MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Next Man Up]

Looks like Dan Carr is going to have a monster season. 

'70

Yep, as widely expected.

[Next Man Up]

UW-Whitewater 95
Augustana 90

UWW was much more aggressive than Augie in attacking the basket in the second half, and it paid off for the Cheeseheads via a very productive night at the free-throw line. The final total at the stripe was 28-36 (.778) for the Warhawks, versus only 15-24 (.625) for Augie. That's really where UWW won it.

Mr. Double-Double picked up right where he left off last season, as Daniel Carr finished the night with 32 and 16 in 30 minutes of action. Matt Hanushewsky scored a free throw in the final moments to finish with 10, as he was the only other Rock Islander to break double figures. Some of the Augie players really don't look very eager to shoot, as I saw a lot of passed-up open looks this evening -- even from Nic Giliberto. You can't let the big fella do all of your work for you.

185 total points. Wow!
It appears that while the respective offenses were firing on most cylinders despite it being only the season's opening game for both teams, it's highly suspect that the UWW defense stayed on the bus, and the Augie D remained in the locker room for last night's encounter.

The difference between Augie star player Dan Carr's 32 points, and the 10 points put up by their 2nd high scorer last night reminds me of a defensive game plan NCC used to employ against Wheaton when scoring machine Aston Francis played for the crusading Thunder. The Cardinals would basically resign themselves to the fact that Aston was going to get his no matter what defensive philosophy they might employ against him. I remember one night when the thinking was "lets hold him to under 40!" No poop. The other half of the plan was to try to limit everyone else to 10 or less points—such as what happened last night.
Perhaps we might see such a strategy used against Carr and the western Vikings this year?

[Next Man Up]

In the air...........

I've heard that significant IWU player 6'5" Jr. Connor Heaton, probably slated in as the Titans 6th or 7th man, has decided to leave the team. However, being so deep and talented, it's highly unlikely that his absence will have any adverse effect on the team.

[Next Man Up]

Carthage roster is finally up - https://athletics.carthage.edu/sports/mens-basketball/roster?path=mbball

31 players listed, more than I have ever seen before.   Big freshman class and a few transfers.   Lost Horner which we knew about, but also Kostes is not listed on this roster.  He was getting some good minutes as the season went on last year.

Looks like a few good newcomers, especially the kid from Peoria.  Time will tell.

The "kid from Peoria" is Mac Parmelee. He is a former All-State player. As far as I can tell, he attended three high schools, graduating in 2021, and then committing to Platteville for 2021-2022. However, there does not appear to be any record of him playing, or even being on the team at Platteville last year, during which his whereabouts appear unknown.
We've seen this type of school "hunting" before, and it often equates to looking for a school where a player thinks he'll be most visible to scholarship programs. Given the multiple high schools, apparent pulling out of his original college commitment, and unknown whereabouts last year, it will be interesting to see how long he remains at Carthage. Hopefully he can pull things together and have a successful academic and athletic career on the Lake Michigan shore in Cheeseland.

[Next Man Up]

Whitman   75
Carthage   67

Bulatovic — 21 pts
Campbell — 14 pts
Nesbit ——  13 pts

Carthage was using Scud missiles from the surplus pile shooting 1 for 17 (5.9%!) from distance.

[Next Man Up]

Wheaton      84
Benedictine  68

Wheaties were led by Tyson Cruikshank with 20 pts.

[GoPerry]

Wheaton over Benedictine in Lisle, 84-68

Returning Tyson Cruickshank pretty much picked up where he left off with 20 pts, 7 rebs.  Thunder fans will be glad to have him back for another season.  Most interesting however was to see the newcomers to the team and I really like what I saw.

6'7" TJ Askew (17 pts, 7 rebs) is a wing type player with lots of offensive skill and athleticism for that size.  He was an All Conference player in the SCIAC last year for CMS.

6'4" guard Micah Schnyders (16 pts, 3 rebs) is a really good complement to Cruickshank and also with lots of scoring ability.  He is coming off the bench for now with Eddie Scott getting the start.

6'9" Connor Braun (8 pts, 3 rebs) brings both size and skill to Wheaton's front court.  He'll be a big defensive help against the Dan Carr's in the league. 

Losing Adom, Alioth, and Anthony is rough.  But these three players bring quite a bit back to the Thunder.  It's too early to say how good the team can be.  But with Cruickshank and returning players Eli Considine, Nick Schiavello, and Eddie Scott it is not unreasonable to have some high expectations.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 84
East-West 73

Jalen Boyd: 26 pts (10-12 FG, 4-5 trey), 7 rebs
Shamar Pumphrey: 12 pts, 6:0 a:to
Kolden VanLandingham: 11 pts
Marquise Jackson: 10 pts, 7:4 a:to, 5 stls
Jordan Boyd: 8 rebs

The Vikings roared out to a 13-point lead in the first half, but gave almost all of it away and led by only one at the half. It was much the same in the second half, with the Vikings jumping the Phantoms right away (three steals in the first 30 seconds), then blew the lead again as EWU tied it up twice, and then finally Jalen Boyd got hot while the NPU press just wore down the Phantoms. The Vikings had the lead up to 19 in the final 3 minutes before they let up at the end.

East-West was a bit more organized than they usually are, and they have three guys who could probably be on scholies at a low D2 or a high NAIA program. There's a steep dropoff beyond them, though, and the Phantoms are a team that the top two-thirds of the CCIW would probably handle without too much trouble. (EWU's best player is 28 years old; he actually played against Sean Smith in high school.)

The Vikings looked ragged in the halfcourt for much of the game, and their decisionmaking needs a lot of work. But their press is already a thing of beauty, and has the potential to make them a pesky out in CCIW play. No predictions from me, though; this team has a long way to go before it's ready to take the floor against a CCIW opponent.

[markerickson]

EWU had 24 TOs and NPU had 17 steals.  Is a steal considered a TO?

[Gregory Sager]

EWU had 24 TOs and NPU had 17 steals.  Is a steal considered a TO?

Yes, a steal is automatically considered to be a turnover for the other team.

[Gotberg]

EWU had 24 TOs and NPU had 17 steals.  Is a steal considered a TO?

Yes, a steal is automatically considered to be a turnover for the other team.

I saw the first half of the NPU game - NPU is very athletic, which will cause opponents problems.  I thought their offensive ball movement was better than last year - just didn't always result in buckets.  I think they'll be a fun team to watch - win or lose, but hopefully win of course!

[Next Man Up]

EWU had 24 TOs and NPU had 17 steals.  Is a steal considered a TO?

Didn't see the game, but team unseen, I'd be willing to bet that one of NPU's chief assets this season will be overall team speed.

[Gregory Sager]

EWU had 24 TOs and NPU had 17 steals.  Is a steal considered a TO?

Didn't see the game, but team unseen, I'd be willing to bet that one of NPU's chief assets this season will be overall team speed.

Team athleticism in general, not just team speed. As Gotberg mentioned, this is a very athletic NPU team -- in fact, they're even more athletic in a general sense than were the 2016-17 CCIW co-champion edition of the Vikings. That's very important to a pressing team; I counted about three or four instances last night in which a Vikings defender stole a high pass via a split-second leap from a flat-footed position, which is a matter of athleticism rather than speed, and their hands are just as quick as their feet (which is not always the case).

I recognize that any comparison to the 2016-17 Vikings is seriously premature, but this team is deeper and has more size as well than Henry, Robinson, Lake, Cobb & Co.; what it doesn't do as well as those guys did is shoot the basketball or make good decisions with it, or maintain consistency for forty minutes. At least, they are not yet providing those important ingredients to the mix that brought home the CCIW title in '17. "Athleticism" is often a subtle hint that a team is dominated by me-first guys who fall in love with their ability to penetrate and get to the rim, but I don't believe that this is the case with this team. You think about the Vikings debuting last night against a team that's one step above the playground in terms of style of play, and you'd surmise that an athletic team like North Park that's only been together for three weeks would give in to that mentality and play forty minutes of pickup ball. But that didn't happen. Instead, if you look at the box score you'll see 20 assists for the Vikings. That indicates that they're temperamentally the opposite of a bunch of me-first guys. Nevertheless, last night they were prone to lose focus for stretches and revert to bad head-down driving decisions that led to charge calls; in one 2 1/2 minute stretch early in the second half they were whistled for three of them. But that's the kind of thing that can be minimized with practice and with increased familiarity with each other. It's the shooting that worries me more. Somebody other than Jalen Boyd needs to start proving that he can knock down shots, because the penetration will be there and thus there'll be kickout opportunities aplenty on the perimeter. (And, on the flip side, the Vikings will be seeing a lot of zones and packed-in halfcourt D's, as Jalen mentioned last night in his postgame interview.)

[Gregory Sager]

Now it's defending national runner-up Elmhurst's night to take the spotlight, as the Bluejays open up their 2022-23 campaign at Faganel against a Transylvania squad that went 16-9 a year ago.

[Next Man Up]

North Central opens the 2022-2023 season tomorrow at 5:00 against Dubuque in the Carroll Tournament. UD was picked as this season's favorite to win the American Rivers Conference.

I would expect the Cardinals to start Matt & Ethan Helwig along with Shea Cupples, Brian Johnson, and either John Blumeyer or Terrence Moncrief. Irrespective of who starts between the latter two, both should see pretty much equal playing time.

We'll have to see exactly how the remainder of the rotation pans out under new coach Anthony Figueroa. Things are entirely up in the air at this point. However, based on observations at practice, I would expect the first guys off the bench to be top recruit Julian Triffo a 4A All-State forward out of Maine South, James Ruzicka who appeared in all 27 games last season and shot .471, and Nick Smoldt, a junior transfer from St. Norbert. Substitutions beyond that are pure speculation at this point and anything is possible, especially at this initial juncture of the season.

As indicated, NCC will be meeting stiff competition right out of the gate as Dubuque is expected to win the competitive ARC.