MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[voxelmhurst]

Elmhurst and Carroll are currently tied at 7-8. If the 'jays and the Pios both win or both lose on Saturday, since they split this season series they'll have to go to the ladder tiebreaker. Only once has either squad beaten a team that's currently above them in the standings,and that was Carroll's 90-83 win over Illinois Wesleyan at Shirk back in mid-December.  So a tie at the end of Saturday night's games means that Carroll gets the fifth seed and has to travel to Illinois Wesleyan on Tuesday, while Elmhurst has the sixth seed and has to move on down the Union Pacific line to Wheaton on Tuesday.

Carroll also beat Wheaton 77-70 at home on 1/31, and so the Pioneers have secured victories over both of their potential opponents in the first round, and are also riding a 4 game winning streak. They'll probably be assigned the dark horse label going in to the postseason.

[79jaybird]

You have to give props to coach G and what he has done at Augustana.  For a league that has hoisted the Nat'l Title multiple times, produced great players at multiple levels beyond college,  IMO for him to achieve the conference titles streak he has is just remarkable. 

[WUPHF]

[...] but he's proven so adept and natural at the step back and fall-away 3 that I don't think that anymore. 

He also has the best step-forward, fall-forward or whatever shot.

[lmitzel]

[...] but he's proven so adept and natural at the step back and fall-away 3 that I don't think that anymore. 

He also has the best step-forward, fall-forward or whatever shot.

For me, it's one of those "I know he's really good, but he hasn't really shown it in the games I've seen him in," until this past Saturday when he was hitting those with a hand in his face. That I haven't had a nightmare of watching those continue to go in in the nights since is nothing short of a miracle.

As has been noted, he takes alot of shots from beyond the arc, sometimes way beyond the arc.

He took one from about 40 feet the other night, and if it's any other player I've ever seen I'm thrilled they're taking that shot. Francis fired and I fully expected it to go in.

I know Schauer wants the narrative that Francis is just a scorer to die off, and I get it. But stories like above have to mean something.

[WUPHF]

He took one from about 40 feet the other night, and if it's any other player I've ever seen I'm thrilled they're taking that shot. Francis fired and I fully expected it to go in.

It would be interesting to know if he is purposefully taking those shots in practice and in the off season.  I have to think he is.

[shepherd]

You have to give props to coach G and what he has done at Augustana.  For a league that has hoisted the Nat'l Title multiple times, produced great players at multiple levels beyond college,  IMO for him to achieve the conference titles streak he has is just remarkable.

I absolutely agree.   To maintain that level of all around solid play and poise in his players in the CCIW is nothing short of astounding.  His teams always have great post play to go along with the great guards he has coached.  The other thing his teams do is not have big drop off in play as other teams year in and game by game.
There are many great coaches in the CCIW, but coach G's teams record shows he is doing an exceptional job coaching every year.

[Gregory Sager]

Elmhurst and Carroll are currently tied at 7-8. If the 'jays and the Pios both win or both lose on Saturday, since they split this season series they'll have to go to the ladder tiebreaker. Only once has either squad beaten a team that's currently above them in the standings,and that was Carroll's 90-83 win over Illinois Wesleyan at Shirk back in mid-December.  So a tie at the end of Saturday night's games means that Carroll gets the fifth seed and has to travel to Illinois Wesleyan on Tuesday, while Elmhurst has the sixth seed and has to move on down the Union Pacific line to Wheaton on Tuesday.

Carroll also beat Wheaton 77-70 at home on 1/31, and so the Pioneers have secured victories over both of their potential opponents in the first round, and are also riding a 4 game winning streak. They'll probably be assigned the dark horse label going in to the postseason.

Nice. I forgot about that one.

I feel as though I owe Paul Combs & Co. a huge apology. I wrote them off a few weeks ago, but since then they've arguably played as well as has any team in the league, including Augie. The Pios have won five of their last six, and in their lone loss, which was to Augie, they were at least competitive.

Carroll is an interesting team, because the Pios don't really appear to pass the eye test of a good team. They're not extraordinarily talented or athletic. But they really play well as a unit. They're clearly one of those "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" teams.

You have to give props to coach G and what he has done at Augustana.  For a league that has hoisted the Nat'l Title multiple times, produced great players at multiple levels beyond college,  IMO for him to achieve the conference titles streak he has is just remarkable. 

It certainly is, and that should not be overlooked as a topic of conversation here. I'm surprised that our Augustana fans aren't pushing that narrative more. Bobby O was doing it for awhile on the runup to Augie clinching, but nobody's really brought it up since (until the former Elmhurst Bluejays broadcaster saw fit to do so ).

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

He took one from about 40 feet the other night, and if it's any other player I've ever seen I'm thrilled they're taking that shot. Francis fired and I fully expected it to go in.

It would be interesting to know if he is purposefully taking those shots in practice and in the off season.  I have to think he is.

Interestingly, I talked to David Arseneault at Grinnell this week for my ATN column - he mentioned how he's having his guys work on deeper threes on a regular basis now.  Obviously it's not 40 footers, but he noted that if you can get the players comfortable and accurate on deeper threes it only helps your spacing and stretches the defense even further.  Obviously you don't want to sacrifice percentages that much, but there's actually a tactical reason to extend your range as far as you can.  Not something I'd thought too much about before.

[voxelmhurst]

Carroll is an interesting team, because the Pios don't really appear to pass the eye test of a good team. They're not extraordinarily talented or athletic. But they really play well as a unit. They're clearly one of those "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" teams.

Given how they stifled Elmhurst's offense and took Rhode & Ireland off their games in the second half, I wasn't surprised to see that Carroll ranks 3rd in the league in scoring defense and 1st in steals.

The last 25 minutes of yesterday's game were among the more domineering stretches I've seen from an Elmhurst opponent this season.

[markerickson]

I got some good photos from behind the Carthage bench with the five banners behind a centered Bosko.  With that game and others, the 100+ points by IWU, NP's woes are more acute on defense.  NP's two leading scorers are sophomores.

[AndOne]

North Central wins in Kenosha, 85-54.  I did not get home in time to watch this one live, but of note is the fact that Matt Cappelletti logged zero minutes tonight.  I'm sure someone can chime in with context as I'm not sure what led to this, but I hope it was a one-off.

Blaise Meredith with 22 and 14
Connor Raridon with 21 and 8 boards
Aaron Jones with 10 and 5 assists

For Carthage:
Kienan Baltimore with 16
Jordan Kedrowski with 14
Sean Johnson with 10


Carthage was just 4-of-29 from three in this one.

As kiko indicated, North Central was led last night by soph Blaise Meredith who had his best game as a Cardinal with a monster double-double with 22 and 14. The 31 point NCC advantage might have been even more if the Cardinals had offered even token resistance to the last 2 baskets of the game by Carthage, both 3 pointers by Jordan Kedrowski.

Even moreso than the large margin of victory, the most noteworthy features of this game were 1) the apparent surrender of the Redmen about midway through the first half, after which their play was pretty devoid of any sense of urgency, and lacking of any observable degree of sustained effort. Basically, just playing out the string. And 2) Bosko's seemingly detached approach to the game. It appeared to the majority of the NCC contingent that he really wasn't into the game very much. Rather than his usual degree of engagement, barking at the officials, and yelling instructions to his players, he just sat rather quietly on the bench much of the game, apparently resigned to what proved to be the ultimate outcome. Again, this was the feeling of not just a few, but of most of the NCC contingent in attendance. Perhaps he is looking forward to a fresh start next year when all but one of his players will be eligible to return. 

[WUPHF]

Interestingly, I talked to David Arseneault at Grinnell this week for my ATN column - he mentioned how he's having his guys work on deeper threes on a regular basis now.  Obviously it's not 40 footers, but he noted that if you can get the players comfortable and accurate on deeper threes it only helps your spacing and stretches the defense even further.  Obviously you don't want to sacrifice percentages that much, but there's actually a tactical reason to extend your range as far as you can.  Not something I'd thought too much about before.

Thanks for sharing that...

[BobbyO]

Elmhurst and Carroll are currently tied at 7-8. If the 'jays and the Pios both win or both lose on Saturday, since they split this season series they'll have to go to the ladder tiebreaker. Only once has either squad beaten a team that's currently above them in the standings,and that was Carroll's 90-83 win over Illinois Wesleyan at Shirk back in mid-December.  So a tie at the end of Saturday night's games means that Carroll gets the fifth seed and has to travel to Illinois Wesleyan on Tuesday, while Elmhurst has the sixth seed and has to move on down the Union Pacific line to Wheaton on Tuesday.

Carroll also beat Wheaton 77-70 at home on 1/31, and so the Pioneers have secured victories over both of their potential opponents in the first round, and are also riding a 4 game winning streak. They'll probably be assigned the dark horse label going in to the postseason.

Nice. I forgot about that one.

I feel as though I owe Paul Combs & Co. a huge apology. I wrote them off a few weeks ago, but since then they've arguably played as well as has any team in the league, including Augie. The Pios have won five of their last six, and in their lone loss, which was to Augie, they were at least competitive.

Carroll is an interesting team, because the Pios don't really appear to pass the eye test of a good team. They're not extraordinarily talented or athletic. But they really play well as a unit. They're clearly one of those "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" teams.

You have to give props to coach G and what he has done at Augustana.  For a league that has hoisted the Nat'l Title multiple times, produced great players at multiple levels beyond college,  IMO for him to achieve the conference titles streak he has is just remarkable. 

It certainly is, and that should not be overlooked as a topic of conversation here. I'm surprised that our Augustana fans aren't pushing that narrative more. Bobby O was doing it for awhile on the runup to Augie clinching, but nobody's really brought it up since (until the former Elmhurst Bluejays broadcaster saw fit to do so ).

Thanks for the shout out.  I was at the Millikin game and getting caught up with my real work so been away a few days.  The biggest thing that shows how Coach G has done was in 2017 when he lost a lot of the team from the prior year but still got the team into the Tournament.  First St. Thomas and then Whitewater pulling off unbelievable come backs and then on to Salem.  Still wish Ebel would have made that lay up at the end or gotten fouled but I will always remember that final because I was there.

So far my prediction has been correct lets see how far it will continue.  What is the pod unwritten rules, do they place the same conference teams in the opening pod?  If Augie hosts and they should then who will they get?  Hopefully Greenville will not make it or go elsewhere.  Last year Augie finally figure it out but I think that hurt them the next day.

[lmitzel]

Elmhurst and Carroll are currently tied at 7-8. If the 'jays and the Pios both win or both lose on Saturday, since they split this season series they'll have to go to the ladder tiebreaker. Only once has either squad beaten a team that's currently above them in the standings,and that was Carroll's 90-83 win over Illinois Wesleyan at Shirk back in mid-December.  So a tie at the end of Saturday night's games means that Carroll gets the fifth seed and has to travel to Illinois Wesleyan on Tuesday, while Elmhurst has the sixth seed and has to move on down the Union Pacific line to Wheaton on Tuesday.

Carroll also beat Wheaton 77-70 at home on 1/31, and so the Pioneers have secured victories over both of their potential opponents in the first round, and are also riding a 4 game winning streak. They'll probably be assigned the dark horse label going in to the postseason.

Nice. I forgot about that one.

I feel as though I owe Paul Combs & Co. a huge apology. I wrote them off a few weeks ago, but since then they've arguably played as well as has any team in the league, including Augie. The Pios have won five of their last six, and in their lone loss, which was to Augie, they were at least competitive.

Carroll is an interesting team, because the Pios don't really appear to pass the eye test of a good team. They're not extraordinarily talented or athletic. But they really play well as a unit. They're clearly one of those "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" teams.

You have to give props to coach G and what he has done at Augustana.  For a league that has hoisted the Nat'l Title multiple times, produced great players at multiple levels beyond college,  IMO for him to achieve the conference titles streak he has is just remarkable. 

It certainly is, and that should not be overlooked as a topic of conversation here. I'm surprised that our Augustana fans aren't pushing that narrative more. Bobby O was doing it for awhile on the runup to Augie clinching, but nobody's really brought it up since (until the former Elmhurst Bluejays broadcaster saw fit to do so ).

Thanks for the shout out.  I was at the Millikin game and getting caught up with my real work so been away a few days.  The biggest thing that shows how Coach G has done was in 2017 when he lost a lot of the team from the prior year but still got the team into the Tournament.  First St. Thomas and then Whitewater pulling off unbelievable come backs and then on to Salem.  Still wish Ebel would have made that lay up at the end or gotten fouled but I will always remember that final because I was there.

So far my prediction has been correct lets see how far it will continue.  What is the pod unwritten rules, do they place the same conference teams in the opening pod?  If Augie hosts and they should then who will they get?  Hopefully Greenville will not make it or go elsewhere.  Last year Augie finally figure it out but I think that hurt them the next day.

As far as I know, the unwritten rule is that they won't stick teams from the same conference in an opening weekend pod except out in the northwest with the ever-popular Whitman-Whitworth-CMS-Texas/SAA team pod that's been all the rage the past couple years. At least out in the midwest, and with the CCIW in particular, the only conference tilt I can remember was an NCC-IWU matchup, but that was in the Sweet 16, and that was also the year the NCAA decided to hold all the title games in Atlanta, forgoing the whole pod format and holding the Elite Eight and Final Four rounds in Salem. Good times.

[Gregory Sager]

The CCIW has had a whole bunch of head-to-head meetings in the big dance over the years -- I can count nine of 'em right off of the top of my head -- but a CCIW H2H hasn't happened in the opening weekend of the tourney since 1990, which is ancient history in terms of how the D3 tourney is currently constructed. As Lucas said, the national committee consciously avoids putting teams from the same league in the same opening-weekend pod, aside from the island teams from the Pacific Northwest, southern California, and Texas -- and even in those instances, in which travel-budget restrictions necessitate putting two teams from the same league in the same pod, they never play each other in the first round.

Augie is almost a cinch to draw a #1 seed in one of the four sections of the bracket. Whether it hosts a pod or not depends upon the intentions of the committee: Do they split up Augie, UWO, and NWU if they're three of the top four teams in the nation in terms of the tourney's measuring criteria? If so, they might ship Augustana east in order to balance out the national field and avoid a Bracket of Death out here in the midwestern part of the country. If Augie does host a pod, look for the Rock Islanders to face as their opening-round opponent the SLIAC rep (probably Greenville or Webster), the NACC rep (MSOE and Concordia WI appear to be the favorites to win that autobid), the MWC rep if it's Grinnell or Lake Forest (if it's St. Norbert, the Green Knights might be a third seed within a pod rather than a fourth seed), or the UMAC rep (Northwestern and Bethany Lutheran are the best bets to win that autobid).

Nobody knows who the #2 and #3 teams in Rock Island would be, of course, but there's an intriguing possibility that Augie could face Loras in the second round of the opening weekend. After all, the Duhawks aren't going to be sent to Lincoln, NE, for the same reason that a CCIW at-large isn't going to be sent to the Carver P.E. Center on opening weekend.