuva fight tonight and would have subdued many teams.  Stritch has some excellent three-point shooters and that was the difference (Stritch hit two threes near the end when a miss would have buried them).  It's hard to tell over the internet how good a team is, but I think Stritch would definitely do well in the CCIW (how do you guys rate NAIA D2 vs. NCAA D3 anyway?). 

I believe Cardinal Stritch would be right in the middle of the CCIW title picture this year.  That was a really good showing by Carthage tonight.  I watched a lot of that game online - the Red Men are much improved this year.  Carthage is going to give a lot of teams trouble.  I do think Carthage is too thin in the low post though - that will hurt them.

I usually consider the top 5 of NAIA D2 to be very even with the top 5 of NCAA D3 - I don't see much separation there.  I believe the top 5 of NAIA D1 is significantly better than the top 5 of NCAA D3.  The elite NAIA D1 teams would typically be competitive with good NCAA D2 teams.

[izzy stradlin]

Wheaton 84
Chicago 61

Interesting that Joel Smith took Michael Berg's place in the starting lineup and played significantly more minutes than Berg tonight.   I thought he did a nice job going 3-6 from the field with 8 pts. 

Peters (triple double with only 3 TO's) and Teuscher with strong games.

Schauer said in the post-game that he takes the blame for Peters trying to do too much on his own for Wheaton prior to today and this is why they have struggled somewhat.   He had something like 27 TO's in the first five games.

[AndOne]

Wheaton 84
Chicago 61

Interesting that Joel Smith took Michael Berg's place in the starting lineup and played significantly more minutes than Berg tonight.   I thought he did a nice job going 3-6 from the field with 8 pts. 

Peters (triple double with only 3 TO's) and Teuscher with strong games.

Schauer said in the post-game that he takes the blame for Peters trying to do too much on his own for Wheaton prior to today and this is why they have struggled somewhat.   He had something like 27 TO's in the first five games.