MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[GU1999]

In their initial exhibition game against D1 competition, IWU plays well, going down to DePaul 76-60.  The Titans have another exhibition at Butler coming up shortly.  Looking forward to a great season for IWU. 

IWU'70

I am good friends with a father of one of DePaul's starters and he was very impressed with IWU. Particularly called out #12, Nick Roper.  Also commented on Hakeem Williams athleticism. 

[Pat Coleman]

The CCIW MBB coaches poll has always been notorious for its inability to forecast a sudden rise in the standings like that ...

Preseason conference coaches polls in general don't stray very far from the previous season's finish.

[Gregory Sager]

True. But even in a year in which a big climb seems obvious, the CCIW coaches poll tends to not reflect it.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park played an exhibition game against Southern Illinois down in Carbondale tonight and lost, 107-71. No shame in that, as the Salukis are graded by all of the D1 ranking analysts as falling somewhere in the #100 to #150 range among D1 teams. The Vikings, who were playing without two of their bigs tonight, were hopelessly outsized by a team that was also either just as quick or quicker at every position than a D3 squad could muster. NPU got outrebounded by nearly 30 boards, which was crazy but understandable, and the Vikes had little or no chance of scoring anywhere from within 15 feet of the basket, as a whole bunch of their shots were swatted away and the ball was frequently poked away from them in close quarters by long-armed Salukis with quick reflexes.

But the Vikes did do a lot of things right. They shot an encouraging .433 (13-30) from downtown; their assists almost matched their turnovers (14:15); they turned over the ball fewer times than the Salukis (NPU 15, SIU 20), and they had 13 steals to SIU's nine. One lingering concern is FT shooting; while the Vikings didn't get to the line much, they showed the same lack of success there that they had last season, going 6-10.

Davante Robinson led the way with 13 points (including a pair of logo treys), Tristan Arneaud had an impressive debut with 11, and Preston Bax III added 10.

The Vikings will now scrimmage D2 Lewis later this week as they get ready for their big opener at Wisconsin Lutheran on Nov. 13.

[iwu70]

IWU pretty much got clobbered by D1 Butler in their last exhibition tune-up.  Now time to get ready for the regular season and the first weekend Sikma Invitation tournament featuring 4 teams in the D3 top 25.  Should be a great opener for the first weekend of the regular season.

I see Nick Roper was named to the pre-season All-American team, third team.

IWU'70

[HAMBO]

Did anyone happen to see the Millikin game against Bradley who is the preseason favorite to win the MVC. Bradley won 80-63 but I heard that with something like 6 minutes to go Millikin was only down 10 points. Millikin did outscore Bradley in the 2nd half 38-37. I checked the playing time stats and Millikin starters averaged 26 mins and Bradley averaged 25 min so no big difference there.  I was not there so I would like to know the whole story because the Big Blue is ranked next to last in the CCIW, thus you would think Bradley would win by a lopsided score.

[HAMBO]

I just talked this morning with a big Bradley fan who was at the game and he said that Millikin just flat outplayed Bradley in the second half and it was starters vs starters.  He also told me that Bradley received 46 out of 49 first place votes for MVC title.

[lmitzel]

NCC roster is finally up (don't know how long it's been up, but I hadn't checked in a while).

Happy to see Ethan Helwig back for one more go around. Ten freshmen on the roster, and several unassigned numbers at this point, which tells me Vince Kmiec is still working on rounding out his varsity roster.

One name I'm sad to not see on here is John Blumeyer (mainly because I enjoyed getting the yells of "Bluuuuuuu!" when I introduced him the past couple years).

[Gregory Sager]

NCC roster is finally up (don't know how long it's been up, but I hadn't checked in a while).

Happy to see Ethan Helwig back for one more go around. Ten freshmen on the roster, and several unassigned numbers at this point, which tells me Vince Kmiec is still working on rounding out his varsity roster.

One name I'm sad to not see on here is John Blumeyer (mainly because I enjoyed getting the yells of "Bluuuuuuu!" when I introduced him the past couple years).

"Our 'Come See Our Tylers!' t-shirts are now available for purchase in the Merner Fieldhouse lobby!"

[Gregory Sager]

North Park scrimmaged at Lewis this past weekend and hung with the Flyers to the end before losing by five. A large part of Lewis's success has to have been the whopping 44 free throws they were awarded, of which they made 42 for an outstanding .955 FT rate. (Word of warning to any denizens of D2 World who are D3-curious enough to be lurking here: tell your team to avoid sending Lewis to the charity stripe.) The flip side is that NPU forced 24 Lewis turnovers, which must've driven Flyers HC Scott Trost right up the wall. The Vikings simply have to work at defending smarter without losing any of their aggression.

North Park also duplicated the team effort from beyond the arc that the Vikings produced at Southern Illinois, as NPU again hit 13 treys and shot over .400 from beyond the arc as a team. I think that this team will shoot much better than last season's edition of the Park, in part because they'll shoot much smarter. Their ball movement is also much better, and the shooting talent is more broadly-based -- all of the newcomers are good shooters, and a couple of the returnees who are expected to see a lot of the floor for NPU have really worked hard at improving their outside shooting, with visible results thus far in practice.

This was a good result against a Lewis team that went 18-13 last season and is picked to finish fourth in the 15-team GLVC this season, for whatever that's worth. (Probably not much.) The GLVC is traditionally one of the more well-respected leagues in D2, so this was a quality outcome for the Park. Of course, it also becomes a meaningless outcome once the season starts a week from tomorrow at Wisconsin Lutheran.

I've watched eight or nine Vikings practices this fall, and I really like what I see. But it's a fool's errand to make any sort of predictions about how they'll do when I haven't seen anything of the other eight teams. Now more than ever in these transfer-heavy times, sight unseen is strength unknown.

[Titan Q]

IWU MBB season preview episode of the Q-cast...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywWOEHHHYUk

[iwu70]

In the Sikma Invitational at The Shirk this weekend -- four top-25 teams.  Should be grand.

Friday at 5 p.m. #16 IWU hosts #24 Cal Lutheran.  Then, at 7 p.m., #2 UW Plattville takes on #9 Calvin.

Consolation game and Championship game on Saturday.

Should be a GREAT weekend of D3 hoops at The Shirk.  We'll see how the Titans stack up vs. some of the top talent in D3 this year.

Go Titans!

iwu'70

[Gregory Sager]

North Park's season preview is up.

[GusD]

NCC roster is finally up (don't know how long it's been up, but I hadn't checked in a while).

Happy to see Ethan Helwig back for one more go around. Ten freshmen on the roster, and several unassigned numbers at this point, which tells me Vince Kmiec is still working on rounding out his varsity roster.

One name I'm sad to not see on here is John Blumeyer (mainly because I enjoyed getting the yells of "Bluuuuuuu!" when I introduced him the past couple years).

With NCC's first game listed as being next Tuesday, 11/12, it would seem we'll see a complete varsity roster posted no later than then. The Cardinals will be a really young team with 17 of the 22 players listed being either freshmen (10) or sophomores (7), and with only one of the sophs playing major minutes last year.

[Gregory Sager]

Friday, November 8
Cal Lutheran (23-5) @ Illinois Wesleyan (19-8), 5 pm
Carroll (14-12) @ Lakeland (6-19), 7 pm
Elmhurst (22-6) @ Wisconsin Lutheran (24-5), 7 pm