MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Yeah, he was fun to watch ... and it didn't hurt that he had the perfect last name for someone of his prominently endomorphic physique.

[Greek Tragedy]

Yeah, Big Jake was on my fantasy league team (not that anyone cares). Fun player to watch and had a great touch. His shirt was about 2 sizes too small though. LOL. I believe he was all-region last year.

[iwu70]

First D3 poll out based on games this year:

IWU at #20, only CCIW team in top 25.  Carthage and Elmhurst in ORV.  North Park disappears.

IWU beat #11 Wash U by 26.  Strange.

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

As much of an alarmist as I seem to have become concerning the dropoff of the CCIW in non-con play, I'm afraid that the odds are high that things might become even worse in the near future:

* Tomorrow night Carthage hosts UW-Whitewater. The Firebirds are certainly a talented team, although they've been a bit erratic in the early going this season. But taking down UWW is going to be a monumental task for them.

* On Saturday the bye team is Millikin -- and the Big Blue will be hosting Wash U. The Decaturites do have a recent history of getting up for that game and making Bears fans sweat, but the early take on Millikin doesn't bring much promise that that recent history will repeat itself.

* Marian visits Faganel to play the 'jays a week from Wednesday. Marian has talent, but the new-look Sabres have yet to gel -- and Elmhurst is a very good team that's hitting its stride. This should get one back for the CCIW.

* And, finally, we finish out the CCIW's December conference slate with Wheaton drawing the bye. And Mike Schauer's boys will be using that bye date to go around the lake to Grand Rapids and then step into the ring with the defensive buzzsaw known as Calvin. Wheaton, which, as has been chronicled on this board several times already, is significantly undersized, is going to have a real headache trying to stop Jalen Overway, the 6'10", 250 sophomore wunderkind who is currently averaging 18.8 ppg and 8.6 rpg for the Knights.

I fear that we are going to be underwater by the time the second phase of non-con play starts up again on December 13.

[iwu70]

So right you are, Greg.  Underwater.

IWU'70

[SpartyBlue]

Cross post for the CCIW folks:

I'll put on my crash helmet here and just throw this out there--in my view IWU doesn't deserved to be ranked top 25 at this point.  Two losses should disqualify you over other zero or one loss teams, no matter the nice win over Wash U.  Obviously I'm a homer, but Coe and Dubuque out of the stronger at the moment ARC are deserving, teams like IC, Trinity Tx. and Albertus should have gotten in over IWU at this stage.  Albertus in particular has a similar SoS as the Titans and is 5-0 and ranked 13 spots higher by Massey.

I understand the top 25 is rather unscientific, ultimately not super meaningful,  and (it seems anyway) heavily influenced by social media voices; but it's still a nice piece of public relations for teams to be able to put out there and makes it more exciting for conferences in general. 

[Gregory Sager]

I wouldn't go by anything Massey says -- especially this early in the season -- but I'm beginning to wonder if social media (one social-media venue in particular) may be influencing the pollsters. It's worth discussing.

[iwu70]

Sparty, thanks for your post.  I was also surprised to see IWU in the top 25 this week.  Of course, as an avid IWU loyalist, I was glad to see it, but would have thought Elmhurst or Carthage at this point the more deserving top-25 ranked team from the CCIW.   I'm not on social media much, so don't know what might be influencing the voters at this stage.  Yes, feel free to discuss.

As always with these things early in the season, we'll find out much more soon enough.  IWU plays at Elmhurst on Wednesday and we'll see who emerges at this stage out of the CCIW for possible placement in the top 25 in the coming few weeks. 

IWU is finding its identity now, playing much better defense and settling on a likely season-long starting line-up.  Rose does have lots of depth this year and has been playing a 11-12 person rotation so far.   The likely continuing starting line-up now I'm pretty sure will be:  Wilmsen, Roper, Sroka, Hakim Williams and Luke Yoder.  Others will be getting significant minutes and plenty of experience, in varying combinations and due to who has foul trouble, who is hot during a particular game.   

I'll be watching the other teams you mentioned as deserving top-25 entrants.

IWU'70

[iwu70]

Wow, I think I'm reading the scoreboard right!

Carthage 77 #1 UW Whitewater 73.

Did I get that right? 

'70

[Gregory Sager]

Carthage 77
UW-Whitewater 73

Tremendously gutty performance by Carthage in pushing the king of the hill down the slope. The Firebirds roared out of the locker room to start the second half and atoned for a sluggish opening session by reeling off a 22-2 run to go up by, eventually, an astonishing 17 points. I'm sure that there are people out there in D3 Country who were wondering if anybody could put UWW down by that many.

It didn't last.

It was still a 16-point lead for the Firebirds with seven minutes left when UWW came roaring back on its own with a 21-4 run over a five-minute span, using a combination of slick steal-producing perimeter defense and drive-and-kick to not only erase that Firebirds lead but reverse it, as a Miles Barnstable trey at 1:56 put the Warhawks back in front, 68-67. But UWW from that point on was unable to finish anything at the rim, and the smaller but stubborn home team yanked down the defensive rebounds and then hit the ensuing free throws. The last ten points for Carthage all came from the free-throw line, as the Johnson boys were perfect from the charity stripe in those final two minutes (AJ Johnson 6-6, Ryan Johnson 4-4).

Fillip Bulatovic, who was surprisingly good from the line tonight (7-9), scored 21 on 7-11 shooting to lead the way to the upset win. Antuan Nesbitt, who was the sparkplug in the big early-second-half run for Carthage, finished with 14 and 7, while AJ Williams took advantage of having a UWW big man try to guard him by drifting out to the perimeter to hit four of his six trey attempts, ending up with 13 points. And, of course, big night for the Johnsons (AJ with 12 and 6, Ryan with 11 and 9).

The only shadow on a storm-the-floor night for Carthage was a sprained ankle by CCIW POW Julian Campbell. Steve D. put him back in at one point and the big fella tried to fight through the pain and stiffness, but he was ineffective.

Big signature win for Carthage.

[Gregory Sager]

Great postgame interview by Steve D., by the way. Perhaps the biggest win of his young career, and, as the broadcast team was trying to conclude the interview and go into their wrapup, Steve interrupted them and wouldn't take off his headset. Why? Because he wanted to praise his scout team on the air for doing such a great job in practice of simulating what the rotation players would be seeing out of UWW tonight before he finally let the broadcasters end the interview.

It's not unusual to hear football coaches praise their scout teams in interviews, but it seems like nobody -- nobody -- in the basketball coaching world ever does it. That's why I loved to see that coda to the interview. It was both classy and on-point at the same time by Steve.

[mwunder]

Bad game coverage has to hurt your team's recruiting, especially if you're a school that seeks to bring in talent from outside of your region.  And if you're a parent who can't make it to games in person, you're likely going to favor colleges that put effort into broadcasting.

I tried telling this to a certain AD at Carthage who is no longer an AD anywhere after some particularly lackluster efforts by their SID and department. We were spoiled by Steve Marovich at Carthage. Now, instead of an actual game write-up, we are treated to a bullet-point list of "How it Happened". Here are a few samples of memorable moments from current game recaps this season.

• With a good free throw from Emma Thistle, the Firebirds led 16-2 going into the second quarter. (women's game)
• Final score: Carthage 85 - Thiel 66 (Wrong final score)
• Ripon initially held a slim two-point lead early in the first half courtesy of a three-pointer. (who made the shot?)
• Julian Campbell's successful free throws narrowed the deficit to 41-24.(what's with the free throw mentions?)
• Despite the late surge, the home team secured the victory in the closing seconds.(lazy)

If ADs and SIDs don't think that kids are checking out their schools' websites before they arrive, they're just not paying attention.  I realize it's not the only thing kids look at, but it's one of them.

I'm not exactly sure how HEADLINES get picked/posted on the D3Hoops site, but I'm pretty sure if my school just knocked off #1, I'd want to publish something worthy of being front-page news. Just saying...

[mwunder]

Carthage 77
UW-Whitewater 73

Tremendously gutty performance by Carthage in pushing the king of the hill down the slope. The Firebirds roared out of the locker room to start the second half and atoned for a sluggish opening session by reeling off a 22-2 run to go up by, eventually, an astonishing 17 points. I'm sure that there are people out there in D3 Country who were wondering if anybody could put UWW down by that many.

It didn't last.

It was still a 16-point lead for the Firebirds with seven minutes left when UWW came roaring back on its own with a 21-4 run over a five-minute span, using a combination of slick steal-producing perimeter defense and drive-and-kick to not only erase that Firebirds lead but reverse it, as a Miles Barnstable trey at 1:56 put the Warhawks back in front, 68-67. But UWW from that point on was unable to finish anything at the rim, and the smaller but stubborn home team yanked down the defensive rebounds and then hit the ensuing free throws. The last ten points for Carthage all came from the free-throw line, as the Johnson boys were perfect from the charity stripe in those final two minutes (AJ Johnson 6-6, Ryan Johnson 4-4).

Fillip Bulatovic, who was surprisingly good from the line tonight (7-9), scored 21 on 7-11 shooting to lead the way to the upset win. Antuan Nesbitt, who was the sparkplug in the big early-second-half run for Carthage, finished with 14 and 7, while AJ Williams took advantage of having a UWW big man try to guard him by drifting out to the perimeter to hit four of his six trey attempts, ending up with 13 points. And, of course, big night for the Johnsons (AJ with 12 and 6, Ryan with 11 and 9).

The only shadow on a storm-the-floor night for Carthage was a sprained ankle by CCIW POW Julian Campbell. Steve D. put him back in at one point and the big fella tried to fight through the pain and stiffness, but he was ineffective.

Big signature win for Carthage.

Credit to both teams for their play last night. UWW got blitzed coming out of the locker room after halftime and found a way to turn what could have been a laugher into a barn burner. Carthage answered a potential back-breaking 3 from Barnstable with stop after stop and hit clutch free throws to hang on for the W.

[79jaybird]

Good SID's are hard to find.   Makes you appreciate legends like Dave Wrath,  Steve Marovich,  Dave Hilbert, etc.   People who put a genuine interest and detail into their writings. 

[Greek Tragedy]

Bad game coverage has to hurt your team's recruiting, especially if you're a school that seeks to bring in talent from outside of your region.  And if you're a parent who can't make it to games in person, you're likely going to favor colleges that put effort into broadcasting.

I tried telling this to a certain AD at Carthage who is no longer an AD anywhere after some particularly lackluster efforts by their SID and department. We were spoiled by Steve Marovich at Carthage. Now, instead of an actual game write-up, we are treated to a bullet-point list of "How it Happened". Here are a few samples of memorable moments from current game recaps this season.

• With a good free throw from Emma Thistle, the Firebirds led 16-2 going into the second quarter. (women's game)
• Final score: Carthage 85 - Thiel 66 (Wrong final score)
• Ripon initially held a slim two-point lead early in the first half courtesy of a three-pointer. (who made the shot?)
• Julian Campbell's successful free throws narrowed the deficit to 41-24.(what's with the free throw mentions?)
• Despite the late surge, the home team secured the victory in the closing seconds.(lazy)

If ADs and SIDs don't think that kids are checking out their schools' websites before they arrive, they're just not paying attention.  I realize it's not the only thing kids look at, but it's one of them.

I'm not exactly sure how HEADLINES get picked/posted on the D3Hoops site, but I'm pretty sure if my school just knocked off #1, I'd want to publish something worthy of being front-page news. Just saying...

Well, Bob "Titan Q" Quillman on Twitter said it wasn't even an upset.