MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

Fman it is.  Bman and The Rose.  Has a certain ring to it.  Yes, Coleman and now Knobloch too.  No need for Bair -- as you can see, we have the five guard offense there ready to go.

'70

[Titan Q]

I noticed that iwu70 not only cites the name of a point guard that Ron Rose demoted to the JV as a sophomore after he'd suffered through a struggle-filled freshman season on the varsity, he's spelling it wrong, too. It's Falotico.

"Demoted" isn't quite accurate.  Mark Falotico, who was expected to compete for a varsity rotation spot coming into 2016-17, suffered a concussion in the preseason.  He missed the entire practice season and wasn't cleared to play until after the season started...and wasn't near 100% (in terms of conditioning and readiness to play) until almost Jan. 1.  At that point IWU's PG/SG rotation was pretty much set (Rose, Bonnett, Coleman, Amann) and playing well -- I'm pretty sure the thinking was that it didn't make sense to force Falotico in there at that point.  So they had him play JV the remainder of the season.  Had Falotico been healthy at the beginning of the season, I'm confident he would have had the minutes Austin Amann ended up with...and probably more.  I know the coaching staff really thinks highly of what he brings to the floor.

Falotico really has not been healthy since about his sophomore year of high school.  He has suffered a number of injuries throughout his final two years of high school and first two years at IWU.  Realistically, the cumulative effect of all of that lost time is going to make it hard for him get in the mix at IWU at this point -- he will have to make up ground in a hurry heading into his junior year. 

At this point it seems IWU has three locks in the 2017-18 PG/SG rotation:
- Brady Rose, 6-3 Sr. (PG/SG)  15.7 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.5 apg, 50-133 3-point (.376), 62-69 FT (.899)
- Colin Bonnett, 6-4 Jr. (SG)  11.7 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 2.2 apg, 39-91 3-point (.429)
- Nick Coleman, 6-1 Jr. (PG/SG)  7.7 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 49-118 3-point (.415)

The 4th spot should be a wide open competition between guys like 6-1 PG/SG Falotico, 5-11 PG Derrick Streety, 6-4 SG Jason Gregoire, 6-0 SG Zach Knobloch, and 6-0 freshman PG Grant Wolfe. Ron Rose could go a lot of different ways with his guard rotation next season and it seems to be this will be a good battle throughout the preseason and even into the regular season.  The Titans should have a strong backcourt in 2017-18.

[Titan Q]

I'll go with what BW said about Knobloch in the WIAC room. There is nobody who posts on d3boards.com who knows more about Warhawks men's basketball or who has a better read on the program than BW. Based upon what he posted, it doesn't sound like Knobloch's performance "slid a bit" as the season progressed or that he was a victim of the arrival of Derek Rongstad (they both played double-digit minutes in Rongstad's first three games as a Warhawk) as much as that his overall game was just not up to WIAC standards. That would also seem to be borne out by the fact that Knobloch got DNP-CDs in both of UWW's D3 tourney games last March. Of course, as BW said, Knobloch was only a freshman, and IWU fans have every right to expect his game to improve over the next three seasons.

I have never seen Zach Knobloch play, and certainly don't know anything about his playing time situation at UW-Whitewater last season, but he is definitely an intriguing addition to me.  According to everyone I have heard from about Knobloch (other coaches, etc), he is about as good of a 3-point shooter as you will find.  42-81 (.519) is pretty special 3-point shooting...especially for a freshman. 

Knobloch seems like a strong weapon to bring off the bench...a guy the defense has to account for wherever he goes on the perimeter.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

[iwumichigander]

With the talent above at IWU guards, certainly sets the stage for a five guard lineup

[Gregory Sager]

I noticed that iwu70 not only cites the name of a point guard that Ron Rose demoted to the JV as a sophomore after he'd suffered through a struggle-filled freshman season on the varsity, he's spelling it wrong, too. It's Falotico.

"Demoted" isn't quite accurate.  Mark Falotico, who was expected to compete for a varsity rotation spot coming into 2016-17, suffered a concussion in the preseason.  He missed the entire practice season and wasn't cleared to play until after the season started...and wasn't near 100% (in terms of conditioning and readiness to play) until almost Jan. 1.  At that point IWU's PG/SG rotation was pretty much set (Rose, Bonnett, Coleman, Amann) and playing well -- I'm pretty sure the thinking was that it didn't make sense to force Falotico in there at that point.  So they had him play JV the remainder of the season.  Had Falotico been healthy at the beginning of the season, I'm confident he would have had the minutes Austin Amann ended up with...and probably more.  I know the coaching staff really thinks highly of what he brings to the floor.

I saw him play for the Illinois Wesleyan JV at the end of January, when it faced North Park's JV in the crackerbox. (I work the table as the official scorer for NPU's home JV games.) There were several Titans JV players who looked good that afternoon. Mark Falotico was not one of them. He hoisted about a half-dozen trey attempts, didn't make any of them, didn't play good defense against an unexceptional Vikings JV backcourt, and scored about four points or so. He did a nice job of circulating the ball around the IWU offense, but that's practically a given for any IWU guard. It was plain to see that at that juncture of the season he was clearly not a realistically competitive option for Ron Rose in terms of the varsity -- and, again, this was on January 25, long, long after the holiday break when he was up to grade in terms of conditioning and readiness to play, as per your claim.

This doesn't mean that it's out of the question as to whether he can have a strong career as an upperclassman. It simply means what it means: He was not impressive in a JV game last season as a sophomore in which he was healthy and played starter's minutes.

Falotico really has not been healthy since about his sophomore year of high school.  He has suffered a number of injuries throughout his final two years of high school and first two years at IWU.

Bob, it's hard to square that excuse with the fact that Falotico was a solidly-entrenched member of the IWU varsity rotation as a freshman. He played in 21 of IWU's 26 games, averaging 12.5 mpg. He received DNPs in five of the first six games of the 2015-16 season, with his only playing time being four minutes' worth against Greenville (an Arseneault System team, against whom it's inevitably "all hands on deck" for every ballhandler an opponent has on the roster), but from the December 14 game against Chicago on until the conference tourney semifinal loss to Augie, in which it looked like Ron Rose finally threw up his hands and gave up on him, Falotico was a consistent double-digits-minutes guard for the Titans. He even started two games in late January against CCIW competition.

It can't be a coincidence that Falotico became a regular at the exact same time that Brady Rose went down for the season with an injury. But the injury to the coach's son also can't be the only reason why Falotico was getting so much time on a team that also had Bryce Dolan, Joel Pennington, Colin Bonnett, and Brian Nelms getting double-digit minutes. The 2015-16 backcourt rotation of the Titans did not look like a situation in which the IWU head coach was forced by lack of numbers to use a putatively banged-up freshman for substantial minutes in every game. Nor did he look banged-up. He just looked inadequate.

Given how much he played and how prominent a role he had for the Titans as a freshman, it seems implausible that he was the walking-wounded casualty that you've made him out to be. The more reasonable explanation for his lackluster performance as a freshman was that he was simply in over his head. That was definitely how it looked to me in the multiple times that I saw Falotico play that season. What's likely is that Ron Rose showed patience and stuck with Falotico but was not rewarded with the level of progress that he required from his young charge, and that eventually the coach felt that he had to demote him at season's end (and very abruptly so, too; Falotico saw stints of 63 seconds and 23 seconds in the first half of that IWU loss in overtime at Carver, and 20 seconds in the second half; he didn't play at all during the final 13+ minutes of the second half or in OT). This is not an unusual situation at all for a CCIW freshman guard (see: 2015-16 Jordan Kedrowski and 2013-14 JayQuan Lee), and it's the narrative that seems to fit the facts here.

[Titan Q]

I noticed that iwu70 not only cites the name of a point guard that Ron Rose demoted to the JV as a sophomore after he'd suffered through a struggle-filled freshman season on the varsity, he's spelling it wrong, too. It's Falotico.

"Demoted" isn't quite accurate.  Mark Falotico, who was expected to compete for a varsity rotation spot coming into 2016-17, suffered a concussion in the preseason.  He missed the entire practice season and wasn't cleared to play until after the season started...and wasn't near 100% (in terms of conditioning and readiness to play) until almost Jan. 1.  At that point IWU's PG/SG rotation was pretty much set (Rose, Bonnett, Coleman, Amann) and playing well -- I'm pretty sure the thinking was that it didn't make sense to force Falotico in there at that point.  So they had him play JV the remainder of the season.  Had Falotico been healthy at the beginning of the season, I'm confident he would have had the minutes Austin Amann ended up with...and probably more.  I know the coaching staff really thinks highly of what he brings to the floor.

I saw him play for the Illinois Wesleyan JV at the end of January, when it faced North Park's JV in the crackerbox. (I work the table as the official scorer for NPU's home JV games.) There were several Titans JV players who looked good that afternoon. Mark Falotico was not one of them. He hoisted about a half-dozen trey attempts, didn't make any of them, didn't play good defense against an unexceptional Vikings JV backcourt, and scored about four points or so. He did a nice job of circulating the ball around the IWU offense, but that's practically a given for any IWU guard. It was plain to see that at that juncture of the season he was clearly not a realistically competitive option for Ron Rose in terms of the varsity -- and, again, this was on January 25, long, long after the holiday break when he was up to grade in terms of conditioning and readiness to play, as per your claim.

This doesn't mean that it's out of the question as to whether he can have a strong career as an upperclassman. It simply means what it means: He was not impressive in a JV game last season as a sophomore in which he was healthy and played starter's minutes.

I have no idea how Mark Falotico faired on the JV team last season, Greg...either on a cumulative or game-by-game basis.  I simply stated:

1) He missed the entire preseason with a concussion and wasn't in "game shape" until near January 1. In my 2016-17 preview I noted his injury in the PG depth chart section - http://www.iwuhoops.com/preview16-17.html.  Instead of listing him anywhere on the PG depth chart, I just called him "injured."

2) The coaching staff was well down the road with a guard rotation by January 1 and decided it made no sense to try to force a guy in who was just getting in shape...when other guys were playing well.  They put Falotico on the JV team to get him valuable game minutes to help in his development for the future.

You said he was "demoted" to the JV and I simply stated that description was "not quite accurate."  The way you described it is just not how things played out in terms of Falotico ending up playing JV last season.  (How Falotico played vs North Park in a JV game would seem to be an entirely different conversation.)

[Gregory Sager]

Yes, I've conceded that you're right about last year not being a demotion per se. My point is that this statement of yours:

Falotico really has not been healthy since about his sophomore year of high school.

... doesn't fit the actual narrative of Falotico's freshman season.

[Titan Q]

Falotico really has not been healthy since about his sophomore year of high school.  He has suffered a number of injuries throughout his final two years of high school and first two years at IWU.

Bob, it's hard to square that excuse with the fact that Falotico was a solidly-entrenched member of the IWU varsity rotation as a freshman. He played in 21 of IWU's 26 games, averaging 12.5 mpg. He received DNPs in five of the first six games of the 2015-16 season, with his only playing time being four minutes' worth against Greenville (an Arseneault System team, against whom it's inevitably "all hands on deck" for every ballhandler an opponent has on the roster), but from the December 14 game against Chicago on until the conference tourney semifinal loss to Augie, in which it looked like Ron Rose finally threw up his hands and gave up on him, Falotico was a consistent double-digits-minutes guard for the Titans. He even started two games in late January against CCIW competition.

It can't be a coincidence that Falotico became a regular at the exact same time that Brady Rose went down for the season with an injury. But the injury to the coach's son also can't be the only reason why Falotico was getting so much time on a team that also had Bryce Dolan, Joel Pennington, Colin Bonnett, and Brian Nelms getting double-digit minutes. The 2015-16 backcourt rotation of the Titans did not look like a situation in which the IWU head coach was forced by lack of numbers to use a putatively banged-up freshman for substantial minutes in every game. Nor did he look banged-up. He just looked inadequate.

Given how much he played and how prominent a role he had for the Titans as a freshman, it seems implausible that he was the walking-wounded casualty that you've made him out to be. The more reasonable explanation for his lackluster performance as a freshman was that he was simply in over his head. That was definitely how it looked to me in the multiple times that I saw Falotico play that season. What's likely is that Ron Rose showed patience and stuck with Falotico but was not rewarded with the level of progress that he required from his young charge, and that eventually the coach felt that he had to demote him at season's end (and very abruptly so, too; Falotico saw stints of 63 seconds and 23 seconds in the first half of that IWU loss in overtime at Carver, and 20 seconds in the second half; he didn't play at all during the final 13+ minutes of the second half or in OT). This is not an unusual situation at all for a CCIW freshman guard (see: 2015-16 Jordan Kedrowski and 2013-14 JayQuan Lee), and it's the narrative that seems to fit the facts here.

I am comfortable with what I said.  Falotico missed huge chunks of his HS junior and senior seasons with a foot injury.  There are some pretty significant things regrading his health his freshman year at IWU that have not been posted here...and won't be as far as I'm concerned.  And then he suffered the concussion before the preseason last year.  He has not played a healthy season of basketball since his sophomore year of HS.

When IWU landed Falotico as a recruit, the staff knew they were getting a very talented kid, but also someone who had just not been able to play much basketball for an extended period of time.  Since he has been at IWU, through two seasons, he has just never been healthy for an extended period of time.  And that is why I said:

Realistically, the cumulative effect of all of that lost time is going to make it hard for him get in the mix at IWU at this point -- he will have to make up ground in a hurry heading into his junior year. 

In talking to Ron Rose, I know they love Falotico's skill set and potential.  So we will see how it goes in 2017-18.

[AndOne]

Falotico really has not been healthy since about his sophomore year of high school.

... doesn't fit the actual narrative of Falotico's freshman season.

In his freshman season of 2015-2016, Falotico played in 21 games with 2 starts. He came into college with a reputation as being a good shooter. He shot .348 overall, including .364 on threes. His FT % was .423.

I saw him play twice vs. NCC. He played 14 minutes in the first game. He was 0/2 from the field, and fouled out. In the second game he played 13 minutes and shot 0/3, including 0/2 on threes. He committed 3 fouls.
In total, in 27 minutes he went 0/3 on 2s and 0/2 on 3s, and committed 8 fouls, including fouling out of the first game in which he played 14 minutes. Possibly due to sickness or possibly due to lingering injuries as suggested by Titan Q, he shot 0/5 . He displayed no quickness whatsoever, and was basically invisible on defense while committing a foul every 3.3 minutes.

This past season, he really gained no additional varsity experience. With Rose, Bonnett, Coleman, and now, Knobloch available, the odds for Falotico to see any appreciable time next season appear to be slim at best. And thats not even considering the roles Curry, Gregorie, Streety, Coderre, Sestak, and Pollard, plus any incoming freshmen, might play.
Should he see any meaningful action this season, it seems he would really have overcome long odds and done a remarkable job.

[Gregory Sager]

Sorry, Bob. I just can't buy into the idea that a freshman guard could play 263 varsity minutes, spread out over 21 games (including two starts) in which there was no dire need for his services, and then have his lackluster performance chalked up to injury when there was nothing I could spot that was wrong with him in a kinesiological sense. It doesn't pass the smell test. All of that playing time, and all of those appearances, and the fact that he was getting them as an unproven freshman inserted into a rotation of four veterans, just doesn't add up to describe a player suffering from a debilitating injury -- unless you're arguing that Ron Rose was misusing him somehow, and I just can't buy that, or that he managed to disguise an injury and withheld the details from the coaching staff while getting all of that PT, which seems implausible.

It's not a crime to simply admit that he didn't play very well, you know.

[Titan Q]

Sorry, Bob. I just can't buy into the idea that a freshman guard could play 263 varsity minutes, spread out over 21 games (including two starts) in which there was no dire need for his services, and then have his lackluster performance chalked up to injury when there was nothing I could spot that was wrong with him in a kinesiological sense. It doesn't pass the smell test. All of that playing time, and all of those appearances, and the fact that he was getting them as an unproven freshman inserted into a rotation of four veterans, just doesn't add up to describe a player suffering from a debilitating injury -- unless you're arguing that Ron Rose was misusing him somehow, and I just can't buy that, or that he managed to disguise an injury and withheld the details from the coaching staff while getting all of that PT, which seems implausible.

It's not a crime to simply admit that he didn't play very well, you know.

Greg, I simply stated that Mark Falotico has not played a healthy season of basketball since his sophomore year of high school -- that he has played through some significant injuries in each of his last four basketball seasons.  If you need some medical documentation to account for each of the four seasons in question, I can work on that. 

I never disputed what you have posted about his overall ineffective play as a freshman...not once.

I am very comfortable with the accuracy of what I posted her about Mark Falotico.  And safe to say I have no desire to continue the conversation.

So moving on...

[Gregory Sager]

North Park has added Matthew Mohr, a 6'6 forward from McHenry, to the class of '21, as well as another Norwegian import, 6'1 guard Nicolai Foss.

[Titan Q]

IWU's 9 non-conference games for 2017-18...

Nov. 15 - vs Fontbonne
Nov. 17 - vs Alma
Nov. 18 - vs Calvin
Nov. 25 - vs Millsaps (@ Rhodes)
Nov. 26 - @ Rhodes
Dec. 17 - vs Washington U.
Dec. 19 - @ Chicago
Dec. 28 - @ Emory tournament
Dec. 29 - @ Emory tournament

[AndOne]

NCC TRANSFER

Brandon James is transferring to North Central from Lakeland University of the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference. He has been a regular starter at guard for the Muskies for the last 2 years.

2016-2017 Stats:

18.1 PPG (Tied for 6th in the NACC)
.402 FG %
.336 3 PT %
.808 FT % (5th in the NACC)

Brandon, who played his HS basketball at Rockford East, will have only one year of eligibility remaining.

* Further announcements are likely to follow.

[AndOne]

NCC TRANSFER

Michael Pollack is transferring to North Central from Division 2 Northern Michigan.
Michael (6'3" 185) is a 2016 graduate of DeKalb HS where he was coached by Al Biancalana.

At DeKalb;

* 1,000 + point scorer including shooting 42% from 3. Made 172 threes.
* First Team All Conference -- Northern IL Big 12 Conference
* All Area -- Daily Chronicle
* All State -- IBCA
* Ranked 41st in the state by Prep Hoops Report

Michael redshirted last year at NMU, and will still have 4 years of eligibility remaining.