MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[augiefan]

Augustana had 5 of their last 8 games on the road, and all 5 are against the other teams contending for the conference tournament. Augie will be seriously challenged to stay in first place.

Despite the strange losses experienced by NP, I still think they will end up hosting the CCIW tourney. The team is experienced, has two first team all conference players and has a road win over Augie, which bodes well for them finishing the sgame ason in first place.The two, three and four tourney slots are still up for grabs.

[iwumichigander]

Carroll was extremely agressive at both ends of the floor, Greg.  Particularly on defense, Carroll was over playing,  anticipating passes which led to steals, and other turnovers with a perimeter defense that basically darned the Titans to drive to the basket (not an IWU strength unless I the hands of Rose).
On the offensive end. I saw a lot of arm bars and pushing which was not getting called most of the time. 
IWU did not adjust nor find their shooting range until the 5-6 minutes.  While IWU almost pulled off a win, a questionable (very questionable) double technical and personal foul cost IWU Seibring.  This was a game IMO that the officials let the game get really chippy and almost let it get out of hand.  The rematch may not be pretty.  Yet, this was a game that IWU should have, could have won. 
My guess is this was a Wisconsin (not a CCIW) officiating crew.  If correct, CCIW teams should watch this game and maybe some WIAC games to get a better feel for Wisconsin officiating.

[AndOne]

I know that Mark's going to sit on whatever inside info he has, but, since I know that some source internal to Elmhurst has the Bluejays already expecting to see Connor Raridon suit up against them in Faganel Hall on Saturday, the question is whether or not Wheaton needs to concern itself with a possible uni-clad Connor Raridon sighting in King Arena tonight.

Obviously, Wheaton didn't need to worry about facing Connor Raridon, or Jagger Anderson for that matter, last Wed. Worrying evidently would have done no good anyway as NCC was able to defeat the Wheaties minus these two players.

As for the mysterious "some source internal to Elmhurst" that had the Bluejays expecting to see Connor suit up against them yesterday afternoon, I sense that since there wasn't a chance in hell of that happening, the only thing internal about said source is that his cranium is internal to his posterior. 

[AndOne]

I see Raridon did not play tonight in Elmhurst. It was predicted he would be back tonight,
but he must still not be ready. His prolonged absence is certainly killing NC's season.

Andone, didn't you mention previously that they still had the opportunity to redshirt him. Is that still the case?

Raridon's only played in seven games, all in the first half of the season, so according to 14.2.5, paragraphs (a) and (b), of the NCAA Division III rulebook, he is eligible for a medical hardship waiver. However, there's a catch:

14.2.5.2.2 Medical Documentation. Contemporaneous or other appropriate medical documentation from a physician (i.e., a medical doctor), who administered care at the time of the injury or illness, that establishes the student-athlete's inability to compete for the remainder of the traditional playing season as a result of that injury or illness shall be submitted with any hardship-waiver request.

In other words, Raridon's orthopedist has to submit in writing that Connor's broken finger did not heal sufficiently for him to play for the rest of the regular season. If he recovers between now and the end of February, he can't simply opt out of playing and still expect to get the medical hardship waiver, unless his doctor submits a false report on his condition to the CCIW (the league administers medical hardship waivers on behalf of the NCAA).

Actually, Connor's injury is not a just broken finger, but a fracture of the 3rd metacarpal just behind the metacarpophalangeal joint on the dorsal surface of the hand. Absent of a long dissertation, such injuries involving the head and shaft of the bone, as opposed to the neck and base, often involve the forward portion of the broken bone bending forward when injured bringing about very real possibility of soft tissue and/or cartilage involvement in addition to the fracture itself. Depending on the collateral damage, hand function can be impaired anywhere from 6-12 weeks with most cases clearing in the 8 week range when the fracture is otherwise uncomplicated. 8 weeks out from the original injury is 2/4. When healing is completed, it would not be outside of the realm of possibility to imagine that some term of physical therapy/rehabilitation would be necessary to restore full function. 2 weeks of such activity would make it 2/18, the date of the last scheduled game of the regular season. The speculation continues.............

[Augie6]

Augustana had 5 of their last 8 games on the road, and all 5 are against the other teams contending for the conference tournament. Augie will be seriously challenged to stay in first place.

Despite the strange losses experienced by NP, I still think they will end up hosting the CCIW tourney. The team is experienced, has two first team all conference players and has a road win over Augie, which bodes well for them finishing the sgame ason in first place.The two, three and four tourney slots are still up for grabs.

Agree that it won't be easy for Augie, but I still think they have a very good chance of hosting the CCIW tourney.  One of the big differences I see between NPU and Augie, and maybe one of the reasons we have seen NPU fall off as of late, is depth.  NPU has 3 starters that are averaging over 33 minutes per game and their starters account for 77% of the total minutes played.  From a scoring standpoint, NPU's starters account for 85% of their scoring.  As Greg has pointed out on many occasions, when a team lacks size like NPU does and isn't particularly deep, they have to play 40 mins of "full out" basketball to win.  Obviously, that wears on a team over the course of a season.  Maybe that's what we are seeing with NPU.  Conversely, Augie doesn't have a starter playing more than 29 minutes per game, and their current starting 5 account for 60% of their total minutes and 66% of their points.  That means a lot more options for Augie if a starter or two isn't playing particularly well on a certain night vs NPU having a starter or two playing poorly.  If one of NPU's big 3 (Robinson, Henry or Lake) has an off night against a good team, it makes it much harder for them to win.   

[Gregory Sager]

Record notwithstanding, I like what John Baines is doing with this Elmhurst team by starting his freshmen players and letting them have a go at it.

I'm not sure that that's by design. My take is that Baines really wanted his ex-JVers (Mowry, Parrilli, Plunk, Harlan, Rogers, etc.) to step up and take charge this year after having understudied that huge and successful class of '16, but that they have failed to do so. Six of the nine double-digit scoring efforts registered by Bluejays over the past four games have been by freshmen.

Augustana had 5 of their last 8 games on the road, and all 5 are against the other teams contending for the conference tournament. Augie will be seriously challenged to stay in first place.

Despite the strange losses experienced by NP, I still think they will end up hosting the CCIW tourney. The team is experienced, has two first team all conference players and has a road win over Augie, which bodes well for them finishing the sgame ason in first place.The two, three and four tourney slots are still up for grabs.

NPU is in a strange position. The Vikings are really not playing well at all right now, but they're actually in great shape as far as the CCIW is concerned, both because the Vikings own the road win over Augie and because they're all alone in second place, only a game behind the Rock Islanders. The game on Wednesday in the crackerbox against Illinois Wesleyan is a huge opportunity for the Park to not only prove that it's real but to consolidate its place in the standings.

While IWU almost pulled off a win, a questionable (very questionable) double technical and personal foul cost IWU Seibring.  This was a game IMO that the officials let the game get really chippy and almost let it get out of hand.

This makes me wonder if CU head coach Paul Combs saw the Illinois Wesleyan vs. Middlebury game in the Big Apple over the holidays. The Panthers played Seibring very physically and got under his skin (which was particularly the handiwork of Middlebury instigator Jack Daly), to the point where Seibring picked up a personal foul and subsequent half of a double technical that got him disqualified at the end of a tight contest. Word may be getting out that if you can play Seibring sneaky-dirty he'll lose his cool and overreact.

The rematch may not be pretty.  Yet, this was a game that IWU should have, could have won. 
My guess is this was a Wisconsin (not a CCIW) officiating crew.  If correct, CCIW teams should watch this game and maybe some WIAC games to get a better feel for Wisconsin officiating.

No, those were refs from the CCIW officiating pool. As I said last night, the box score got Nitin Rao wrong, as he was probably double-booked by the league and was replaced by somebody else at the last minute after CU SID Mike Schulist had already been given the names of the game's officials from the league. But the other two officials, Tom Turckes and John Lyman, are veteran CCIW refs. In fact, Lyman did last year's Illinois Wesleyan @ Carthage game.

I see Raridon did not play tonight in Elmhurst. It was predicted he would be back tonight,
but he must still not be ready. His prolonged absence is certainly killing NC's season.

Andone, didn't you mention previously that they still had the opportunity to redshirt him. Is that still the case?

Raridon's only played in seven games, all in the first half of the season, so according to 14.2.5, paragraphs (a) and (b), of the NCAA Division III rulebook, he is eligible for a medical hardship waiver. However, there's a catch:

14.2.5.2.2 Medical Documentation. Contemporaneous or other appropriate medical documentation from a physician (i.e., a medical doctor), who administered care at the time of the injury or illness, that establishes the student-athlete's inability to compete for the remainder of the traditional playing season as a result of that injury or illness shall be submitted with any hardship-waiver request.

In other words, Raridon's orthopedist has to submit in writing that Connor's broken finger did not heal sufficiently for him to play for the rest of the regular season. If he recovers between now and the end of February, he can't simply opt out of playing and still expect to get the medical hardship waiver, unless his doctor submits a false report on his condition to the CCIW (the league administers medical hardship waivers on behalf of the NCAA).

Actually, Connor's injury is not a just broken finger, but a fracture of the 3rd metacarpal just behind the metacarpophalangeal joint on the dorsal surface of the hand. Absent of a long dissertation, such injuries involving the head and shaft of the bone, as opposed to the neck and base, often involve the forward portion of the broken bone bending forward when injured bringing about very real possibility of soft tissue and/or cartilage involvement in addition to the fracture itself. Depending on the collateral damage, hand function can be impaired anywhere from 6-12 weeks with most cases clearing in the 8 week range when the fracture is otherwise uncomplicated. 8 weeks out from the original injury is 2/4. When healing is completed, it would not be outside of the realm of possibility to imagine that some term of physical therapy/rehabilitation would be necessary to restore full function. 2 weeks of such activity would make it 2/18, the date of the last scheduled game of the regular season. The speculation continues.............

... and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get a source to divulge information.

[izzy stradlin]

Do you guys think the NCAA/CCIW would accept a letter from Andone in lieu of an actual M.D. if Raridon wants a hardship year? 

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana had 5 of their last 8 games on the road, and all 5 are against the other teams contending for the conference tournament. Augie will be seriously challenged to stay in first place.

Despite the strange losses experienced by NP, I still think they will end up hosting the CCIW tourney. The team is experienced, has two first team all conference players and has a road win over Augie, which bodes well for them finishing the sgame ason in first place.The two, three and four tourney slots are still up for grabs.

Agree that it won't be easy for Augie, but I still think they have a very good chance of hosting the CCIW tourney.  One of the big differences I see between NPU and Augie, and maybe one of the reasons we have seen NPU fall off as of late, is depth.  NPU has 3 starters that are averaging over 33 minutes per game and their starters account for 77% of the total minutes played.  From a scoring standpoint, NPU's starters account for 85% of their scoring.  As Greg has pointed out on many occasions, when a team lacks size like NPU does and isn't particularly deep, they have to play 40 mins of "full out" basketball to win.  Obviously, that wears on a team over the course of a season.  Maybe that's what we are seeing with NPU.  Conversely, Augie doesn't have a starter playing more than 29 minutes per game, and their current starting 5 account for 60% of their total minutes and 66% of their points.  That means a lot more options for Augie if a starter or two isn't playing particularly well on a certain night vs NPU having a starter or two playing poorly.  If one of NPU's big 3 (Robinson, Henry or Lake) has an off night against a good team, it makes it much harder for them to win.

The Vikings aren't wearing down. The big three are averaging 33 or 34 minutes per game apiece, which is high by CCIW starter standards but hardly unreasonable. This is what they've averaged over the past couple of years, except that Juwan Henry's averaging two minutes less per game than last season.

As for depth, it sounds like a great cure-all to everybody's problems, until you look at it closely. Depth really only works in terms of an Augustana-style division of labor if there's little or no drop-off in ability between the starter and his backup. Otherwise, if you're dividing minutes along a 25-to-the-starter, 15-to-the-sub sort of ratio, you're hurting your team by leaving an inferior player on the floor for too long. NPU has plenty of players; twelve different Vikings have been in at least half of North Park's games this season, although the rotation only consists of seven of them. But the drop-off between Henry, Robinson, and Lake and the players who would be backing them up in a Giovanine- or Rose-style rotation is pretty steep in terms of ability. Tom Slyder therefore figures that he's better off playing those guys 33 or 34 minutes per game, while giving Billy Kirby (who is CCIW-starter quality) something akin to starter's minutes (or just shy of starter's minutes) off the bench for the extra perimeter minutes behind Henry, Lake, and T.J. Cobbs. And that's how Lake, Henry, and Robinson prepare; they expect to go for between 30 to 35 minutes per game, and they pace themselves accordingly. This is what they're used to doing.

The problem is that NPU really hasn't found someone who can spell Jordan Robinson and Darius Brown for the big-man minutes; Joe Biko's typically been the player who's gotten at least some of those minutes, but the entire league is well aware of Biko's limitations. And the problem with Brown himself is that, at 6'3, 185, he's just not physically equipped to play CCIW big men in the post straight up, although he gives a yeoman effort every night when he's on the floor and has had some big games himself this season. But he not only suffers from having longer players shoot right over him and bigger players back him down and/or box him out, he's also foul-prone as a result of having to fight to maintain his position in the low post against guys who are five inches taller and forty pounds heaver than him. He's fouled out of four games this season and has been in foul trouble for perhaps half of NPU's 17 games to date. And it's not because he plays out of control. He's often forced to foul just to try to stay in control of his predicament.

Yesterday Tom Slyder simply went with the super-small lineup of Lake, Henry, Cobbs, Kirby, and Robinson down the stretch -- and the Vikings used it to close a ten-point gap and almost won the game against a team whose perimeter matched NPU's in speed but had much more size inside.

In other words, I don't think that depth is the issue for North Park. I think that the issue is starters, or, to be more specific, a starter. NPU just doesn't have the CCIW-quality starting center it really needs, which is, again, something we've all known all along. As 4samuy said yesterday, if the Vikings had a Marc Horner on the inside they'd be extremely difficult to defend. Alas, Marc's out of eligibility, and I don't think that he'd surrender his financial-advising firm (and his budding career as an Internet superstar dispensing investment advice on Business First AM) even if it was still legal for him to lace up the sneakers a few more times and don #34 for the royal blue and gold.

[iwumichigander]

Thanks Greg, for the info on two officials.  It just did not look like a CCIW officiated game.  As for NPU not having a true 5 nor a backup - as you and others are aware, NPU will not be the first or last team I this situation.  The greater challenge tome, and I admit to not seeing NPU a lot, is not having a sub that can really hold ground when Robinson is out.  He is just an entire package hard to replace even for a few minutes.

[Gregory Sager]

That's true, too, and it's both a positive testament to Jordan Robinson's remarkable abilities and a negative testament as to how much the rest of the team is dependent upon him. Once the season's over we might look back at that game against Wheaton a week and a half ago, in which NPU managed to win in spite of Robinson being so completely off his game (5 pts, 6 rebs), as the most remarkable win the Vikings had this season, even more remarkable than the road wins in Rock Island and Bloomington.

[AndOne]

Do you guys think the NCAA/CCIW would accept a letter from Andone in lieu of an actual M.D. if Raridon wants a hardship year?

My letter is already in route to NCAA headquarters with a duplicate to the CCIW office.
I also attached a copy of the certificate from the American University of the Caribbean
School of Medicine attesting to the fact that my medical "degree" is valid in all 50 states,
the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories. 💼 💉 😉

[petemcb]

Do you guys think the NCAA/CCIW would accept a letter from Andone in lieu of an actual M.D. if Raridon wants a hardship year?

My letter is already in route to NCAA headquarters with a duplicate to the CCIW office.
I also attached a copy of the certificate from the American University of the Caribbean
School of Medicine attesting to the fact that my medical "degree" is valid in all 50 states,
the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories. 💼 💉 😉

Is that a satellite campus of the Augie Medical School? 🤔😉

[AppletonRocks]

Do you guys think the NCAA/CCIW would accept a letter from Andone in lieu of an actual M.D. if Raridon wants a hardship year?

Also need to consider if another year of school ages him such that he is no longer as strong a candidate for the NBA Draft? 

[AndOne]

Do you guys think the NCAA/CCIW would accept a letter from Andone in lieu of an actual M.D. if Raridon wants a hardship year?

My letter is already in route to NCAA headquarters with a duplicate to the CCIW office.
I also attached a copy of the certificate from the American University of the Caribbean
School of Medicine attesting to the fact that my medical "degree" is valid in all 50 states,
the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories. 💼 💉 😉

Is that a satellite campus of the Augie Medical School? 🤔😉

Yes, it's the campus where Luke Scarlata is now Chief of Surgery after attending the Augie Medical School, of which Scarlata became aware during Stomper Giovanine's recruiting pitch. 😏 🤒 😎

[AndOne]

One "positive" (a seemingly impossible occurrence) that has stemmed from Connor Raridon's injury is the accelerated development of NCC freshmen Nick Chambers and Matt Cappelletti.

Nick is a 42% shooter from distance, an area where the Cardinals could use some help. With the work he puts in, that figure will probably improve in the future.

Matt has started NCC's last two games, the first 2 starts of his college career. Last Wed night vs Wheaton he put up a matching double-double of 13 points and 13 rebounds. He followed that up with a 2nd double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds vs Elmhurst on Sat afternoon.