MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[kiko]

Ocean Johnson doesn't make your awards list

Well, after the way he treated that backboard, he clearly wasn't in line for a Respect award.

[Gregory Sager]

I've come to think of it as Ocean getting revenge against backboards for Blaise Meredith's sake.

CCIW guys gotta look out for each other.

[WUPHF]

I've come to think of it as Ocean getting revenge against backboards for Blaise Meredith's sake.

LOL

[GoPerry]

Congratulations to Tyson Cruickshank on his Fred Young MOSA award (doesn't quite roll off the tongue like MOP, but whatever).  He was always the best player on the floor, a great scorer and excellent rebounder.  I was surprised back in November when he didn't get any pre-season All American recognition.  But I'm hopeful that the D3 Hoops voters will recognize that he deserves some pretty high consideration.

Congrats also to TJ Askew on his first team nod.  His combination of length, agility and skill is something we haven't really seen much of in this league.  Can shoot from outside but is really adept at taking it to the rack and finishing.  He must be having a blast coming from CMS where fan interest was scant and attendance sub 200.  And now, in front of 900 at Faganel or 1500 vs IWU.

Nice to see Nick Schiavello get recognized as well.

[markerickson]

The overly generous six team tourney format includes two sub .500 teams.  Carthage women received the "everyone-get-a-trophy award" by going 5-11.  IWU men: 7-9.

[lmitzel]

The overly generous six team tourney format includes two sub .500 teams.  Carthage women received the "everyone-get-a-trophy award" by going 5-11.  IWU men: 7-9.

Matches (or is at least close to) the national rate of who makes conference tournaments, but okay.

Granted, this is a game that won't really help Carthage since they're not getting a Pool C in all likelihood, but still.

[USee]

Congratulations to Tyson Cruickshank on his Fred Young MOSA award (doesn't quite roll off the tongue like MOP, but whatever).  He was always the best player on the floor, a great scorer and excellent rebounder.  I was surprised back in November when he didn't get any pre-season All American recognition.  But I'm hopeful that the D3 Hoops voters will recognize that he deserves some pretty high consideration.

Congrats also to TJ Askew on his first team nod.  His combination of length, agility and skill is something we haven't really seen much of in this league.  Can shoot from outside but is really adept at taking it to the rack and finishing.  He must be having a blast coming from CMS where fan interest was scant and attendance sub 200.  And now, in front of 900 at Faganel or 1500 vs IWU.

Nice to see Nick Schiavello get recognized as well.

Tyson is a special player and deserves this recognition and I'm confident he will get AA recognition as well. He has been the second best player on his own team each year prior to this year. What's been the most impressive thing to me is that Tyson, no longer the team's second option, is the focus of every opponent's game plan and still has clearly improved his production. With a target on his back he has raised his ppg from 17.8 to 19.6. Last year he shot 174 3pters making 36.8%, to date this year he has taken 180 3's and improved his percentage to 43.3%. His FT% (75), FG% (49.8), Assist rate(5.0) and ATO (1.9) have all stayed similar to past years . And the most amazing stat for me is the fact he has been in the top 10 in the league in rebounding (6 pg) each year while standing in at 5-11!

Very happy for this young man. He is fun to watch.

[Gregory Sager]

The overly generous six team tourney format includes two sub .500 teams.  Carthage women received the "everyone-get-a-trophy award" by going 5-11.  IWU men: 7-9.

Again, Mark, you're overlooking the reason why the CCIW has a six-team tourney. It's a better format for aiding Pool C candidates than either a four-team tourney or an eight-team tourney.

The CCIW's philosophy in both men's and women's basketball is to use the conference tourney as a means to maximize the chances for a team or teams from our league to achieve success in the D3 tournament, and the way to maximize those chances is to: a) help Pool C candidates make the field of 64; and b) help out the seeding of the CCIW teams that make the D3 tourney bracket. Unfortunately, CCIW women's basketball continues to lag well behind the men's side in terms of non-conference success, so the CCIW tournament isn't helping them much no matter how many teams are in it. Part of the problem is the fact that the women's basketball side of things tends to be less balanced than the men; there was a gargantuan five-game spread between the two teams that tied for fourth place at 10-6 and the two teams that tied for sixth place at 5-11.

Hence, those two issues (the relative lack of success of CCIW women's basketball overall and the yawning chasm between the first division and the second division in CCIW women's basketball) produced a sixth seed in the CCIW women's tournament this season that is 9-16 overall and 5-11 in league play.

But we're not really here to talk about CCIW women's basketball, are we? The matter at hand is the men's tournament. Yes, sixth-seed Illinois Wesleyan is underwater at 12-13, 7-9 going into tonight's game in Kenosha. But, still, we're talking about a 12-13, 7-9 Illinois Wesleyan team that took the #1 team in the nation (St. Joseph CT) into overtime, lost by only two to the #25 team (Wash U), was cheated out of a win on the home floor of the #6 team (Wheaton) by a bad call at the buzzer, and lost by four and by six to the team that's sitting just outside the Top 25 (North Park).

The moral of the story is that a 12-13 CCIW team that's a game below .500 in league play is different than, say, a 12-13 NACC team that's a game below .500 in league play, or a 12-13 MWC team that's a game below .500 in league play, or a 12-13 HCAC team that's a game below .500 in league play. Illinois Wesleyan would finish in the top three in any of those other leagues in our region. Our tournament isn't suffering in quality because IWU is participating in it.

[iwu70]

I'm quite happy with the selections.  Glad to see Ryan Sroka awarded too.

I was a bit surprised, too, Dan Carr did not make first team.   

Here we go tonight -- some good games.  I hope my Titans can finally finish a game and not have key TOs, breakdowns in the last 3-4 minutes.  I truly think Ron Rose has aged five years in one year . . .   

IWU'70

[iwu70]

Greg, all good points about men's and women's basketball in the CCIW, and IWU's sub-par season.  They are a good team, just not a great team this year.  They've shot themselves in the foot for at least 4-5 losses, and came so close to some big wins on several occasions.   Sometimes, some years, the ball just doesn't bounce your way . . .  or you become error prone and it compounds itself.  Surely the case in a number of games this year for IWU.   Maybe they can finally now have "redemption!" 

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, all good points about men's and women's basketball in the CCIW, and IWU's sub-par season.  They are a good team, just not a great team this year.

... which typically describes the CCIW's sixth-place team in any given year: Good team, not a great team. This year is no different.

They've shot themselves in the foot for at least 4-5 losses, and came so close to some big wins on several occasions.

Yes, we're all familiar with the established narrative coming out of Bloomington. The Titans are always in it, the Titans shoot themselves in the foot late in games and lose when they shoulda won, yadda yadda yadda. The problem is that it's one-sided analysis, and because it's one-sided it tends to imply that the other team involved had nothing to do with the outcome and that if the Titans had simply cleaned things up here or there or gotten a better bounce they would have won the game. And I just don't think that that's true. The Titans are a good team, yes, but they are a good team with some pronounced weaknesses as compared to the five teams seeded ahead of them.

That may sound contradictory to my last post, since I just explained to the other Mark (Erickson) that IWU came close on multiple occasions against top-level teams in 2022-23. But it's not contadictory at all. Take the loss at Wheaton on January 21 that I mentioned. While it's true that the Titans were the victims of a bad call at the very end of the game, the fact of the matter is that you can point to almost anything in a one-point loss as the reason for the loss, with some things being bigger than others. Here's a good example: Hakim Williams, who is IWU's primary ballhandler and top assists man, fouled out of that game at Wheaton with five minutes to go and the Titans down by a point. With him went five of the seven assists that IWU had that night (among other things, the Titans are really static offensively; they rank next-to-last in the CCIW in assists in league play). Losing Williams made them even more static, plus it took away one of IWU's better perimeter defenders against a team that has a pair of quick, active guards in Tyson Cruickshank and Andrew Williams.

Your alma mater didn't end up in sixth place because of bad luck and/or bad timing; the Titans ended up in sixth place because the five teams above them in the CCIW standings are better than they are.

Sometimes, some years, the ball just doesn't bounce your way . . .  or you become error prone and it compounds itself.  Surely the case in a number of games this year for IWU.   Maybe they can finally now have "redemption!" 

And such is the blessing of a conference tournament. The Titans are the sixth-best team in the league; that's now been set in stone by 72 CCIW basketball games. But if they can play above their level for three nights this week and manage to walk off the floor each time with an upset W, the CCIW regular season won't matter.

[USee]

Great comments Greg. Carthage has a similar narrative and could be dangerous this week as well.

[Gregory Sager]

Yes, my thinking exactly, USee. The Firebirds have not been defending well as of late, but if they can firm it up at the defensive end tonight and this weekend they could be extremely dangerous.

[kenoshamark]

Carthage up 41 to 36 at the half here at the Tarble.  IWU was playing well and using their size when Steve went to a small lineup with 4 guards and Campbell.  They hit five big threes to take the lead.  Great job of pick and pops by Campbell, Lamb, Johnson and Nesbit. IWU just couldn't recover on the picks.

Coach Smith from NPU in the row in front of me.  Presume his assistant coach is with him too.

[Gregory Sager]

Carthage 74
Illinois Wesleyan 69

Elmhurst 84
North Central 80

On Friday night at King Arena it will be:

#3 Carthage vs. #2 North Park, 5 pm
#4 Elmhurst @ #1 Wheaton, 7:15 pm

Both semifinal games are between teams that split their regular-season series.