MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[4samuy]

You are correct... he never left the floor. That and the 39 minutes he played against Tufts. He did take the previous game off for an apparent foot ailment. Flannery is a unique player in Division III.

I guess my point is that Jordan Robinson is also a very unique player in division IIIajd could play 50 minutes and put up 50 and 20 if needed.

(modified by GS for formatting)

[markerickson]

My power went off 15 minutes before tip-off.  My power returned so I could watch the entire second half.  Uff da.  I was stunned by the sparse crowd.  Where were all the students and retirees!!??

[AndOne]

My power went off 15 minutes before tip-off.  My power returned so I could watch the entire second half.  Uff da.  I was stunned by the sparse crowd.  Where were all the students and retirees!!??

Wed night is "Vice Night" on cable TV in B-N! 
Not too many people venture out. 

[kiko]

Actually they lost by 15

Yeah, I had noticed that and edited my post a few minutes ago.

One thing you cannot do and I believe all conference commissioners will tell you this is try to schedule a basketball season based on the perceived strength of the schools.  It has to be random in some way.

I agree with this 100%. But that still does not mean you have to make a team play three games in a row either on the road or at home, especially at or very near the end of the season. It also doesn't mean that if you 🔩 a team one year, you can't be a little nicer to them the next - even if it's the first year with a nine team set up rather than eight. 

Again, Mark, it's a completely different cycle this time around. Give it another year before you show up at Chris Martin's door on Brainard Street with a chainsaw or a meat cleaver, because this year's sked has absolutely no relation whatsoever to last year's.

Okay then, let's look at it in isolation.  Irrespective of what the schedule looked like last year, if the proposed schedule calls for any team to play three in a row at home or away, there are probably better solutions available.  (And you will have a hard time convincing me that it was the only viable solution.)

Past history would suggest that this has not been much of a concern, since we saw this pattern previously.  The current solution suggests that it is, under the new system and considerations, still not much of a concern.  Personally, I find this disappointing.  I think it shouldn't be that hard to control for, even with the additional degrees of complexity this year.  (And, lest I come across as a homer on this topic, I whinged about it last year too, and not just from the standpoint of how it impacted North Central.)

[ball]

Go Carthage!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

kiko - can't remember where it was last year... but some team(s) in another conference ended up playing four games on the road late in the season. I remember making a note about it on Hoopsville with their coach. It happens once in awhile. Knowing those who put schedules together, they try and be as fair as possible. Sometimes things just don't work perfectly when you are trying to do something different each year - versus the same schedule each and every year.

BTW - I was talking with someone about the idea of having the conference schedule be influenced by how teams finish in the conference. This year's conference standings at the end of the year would affect the schedule in two years (offset conference schedule that allows the top teams to play the top teams, primarily). It isn't a perfect system and not all conferences could probably do it, but this particular conference could pull it off and you don't necessarily have a team at the bottom of most conferences that all of the sudden are at the top two years later. You may get a few surprises, but that may be made up for simply because they will have to play the middle of the conference.

For the record, this is for a schedule like the ODAC where you play double-games against most, but single games against the rest. Hard to describe right now, but it was a worthy concept that could help the top teams in conferences with SOS numbers. (Another idea I have heard recently that I like is the SOS stops being calculated before conference tournament games begin thus not "punishing" top teams in a conference for playing the lower seeds in the first rounds of the conference tournaments).

[augiefan]

Jordan Robinson is certainly an exceptional DIII player. Better I think than players like Aaron Jordan at the U of I.

So a query. Was Jordan Robinson considered a top flight college prospect coming out of high school at Hoffman Estates? I follow high school basketball pretty closely, but I do not recall his high school stats. Does anyone know if he was recruited by any DI or DII programs?

[Gregory Sager]

No, he wasn't. AFAIK, he pretty much went under everybody's radar except for Tom Slyder's.

Same thing with Juwan Henry.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Similiar story to Duncan Robinson - just it happened be different that Robinson took a chance after his freshman year.

[Gregory Sager]

... except that Duncan Robinson is 6'8, 216, which is an acceptable size for a D1 swingman. Jordan Robinson is 6'3, 195 -- he's put on perhaps ten pounds of muscle since he's arrived at NPU, but the 6'3 listing is exceedingly generous -- and that's not really an acceptable size for a D1 swingman, let alone a power forward, which is what he was during his first two seasons at North Park. (This season he's really more of a jack-of-all-trades who defies a strict positional role.) Robinson was the small forward for Hoffman Estates HS, and his dual high-school and college teammate Trevor Pye was Hoffman Estates' shooting guard. (Current St. Francis IL freshman Jorden Thornton was the team's PG.)

I don't know if any D1 school would take a chance on Jordan Robinson as a transfer, let alone a Big Ten school. Perhaps a total hard-luck case such as Western Illinois or Chicago State might, but that's about it. He just doesn't pass the pregame eyeball test, which is a condition that he shares with Juwan Henry, Colin Lake, and most of the rest of the Vikings.

That's fine. We're more than happy to have him spend the rest of his college career at the corner of Foster & Kedzie.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well... Robinson's numbers have increased! He was listed at 6-7 at Williams and I would contend having stood next to him he isn't taller than MAYBE 6-6. Yes, could have grown a little since going to Michigan, but I don't think he has. He grew late in high school which is one of the biggest reasons he was missed by so many.

Now I will admit I know he has gained weight, mainly in muscle, since attending Michigan. That was the story of the year he sat. He was listed at 185 at Williams... that is about right, if not a little heavy (not much).

[Gregory Sager]

Speaking of the pregame eyeball test, it's getting kind of comical to listen to some of the comments about North Park that are made by the broadcasters of the opposing teams. Over the past season and into this season I've watched any number of road games online, and when I've traveled with the team to broadcast road games myself I've overheard some of those comments made by my opposite numbers as they sit next to me at their broadcasting positions. In watching the archived broadcast of the NPU @ IWU game, I couldn't help but notice how many times the WBJC broadcasting team of Eric Stock and Joel Swanson mentioned how small the Vikings were.

Of course, it was a perfectly reasonable and appropriate subject for their commentary, given that, in terms of starters, the Titans were eight inches taller than the Vikings at PG, six inches taller at SG, six inches taller at SF, three inches taller at PF, and five inches taller at C. At least as seasoned CCIW observers they were well aware beforehand that the size disparity was no guarantee that the Titans would physically dominate the Vikings on the boards (although they did think that the Titans could score at will by simply tossing the ball into Trevor Seibring in the low post every time down the floor, which is easier said than done). But it always seems to shock opposing broadcasters that aren't familiar with North Park that their team can't simply bulldoze right over an opponent whose collective stature resembles that of a high-school freshmen team.

[Gregory Sager]

Open the pod bay doors, HAL:

    3. North Park
  13. Augustana
  21. North Central
  32. Illinois Wesleyan
  38. Wheaton
  74. Carthage
  85. Elmhurst
109. Carroll
376. Millikin

Ken Massey's all-knowing software sez:

North Central 78 @ Millkin 56 (NCC 96%, MU 4%)
Illinois Wesleyan 75, @ Elmhurst 73 (IWU 54%, EC 46%)
@ North Park 82, Carroll 72 (NPU 82%, CU 18%)
@ Augustana 80, Carthage 69 (AC 85%, CC 15%)
@ Wheaton 78, Calvin 70 (WC 76%, Calvin 24%)

[blue_jays]

No, he wasn't. AFAIK, he pretty much went under everybody's radar except for Tom Slyder's.

Same thing with Juwan Henry.

I saw Juwan play at Bogan alongside Luwane Pipkins, who was one of the top-rated point guard recruits in the state, now playing at UMass. Pipkins got a ton of D1 scouting, so I'm sure people saw Juwan as well. But his role was likely different with Pipkins dominating the ball at the top of the key. The Bogan team I saw was pretty short, very athletic and pesky. Evaluators probably didn't get to see him score in bunches at Bogan like he does now at NPU.

[Gregory Sager]

That 2012-13 Bogan team on which Juwan was a senior and Pipkins was a sophomore had other scorers as well, including Brandon Berry (who transferred to NPU last fall but was dismissed from the team by Tom Slyder before the season started). Juwan was a classic case of a high-school player who was crowded out of the limelight on a talent-heavy team but then got a chance to shine at a D3 school. Vikings immortal Michael Thomas, who was one of the stars of North Park's national championship threepeat teams and who ended his career as North Park's all-time leading scorer with 2,085 points, was a classic example of this as well. Thomas was a role player for a Proviso East team that featured two superstars in Desmond Rouse and a kid by the name of Glenn "Doc" Rivers.