MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[John Gleich]

IWU made 19 3-pointers tonight.  That tied an all-time school record (19 vs Millikin, 2/20/93).

19 3's is quite an achievement.

I think IWU might have installed the extra wide baskets for last night's game... North Park hit 7/14 from deep as well!

[Titan Q]

Through 24 games, IWU is now 241-557 from 3-point range (.433). 

[wheels81]

Nate Frank will be providing color on WETN which I think is a nice addition (understatement) to the broadcast.  I listened to his first broadcast this year a couple of weeks ago and he just brings a wealth of insight and information as well as style that isn't forced or contrived. 

[izzy stradlin]

Through 24 games, IWU is now 241-557 from 3-point range (.433).

That's the equivalent of shooting 65% inside the arch as a team.   Yikes.

[AndOne]

Nate Frank will be providing color on WETN which I think is a nice addition (understatement) to the broadcast.  I listened to his first broadcast this year a couple of weeks ago and he just brings a wealth of insight and information as well as style that isn't forced or contrived.

Right on Wheels81. Best color guy I've heard all year.

[wheels81]

Through 24 games, IWU is now 241-557 from 3-point range (.433).

That's the equivalent of shooting 65% inside the arch as a team.   Yikes.

Is that where you get those tasty fries and big mac's?

[URockets]

Starters for IWU j.v. team were -
5 -11 Soph. Brian Nelms
6 - 3 Fresh. Andy Stempel
6 - 8 Junior Brandon Heyen
6 - 8 Fresh. Trevor Seibring
6 - 0 Soph. Joel Pennington

bench players -
6 - 1 Fresh. Spencer Seibring
6 - 10 Fresh. Max Scholle
6 - 2 Fresh. Jordan Turner

Correct, Brandon Heyen is a Junior, but only a Sophomore in eligibility.  Keep in mind he only played in a handful of j.v. games as a Freshman due to 2 non-related injuries, and just came back a few weeks ago.  With all of that time out, he is not able to play yet to his current potential and conditioning, let alone his off-season work to improve when he is now able and healthy.   

[Naperick]

With the conference tournament just a week away, here's a quick look at some totals from the past eight years:

Championships:  Augie 3, NC 3, Carthage 1, Wheaton 1

Appearances (counting this year's field): Augie 9, Wheaton 8, IWU 7, NC 6, Elmhurst 3, Carthage 2

Augie (07 & 08) and NC (12 & 13) the only teams to win back to back titles

Elmhurst has 4 appearances in the CCIW Tourney - 2006-2009.

[AndOne]

Starters for IWU j.v. team were -
5 -11 Soph. Brian Nelms
6 - 3 Fresh. Andy Stempel
6 - 8 Junior Brandon Heyen
6 - 8 Fresh. Trevor Seibring
6 - 0 Soph. Joel Pennington

bench players -
6 - 1 Fresh. Spencer Seibring
6 - 10 Fresh. Max Scholle
6 - 2 Fresh. Jordan Turner

It seems surprising that guys like Ryan Coyle, Rob Mahlke, and Alec Bausch didn't/don't play. All are on the varsity roster (have uniform numbers) but really never see any varsity playing time. And, this late in the season, they aren't  going to exceed the NCAA 25 game regular season limit, even with their (few) varsity and JV game totals combined.

Don't know about the others, but I know Coyle was very heavily recruited. Most of us are aware that he was injured most of last year (concussion problems I believe) and wasn't able to get playing time. However, I've not heard of him having injury problems this season. Accordingly, if the IWU coaching staff wants to get him ready for next year, it seems like he would be playing JV, especially considering he has played only 42 varsity minutes all season. Or, is he also injured this year?

Also, like Jordan Turner, Austin Amann, Danny Roadman. Chris Rudnicki, and Brady Sanders are all still listed on the roster (no numbers/not on varsity), but didn't appear in the JV game which seems odd. Are all still in the picture/on the team?

[robberki]

Nate Frank will be providing color on WETN which I think is a nice addition (understatement) to the broadcast.  I listened to his first broadcast this year a couple of weeks ago and he just brings a wealth of insight and information as well as style that isn't forced or contrived.

Right on Wheels81. Best color guy I've heard all year.

that hurts

[AndOne]

Sorry Rob.

I'm AT most games so I don't listen that often. I couldn't make the game at NPU this year so I tuned in to the broadcast. On that particular evening, the color "man" was a woman whose voice and analysis frankly left much to be desired (I understand she is a grad student who was "assigned" to do the game by the AD or ass't AD).

Anyway, when he was introducing that night's broadcast partner, Sager said you ate so much at your pre-game meal at Charcoal Delights that evening, that you were unable to get out of your chair and report for duty on time. Hence, the substitute color person. Believe me, I wish you had been there. 

[AndOne]

SCHEDULE CHANGE

For any interested parties, Elmhurst has changed the start times of both the women's and men's games vs North Central this coming Sat., 2/22.

The games were originally scheduled for 5:00 and 7:00 respectively. However, at some point Elmhurst changed the start times to 2:00 for the women's game, and 4:00 for the men's as they are evidently entitled to do.

An interesting sideline to the changes was the fact that Elmhurst apparently failed to advise anyone at North Central of said changes, which were luckily discovered by accident only late yesterday afternoon. It seems one of the NCC men's ass't coaches was on the phone with an Elmhurst ass't to discuss the possibility of a men's JV game prior to the women's/men's varsity games Sat. When a JV time of 2:00 was suggested, the EC response was along the lines of "we can't do that because the women's game is at 2:00 and the men's at 4:00." This came as quite a surprise to both of the NCC head coaches who were in at the time as neither had heard anything about any change being made to the original 5:00 and 7:00 start times, and who were prepared to show up in accordance with those times.

Whatever the cause of the Elmhurst miscommunication  , the new start times have now been confirmed for 2:00 for the women, and 4:00 for the men, and the two school's web sites have been adjusted to show the changes.

Seems like a double helping of good luck. Now, besides showing up at the newly scheduled times, any interested EC and NCC fans will be able to attend the IWU @ Wheaton battle @ 7:00. 

[D-3 watcher]

Ryan Coyle, Rob Mahlke and Alec Bausch, are all still on the team but all are injured.
As far as the other five, I saw at least 4 of them play Saturday vs. the alums.

[huckleberry]

Hopefully the officiating crew on Sat at King Arena will not include Mr "Don't Mind I wasn't in the right position to make that call" Falkner

The wonderful things that botanists are doing nowadays ... now they've developed a huckleberry that smells like sour grapes.

hats off to Kenny Faulkner who truly was the star of tonight's festivities. All the Gregory Arena renovations looked great and really provided Kenny with a grand stage. Sure was mighty convenient of the Thunder and Cardinals to show up and provide a little side entertainment to accompany the main show.

I say this not at all because Wheaton lost (they certainly deserved to) but because this game got away from the officials early and was over their heads from the beginning. Wheaton-North Central is always a dogfight and it was instead called at times like a ballet recital and at other times like a cage match. Much of the game was hard to figure out what was and what wasn't a foul. With a terrific basketball game going on, we had to see Landon Gamble, Jack Burchett, Brandon Williams, Nate Haynes, Tyler Peters, and more miss significant minutes in both halves due to foul trouble.

Hopefully the officiating crew on Sat at King Arena will not include Mr "Don't Mind I wasn't in the right position to make that call" Falkner

Singling out Kenny Faulkner as the focal point for the ills that plague officiating within the conference is short sided at best. There are several more refs besides Mr. Faulkner who regularly display deficiencies in hustle, positioning, interpretation, decisiveness, consistency, poise, and communication. Many of these problems are a function of both age and habit. Several of the refs lack the physical agility and quickness to keep up with the game, and many have been in the habit of calling a game a certain way for multitude of years and not only won't, but can't change the manner in which they view and interpret game action.

I understand that Ken Faulkner draws attention to himself because he's a pretty domineering figure on the floor. But I haven't observed this season that he or any of the other long-in-the-tooth refs in this league are really the problem. The refs that I've seen call games poorly have tended to be the younger refs. And by "poorly" I'm not simply referring to getting calls wrong, because every official out there gets calls wrong. It comes with the job. I'm referring mostly to their in-game inconsistency in making calls. As I've said time and time again, all I ask from an official is that: a) he or she understands even the most esoteric rules of the game, and enforces them properly; b) he or she gets into position to make the calls, and doesn't try to make calls when he or she is out of position to get an unobstructed view of the incident; and c) he or she calls the games the same way for both teams and for all forty minutes. And the younger guys, more often than not, are especially bad at c) with regard to the forty-minutes-of-consistent-calls clause.

The way that the new points of emphasis have shaken out this year is much the way that I predicted they'd go: Many of the old warhorses flirted with calling the games the new way at first before reverting to calling them the way that they've always called them. A few of the older refs (Dennis Bracco, John Hodel, and Fritz Larson come to mind) have been sticklers for calling the games the way that the NCAA has instructed them to do so, and their games have tended to be the whistle-happy ones that seem to have a lot of fans up in arms. (My broadcast partner Rob Berki's one of the people who isn't thrilled by letter-of-the-law enforcement of the new points of emphasis; his on-air mantra this year has been a sarcastic, "Do ya like fouls, Greg?"  ) But, by and large, those older guys call their games consistently, while some of the younger guys don't. I can deal with 50 fouls in a game, as long as they're called fairly and consistently so that every player on the floor knows what he can or cannot get away with.

(I do have some issues with the demeanor of certain refs in this league, but those issues don't necessarily have anything to do with the in-game competence of those refs.)

No sour grapes, I don't think my post in any way was blaming the officiating for Thunder defeat.... as noted above Wheaton lost because NCC outplayed us. Rarely are games won or lost because of officiating.....  I am merely wishing that CCIW sends it's best crew to King Arena for the big one and in my opinion that does not include Mr Falkner. In watching his officiating for the better part of 10 years he does not meet in my opinion the level of consistency we both seem to value as fans.  Most recent example inconsistency   Wheaton vs NCC  2/18/14.  At some point the learning curve for a veteran official needs to show some improvement.

[D-3 watcher]

Q,
So what I'm hearing, (reading) you don't think IWU starting line up will be

PG 6-6 Alex Rossi
SG 6-8 Branden Heyen
SF 6-8 Parker Mussleman
PF 6-8 Trevor Seibring
C.  6-8 Mike Marieti

I don't know, IWU 70 seems to have some insider information