MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

North Central leads Illinois Wesleyan at the half, 30-19.

As the score indicates, NCC is playing absolutely stifling defense. IWU is shooting only 21% from the field (7-33). Brady Rose is 1-11 for two points.

[unanimous22]

Brady Rose.  Woof.

[Gregory Sager]

North Central 70
Illinois Wesleyan 64

[Titan Q]

That was ugly.

To the bubble go the Titans.

[iwu70]

NCC over IWU 70-64.  NC played well, tough D for sure, but the Titans played poorly, shooting very poorly, again trying to come back after a pathetic first half.  IWU has probably played themselves out of the tournament.  Finishing 19-7 for the season, unlikely to be enough for a Pool C bid, IMHO.  Sad ending to an otherwise exemplar season. 

All credit to NCC -- Sorenson and Raridon again playing very well.

IWU'70

[unanimous22]

I won't feel too bad if IWU doesn't get in, because NCC is clearly the superior team at this point in the season.

[Gregory Sager]

Illinois Wesleyan played a much better second half at the offensive end -- the Titans could hardly have played a worse half than the first -- and did a great job of stalling out North Central's offense by double-teaming Alex Sorenson in the post, reasoning that NCC wasn't reversing the ball out of the double-team but was merely playing in-out-in-out two-man basketball between Sorenson and whichever guard was doing post-entry duty. As a result, IWU managed to whittle down the 16-point lead that NCC had forged early in the second half, getting the Cards' lead down to two possessions on several occasions late in the ballgame. But I never felt that North Central was going to let this one slip away; Sorenson was too hard for the Titans to stop when he drove the lane rather than settling for trying to back in whichever Titans big happened to be guarding him, and Raridon did a great job of playing traffic cop.

I'm impressed by the way that the Cards have stepped up in the absence of Erwin Henry. In that kind of a situation you have to expect everybody to shoulder a little bit more of the burden rather than asking your stars to do all of the extra work, and NCC did that tonight. Cappelletti had a double-double and was quietly terrific. Chang was really tough at both ends of the floor, and Todd Raridon got some nice minutes out of Tommy Koth as well.

IWU did manage to make the second-half comeback happen by scattering the scoring between Colin Bonnett, Jaylen Beasley, Jason Gregoire, and Alex O'Neill, but Brady Rose was totally MIA tonight. I can't remember the last time I saw a CCIW superstar have such an abjectly awful night under the big lights. He didn't even score his second field goal of the night until there were only 65 seconds left in the game.

[Gregory Sager]

My Player To Watch in the second game is Kobe Eichelberger. I think that he's the hinge on the door that Wheaton has to open in order to pull off the upset.

[Greek Tragedy]

Brady Rose.  Woof.

More like Poof...he disappeared.

[Greek Tragedy]

According to the Pool C board, a few bubble teams losing. That can only help IWU.

[Titan Q]

According to the Pool C board, a few bubble teams losing. That can only help IWU.

Some very helpful results for IWU tonight.

[iwu70]

Greg has summarized it well.  A sad performance by the Titans tonight and clearly NCC the better team in the last week.  Titans live by good shooting, esp. the trey, good offense, and tonight it wasn't there at all, esp. for Brady Rose.  I'm sure he will bounce back and have better days, hopefully in the tournament, surely next year.  Let's hope the Titans still get a bid, but if they play like tonight they won't last long in the tournament. 

19-7 -- shades of last year's situation.  Let's hope the bubble treats the Titan better this year. 

Now the waiting begins. . .

'70

[GoPerry]

I won't feel too bad if IWU doesn't get in, because NCC is clearly the superior team at this point in the season.

Agree with this.  In fact, I would probably favor them tomorrow night over either Augie or WC.  The Cards seem to be on a roll right now, playing with some confidence.  3 straight wins @ WC, @IWU, vs IWU(neutral) is pretty strong stuff.

[iwumichigander]

Pop Pop Fizz Fizz. Going to need help to get in

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana 72
Wheaton 64