MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Next Man Up]

After seeing NPU play a couple of times now, several things are pretty clear:

- This will be a VERY hard team for NPU fans to like - loud, obnoxious, undisciplined and willing to tell you how good they are and how much you suck. This team is such an outlier in NPU/CCIW norms that it will be shocking to most people.
L

But remember, what's loud, obnoxious, and undisciplined to one person may not be such to someone else, or even to the majority of other people on the scene.

And, while loud, obnoxious, and undisciplined may not be applicable, you may well be confusing NPU with another CCIW member as far as willing to tell you how good they are, and how much you suck goes. 

[itsnotmeitsyou]

- HC Sean Smith has assembled a squad players (3 of whom have been  - in addition to several other transfers) that will require strong discipline and leadership...things that a majority of 1st head coaches struggle with.

Hi there -- unless you can provide some corroboration of that so-called fact you included in that post, it's excised.

Both Boyd brothers attended Loras College as FR in 2018-19 (were asked to leave the team); Shamar Pumphrey attended Aurora University from 2019-2021 when he and several teammates were removed from the team after their 2/3/22 game - btw the coach was also removed from his position.

[Gregory Sager]

Boy, you just can't help yourself, can you? Bad enough that you have become a notorious source of bad information on this board ... now you're smearing people with your bad info.

Shamar Pumphrey played 34 minutes for Aurora against Marian on 2/12/22. Based upon the fact that two of Aurora's starters only played three minutes apiece, the logical explanation is that Shamar didn't start only because two seniors were honored on Aurora's Senior Day by being added to the starting lineup.

He started and played 37 minutes against Edgewood on 2/16/22.

And he started and played 41 minutes of the NACC tourney first-round game on 2/19/22 between Aurora and Marian. The game went into overtime before the Sabres ended Aurora's season on a trey by Delvin Barnstable (now at UWW) with five seconds left in the extra session.

You owe Shamar an apology. I'm not holding my breath that you're going to give him one.

As for the Boyd brothers, Pat told you to provide corroboration. Instead of doing so, you've simply taken things one step further by naming names the second time around, still without offering a shred of proof.

How do you sleep at night?

[iwu70]

Congrats to Marquise Jackson on his weekly award. 

'70

[Pat Coleman]

I also killed the politics reference.

[Gregory Sager]

New poll is out. Elmhurst lands at #11, Wheaton is #21. Illinois Wesleyan is near the tail end of the ORV category with 4 points, proving that, while 4samuy's November 19 post isn't prophetic, he's at worst a very adept guesser.

[WUPHF]

As a general rule, we should avoid posting FERPA protected information, even though we may not be subject to it.

Let's say though for the sake of the argument that these players made some serious mistakes in a previous life.  I say more power to them as they have returned to college and will hopefully be far better off because of it.

[Next Man Up]

The good ole boys network will somehow keep IWU in the top 25.

New poll is out. Elmhurst lands at #11, Wheaton is #21. Illinois Wesleyan is near the tail end of the ORV category with 4 points, proving that, while 4samuy's November 19 post isn't prophetic, he's at worst a very adept guesser.

Wherever did he get that idea?

[USee]

Bob Quillman posts his top 25 on his twitter account. He has Elmhurst #6 and Wheaton #20. IWU is not in his top 25

[WUPHF]

The weird (and kinda funny) thing about this is that we seem to have revolved to taking each other's position; I was high on AC and you doubted them, and now I'm down on AC and you seem to be saying that Augie's a team capable of going toe-to-toe with heavyweights (or at least light-heavyweights).

I may be falling for the fallacy that is overrating a team because the played my team closer than expected.  I admit that.  I may have been guilty of that last season with Millikin though the Big Blue has a good season.  Close games and upsets.  I am higher on Millikin this season for sure and things are so crazy that who knows...

As an aside, Dan Carr should consider a graduate year at a Division I school.

[Gregory Sager]

Bob Quillman posts his top 25 on his twitter account. He has Elmhurst #6 and Wheaton #20. IWU is not in his top 25

Yeah, I was going to post last night (but didn't get around to it) that, while Bob takes a backseat to nobody in his fervor for his alma mater's basketball program, if anything he's always been overcautious when it comes to IWU and his ballot. He will hesitate to put the Titans on his ballot if there's even a question that they might not belong in the Top 25 (and that is most definitely a question right now, considering that the Titans are 2-3 and just got pasted pretty badly by UWO in a game in which IWU didn't even score a single point in the game's last 7:27), and when they're clearly good enough to be a Top 25 team he'll typically have them lower on his ballot than they'll end up placing in the poll.

Give Bob credit for consistently respecting the power of his ballot and for showing some integrity in terms of how he fills it out. It's other pollsters who, IMO, are overvaluing Illinois Wesleyan at the moment.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Illinois Wesleyan is really a strange one.  Obviously they've played a good schedule, so its kind of easy to overlook losses and it's clear to anyone that they're loaded with championship level talent.  They've just been pretty bad so far.  Sometimes you give a team a chance to figure things out (as we're seeing with Randolph-Macon), but it usually requires a team actually having experienced guys who've performed at a high level before (like Randolph-Macon).  I didn't vote for IWU at all and I almost dropped Macon.

[WUPHF]

Obviously they've played a good schedule, so its kind of easy to overlook losses and it's clear to anyone that they're loaded with championship level talent. 

I disagree with the prior sentiment about the old boys club, but I think it is statements such as this that feeds that notion. 

How else do you come to this conclusion? 

I think Illinois Western will be good, but I am not sure that we have seen that.

[Gregory Sager]

Illinois Wesleyan is really a strange one.  Obviously they've played a good schedule, so its kind of easy to overlook losses and it's clear to anyone that they're loaded with championship level talent.  They've just been pretty bad so far.  Sometimes you give a team a chance to figure things out (as we're seeing with Randolph-Macon), but it usually requires a team actually having experienced guys who've performed at a high level before (like Randolph-Macon).  I didn't vote for IWU at all and I almost dropped Macon.

It's not clear to me at all that the Titans are "loaded with championship-level talent." Yes, there is a lot of talent on that team. But to me they look somewhat slow, and they've been exposed by teams with quick perimeter players. I don't fault IWU for being an uncharacteristically poor shooting team early in the season, because with a young squad the shooting numbers will most likely improve as the season goes on and they become more adept at running their offense. But they are dead last in the CCIW in turnovers, and their turnover margin -- which in a lot of ways reflects their quickness as compared to their opponents -- is an atrocious -6.00, with the next-worst team in the league (Carroll) sitting at only -2.57. And the Titans are next-to-last in the league in opponent three-point shooting at .397, which is to some degree a reflection of their relative lack of ability to recover quickly on defense (especially given that they are blessed with unusual length in terms of their perimeter players).

Granted, these numbers are somewhat distorted by the differences in opponent quality throughout the league right now and by the limited sample size (most teams have played either five or six games, with Carthage only at four games played and Carroll with seven), but, nevertheless, the numbers jump out at you as being indicative of a team that doesn't -- or can't -- move its feet as quickly as do other teams. I don't think that this is a fatal issue by any means, and, as I said, the Titans have a lot of talent (and a great deal of per-position size as well, with the potential to reap the rewards that come with that). They'll win more games than they lose, for sure, and it's almost a guarantee that they'll qualify for the CCIW tourney. They may even catch fire and compete for the CCIW title and a tourney berth; that's certainly within the realm of possibility in a pretty wide-open year for the CCIW. But I think that a lot of people automatically assume that Illlinois Wesleyan will be good every year, either because they're Illinois Wesleyan, and how can Illinois Wesleyan ever be bad at anything? (you people know who you are), or because the near-perennial success of the Titans on the hardwood has left neutral or opposing fans wary and intimidated (you people know who you are, too). As I once heard a wise old coach say, "Stop looking at the uniforms, and start looking at the players who are wearing them."

I'm not one to tell a highly-successful coach like Ron Rose how to do his business -- not that I would ever lift a finger to help Illinois Wesleyan -- but I wonder why he doesn't go after more Keondre Schumacher types on the recruiting trail. As physical traits go, quickness really is the premium value in college basketball these days.

[Gregory Sager]

Obviously they've played a good schedule, so its kind of easy to overlook losses and it's clear to anyone that they're loaded with championship level talent. 

I disagree with the prior sentiment about the old boys club, but I think it is statements such as this that feeds that notion. 

How else do you come to this conclusion? 

I think Illinois Western will be good, but I am not sure that we have seen that.

I spent about fifteen minutes this morning writing the post I just sent a moment ago, then went off to a meeting at work for an hour, came back to my desk, hit the POST button -- and then read that you'd already said basically the same thing I did, only you did it in three sentences.

Great minds, and all that.