MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Next Man Up]

My head has also been on the chopping block repeatedly lately. Since mid December my unrequited lover(s) has/have cut me about 50 times with the frequency slightly increased over the last month. This despite my not having posted anything very controversial, or accusing anyone of felonious assault or lascivious carriage. Recently, I didn't post anything for about a week but still got dinged on a daily basis.
I've discussed this with a couple other posters. Is a crazed mass hater on the loose, or is there a flaw in the system?

* Whatever the reason, it certainly appears Karma is a concept whose useful shelf life has expired. It's the equivalent of trial without jury as it allows haters and the misinformed to anonymously smite you without explaining rhyme or reason while not affording you the opportunity to explain or defend yourself.

[Next Man Up]

Unrelated: someone has been dinging my karma every day for the past few weeks.  Keep it up!  But if you really disliked me, you'd do it on the weekend and not just weekdays.  Right now you're being lazy and just stealing time from your employer.

(It's probably Todd Raridon's burner account...)

No doubt kiko. Todd has told me several times, "Ah, I got that kiko guy again today!" 

[kiko]

My head has also been on the chopping block repeatedly lately. Since mid December my unrequited lover(s) has/have cut me about 50 times with the frequency slightly increased over the last month. This despite my not having posted anything very controversial, or accusing anyone of felonious assault or lascivious carriage. Recently, I didn't post anything for about a week but still got dinged on a daily basis.
I've discussed this with a couple other posters. Is a crazed mass hater on the loose, or is there a flaw in the system?

* Whatever the reason, maybe Karma is a concept whose useful shelf life has expired. It's the equivalent of trial without jury as it allows haters and the misinformed to anonymously smite you without explaining rhyme or reason while not affording you the opportunity to explain or defend yourself.

I don't think I've given a plus or a minus k in my time here, so my attitude is 'whatevs'.

I just thought it was amusing that I was living rent-free in someone's head.  Turns out I apparently have roommates.

[kiko]

Seems like 2 legit candidates and 1 darkhorse, all deserving for different reasons.

Adom
Leritz
Hellwig

M. Hellwig 19 and 9 . . . really good player.

Despite North Central's two L's versus both the Titans and the Thunder this year, it's worth clarifying:

<spellingbee>
Helwig.  H-E-L-W-I-G.  Helwig.
</spellingbee>

Two brothers.  One L.

[Next Man Up]

Seems like 2 legit candidates and 1 darkhorse, all deserving for different reasons.

Adom
Leritz
Hellwig

M. Hellwig 19 and 9 . . . really good player.

Despite North Central's two L's versus both the Titans and the Thunder this year, it's worth clarifying:

<spellingbee>
Helwig.  H-E-L-W-I-G.  Helwig.
</spellingbee>

Two brothers.  One L.

H-e-L-L is what what it's like to defend the H-e-L-w-i-g-s. 

[WUPHF]

A Millikin prediction from November.

I'll be really surprised if Millikin wins more than a game or two in the CCIW. 

As I mentioned at the time, I might have said that about Brandeis a few seasons ago and probably said that about Chicago this season and so I removed the name of the poster.

[WUPHF]

I just thought it was amusing that I was living rent-free in someone's head.  Turns out I apparently have roommates.

I am curious, are we living through one of the more unusual research projects that is sure to be published as an undergraduate thesis in sociology?  Russian bots?  Or are there a couple of complete losers out there with nothing more to do?

[kiko]

A Millikin prediction from November.

I'll be really surprised if Millikin wins more than a game or two in the CCIW. 

As I mentioned at the time, I might have said that about Brandeis a few seasons ago and probably said that about Chicago this season and so I removed the name of the poster.

Millikin in Conference Play:

2021-22 9-6 so far
2020-21 1-11 ===> sub-.500
2019-20 1-15 ===> sub-.500
2018-19 5-11 ===> sub-.500
2017-18 4-12 ===> sub-.500
2016-17 1-15 ===> sub-.500
2015-16 3-11 ===> sub-.500
2014-15 3-11 ===> sub-.500
2013-14 2-12 ===> sub-.500
2012-13 4-10 ===> sub-.500
2011-12 0-14 ===> sub-.500
2010-11 0-14 ===> sub-.500
2009-10 2-12 ===> sub-.500
2008-09 6-8 ===> sub-.500
2007-08 2-12 ===> sub-.500
2006-07 2-12 ===> sub-.500
2007-06 3-11 ===> sub-.500
2004-05 4-10 ===> sub-.500
2003-04 6-8 ===> sub-.500
2002-03 2-12 ===> sub-.500
2001-02 3-11 ===> sub-.500
2000-01 3-11 ===> sub-.500
1999-00 7-7 ===> .500
1998-99 8-6 ===> above .500

He won't win it because CCIW coaches have no imagination on this topic, but there is no question in my mind that Kramer Soderberg should be named coach of the year.

[WUPHF]

He won't win it because CCIW coaches have no imagination on this topic, but there is no question in my mind that Kramer Soderberg should be named coach of the year.

Not a single season about .500 in the 21st century and Kramer Soderberg is 9-6 with wins over Top 25 teams and buzzer beater losses to other Top 25 teams on the road. 

Practicing and playing in the outdated gym with the foul smell (kidding!).

That is compelling.

[blue_jays]

He won't win it because CCIW coaches have no imagination on this topic, but there is no question in my mind that Kramer Soderberg should be named coach of the year.

Co-sign on this sentiment

[WUPHF]

So, I have a bunch of certificate paper in the office that will never be used and student workers who need things to do.

If three more people post that Soderberg should be the coach of the year (and we do not get 5 counter arguments), I will take the time to mail him a certificate announcing him as the d3boards CCIW chat coach of the year.

[USee]

I'm in. He has my vote if he wins Saturday!

[Gregory Sager]

A Millikin prediction from November.

I'll be really surprised if Millikin wins more than a game or two in the CCIW. 

As I mentioned at the time, I might have said that about Brandeis a few seasons ago and probably said that about Chicago this season and so I removed the name of the poster.

In fairness to the poster whom you're protecting, he's a fan of a team in another D3 league and is probably not as well versed in the CCIW.

Nevertheless, this is a good opportunity to say something about what is easily the most remarkable and interesting story in the CCIW this season, which is Millikin. To say that the Big Blue men's basketball program has been woeful in this millennium would be a severe understatement. Millikin has only had three overall winning seasons since Y2K -- including Y2K -- despite annually playing a non-conference schedule larded with SLIAC teams, and the Big Blue has not finished on the plus side of the ledger in CCIW play since they went 8-6 in 1998-99. For those of you keeping track, that 1998-99 season for Millikin was four head coaches ago. That was also the last time that Millikin finished in the CCIW's first division; since then, aside from the 6-8 campaign in '04 in which they finished fifth, they've been in the CCIW's bottom three every season. And nobody is likely to forget when they bottomed out in 2010-11 and 2011-12 by going 1-23 and 1-24, respectively, losing all 28 CCIW games during that stretch -- one of them a league-record 70-point loss at the hands of Augie -- fielding the two worst CCIW teams I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of bad CCIW teams, an uncomfortable number of which have worn my alma mater's livery).

The ultimate futility actually stretches back even further. Millikin's last CCIW title was 33 years ago, making the Big Blue's stretch without a championship the second-longest in league history behind the 48 years that Elmhurst spent in the wilderness before Knuppel & Co. brought the Bluejays to the promised land in 2000-01. That title season in 1988-89, in which Millikin was led by premier sharpshooter Brian Horst as well as Jeff Slapak and big man Jeff Bottorff (whose son, to add insult to injury, decided to play college ball for Augustana rather than his dad's alma mater), was also the last time that MU played in the D3 tourney, which means that Millikin is currently enduring the longest tourney drought in CCIW history.

More recently, the Big Blue hit rock bottom again at the end of Mark Scherer's tenure as head coach by losing 28 of the 30 CCIW games that they played over the past two seasons. Given that, plus the fact that the team hired a new head coach in April who had served as Scherer's second chair during that bottoming-out, our protected poster's 2021-22 prediction for the Big Blue seemed reasonable.

Instead, a funny thing happened. The new head coach, Kramer Soderberg, slotted three freshmen into his rotation -- guards J.T. Welch and Noah Livingston and forward Drake Stevenson -- who, although they're hardly world-beaters, fit perfectly into his system and have managed to hold their own in CCIW play. Meanwhile, everybody he inherited from those awful teams that he'd tried to help coach alongside Scherer got better -- even Calvin Fisher, who was already an All-CCIW second-teamer. They really began to personify the kind of hard-nosed and vigorous team ball that can overcome talent gaps, which they displayed with aplomb in last night's upset of #15 Elmhurst. (When was the last time that the Big Blue upset a d3hoops.com Top 25 team, anyway? Have they ever done it at all? Your guess is as good as mine.)

The upshot of the matter is that Millikin is 14-10, 9-6 going into Saturday's regular-season finale at Wheaton. As Lucas pointed out, the Big Blue have clinched fifth place, and, thus, the #5 seed and will make their first-ever CCIW tourney appearance in the standard six-team format next week. In honor of that, I'm breaking standard neutrality policy and becoming an unabashed Millikin rooter from here on out this season.

This will be the umpteenth time that I've complained on this board about the ridiculous policy that CCIW coaches employ of automatically bestowing the CCIW Coach of the Year award upon the coach or coaches of the championship team or teams. It's as plain as the nose on your face that the true CCIW Coach of the Year in 2021-22 is, indisputably and by a large margin, Kramer Soderberg.

[Gregory Sager]

Rats! I lose access to the site for some unknown reason -- I had to paste my lengthy epistle onto a Word document, then paste it back into the posting box once my connection stopped being wonky -- and come to find that everybody's already beaten me to the punch, re: Kramer Soderberg.

Oh, well. The important thing is that we have widespread consensus that: a) the coaches' method of annually picking their prized peer sucks Pop Tarts; and b) Kramer Soderberg is the true CCIW COY, and how.

I just thought it was amusing that I was living rent-free in someone's head.  Turns out I apparently have roommates.

I am curious, are we living through one of the more unusual research projects that is sure to be published as an undergraduate thesis in sociology?  Russian bots?  Or are there a couple of complete losers out there with nothing more to do?

Having been the recent subject of a master's degree project in journalism, as you're all aware, I love your first suggestion. The second suggestion tickles me even more, and if it's true I'd like to take this opportunity to say, Ostav'te nas v pokoye, gryaznyye ublyudki!

Alas, long experience tells me that the third option is the most likely.

[Gregory Sager]

I think that the reason why I was getting hung up trying to post my Kramer Soderberg thesis was because at the end of it I put my response to WUPHF's continuing thoughts regarding the current smite flurry, and d3boards.com for whatever reason turns out to be allergic to posts that contain Cyrillic letters (forcing me to settle for Romanizing my Russian quote).

All in a day's fun here on CCIW Chat.

(Hey, I wonder if Bob Quillman gave up on us because it's easier to post stuff in Cyrillic letters on Twitter than on d3boards.com?)