MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton 64
Luther 51

[Titan Q]

IWU 82
Webster 69

http://www.iwusports.com/boxscore.aspx?id=4061&path=

* Andy Stempel: 19 pts, 7 reb
* Colin Bonnett: 15 pts, 6 reb, 3 assists
* Trevor Seibring: 15 pts, 5 reb
* Alec Bausch: 11 pts, 5 reb, 4 assists
* Brady Rose: 9 pts, 7 reb

[augiefan]

My apologies to GS. All in all a good night for the CCIW. I think it benefits all of us to hope for success for all of the conference teams in the nonconferenc. I am on board with all of our teams winnng in those games. Helps strengthen our post season prospects, when we start beating each other up in conference play.

[Titan Q]

Regarding Augustana, I watched a lot of their game vs Alma tonight.  In my opinion the Vikings are absolutely not overrated.  I will go as far as to say this - Augie is more talented this year than last year.  Now, that talent is young and/or experienced, so it is not all meshed together yet, and not always pretty.  But I believe this might be the most talented Grey Giovanine Augie team I have seen.

[Gregory Sager]

Yeah, I'm the one that said Alma was greatly over-rated.  I also suspect that Augie is greatly over-ranked, but, since they won, I'll withhold judgement.  My point was that beating Alma (even at Alma) does not necessarily show that they are NOT over-ranked.  We'll find out in the coming weeks.

I agree, Chuck. I watched this game, and what I saw were two talented teams with a lot of promise that, nevertheless, are really more ORV types than Second Ten types at the moment -- although I understand the protests of the d3hoops.com pollsters who shrug their shoulders and say, "Hey, when we made this particular preseason poll, everything beyond the top eight or so was a matter of throwing darts at slips of paper attached to the dartboard."

My apologies to GS. All in all a good night for the CCIW. I think it benefits all of us to hope for success for all of the conference teams in the nonconferenc. I am on board with all of our teams winnng in those games. Helps strengthen our post season prospects, when we start beating each other up in conference play.

No problem, and I agree with you completely about supporting all of the league's teams in non-con play.

[Gregory Sager]

Regarding Augustana, I watched a lot of their game vs Alma tonight.  In my opinion the Vikings are absolutely not overrated.  I will go as far as to say this - Augie is more talented this year than last year.  Now, that talent is young and/or experienced, so it is not all meshed together yet, and not always pretty.  But I believe this might be the most talented Grey Giovanine Augie team I have seen.

Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree on Augustana not being overrated at the moment, and I think that the jury's still out on this being Giovanine's most talented team. But it is very talented, and I do agree with you that, purely in terms of raw material, it's at least right there with last year's Augie team, if not better.

Jacob Johnston in particular has improved leaps and bounds over last year.

[Gregory Sager]

Westminster (MO) 80
Millikin 54

That's definitely got to be the most lopsided SLIAC win over a CCIW team ever.

[kenoshamark]

http://athletics.carthage.edu/boxscore.aspx?id=4854&path=mbball

I attended the game tonight and have a few thoughts.   Olivet is a pretty bad team so the lopsided score should be put into that perspective.  Carthage's size and quickness completely overmatched Olivet and this one was over early.  Olivet tried to press three quarter court just to switch things up and see if they could create some turnovers.  Kevin Kozil, the point guard, did a solid job all night registering eleven assists and no turnovers, despite the constant pressure. 

Nice balanced scoring with Drew Joiner coming off the bench to lead the team.  There are definitely some nice young pieces between the freshmen and the sophomore transfer, Jordan Thomas.   Perry used his size advantage to score around the hoop and Banks and Baltimore showed some inside presence as well.   Thomas and Joiner lit it up with their three point shooting. 

Like I said, this all has to be tempered until they play someone that will match up and guard them like they will see during the conference season.  Nonetheless, after a couple of really poor/small recruiting classes, Carthage has brought in some talent that can blend with some nice upper class experience (Kruse, Stevenson and Kozil).

[AndOne]

Regarding Augustana, I watched a lot of their game vs Alma tonight.  In my opinion the Vikings are absolutely not overrated.  I will go as far as to say this - Augie is more talented this year than last year.  Now, that talent is young and/or experienced, so it is not all meshed together yet, and not always pretty.  But I believe this might be the most talented Grey Giovanine Augie team I have seen.

Last year's Augie team made the Elite Eight, and the 2015 version played in the national championship game, and this year's team is more talented? 
They may be more athletic, but I think the jury will remain out for awhile on the question of bring more talented.

[Titan Q]

Last year's Augie team made the Elite Eight, and the 2015 version played in the national championship game, and this year's team is more talented? 
They may be more athletic, but I think the jury will remain out for awhile on the question of bring more talented.

Yes, I believe Augustana's 2016-17 team is more talented than the Elite 8 team last year.  That doesn't mean they'll do as well (I don't think Augie will win the CCIW this year), but just matching pure talent last year vs this year, I think this team is more talented.

[Titan Q]

http://athletics.carthage.edu/boxscore.aspx?id=4854&path=mbball

I attended the game tonight and have a few thoughts.   Olivet is a pretty bad team so the lopsided score should be put into that perspective.  Carthage's size and quickness completely overmatched Olivet and this one was over early.  Olivet tried to press three quarter court just to switch things up and see if they could create some turnovers.  Kevin Kozil, the point guard, did a solid job all night registering eleven assists and no turnovers, despite the constant pressure. 

Nice balanced scoring with Drew Joiner coming off the bench to lead the team.  There are definitely some nice young pieces between the freshmen and the sophomore transfer, Jordan Thomas.   Perry used his size advantage to score around the hoop and Banks and Baltimore showed some inside presence as well.   Thomas and Joiner lit it up with their three point shooting. 

Like I said, this all has to be tempered until they play someone that will match up and guard them like they will see during the conference season.  Nonetheless, after a couple of really poor/small recruiting classes, Carthage has brought in some talent that can blend with some nice upper class experience (Kruse, Stevenson and Kozil).

A K-Mark sighting! 

Mark, I hope Bosko and Co. can figure things out just so we can keep you around.

[kenoshamark]

Hi Bob,

Well, if they can keep this group together, it will give me more reason to head across town to watch games.  Just because I don't post  doesn't mean I'm not on regularly to catch up on the great commentary you, Greg and AndOne provide!

[Titan Q]

Hi Bob,

Well, if they can keep this group together, it will give me more reason to head across town to watch games.  Just because I don't post  doesn't mean I'm not on regularly to catch up on the great commentary you, Greg and AndOne provide!

By the way, I am confident that 2001-02 Kenosha Mark was more talented on the boards than 2016-17 Kenosha Mark.

[AndOne]

Last year's Augie team made the Elite Eight, and the 2015 version played in the national championship game, and this year's team is more talented? 
They may be more athletic, but I think the jury will remain out for awhile on the question of bring more talented.

Yes, I believe Augustana's 2016-17 team is more talented than the Elite 8 team last year.  That doesn't mean they'll do as well (I don't think Augie will win the CCIW this year), but just matching pure talent last year vs this year, I think this team is more talented.

If, after only two games, you can tell this Augie team is more talented than their last two teams that went a combined 56-7, then the first thing you should do tomorrow morning is go out and buy a lottery ticket. 🤓

Who WILL win the CCIW?

[Gregory Sager]

http://athletics.carthage.edu/boxscore.aspx?id=4854&path=mbball

I attended the game tonight and have a few thoughts.   Olivet is a pretty bad team so the lopsided score should be put into that perspective.  Carthage's size and quickness completely overmatched Olivet and this one was over early.  Olivet tried to press three quarter court just to switch things up and see if they could create some turnovers.  Kevin Kozil, the point guard, did a solid job all night registering eleven assists and no turnovers, despite the constant pressure. 

Nice balanced scoring with Drew Joiner coming off the bench to lead the team.  There are definitely some nice young pieces between the freshmen and the sophomore transfer, Jordan Thomas.   Perry used his size advantage to score around the hoop and Banks and Baltimore showed some inside presence as well.   Thomas and Joiner lit it up with their three point shooting. 

Like I said, this all has to be tempered until they play someone that will match up and guard them like they will see during the conference season.  Nonetheless, after a couple of really poor/small recruiting classes, Carthage has brought in some talent that can blend with some nice upper class experience (Kruse, Stevenson and Kozil).

I checked in on this game for brief periods, and it was hard to watch due to Olivet's ineptitude. But there's no question that Bosko has much better pieces with which to work than he's had lately. Not only that, he's got more of them as well.

The game to circle as far as the Red Men are concerned is next Tuesday's contest in Kenosha against UW-River Falls. The Falcons look like they're going to be a pretty good outfit this year, so that should be a stern test for Carthage.

I watched a good chunk of the second half of the Webster @ IWU game once the Augie @ Alma game concluded. The Gorloks were only down two with nine and a half minutes to go when IWU called a timeout and then stormed out to a 12-0 run from which Webster never recovered.

With all due respect to the Wheaton fans who post and lurk here, their game was hard to watch. It's fun to watch young teams sometimes, if for no other reason than to speculate about what that raw material could do once it settles in and climbs the learning curve, but this was rather painful from an aesthetic point of view. The Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance looked very ragged and had some difficulty putting away a Norse team that looks destined for its second straight 20-loss season. Still, considering how young Wheaton is, this win should probably be viewed as a good morale boost.

Nothing could've been as bad as watching Millikin's defeat, though. I'm glad that I didn't put that particular game up on my computer screen.

Mark, I hope Bosko and Co. can figure things out just so we can keep you around.

Hear, hear!