MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

The 54-point performance by Aston Francis tonight sets a new school record. From Brett Marhanka's gamer:

The 54 points scored by Aston Francis broke a 64-year old program record for most points in a single game of 50 points previously set by Norm Pott on January 16, 1954 against Millikin. The 54-point output sets a new single game high for Division III this season and is tied with Division I Furman's Jordan Lyles for the most points scored in an NCAA game this season across all levels of the NCAA.

Mike Schauer also made an important observation in the gamer regarding the performance of Luke Peters against UWP:

Peters finished the game with 11 points and six rebounds but was equally effective in limiting UW-Platteville's leading scorer Robert Duax.

"As good as Aston was tonight, I was equally pleased with Luke Peters' play tonight," said Schauer. "He held the reigning WIAC Player of the Year to 15 points on 5-16 shooting. Luke's ability and willingness to always guard the other team's best player often gets overlooked but is as valuable as Aston's offense."

[thunder38]

The 54-point performance by Aston Francis tonight sets a new school record. From Brett Marhanka's gamer:

The 54 points scored by Aston Francis broke a 64-year old program record for most points in a single game of 50 points previously set by Norm Pott on January 16, 1954 against Millikin. The 54-point output sets a new single game high for Division III this season and is tied with Division I Furman's Jordan Lyons for the most points scored in an NCAA game this season across all levels of the NCAA.

Mike Schauer also made an important observation in the gamer regarding the performance of Luke Peters against UWP:

Peters finished the game with 11 points and six rebounds but was equally effective in limiting UW-Platteville's leading scorer Robert Duax.

"As good as Aston was tonight, I was equally pleased with Luke Peters' play tonight," said Schauer. "He held the reigning WIAC Player of the Year to 15 points on 5-16 shooting. Luke's ability and willingness to always guard the other team's best player often gets overlooked but is as valuable as Aston's offense."

I had to look up the 54-point night for Jordan Lyons from Furman to try to make a comparison. Lyons made his 54 on 15-34 shooting on three-point attempts, tying the NCAA record for made threes and setting a new NCAA record for three-point attempts.

Francis has had those kind of nights where it feels like he puts up that many shots but his efficiency tonight was incredible. He scored 24 straight points for Wheaton and his 34 points in the first half was one more than the Pioneers scored as a team through 20 minutes. The reactions from the UWP coaching staff as Francis hit shot after shot was fun to watch in the first half. They seemed to pass through all the stages of grief in just 20 minutes.

Greg I'm glad you mentioned the audio being shut off in the second half because I had to refresh my feed at halftime and just assumed that it was an issue on my end. Sounds like the Pioneer fans just needed to take their 'L' for the night and not continue to feed the beast as Francis was lighting them up. A lesson that Wheaton's students could've learned from last year's North Central game at King Arena.

All in all a good night for the Thunders and leads to what should be a very fun game at King Arena on Saturday night.

[iwu70]

Francis scoring 54 -- just amazing. 

'70

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

This is obviously the counter argument to "he takes too many shots," because some nights they go in.

[Greek Tragedy]

I really think Platteville could've defended Francis better, especially that inbounds play near the end of the game. Just sayin'.

[sac]

"Game Score was created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player's productivity for a single game. The scale is similar to that of points scored, (40 is an outstanding performance, 10 is an average performance, etc.)"

Game Score for Aston Francis vs Platteville was 38

On the year he's avg a game score of 35 now.

[Gregory Sager]

I really think Platteville could've defended Francis better, especially that inbounds play near the end of the game. Just sayin'.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

It's an interesting debate to have as the season goes along - you've got two fantastic players (the two best in the league, in my mind, at this point) in Francis and Ebel, who contribute to their respective teams in very different ways.  Obviously "better" is very objective, but the contrast between the two and how it plays out over the season is very interesting (not to mention other players who could easily work themselves into that discussion).

[AndOne]

Francis & Ebel are both fantastic talents. But does either appear in the top 10 of the most categories in the conference statistics? Are they the best overall players in the conference?

[WUPHF]

Francis figures quite nicely in the conference rankings.

No. 1 in scoring, leading No. 2 by 10 points per game.
No. 9 in rebounding
No. 4 in assists and No. 8 in assists/turnover ratio
No. 7 in free-throw percentage
No. 8 in steals

Wheaton is one of the weaker teams in terms of rebounding (context), but that 6.5 rebounds per game stat is very impressive.

[AndOne]

I wonder what the Rowdies will have on their cheat sheets this year...

That still makes me laugh ... not so much Sorenson's tweet in response, but the mere fact that the Wheaton student section produced a cheat sheet for a basketball game, complete with a logo for their nickname. That's worthy of a first-ballot induction into the Hall of Lame.

I had to look up the 54-point night for Jordan Lyons from Furman to try to make a comparison. Lyons made his 54 on 15-34 shooting on three-point attempts, tying the NCAA record for made threes and setting a new NCAA record for three-point attempts.

Francis has had those kind of nights where it feels like he puts up that many shots but his efficiency tonight was incredible. He scored 24 straight points for Wheaton and his 34 points in the first half was one more than the Pioneers scored as a team through 20 minutes. The reactions from the UWP coaching staff as Francis hit shot after shot was fun to watch in the first half. They seemed to pass through all the stages of grief in just 20 minutes.

Greg I'm glad you mentioned the audio being shut off in the second half because I had to refresh my feed at halftime and just assumed that it was an issue on my end. Sounds like the Pioneer fans just needed to take their 'L' for the night and not continue to feed the beast as Francis was lighting them up. A lesson that Wheaton's students could've learned from last year's North Central game at King Arena.

All in all a good night for the Thunders and leads to what should be a very fun game at King Arena on Saturday night.

Win or lose, The HALL of LAME members need to come up some better "cheers" than "Hey coach, your bald spot is showing," or some more Christian utterances than those belittling alleged girlfriends of opposing players. Perhaps try something a little more relatable to the game of basketball?

Apparently at the school founded, as the monument on the College's front lawn states, For Christ and his Kingdom, anything goes. This fact is seemingly undeniably evidenced by the notation in the bottom left corner of last year's cheat sheet—-ITS NORTH CENTRAL, ANYTHING GOES. Really? Anything?
Does President Ryken, who the "cheat sheet" is named after, really believe anything does go?

I'm the first one to say raucous student cheering sections are great. I think they ADD to the already charged atmosphere of games. The Wheaton students enthusiasm is commendable! 
But when the vast majority of the "cheers" are hurtful insults of a personal nature or when behavior in the stands, if committed on the street would get you arrested for disorderly conduct, then it's time for those supposedly in authority to step in.

[AndOne]

Francis figures quite nicely in the conference rankings.

No. 1 in scoring, leading No. 2 by 10 points per game.
No. 9 in rebounding
No. 4 in assists and No. 8 in assists/turnover ratio
No. 7 in free-throw percentage
No. 8 in steals

Wheaton is one of the weaker teams in terms of rebounding (context), but that 6.5 rebounds per game stat is very impressive.

Scoring is the first thing most people look at. Everybody wants a big/high scorer. And nobody in the entire (D3) nation does it better than Aston Francis. Utterly fabulous-a likely first team All-American. And, he should be recognized not only for his scoring, but for his contributions in other facets of the game as well.
As WUPHF points out, Francis is in the top 10 in six statistical categories. But there are players who appear in even more than six top 10 categories. Their excellence needs to be recognized as well. 

[AndOne]

I was impressed by what North Central did tonight in the airplane hangar. The Cards couldn't make a bucket to save their lives in the first four minutes of the game, while Aurora was running them out of the gym to the tune of an 11-0 start. But the Cards didn't flinch; instead, they imposed their will upon the much smaller Spartans by slowing the game down and forcing a halfcourt pace, which the Spartans are not equipped to handle against a bigger team. The change of pace forced them to lose their shooting rhythm from downtown, and, where North Park was able to find seams in the NCC defense and drive to the rim on Saturday, the Spartans instead just put their heads down and drove right into the chests of the Cardinals. That charge-a-thon really racked up a lot of first-half fouls for Aurora and took the steam out of the Spartans. NCC caught up with them at 23-23 with 6:17 to go in the half, went ahead for good at 29-26 on a Blaise Meredith trey with four minutes to go, and never looked back from there.

The Cardinals are still plagued by inconsistent defense, as the Spartans shot an even 50% on the night both from the field as a whole and from downtown, but the much bigger hosts clobbered Aurora so badly on the glass (44-24, including 19-7 in offensive rebounds) that it didn't really make a difference. Connor Raridon (23 and 9) was very solid, while Meredith fouled out with an even 20 points. Matt Cappelletti had an 11 and 13 double-double.

NCC made its first 22 free throws of the game, prompting me to look up the D3 team record for most FTs made without a miss to refresh my memory. (The Cards didn't get close, as Albany set the record by going 28-28 against Potsdam State in a 1994 game.) They ended up the night 24-26 (.923), which is still crazy good.

North Central and Wheaton should provide us with their usual barnburner on Saturday night.

After 29+ years of head coaching, NCC's Todd Raridon has learned a thing or two about mid-game adjustments. I think it's safe to say he has made a few over the course of his career. Incidentally, last night's win was #520 of Radidon's career—exactly twice as many as he has lost.

As a (far) aside, NCC also won last evening's JV game over Aurora, with JV Coach Vince Kmiec raking up yet another W. And word has filtered down the pipeline that a major contribution to that W came from a couple of plays designed by graduate assistant Zach Jadzak that can best be described as "imaginative."   

[duckfan41]

[\quote]
Win or lose, The HALL of LAME members need to come up some better "cheers" than "Hey coach, your bald spot is showing," or some more Christian utterances than those belittling alleged girlfriends of opposing players. Perhaps try something a little more relatable to the game of basketball?

Apparently at the school founded, as the monument on the College's front lawn states, For Christ and his Kingdom, anything goes. This fact is seemingly undeniably evidenced by the notation in the bottom left corner of last year's cheat sheet—-ITS NORTH CENTRAL, ANYTHING GOES. Really? Anything?
Does President Ryken, who the "cheat sheet" is named after, really believe anything does go?

I'm the first one to say raucous student cheering sections are great. I think they ADD to the already charged atmosphere of games. The Wheaton students enthusiasm is commendable! 
But when the vast majority of the "cheers" are hurtful insults of a personal nature or when behavior in the stands, if committed on the street would get you arrested for disorderly conduct, then it's time for those supposedly in authority to step in.
[/quote]

If you don't mind, could you please explain this straw-man to the group so we can all understand just how much criminal activity was happening in the stands during the game last year? "Defense!" "Coach get off the court!" "Daddy's Boy!" Those are apparently enough to instill fear in the hearts of everyday people walking down the street? Anyone who was at the game knows that almost none of the information from that sheet was cheered by anyone in the student section.

Regarding the "Anything Goes" qualifier at the bottom of the page, sure it probably wasn't necessary to say, but no one went to any type of extreme because 21-22 year old college students who threw the Scouting Report together gave them "permission" to. The Ryken's Rowdies section is one of the tamer Student Sections that I have ever been around in terms of going after the other team directly. There haven't been any of the Scouting Reports for any of the home games this year, and I honestly don't see much of an issue with the piece of paper itself. If college kids want to use their free time to do some playful digging on what players post on their public social media pages for everyone to see then all power to them.

I know for a fact that the Ryken's Rowdies section is not nearly as demeaning to other school's teams than any other school. The cheer I take the most issue with is the Daddy's Boy chant, which I have mentioned before on this board because while it can be funny, it's far from original and can get really old really fast.

I have always been a supporter of going away from cheers if they clearly aren't working, which is why I was hoping that the student section last year was going to divert their attention to anyone other than Chang and Sorenson during the game in King last season because it was clearly helping the entire Cardinal team focus and play harder instead of the goal of getting into their heads and making their nights tough. That is the goal of any crowd or student section, create a rowdy environment and distract the other players, but when that proves to not work for certain guys, try something else.

With that I'll digress, just felt the need to share my two cents for whatever reason.

[duckfan41]

Still have no idea how the format of the boards work a majority of the time. Apologies!