MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[voxelmhurst]

Great win for Elmhurst last night at the RAF. It was a closer game than the final score indicated, Elmhurst led by just 1 with 7 and a half minutes remaining in the second half. Wesleyan did a nice job of frustrating Elmhurst's office in the first half, but Tagen Pearson really stepped up and hit some big 3s for Elmhurst when the rest of the team was struggling offensively. He finished with 24 on the night, and probably had his best performance in his Elmhurst career thus far. Elmhurst really found their stride in the second half and went off for 61 points, with Zapinski, Johnson, and Ittounas returning to their usual form. All finished in double digits to go along with Pearson's 24.

Nice for Elmhurst to start CCIW play with a win, after starting last season's conference campaign so poorly.

[mwunder]

I'm not exactly sure how HEADLINES get picked/posted on the D3Hoops site...

It's self-serve for a school to post something and have it automatically appear in the list of headlines, and then we can push something to that rotation of main stories. Or, if we have time, we can write something, but we didn't have anyone with time to devote to D3hoops on Tuesday, sorry.

Pat, that was not directed at you AT ALL.  I was calling out the SID at Carthage...

[mr_b]

Congratulations to Greg Sager, as he was honored (alongside four student-athlete alums) at today's Viking Hall of Fame ceremony.  He's truly the Voice of the Vikings, calling play-by-play in nine different sports. 

[GU1999]

Kudos Mr. Sager.

[GU1999]

Kudos Mr. Sager.

[Gregory Sager]

Elmhurst 74
North Park 69

Kolden Vanlandingham: 20 pts
Phil Holmes, Jr.: 15 pts, 7 rebs
Shamar Pumphrey: 12 pts, 8:3 a:to, 4 stls

John Ittounas: 21 pts (7-8 FT), 8 rebs
Jonathan Zapinski: 12 pts, 3 blks
Tagen Pearson: 12 pts
Ocean Johnson: 9 rebs

The Bluejays left the door open, missing a pile of FTs late,but the Vikings couldn't execute offensively well enough to take advantage, as the deficit the Park had been stuck with proved too big to overcome. In fits and starts the Vikings looked better on offense, but there was still too much dumb decision-making with the ball, especially in the shot-selection category. Defensively, the help defense for NPU was terrible; you simply can't let a team like Elmhurst have unimpeded lanes to the basket and expect them not to take advantage of it.

I keep waiting for the Vikings to figure it out, and it just isn't happening yet. Meanwhile, the hole they're digging keeps getting deeper.

[Gregory Sager]

Congratulations to Greg Sager, as he was honored (alongside four student-athlete alums) at today's Viking Hall of Fame ceremony.  He's truly the Voice of the Vikings, calling play-by-play in nine different sports.

Kudos Mr. Sager.

Thanks! Much appreciated.

[GoPerry]

Wheaton 54
North Central 64

Nick Schiavello  22pts, 6 rebs

Drew Gaston 13 pts, 5 rebs
Ethan Helwig  12 pts, 7 rebs
Ken Thomas  12 pts

This was close at half with the Thunder up 33-31.  But Wheaton went ice cold in the second half and was only able to score 21 points.  Otherwise, the stat line was pretty close to NCC.  Once again, 27 out of Wheaton's 55 shots were three's.  In the second half they were 0/14.

Good to see Nick Schiavello back.  I doubt that he is completely healthy but he looked good in providing floor leadership and some shots driving to the basket.

[lmitzel]

Carthage 95
NCC 75

I didn't get to see any of this other than peeking at live stats periodically during the women's matchup between these teams. I guess Carthage led wire to wire and pulled away in the second half despite NCC shooting a scorching 13-24 from beyond the arc tonight. The Firebirds, for their part, doubled up the Cardinals in the paint 40-20.

AJ Johnson: 24 pts, 4 stl
Julian Campbell: 22 pts, 5 reb
Filip Bulatovic: 16 pts, 10 reb, 8 ast
AJ Williams: 10 pts, 5 reb, 5 ast

Brian Johnson: 20 pts
Ethan Helwig: 20 pts (17 in the 1st half), 5 reb, 4 ast
Drew Gaston: 19 pts, 8 reb

Buried the lede a bit here, but part of the reason this margin was so high was due to multiple technicals on NCC, including Vince Kmiec apparently getting ejected with about 2 minutes left to play. I'd go back to see what happened... but Carthage doesn't have archived video at present for some reason.

The Cardinals are back home on Saturday to take on Illinois Wesleyan.

[Gregory Sager]

Illinois Wesleyan 70
North Park 56

Lance Nelson: 14 pts

Nick Roper: 15 pts
Ryan Sroka: 12 pts
Harrison Wilmsen: 11 pts
Mason Funk: 11 pts
Marko Anderson: 9 rebs
Luke Yoder: 8 rebs

Nothing to add that I haven't already said over the past three weeks regarding this nightmare.

[mr_b]

Illinois Wesleyan 70
North Park 56

Nothing to add that I haven't already said over the past three weeks regarding this nightmare.

I'm sorry to hear about yet another loss.  It is very discouraging, as you had high expectations for the team this season.  Let's hope they can regain their touch and put together a string of solid performances.

[GoPerry]

Carroll  62
Wheaton 69

Connor Braun, 23 pts
Nick Schiavello, 14 pts, 8 rebs
Kyle Neibch, 15 pts, 6 rebs

Kobe Simpson, 21 pts, 11 rebs

A huge road win for the Thunder who haven't had much to celebrate so far this season.  Connor Braun had his best game ever for Wheaton as he couldn't be stopped at some stretches.  The visitors were without Nate Sock and RJ Veliz.  But Nathan Clark played solid minutes in place of Veliz.

The Pios couldn't hit anything in the first half and that put them behind the 8 ball early.  Credit to the Wheaton defense playing tough down in the paint.

[Stertorous Thunder]

A huge road win for the Thunder who haven't had much to celebrate so far this season.  Connor Braun had his best game ever for Wheaton as he couldn't be stopped at some stretches.  The visitors were without Nate Sock and RJ Veliz.  But Nathan Clark played solid minutes in place of Veliz.

The Pios couldn't hit anything in the first half and that put them behind the 8 ball early.  Credit to the Wheaton defense playing tough down in the paint.

It's easy to make too much out of an individual game in December, but this was indeed a huge win for the Thunder, who are about to finish the month with four more road games at #2 Calvin, 6-2 University of Chicago, #1 John Carroll, and either Wooster or Edgewood in the Saturday game at Wooster's invitational.  The fourth game looks especially winnable, but even that could be a challenge when played less than 24 hours after facing the (current) best team in the country and, as noted by many, several key Thunder players aren't fully healthy.

I think the stretch goal for this team should be to claw and fight to a 10-win season.  If the Thunder can upset Chicago and have enough gas to win the Wooster Kiwanis Classic consolation game, a 3-3 finish for the month of December would be an excellent outcome and put them at a 4-8 record before the final run of CCIW contests.  If the Thunder could then go 6-7 in 2024 and hit double digit wins, it would be worthy of a small celebration. (Sparkling grape juice, anyone?)

If you're not normally a follower of Wheaton, consider tuning in to the 11:00 CST Saturday game against Calvin anyway.  Connor Braun isn't going to shut down 6'10" potential All-American sophomore Jalen Overway (because likely no one in D3 can), but it could be interesting to see how a CCIW big matches up against him.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

If you're not normally a follower of Wheaton, consider tuning in to the 11:00 CST Saturday game against Calvin anyway.  Connor Braun isn't going to shut down 6'10" potential All-American sophomore Jalen Overway (because likely no one in D3 can), but it could be interesting to see how a CCIW big matches up against him.

Well not necessarily true - especially at Van Noord.  Jalen was 6-21(.285) from the floor in two games there last year versus Hope, facing 6-9 Gabe Quillan.  Gabe was 6-16 (.375) in those same two games as that matchup was basically a stalemate.  For some perspective, those two were 2nd (Gabe .557) and 4th (Jalen .533) in the MIAA in FG% last season. 

[GoPerry]

Wheaton 54
Calvin 77

Wheaton played well and toe to toe with the Knights in the first half, only down 33-29 after 20.  But Calvin held the Thunder without a field goal in the first 9 mins of the 2nd half enroute to a 24-4 run.  That was it.

Overway ended up with 26 and 11 and pretty much had his way when he wanted it.  Very impressive at 6'10, 250 lbs (listed) but has the mobility of a 6'6" 220 lb player.  He's able to escape and overcome double teams but doesn't force anything.  Really tough to defend that.