MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[WUPHF]

As I once heard a wise old coach say, "Stop looking at the uniforms, and start looking at the players who are wearing them."

One might say stop looking at Twitter and start watching the players.

I am not saying that.  I am just offering an explanation of what I believe is behind the sentiment of the old boys club post.

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.

You said it better, as always.

[Gregory Sager]

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.

You said it better, as always.

Thanks, but I admit that over the years I've grown very careful and meticulous regarding the wording of every post I make about Illinois Wesleyan men's basketball. That's due to sharing this board for so long with Bob Quillman and the late Lanny Lobdell, but mostly because of Bob. Like me with North Park and you with Wash U, he was very sensitive about what other people said about his beloved team on d3boards. I didn't realize that this was going to be Compliment Bob Quillman Day (are those retching noises I hear coming from the direction of Naperville? ), but in this particular area I will say that Bob's zealous protectiveness of his alma mater's team made me a better poster because it made me more circumspect about how I word team critiques.

I mean, those three-day arguments we used to have got old pretty fast for CCIW Chat readers.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

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.

You answered your own question there, I think.

I didn't vote for them, but I certainly understand the temptation to do so - precisely because almost everybody thinks they've got the potential to be really good and its still early.  The tough part for voters is deciding when to give up on "potential" and emphasize results.  In some years, I've waited until mid-January.  This season, I did it while making my Week 1 ballot.

[Greek Tragedy]

Mid-January is over half the season. You wait that long for potential?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Mid-January is over half the season. You wait that long for potential?

Depending on who it is.  I tend to think of my ballot as a prediction of what the final ballot will look like, so I'm often willing to give teams plenty of rope.

[WUPHF]

I mean, those three-day arguments we used to have got old pretty fast for CCIW Chat readers.

I miss those as well.

Did Ron Rose and Illinois Wesleyan engineer the single greatest in-bounds play in the history of Division III basketball, worthy of posts from every last Wesleyan who is registered with d3boards.com, or did two Washington University going for the same rebound collapse in on each other leaving half the court completely unguarded?  Even after 3-4 days, one of the great unsettled debates...

[WUPHF]

Depending on who it is.  I tend to think of my ballot as a prediction of what the final ballot will look like, so I'm often willing to give teams plenty of rope.

That is interesting insight.

I would probably vote as if I was trying to determine who are the Top 25 if they were playing every other team that night, but yeah, lots of different ways to think about it.

[Gregory Sager]

Carthage (4-1) blew out Ripon in the first half at Tarble last night and coasted to an 89-69 win over the Red Hawks. A.J. Johnson paced the Firebirds with 24 points (including 4-6 from downtown), while Fillip Bulatovic had 20 and 9, Antuan Nesbitt had a fine 17-point, 6:2 ratio night, and Anthony Bernero grabbed seven boards.

The CCIW finishes phase one of the non-con slate with a 31-18 (.633) record.

[Gregory Sager]

The CCIW season begins tonight, with its earliest starting date in a long time. The CCIW hasn't begun play in November since Carroll returned to the league in 2016-17, and, going back past Carroll's exit from the league after 1991-92 (which ended the necessity to schedule league games prior to the holidays), the most recent November CCIW game I could find (amidst limited data) was all the way back in the 1983-84 season.

Tonight's opening slate (all games 7 pm):

Augustana (1-4) @ #21 Wheaton (5-1)
Carroll (2-5) @ North Central (3-2)
Illinois Wesleyan (2-3) @ #11 Elmhurst (5-0)
North Park (4-1) @ Millikin (5-1)

Massey Ratings has a dubious accuracy as a predictive model this early in the season, given the limited game data available. But, just for curiosity's sake, I looked up how Ken Massey's HAL 9000 forecasts tonight:

Wheaton 77, Augustana 71	(WC 68%, AC 32%)
North Central 75, Carroll 67	(NCC 76%, CU 24%)
Elmhurst 74, Illinois Wesleyan 71	(EU 59%, IWU 41%)
Millikin 68, North Park 63	(MU 57%, NPU 43%)

Here's the predictions spit out by Matt Snyder's Slappytron FF:

Wheaton 81, Augustana 67
Elmhurst 83, Illinois Wesleyan 71
North Central 82, Carroll 65
Millikin 69, North Park 66 

[voxelmhurst]

I would have never guessed we'd ever have the World Cup and CCIW basketball on the same day, but here we are. The only universal constant is change, said the Ancient Greek philosopher.

Speaking of which, I was getting into a discussion with someone regarding the recent trend of schools adding programs for advanced degrees and rebranding as University. This led to a discussion of how things are somewhat balanced in the CCIW, with 4 schools still operating as "College", and 5 now branded "University". Thus, should the CCIW ever have an All-Star Game, what better way of dividing up the teams than having it be Team College vs Team University? It actually presents some interesting possibilities! 


Team College
North Central
Wheaton
Carthage
Augustana

Team University
Elmhurst
North Park
Illinois Wesleyan
Carroll
Millikin

Anyways, enjoy the games, everyone.

[WUPHF]

It would be interesting to talk ti an Elmhurst or Carroll about that change.  Is it worth the cost of new signs and letterhead for the short and long term publicity and marketing?  Wheaton may be the only CCIW school with Doctorate degrees (correct me if I am wrong) and they do not think so, apparently.

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton offers four doctoral degrees, two in the religious studies field and two in the psychology field. North Park has one doctoral degree in the religious studies field, and North Park and Millikin each offer a doctorate in nursing practice. Elmhurst will join them when its first semester of a doctoral program in nursing practice starts in 2023-24. Carroll and North Central offer doctorates in physical therapy.

Carthage offers several masters degree programs, but no doctoral programs.

Augustana and Illinois Wesleyan are traditional liberal arts colleges in the sense that they strictly cater to undergraduates only. While Wheaton and North Central are among several schools in the U.S. that use the nomenclature "College" yet offer doctorates as their terminal degree (Boston College is probably the most well-known example), Illinois Wesleyan is, as far as I know, the only school that uses the nomenclature "University" that is actually a true college in terms of being an undergraduate-only institution of higher learning. (I'm genuinely curious as to whether or not there are any others, or if IWU is unique in that regard. WUPHF, you'd be one of my go-tos in terms of knowing this sort of thing.)

(I realize that there is an alternate definition of "university" as an institution of higher learning made up of largely autonomous residential colleges on the Oxbridge model, but there aren't any schools like that in the CCIW.)

[WUPHF]

Wheaton offers four doctoral degrees, two in the religious studies field and two in the psychology field. North Park has one doctoral degree in the religious studies field, and North Park and Millikin each offer a doctorate in nursing practice. Elmhurst will join them when its first semester of a doctoral program in nursing practice starts in 2023-24. Carroll and North Central offer doctorates in physical therapy.

Wow, that is crazy, though I should have thought to check for Nursing and other applied medical doctorates.  And that is very smart on the part of Elmhurst.  For many students who wish to become a Doctor, Nursing and the doctorate in Nursing Practice is the far better route.

And I forget that Wheaton is not the only CCIW school with a seminary, but I have to think that the economy of scale is such that offering both the Masters and Doctorate is the way to go.

I have to think that Illinois Wesleyan is rare in the use of the University moniker when they are entirely undergraduate focused.  Excluding the diploma mills.

[kiko]

I would have never guessed we'd ever have the World Cup and CCIW basketball on the same day, but here we are. The only universal constant is change, said the Ancient Greek philosopher.

Speaking of which, I was getting into a discussion with someone regarding the recent trend of schools adding programs for advanced degrees and rebranding as University. This led to a discussion of how things are somewhat balanced in the CCIW, with 4 schools still operating as "College", and 5 now branded "University". Thus, should the CCIW ever have an All-Star Game, what better way of dividing up the teams than having it be Team College vs Team University? It actually presents some interesting possibilities! 


Team College
North Central
Wheaton
Carthage
Augustana

Team University
Elmhurst
North Park
Illinois Wesleyan
Carroll
Millikin

Anyways, enjoy the games, everyone.

North Central offers advanced degrees, but given the presence of North Central University in Minneapolis, the school is pretty much landlocked into being part of Team College.

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton offers four doctoral degrees, two in the religious studies field and two in the psychology field. North Park has one doctoral degree in the religious studies field, and North Park and Millikin each offer a doctorate in nursing practice. Elmhurst will join them when its first semester of a doctoral program in nursing practice starts in 2023-24. Carroll and North Central offer doctorates in physical therapy.

Wow, that is crazy, though I should have thought to check for Nursing and other applied medical doctorates.  And that is very smart on the part of Elmhurst.  For many students who wish to become a Doctor, Nursing and the doctorate in Nursing Practice is the far better route.

And I forget that Wheaton is not the only CCIW school with a seminary, but I have to think that the economy of scale is such that offering both the Masters and Doctorate is the way to go.

I have to think that Illinois Wesleyan is rare in the use of the University moniker when they are entirely undergraduate focused.  Excluding the diploma mills.

Technically, North Park is the only CCIW school with a seminary -- not just because NPU's graduate school in the field of religious studies is actually called North Park Theological Seminary, but because Wheaton Graduate School doesn't offer a master of divinity degree. The M.Div. is the cornerstone degree of seminaries, as it is the time-honored path of matriculation for pastors.

Of course, one could argue that this is just as much a matter of semantics as is the whole college vs. university thing. But Wheaton's done something very interesting with its Graduate School, which was to divide it into three smaller schools: one specifically devoted to the traditional seminary disciplines of theology and biblical studies, one that is more centered around relational matters (the School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership), and the third devoted to psychology and counseling, which is just as applicable to a secular environment as it is to a church setting. (WGS also has a few other masters programs that don't fall under the rubric of one of those three subset schools.) I suspect that this unique layout of Wheaton Graduate School may reflect the fact that Wheaton is a non-denominational school that is therefore not tethered to the typical needs of a denomination (i.e., offering an M.Div. degree and requiring a very broad reach of coursework within that degree, including field education, or designing the coursework to meet licensure requirements specific to a particular denomination).

North Park doesn't have that luxury, as NPU is owned by the Evangelical Covenant Church and its seminary functions as the Covenant's only English-language school for producing the denomination's pastors, missionaries, church-based educators, etc. NPTS serves a lot of non-Covenant students, but, like other denominational seminaries, its curricula, calendar, and structure are specifically tailored to serve the denomination that owns it and draws its pastors from it (even Covenant pastors who graduate from other seminaries have to take certain NPTS courses in order to qualify for Covenant licensure and eventual ordination).