MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Carthage won a walkover at Webster, 89-72, a game that was never close. Garrett Horner and Colton Sigel went wild from beyond the arc this afternoon, shooting a collective 11-20 from downtown to lead the Firebirds with 27 and 20, respectively, with Horner leading the rebounding category as well with 10. Fillip Bulatovic contributed a quiet 12. Carthage is now level at 5-5 on the season.

[Gregory Sager]

Millikin and North Central are going to overtime in the Griz.

[Gregory Sager]

Carroll pared down a 22-point Elmhurst lead to a mere seven in the final minute, but that's as close as the Pios got, as EU prevailed at home, 85-76. All five Bluejays starters reached double figures: Wesley Hooker had 18 and 6, Bryce Drews had 14 and 6, Jay Militello had 13 and 5 dimes, Jonathan Zapinski contributed 12 and 6, and Jake Rhode netted 11. Ryan Mendoza paced the Pioneers with 15 -- all of them in the second half, I believe -- while Ethan Balinao and Aaron Wafford scored a dozen apiece in the losing effort.

Elmhurst is now 9-2, 3-1, while Carroll drops to 3-7, 0-4.

[Gregory Sager]

J.T. Welch of Millikin blew a layup with a second to go, and Cole Laurence's off-balance putback attempt at the buzzer wouldn't go in, either. Double OT in the Griz.

[Gregory Sager]

North Central prevails in the fifty-minute special, 70-67. Very entertaining game with a couple of big runs in the second half, one by each team; a genuine back-and-forth vibe in the last seven minutes of regulation and through both overtimes; and ending with a questionable decision by the Big Blue to go for an easy deuce with less than five seconds to go and a three-point deficit to overcome. NCC was led by Matt Helwig, who scored 26 (all but two of them after halftime) and grabbed eight caroms. Ethan Helwig added 14 and 6. Millikin countered with Calvin Fisher, who had 17 and 13, Jake Hampton with 13 and 7, and J.T. Welch with a dozen points.

NCC is now 5-3, 2-1, while Millikin falls to 6-5, 2-2.

[Ultimate Titan Fan]

Postponements and cancellations increasing.  I'm getting a bad feeling....

[blue_jays]

Postponements and cancellations increasing.  I'm getting a bad feeling....

The Omicron spread might only cost us 3-4 weeks of games if we're lucky. The real problem will occur once students get back from break in early January...

[Next Man Up]

Postponements and cancellations increasing.  I'm getting a bad feeling....

The Omicron spread might only cost us 3-4 weeks of games if we're lucky. The real problem will occur once students get back from break in early January...

And a real potential problem occurs every Monday morning following the inevitable Friday and Saturday night house parties that occur at most campuses across the country. Three, four, or five teammates who, in addition to their teammates, also have other groups of friends not associated with the team who regularly attend/participate in the festivities. Mix all these different groups together for several hours, likely without much consideration given to things like social distancing or masking, and you have a situation fraught with the potential for an outbreak. 

Let's be careful out there people.

[iwu70]

Time for teams and team personnel to be really careful.  If Omicron is that much more contagious, it could be easy to get an outbreak going and really blow-up major parts of the season.  Let's hope not.

IWU'70

[WUPHF]

The vast majority of college students realize that Covid-19 is a profoundly age-stratified virus that poses almost no risk whatsoever to people in their age category.  Even less so for the healthiest among them.

20 years from now, I think almost everyone here will agree that we are badly mismanaging the pandemic, sacrificing the mental and economic health of those with basically no risk in pursuit of a zero Covid fantasy.

[Titan Q]

#4-Illinois Wesleyan (8-1, 2-1 CCIW) at #15-WashU (8-1, 0-0 UAA), 3pm CT, WashU Field House...


#4-Illinois Wesleyan (8-1, 2-1)
G - Luke Yoder, 6-0 Jr.  10.4 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 3.0 apg
G - Cory Noe, 6-2 Sr.  14.8 ppg, 4.0 rpg
G - Pete Lambesis, 6-4 Sr.  11.4 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 2.7 apg
F - Cody Mitchell, 6-7 Jr.  9.9 ppg, 6.9 rpg
F - Matt Leritz, 6-7 Sr.  16.8 ppg, 10.4 rpg
---
G - Ryan Sroka, 6-5 So.  4.8 ppg, 3.7 rpg
G - Lucas Heflen, 6-2 Jr. 4.7 ppg
G - Nick Roper, 6-7 Fr.  2.0 ppg, 1.8 rpg


#15-WashU (8-1, 0-0 UAA)
G - Hayden Doyle, 6-1 Fr.  8.0 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 2.9 apg
G - Jack Nolan, 6-1 Sr.  20.6 ppg, 5.0 rpg
G - Charlie Jacob, 6-2 Sr.  2.6 ppg, 2.1 rpg
F - Justin Hardy, 6-5 Sr.  10.4 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 2.6 apg
C - Kevin Davet, 6-10 Jr.  8.4 ppg, 4.8 rpg
-----
C - Jake Wolf, 6-10 Fr.  5.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg
G - Matt Gonzalo, 5-10 Jr.  4.3 ppg, 2.8 apg
G - David Windley, 6-3 Sr.  4.0 ppg, 2.6 rpg

IWU Game Notes: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/iwusports.com/documents/2021/12/17/mbb2122game10_WashU.pdf

Video: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/wustl/

IWU Radio (Eric Stock, Joel Swanson): https://www.iwusports.com/watch/?Live=268&type=Live

Live Stats: https://www.washubears.com/sports/mbkb/2021-22/boxscores/20211219_eps7.xml

[Gregory Sager]

Wash U 71
Illinois Wesleyan 61

IWU sliced a 17-point second-half deficit down to six on a couple of occasions in the final 90 seconds, but could get no closer.

Wash U was channeling Bo Ryan UW-Platteville today. Absolutely magnificent defense by the Bears.

[GoPerry]

The Bears are a very impressive team with as dynamic a guard you'll see in Nolan and significant height advantages in both Wolf and Davet at 6'10".  It is tough to square how this team lost to Webster which happens to be the Gorlocks only win on the season (1-10). 

I'm not sure when the next ranking will be but Wash U certainly looks top ten.

[Gregory Sager]

The Bears are a very impressive team with as dynamic a guard you'll see in Nolan and significant height advantages in both Wolf and Davet at 6'10".  It is tough to square how this team lost to Webster which happens to be the Gorlocks only win on the season (1-10).

It's a head-scratcher. I watched the Gorloks get pounded by Carthage yesterday down in St. Louis, and I can testify that Webster is just not a good basketball team.

Of course, the two teams met again a week later ... and the second time around the Bears stuffed the Gorloks in their pick-a-nick basket, running them out of the Wash U Field House by 32 points.

I'm not sure when the next ranking will be but Wash U certainly looks top ten.

No doubt about that at all.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park is playing without either of its starting guards, Michael Osborne and Izaiah Sanders, today. Neither one's on the bench; I'm speculating that it's due to COVID protocol, especially since it struck the NPU women's team in its entirety today and forced them to miss their trip to Rock Island.