MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Stertorous Thunder]

It's unfortunate that Wheaton had a bye game last Saturday instead of tomorrow night, because it would have been extra awesome for Soren Richardson to be CCIW player of the week for a single game performance. Until I read the game recap tonight, I didn't realize that his 53-point barrage on Wednesday was fifth in CCIW game history and third in Wheaton program history. (Aston Francis had a 54-point night in addition to the historic 62-point NCAA tournament game against Marietta.) At the beginning of this year, I hoped that Soren Richardson's career ceiling would look something like Matt Helwig's of North Central.  I have to say that my hopes are now calibrated higher than that.  What a fun player to watch when he's on a hot streak.

[markerickson]

It is unfortunate, Greg, that your memory lasted less than two weeks.  When a poster commented about NP's next big game, he overlooked the immediate game at Augie and leapt to NPU at home v Carthage.  I remarked that NP's next big game was Augie.  Thus, I know the importance of every game and that upsets can occur.  Duh.  I mean, c'mon, we saw lowly Carthage upset npu in football this year, which denied npu's first post-1969 winning season.

I am surprised you don't know what it means to collapse on D.  Soren clearly likes to shoot on the court's side of his dominant hand.  When he dribbles low, rotate a second defender to trap him near the base line.  I don't care if he then passes to the open man...just get the ball out of SR's hands.

I am also surprised that you would minimize my visual acuity of NP's D scheme over the last three years, and you completely missed my point.  With no change in scheme, the one man who could beat us, beat us.

[GusD]

North Central has received a commitment from one of the top players in the western suburbs, 6'7" Wing Daniel Sveiteris of Downers Grove South.

[bopol]

The trouble with Illinois public university system is the location of the State colleges.  Specifically, the Chicago suburbs aren't well served - resulting in many potential students in this region going out of state (Illinois is 2nd in the country in out of state university students).  NEIU might be the closest school to the North and Northwest Suburbs, but it's a pain to get too and then Northern Illinois is far away. 

Personally, that is the main (only?) flaw in the public system - the community colleges are great and the UI system is great.  The state colleges provide good education, but they are far away from the potential students.

[Gregory Sager]

North Central 86
North Park 81

TJ Gardner: 19 pts
Lance Nelson: 16 pts
Kyren Gardner: 11 pts

Drew Gaston: 25 pts (9-13 FG, 3-4 trey, 4-4 FT)
Ethan Helwig: 11 pts
Justin Sveiteris: 11 pts
Terrance Moncrief: 10 pts
Tyler Swierczek: 10 pts

Drew Gaston hit a fadeaway 25-footer that bounced off the top of the backboard, somehow avoided hitting the shot clock, bounced off of the rim and dropped in with 15 seconds to go to seal the win for the Cardinals in the airplane hangar. It capped off a great week for NCC and a hugely disappointing week for NPU.

The Vikings went through an extensive drought in the first half and were consistently beat on the boards by the Cardinals, who went into the locker room with a 17-point advantage. After scoring the first two points of the second half they were up 50-31. But North Park steadily chipped away by driving hard to the basket, most notably by the two Gardners, collecting a lot of and-ones in the process. Unfortunately, while doing so they left a bunch of points at the FT line that they could've really used down the stretch. The Park tied the game at 77-77 with 3:47 to go on a William Bates baseline jumper, but kept going to the well too many times by driving into traffic against a Cardinals defense that knew exactly what was going to happen by that point and was collapsing on every NPU halfcourt possession. Meanwhile, at the other end of the floor, NCC did its usual bang-up job at the free-throw line to reclaim the lead and, eventually, the win.

With the Firebirds winning decisively over Illinois Wesleyan in Tarble this afternoon, it's clear that Carthage is now in the driver's seat in the CCIW.

[Gregory Sager]

Impressive defensive performance by Carthage today in its 85-74 win over Illinois Wesleyan. The Firebirds D held the Titans to .415 from the field and .320 from downtown, while in the one aspect that the Firebirds couldn't affect, free throws, IWU didn't help itself by going 12-21 (.571) from the line.

Carthage is now 10-2, IWU is 10-3 (and has been swept by the Firebirds), and NPU is 9-4.

[Gregory Sager]

It is unfortunate, Greg, that your memory lasted less than two weeks.  When a poster commented about NP's next big game, he overlooked the immediate game at Augie and leapt to NPU at home v Carthage.  I remarked that NP's next big game was Augie.  Thus, I know the importance of every game and that upsets can occur.  Duh.  I mean, c'mon, we saw lowly Carthage upset npu in football this year, which denied npu's first post-1969 winning season.

Dunno what the heck that has to do with my memory, but whatever.

I am surprised you don't know what it means to collapse on D.

Mark, again, "collapse" means that the defenders off the ball retreat towards the basket as a unit to defend a close-in shot. That's what "collapse" has always meant in basketball parlance.

Soren clearly likes to shoot on the court's side of his dominant hand.  When he dribbles low, rotate a second defender to trap him near the base line.  I don't care if he then passes to the open man...just get the ball out of SR's hands.

Richardson shot the ball from all over. Left corner, left elbow, top of the key, right elbow, right corner -- and everywhere inside. He's an all-over, three-levels shooter. And he didn't do a lot of dribbling, either; most of his shots were either catch-and-shoot or a dribble or two to attempt to create space. (There was also the cut-and-pass layups he made, but, as I said, Richardson had a lot of company among Wheaton players who successfully did that.) In other words, there really weren't any opportunities to trap him, on the baseline or anywhere else.

I am also surprised that you would minimize my visual acuity of NP's D scheme over the last three years, and you completely missed my point.  With no change in scheme, the one man who could beat us, beat us.

"Scheme" had nothing to do with it. The Vikings employ traps often, but you can't trap a player who isn't dribbling into one or isn't being exposed by a teammate's pass or a loose ball into a trappable position along the sideline or endline. Bottom line, Richardson is a phenomenal offensive talent who had a magical night shooting the ball in spite of the fact that, for the most part, the Vikings defended him well.

[Gregory Sager]

The trouble with Illinois public university system is the location of the State colleges.  Specifically, the Chicago suburbs aren't well served - resulting in many potential students in this region going out of state (Illinois is 2nd in the country in out of state university students).  NEIU might be the closest school to the North and Northwest Suburbs, but it's a pain to get too and then Northern Illinois is far away.

The NEIU campus is only a mile and a half from I-94 and three miles from I-90, so it's not really any more of a pain to get there and back than it is anywhere else in the northern half of Chicagoland. There's also a ton of parking on campus, so it's not as though the school has completely geared itself to urbanites who use public transportation. I think it's probably more likely that a lot of suburbanites choose not to go there because they simply don't want to drive into the city. Then again, after living in the city for four and a half decades, I've probably forgotten the finer points of suburban thinking.  As for NIU, the school has a branch campus in Naperville right off of I-88, but I don't know how many students choose to go there. It likely depends upon what's offered there, and my guess is that there are a lot of NIU areas of study that you can only access on the main campus in DeKalb.

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana thumped Millikin in the Griz, 74-52, Tyler Knuth led the way for the Rock Islanders with 22 and 8, with Staishaun Kelley contributing 11 plus four steals. Millikin was led by Lane Thomann with 15 and Drake Stevenson with 10.

Augie thus draws even in CCIW play at 6-6 and is tied with Elmhurst for 4th place, with North Central a half-game behind them in 6th at 6-7. Meanwhile, the Big Blue (5-8) continue to fade; MU, which yet again was without the services of Demarcus Bond and JT Welch today, has now lost four of its last five and seven of its last nine.

[Gregory Sager]

Wheaton blew an 11-point second-half lead in King Arena against Carroll, but rallied late and outscored the Pioneers in the last two and a half minutes by a 13-3 margin to cap off a 91-81 win. Soren Richardson led the way again with 29 and 7 and had a career-high five steals as well, while Kyan VanderWoude came up big with 22 and 9, Kyle Neibch had 16, Noah Hedrick had 10 and 7, and Devin Martin had a nifty 6:2 floor game. For the Pios, Aaron Wafford's 20 topped the scoring table, with Jacob Naber registering 14 and 8, Kobe Simpson scoring 13, Erik Victorson adding 12, and Kylo Simpson grabbing 7 caroms.

Wheaton kept its faint CCIW tourney hopes alive with the win; the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance would have to sweep its four remaining games (@ Millikin, @ Carthage, @ Augustana, and vs. North Central) while currently 6th-seeded North Central loses its final three (vs. Carthage, @ Carroll, and @ Wheaton). Also, Carthage would have to maintain a higher seed than Illinois Wesleyan, because Wheaton would then win a ladder tiebreak over NCC. The chances of all of this happening are vanishingly small, of course. Meanwhile, Carroll is eliminated, because it loses all possible ladder tiebreakers to North Central in the event of a 6-10 tie.

[Stertorous Thunder]

It wasn't just The Soren Richardson Show, though. Drew Martin and Kyan VanderWoude were outstanding. I watched those two along with sophomore Richardson tonight, and I couldn't help thinking back as the game was going on to the middle of the last decade when young guns Juwan Henry, Jordan Robinson, TJ Cobbs, and Colin Lake were starting to collectively mature as players and the Vikings started beating ranked teams like Augustana and North Central. It feels as though Wheaton is very much on that road, especially if Mike Schauer can find a better-than-average big or two.

Speaking of Mike, congrats to him on his 400th win. I'd feel worse if he wasn't both a quality guy and a fellow Covie.

It's been a tough to see Wheaton basketball struggle the past two years. I just learned that the 13-game losing streak leading up to Mike Schauer's 400th career coaching victory was the longest in school history.

But I agree that the future is really bright. Wheaton will graduate one starter (Hedrick) and two bench contributors (Clark, Schultz), but the current roster is compromised of just 6 upperclassmen with 4 sophomores and 12 freshmen. It's not a stretch to say that 6 of the underclassmen are CCIW starter candidates already, and history tells us that 2 or 3 more could get to that level by the time conference games start next year.

The glaring weakness is the roster height. I don't know what the recruiting rules are, but if anyone knows a 6'6" or taller evangelical Christian F/C averaging 9 or 10 rebounds for a trash D3 team, would you please tell him how nice the Wheaton College campus is and mention its proximity to the train line to downtown Chicago?

[Stertorous Thunder]

Wednesday, February 5, 2025:

Little brother Soren Richardson scores 53 at North Park.  Big sister Annika Richardson scores 36 at home against Elmhurst.

Each performance is a career high for the Wheaton College siblings.

Each performance is also a season high for all players in the men's and women's CCIW conferences, respectively.

I wonder if another pair of siblings has ever scored 89 points on the same day at the collegiate level.

What a cool achievement for the family.

[bopol]

The trouble with Illinois public university system is the location of the State colleges.  Specifically, the Chicago suburbs aren't well served - resulting in many potential students in this region going out of state (Illinois is 2nd in the country in out of state university students).  NEIU might be the closest school to the North and Northwest Suburbs, but it's a pain to get too and then Northern Illinois is far away.

The NEIU campus is only a mile and a half from I-94 and three miles from I-90, so it's not really any more of a pain to get there and back than it is anywhere else in the northern half of Chicagoland. There's also a ton of parking on campus, so it's not as though the school has completely geared itself to urbanites who use public transportation. I think it's probably more likely that a lot of suburbanites choose not to go there because they simply don't want to drive into the city. Then again, after living in the city for four and a half decades, I've probably forgotten the finer points of suburban thinking.  As for NIU, the school has a branch campus in Naperville right off of I-88, but I don't know how many students choose to go there. It likely depends upon what's offered there, and my guess is that there are a lot of NIU areas of study that you can only access on the main campus in DeKalb.

Yep, as someone who did the commute for a decade down I94 from Lake County to Chicago, that drive sucks.  So, no, most 18 year olds won't commute there and there aren't commutable public university options for the Northern/NW Suburbs.  Frankly, UIC on the Metra is a better option than NEIU, which is in a terrible location to serve the needs of anyone who isn't served just as well by UIC.

[Gregory Sager]

The glaring weakness is the roster height. I don't know what the recruiting rules are, but if anyone knows a 6'6" or taller evangelical Christian F/C averaging 9 or 10 rebounds for a trash D3 team, would you please tell him how nice the Wheaton College campus is and mention its proximity to the train line to downtown Chicago?

If I find a 6'6" or taller evangelical Christian F/C averaging 9 or 10 rebounds for a trash D3 team, I'm making an immediate beeline to Ed McGhee's and Aaron Jacobs's offices underneath the crackerbox so that they can get to work on turning said F/C into a Viking. I'm pretty predictable that way.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025:

Little brother Soren Richardson scores 53 at North Park.  Big sister Annika Richardson scores 36 at home against Elmhurst.

Each performance is a career high for the Wheaton College siblings.

Each performance is also a season high for all players in the men's and women's CCIW conferences, respectively.

I wonder if another pair of siblings has ever scored 89 points on the same day at the collegiate level.

What a cool achievement for the family.

They seem like a very nice family. From out of the blue I got an email yesterday from Mr. Richardson complimenting me and thanking me for how I've called NPU vs. Wheaton games since his kids started playing for Wheaton. Made my day!

[Gregory Sager]

Yep, as someone who did the commute for a decade down I94 from Lake County to Chicago, that drive sucks.  So, no, most 18 year olds won't commute there and there aren't commutable public university options for the Northern/NW Suburbs.  Frankly, UIC on the Metra is a better option than NEIU, which is in a terrible location to serve the needs of anyone who isn't served just as well by UIC.

Definitely agree, and, aside from some very specific grad programs, UIC has a better academic reputation than NEIU as well. Livelier campus and closer to downtown, too.

(Two weeks from Tuesday the North Park baseball team will be playing an exhibition game against UIC at the Flames' Granderson Stadium for the second season in a row. I'm really looking forward to it, because watching a game at Granderson is a great experience. UIC says it has "the best batter's eye in all of college baseball," and they're right.)