MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Hightops]

 Interesting one at the Carver Center tonight to say the least.  One coach was ejected after throwing his sport coat late in the game - and it wasn't the coach who you would normally associate with that action.  Coach Baines watched his team give up a lead they had for the majority of the second half, and blew a gasket when Derek Dotlich was called or a charge with less than one second on the clock and his Bluejays down one point.  Baines penetrated into the elbow area after the call and ripped off his jacket and threw it towards the scorer's table.  As you might expect, he was accessed two technicals and ejected.  Nolan Ebel made all four free throws and Augustana wins by five.  I believe Coach Giovanine holds the record for most jacket throwing attempts, but Coach Baines might have moved into first place for velocity and or distance with tonight's attempt. 

[GoPerry]

Live stats shows IWU got 50 rebounds to Wheaton's 28, and that 23 were offensive. Is that right? 

Yes, and it was agonizingly frustrating to sit there and watch.  IWU grabs 23 offensive board to Wheaton's 4 resulting in 31 more shot attempts (84-53) for the Titans.  Late in the game I really couldn't believe the Thunder were still in the game much less leading.

Francis was Francis, 45 and 9, 15-15 from the ft line and almost no turnovers.  Brady was terribly cold early but heated up a little in the 2nd.  Titans 3 pointers were not falling at all but, luckily for WC, they kept shooting them even when the game was still close and 2 pt baskets would've kept the pressure on the Thunder.  That was a little head scratching for me.

Officiating was pretty bad I thought.

[duckfan41]

Very entertaining game tonight in King Arena with the Thunder coming out on top of the Titans 86-77.

Francis was the high scorer and rebounder in the game with 45 points and 9 rebounds. He went 12-26 from the field, 6-15 from downtown, and a red hot 15-15 at the charity stripe. Francis was blanketed by defenders all night, but he could not be slowed down tonight. Luke Peters with a very strong game pouring in 12 points and dishing out 7 assists, while also making Brady Rose's night absolutely miserable. Rose went 7-21 from the field and 4-14 from downtown for 21 points.

Most of this game felt like IWU couldn't shoot the ball into the ocean from the boat, as Wheaton once again played suffocating defense. Rose (father) was visably frustrated with the officiating all night and he may have had a point, but going 28-84 from the field as a team is never going to win you many basketball games. The place where IWU did come to play tonight was on the glass, outrebounding the Thunder 50-38. A solid portion came off of long rebounds from IWU missed 3's (there were a ton of them), but also just a case more often of IWU working harder to get the rebounds.

Great win for the Thunder, and a big one coming up this weekend on the road at Tarble Arena.

[AndOne]

Good thing for the Wheaties that Francis was Francis. That way, they didn't have to rely on a Spencer Peterson three to win the game.
Speaking of Peterson, he had an interesting game. Played 21 minutes and had 0 points. But he did have 5 fouls!

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana 78
Elmhurst 73

Incredibly tough loss for the Jays. They had Augustana on the ropes but couldn't get the knockout punch  I'm running a high fever so that's about all the commentary I can give.

Augie somehow continues to dance with the devil without getting burned.

[AndOne]

Will somebody from Wheaton please tell Tim Martin that I've ordered him a new larynx. It should arrive by the weekend! 🗣

[AndOne]

Augustana 78
Elmhurst 73

Incredibly tough loss for the Jays. They had Augustana on the ropes but couldn't get the knockout punch  I'm running a high fever so that's about all the commentary I can give.

Augie somehow continues to dance with the devil without getting burned.

The devil went down to Georgia! 

[augie77]

Interesting one at the Carver Center tonight to say the least.  One coach was ejected after throwing his sport coat late in the game - and it wasn't the coach who you would normally associate with that action.  Coach Baines watched his team give up a lead they had for the majority of the second half, and blew a gasket when Derek Dotlich was called or a charge with less than one second on the clock and his Bluejays down one point.  Baines penetrated into the elbow area after the call and ripped off his jacket and threw it towards the scorer's table.  As you might expect, he was accessed two technicals and ejected.  Nolan Ebel made all four free throws and Augustana wins by five.  I believe Coach Giovanine holds the record for most jacket throwing attempts, but Coach Baines might have moved into first place for velocity and or distance with tonight's attempt. 

With three minutes remaining in the first half, Augustana Coach Giovanine was calmly removing his coat, with his back to the officials while slowly walking in the  opposite direction.  One of the referees called technical foul and Elmhurst connected for four free throws.  Apparently the official took offense.  For much of the game it appeared that questionable call might be decisive.  Tonight's officials were clearly coat-averse.

[AndOne]

Live stats shows IWU got 50 rebounds to Wheaton's 28, and that 23 were offensive. Is that right? 

Yes, and it was agonizingly frustrating to sit there and watch.  IWU grabs 23 offensive board to Wheaton's 4 resulting in 31 more shot attempts (84-53) for the Titans.  Late in the game I really couldn't believe the Thunder were still in the game much less leading.

Francis was Francis, 45 and 9, 15-15 from the ft line and almost no turnovers.  Brady was terribly cold early but heated up a little in the 2nd.  Titans 3 pointers were not falling at all but, luckily for WC, they kept shooting them even when the game was still close and 2 pt baskets would've kept the pressure on the Thunder.  That was a little head scratching for me.

Officiating was pretty bad I thought.

They say shooters have to shoot themselves out of slumps, and it appears a good thing for Wheaton that Brady Rose took that advice to heart. He took 21 shots, hitting only 7, including only 4 of 14 from three. If, as Go Perry relates above, more 2 point baskets would have kept the pressure on WC, you would think Ron Rose would reign him in a bit. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[AndOne]

Interesting one at the Carver Center tonight to say the least.  One coach was ejected after throwing his sport coat late in the game - and it wasn't the coach who you would normally associate with that action.  Coach Baines watched his team give up a lead they had for the majority of the second half, and blew a gasket when Derek Dotlich was called or a charge with less than one second on the clock and his Bluejays down one point.  Baines penetrated into the elbow area after the call and ripped off his jacket and threw it towards the scorer's table.  As you might expect, he was accessed two technicals and ejected.  Nolan Ebel made all four free throws and Augustana wins by five.  I believe Coach Giovanine holds the record for most jacket throwing attempts, but Coach Baines might have moved into first place for velocity and or distance with tonight's attempt. 

With three minutes remaining in the first half, Augustana Coach Giovanine was calmly removing his coat, with his back to the officials while slowly walking in the  opposite direction.  One of the referees called technical foul and Elmhurst connected for four free throws.  Apparently the official took offense.  For much of the game it appeared that questionable call might be decisive.  Tonight's officials were clearly coat-averse.

Now 77. Really. 
When is the last time Grey Giovanine ever did anything calmly? 🤯

[Gregory Sager]

Weird evening. It was Coaches Versus Cancer Night, which is why a lot of coaches were wearing sneakers. It also must've been Officials Versus Sportscoats Night -- or, in the crackerbox, Officials Versus Hearing Loss Night. NPU's Kindrel Morris, after being called for an offensive foul, turned around and started walking back up the floor on defense and muttered "that's terrible" under his breath -- and Clarence Rak apparently had his hearing aid turned up to 11, because he T'ed Morris up for that.

It was also Officials Versus Norwegians Night, as Veggie Tangen fouled out of the game without being in long enough to break a sweat. A couple of the calls against him were pretty strange. I saw him in Charcoal Delights after the game, and I asked him if he'd set off a stink bomb in the referee changing room before the game or something, because they didn't seem to like him very much.

[USee]

Seems to me if you give up 86 points its as much about a lack of defense as it is missed shots.

[augie77]

Giovanine was NOT calm when he realized a few seconds later that he'd been assessed a technical.  But it was a relatively benign coat removal that prompted the T.

[thunder38]

Brady Rose finished with a deceptive stat line at 7-21 and a team-high 21 points. He really had two different games.

I thought he was going to shoot the Titans out of the game for 28 minutes as he started 1-11 from the field and just kept chucking from the outside. Then he got hot and hit three or four shots in a row and almost single-handedly pulled the Titans back to within two points.

As he did when North Park came charging on Saturday, Francis answered with a three-pointer and Wheaton was able to build the lead back out. An and-one for Nyameye Adom seemed to be the dagger as it put Wheaton up 10 with about three or four minutes left.

Luke Peters had a really nice night tonight, frustrating Rose and distributing well with seven dimes. Trevor Gunter also chipped in solid minutes including an impressive dunk in the middle of the second half that put Wheaton up nine.

I don't know that I thought it was a poorly officiated contest but it was certainly an oddly officiated one. Both teams were given a ton of leeway guarding off the ball and it was a war for both teams to get open off screens. However, fouls seemed to be a dime a dozen on rebound attempts. Spencer Peterson picked up four of his five fouls in probably his last four or five minutes of game play and all on rebound attempts. Certainly not the worst-officiated game I've seen in the CCIW this year or even tonight, but similar to a lot of other games this year in the conference, the consistency was lacking.

[AndOne]

Another tough one for IWU.  It's been a very disappointing season.

Unless the Green Team wins 1st place 🥇 at the conference dance, it appears they'll be excluded from the national dance off. 🧨