MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[GusD]

The Drew Gaston & Terrance Moncrief Show was fantastic - but just barely not enough for North Central to upset Carthage tonight. The Carthage MVP was the cameraman who permitted the out-of-bounds call to be overturned on replay.

Honestly, it was the right call to overturn it. Looked pretty clear off Gaston to me.

My beef is more so with Carthage's PA announcer. Not because he stole my thing (which, to be fair, I also stole from a guy who announced a middle school tournament I played in in Elgin forever ago) but because I was under the impression that the CCIW Tournament was supposed to be more of a neutral site thing and there was a clear imbalance in three calls between the two teams.

Obviously not pointing at that for the outcome; Carthage played just better enough to win. I'm just a little bitter because I've played nice in all of my CCIW Tournament games and now I'm questioning everything.

Rant over. Congrats to Carthage on a hard fought win. And congrats to NCC on a good season. Going to miss Ethan, Drew, and Terrance.

The Carthage PA guy was a real joker who, if the tournament game staff people were truly supposed to be neutral (despite being home teamers), really stepped outside the boundaries. Several times during the first half he announced that if NCC missed 2 free throws in a row in the 2nd half that the Carthage fans would get free coupons from the local Culver's. Accordingly, he loudly encouraged them to boo loudly whenever NCC went to the line—not that the home fans, especially the students massed under the NCC 2nd half basket, needed any extra encouragement. I mean they would have naturally booed anyway, but the announcer excitedly whipping them into an even heightened frenzy was certainly a violation of the supposed CCIW Tourney staff neutrality rule. Throughout the evening he sure did a lot more than just announce the game action.

[iwu70]

Maybe Carthage got their just reward in the championship game.

'70

[mwunder]

UW-LaCrosse hosted pod:
UW-LaCrosse (22-5) vs Greenville (20-7)
Carthage (21-5) vs St. Norbert (22-6)


U-Chicago hosted pod:
St. John's (24-3) vs U-Chicago (18-7)
IWU (22-5) vs Bethany Lutheran (14-11)

[Greek Tragedy]

Pretty favorable draw for IWU. They get the lowest rated team in the tournament. Already beat the hosts and St. John's is in a weak conference. It's March Madness, so anything can happen, but on paper, seems like they should be the favorites to advance.

[iwu70]

Yes, looks a pretty good draw for IWU @ Ratner.  However, Bethany Lutheran, even with a poor record, played a lot of good teams very tough.  Look at their schedule and you will not take them lightly.  IWU beat Chicago earlier in the year.  I'd expect St. John's to advance to Saturday evening against IWU.  Sweet Sixteen would be sweet . . .

As you say, anything can happen.  It's March. . .

IWU women get to host at The Shirk.

IWU'70

[iwu70]

IWU moves up to #9 in the Week 13 poll.  Carthage at #25. 

In IWU's pod in Chicago, St. John's (MN) is ranked #7 and Chicago also ranked in the top 25. 

New #1, as on the women's side, is NYU.

'70

[markerickson]

A week or two ago the NYT had a lengthy article about Grinnell's system.  Discussed father and son, the philosophy, and the scoring records.  If I recall correctly, the article said Grinnell had not been to the tourney since 2004, but did not mention opponent or outcome.  I vaguely recalled IWU badly stuffed Grinnell and thought it was a tourney game.

In 2001, IWU pounded Grinnell 132-91 in the first round.  Did anyone witness that game?  Recollections?  Here is the box score: 
https://sun.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2001/030101m.htm  Oddly, Laban Cross netted only four points on three shots!

Tourney time!

[bopol]

The trouble with the system is that it doesn't work against good teams.  They won't panic, they have players that can bring it up the court in pressure and can make good passes and find the layup.  Hence, Grinnell will be competitive in their conference and against weaker competition, but can't get over the top.  It's a path to take a bad team to above average - a load of 17-8 seasons...but it won't make a Top 25 team.

I guess the coach is slowing it down a bit...this ain't the Grinnell you've seen in the past.

[iwu70]

Yes, I was at that game. . . IWU a good passing team made 2 point shot after two point shot -- shooting as you can see there in the box score, over 65%.  The system just didn't work on a team that could convert so easily and quickly, even with Grinnell trying so many 3s.  In this game they really didn't make that many.  It was a track meet of a game for sure.  No real attempts at strong defense.  Seems Grinnell now seems to have done some, what shall we say, re-evaluation?

IWU'70

[RogK]

The vast majority of non-System D3 teams fare much worse than 17-8. Is there dismissal of the style of play used by every sub-.500 team? Nope.
If the Grinnell System was used over several seasons by 62 or 71 D3 teams and none reached the final 4, then we'd have a sampling to which a valid critique could apply.
When only 2 or 3 out of 406 teams use a particular style of play, that style's potential has not been tested much.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Part of the reason teams use it is because they're not capable of attracting top tier talent and it becomes a leveler.  Play more guys and get into the other team's bench.  Grinnell was terrible and boring before Arseneault devised The System.  Now they're at least more exciting.

It's especially appealing in this day and age when schools rely on sports for enrollment.  Greenville brings in 20 guys for the varsity team and another 20 for JV.

[Green Beer]

Yeah. I can't see why a top tier would even want to play in "the system." Sure, there is technically a starting 5 at the beginning of the game, but the best player gets no more playing time than the bottom 10th player (assuming I understand the rotation correctly). It's truly selfless play. If you're an elite player, you're sacrificing your stats and potential personal achievements for the good of the entire team. I'm not saying it's impossible, just hard for me to visualize. Good on you if you can embrace that mindset.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Yeah. I can't see why a top tier would even want to play in "the system." Sure, there is technically a starting 5 at the beginning of the game, but the best player gets no more playing time than the bottom 10th player (assuming I understand the rotation correctly). It's truly selfless play. If you're an elite player, you're sacrificing your stats and potential personal achievements for the good of the entire team. I'm not saying it's impossible, just hard for me to visualize. Good on you if you can embrace that mindset.

They really do adjust quite a bit these days based on personnel.  They'll double shifts up for better players and play to strengths.  The current iteration of what Grinnell does is a lot more about pace than any data-based principles.  Almost everybody understands expected value and points per attempt, so a lot of the offensive inefficiencies The System took advantage of just don't exist anymore.

Greenville runs a much more traditional style of The System and is less likely to be competitive in the first round.  Grinnell will still run line changes, most likely, but I think you'll see some strategic changes to adjust to the high talent level of their opponents.  They're not going to be willing to commit as many turnovers or give up open shots when they're unlikely to be able to force more turnovers and get more open shots because of pace and pressure.

[blue_jays]

Yeah. I can't see why a top tier would even want to play in "the system." Sure, there is technically a starting 5 at the beginning of the game, but the best player gets no more playing time than the bottom 10th player (assuming I understand the rotation correctly). It's truly selfless play. If you're an elite player, you're sacrificing your stats and potential personal achievements for the good of the entire team. I'm not saying it's impossible, just hard for me to visualize. Good on you if you can embrace that mindset.

Uhhh the best players in the system do not do the sacrificing: they do the shooting. John Grotberg (Class of 2009) averaged almost 30 points per game and scored nearly 3,000 career points. 4 of their guys in the last 20 years scored more than 2,000 career points.
Remember when Jack Taylor scored over 100 points in a game TWICE?

[blue_jays]

The trouble with the system is that it doesn't work against good teams.  They won't panic, they have players that can bring it up the court in pressure and can make good passes and find the layup.  Hence, Grinnell will be competitive in their conference and against weaker competition, but can't get over the top.  It's a path to take a bad team to above average - a load of 17-8 seasons...but it won't make a Top 25 team.

I guess the coach is slowing it down a bit...this ain't the Grinnell you've seen in the past.

I remember a 2009 Grinnell game versus Wheaton. The Thunder won 130-109 and set a school single-game record with an 80% field goal percentage (52 of 65). Tim McCrary scored 32 points on 13-of-15 shooting, Kent Raymond scored 31 points on 10-for-13 shooting, and even the offensively-challenged Jake Carwell scored a career-high 25 points on 12-for-14 shooting.