MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[martin]

A lot of CCIW teams went hard after Adam Gregoriou out of Q's alma mater, Brother Rice.  He is at SXU and should turn out to be a good one.  Rice lost to eventual champion Glenbrook North in the Illinois AA quarterfinals last year.  It was an outstanding team.  Bobby Frasor is starting as a freshman for North Carolina.  Matt Seaquist is at Loras.  I am not sure what the other two starters, Luke Rohan and Kevin Harrigan, are doing.  I think there has been a Harrigan playing basketball for Rice every year since the school opened, including Mike now at IWU.  I never really thought of Rice as a hoops power but it seems to be fertile ground.

One reason Frasor is starting for UNC is that everyone from last year's team was drafted by the NBA - apparently including the student managers and water boy.  UNC was one of two ACC teams with no returning starters.  The other is Georgia Tech.  Tech was picked to finish ninth of 12 in the ACC.  They may be worse than that.  Tech lost to UIC by 20 and then UIC turned around and lost to Georgia Southern by 20.  Tech's coach is a DIII guy, Paul Hewitt (played at St. John Fisher).  Tech was a final four team in 2004.  Last year, they beat eventual national champion UNC in the ACC semifinals.  Tech unloaded Bobby Cremins after 25 years.  I hope Hewitt is allowed one bad season.

[escalade07]

I am a student at Concordia River Forest and we play Augie soon. I was just wondering about the team in general. I know a few players. But it would be nice to get an idea about the team. I went to the game at Augie last season, and we got crushed!

[sac]

I'd take the top 5 teams from the CCIW over the top 5 from the MIAA in most years, even the last two (arguably our two strongest).

Case in point, #3 Hope from a year ago was manhandled by Wheaton and Augustana, beaten by Elmhurst and Carthage.

Hope had its personel issues but I'm not sure a full squad would have beaten Wheaton or Augie.

[dansand]

escalade07,

Augie returns three starters from last year, but only two of them started in the Concordia game. Rick Harrigan hadn't yet cracked the starting lineup. Harrigan is Augie's leading scorer so far this year (24 ppg). Forward Jay McAdams-Thornton (1st team All-CCIW) and PG Drew Wessels are the other returning starters. Their top newcomers are transfers Dain (C) and Nate Swetalla (F) and freshman Mike Kolze (G), who made several Class AA All-State teams last year. 

[dansand]

Speaking of the Vikes. They'll have their hands full tomorrow with their cross-river rival St. Ambrose. Ambrose has already had decisive losses to Olivet Nazarene and St. Xavier, two teams that IWU beat handily. That might lead some people to believe (mistakenly?) that Augie shouldn't have too much trouble. The Bees' coach Ray Shovlain has, in the past run a D3-style program, recruiting high school players who stay four years. However, this year he's brought in three senior transfers including Andrew Bryant, a 6-8, 235 pound front court player who was a part-time starter at Boston College in 2002-03. Augie won by 13 at SAU last year, but I don't expect them to have as easy a time tomorrow. Hope I'm wrong.

[David Collinge]

good win for IWU and the CCIW!  Congrats to Augie as well for cracking the top 25!  With 3 teams in the top 25, the CCIW is making a strong case for top conference in the country.  I believe our top 5 teams are better than any other conferences top 5.  Anyone disagree?

I doubt, Cardinalpride, that you would get much of an argument from the "fans" in this room, but I would suggest treading a little lighter with that kind of talk in say the Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio or North Coast chat rooms.

As an NCAC alum and partisan, I'll match our top two up against any other conference's top two, but top five?  No way.  Your top five crushes our top five, every year.  Our fifth best team is probably Ohio Wesleyan or Earlham, and they'd be struggling with Millikin in the CCIW. 

Congratulations to Augustana, Elmhurst and IWU being in the Top 25 this week. NCAC folks probably won't agree with IWU getting all 25 1st place votes; particularly with Wooster @ #2 (moving up from #3) and Wittenberg @ #3 (moving up from #10).

Nobody in our room has beefed about the rankings.  IWU certainly deserves their ranking, and I have no argument with them getting all the firsts at this point.  But I'd dearly love to see a neutral court IWU/Wittenberg game.   

[escalade07]

I know Dain, and Nate I used to play with them in high school and Mcadams-thronton is also a very good player. I was just wondering how they look and what to expect. Thanks!

[mr_b]

Final from the Crackerbox: North Park 76, Judson 75

[mr_b]

It was the Brett and Bjorn Show as North Park registered its first win of the season in exciting fashion.  Bjorn Berg hit a three-point shot with 0:06.6 left to give the Vikings the win.

North Park started off ice-cold and trailed the Eagles 21-8 at the 12:35 mark of the first half.  The Vikes started hitting some key shots -- Jason Gordon with 11, Ed Whitaker with two treys, and Brett Mathisen with 17 -- to take a 42-36 lead at the half.

After the break, Judson took advantage of numerous turnovers to regain the lead.  Bjorn Berg, who played well in the first half but scored only one bucket, played like a man possessed, scoring 20 in the second half, with 4 three-pointers including the game-winner.  Berg led the team with 22 points, Mathisen had 21, Gordon had 11, and Jay Alexander chipped in 10.

Judson was led in scoring by Dewayne Robinson with 27, A.J. Nickol with 16, Ray Howard with 12, and Ilija Bojanic with 11.  A key stat is the Eagles' performance at the free-throw line: 16 of 31.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 76, Judson 75

Bjorn Berg (!), 22 pts
Brett Mathisen, 21 pts
Jason Gordon, 11 pts
Jay Alexander, 10 pts

This one will go down in NPU basketball annals as "the Bjorn game". The rarely-used senior guard from Minneapolis, who has barely played 100 minutes in 13 games' worth of garbage time over the past two years, came off of the end of the bench tonight and proved to be the sparkplug that the Vikings have been looking for. He played a fantastic game at both ends of the floor, scoring 20 in the second half and blocking a layup from behind in the last two minutes. And with the game on the line and the Vikings down by two, he hit an NBA-distance trey with 6.6 seconds left to give the Park a very badly-needed win.

This one was not pretty by any means. The Vikings threw away so many passes, especially in the second half, that I was ready to tear my hair out in clumps. I haven't seen the box score yet, but I'll be surprised if the Vikings had fewer than 25 turnovers on the night. Judson, for their part, blew it big-time at the FT line, where they went an atrocious 16-31. The Eagles are talented and athletic -- freshman guard Dewayne Robinson, who scored 27 points, looked like the second coming of Yulander Wells, and the Eagles also have a pair of 6'8' guys with nice inside-outside games -- but they're very young (no seniors) and lacked the composure to hold onto significant leads in a very hostile gym. They blew an early 19-6 bulge over the Vikings (NPU outscored Judson, 36-17, over the remainder of the half to go into the locker room with a 42-36 lead), and a 65-56 advantage with less than five minutes remaining. It's what young teams do.

What young teams don't often do is claw their way back from widening deficits when nothing seems to be going right, but that's what the Vikings did tonight. They did it on the backs of two seldom-used upperclassmen: Berg, who as I said played out of his mind at both ends of the floor, and Steve Reynolds, who came in and calmed the team down, stopped the constant hemorrhage of turnovers, and played great defense. It gives Paul Brenegan some interesting decisions to make in terms of configuring his rotation.

Jay Alexander was a real sparkplug at both ends of the floor tonight; Brett "Waste Management" Mathisen did yeoman work in putting back garbage points; Jeremiah Sargent did a good job on the boards and took a key charge from Judson's Ray Howard in the last three minutes of the game; and Ed Whitaker was key in leading the first-half comeback. But this was Bjorn Berg's game. He was mobbed as he left the floor by his fellow students, and rightly so. A shout-out goes to Lamar Townsend, who kept telling me that Brenegan needed to get his ex-roommate some playing time. Well, Berg got that playing time tonight -- and he certainly made the most of it.

A great, exciting ballgame -- and a desperately-needed win for the confidence level of this young NPU team.

[mr_b]

I will leave the detailed analysis to others, but I will simply add that I am very happy for the Vikings -- coaches and players.  That first victory will go a long way in boosting their confidence and will give them something to build on.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Sounds like a real barn-burner (excuse me, Cracker-Box-burner)!

Berg would seem to deserve a shot at starting, but no one ever mentioned what position he plays!  Whom would he replace if he started?

[Jim Matson]

Nice win Greg (and all you other Parkers).  It's great to see Berg come off the bench and perform.  Is he a MinneAca grad?

I wish I were going up to the CCIW/MIAA Classic, but no go.  I'll have to listen. 

[Gregory Sager]

Berg would seem to deserve a shot at starting, but no one ever mentioned what position he plays! Whom would he replace if he started?

Berg is a two-guard ... a 5'11" two-guard who's really more like 5'9". And there's the rub.

Nice win Greg (and all you other Parkers). It's great to see Berg come off the bench and perform. Is he a MinneAca grad?

No, he and Mike Haehn are both Minneapolis Washburn grads.

[Gregory Sager]

On the injury front, it continues to be one step forward, one step back for the Park. Uriah Rice is finally back in uniform, seeing his first (limited) action of the season in Monday night's JV contest as he works his way back into game shape. And Glen Woodside's recurring knee problem appears to be on the mend; he was in uniform last night, although he didn't get into the game. However, Eric Samuelson is now out with a knee contusion and did not dress against Judson. That's frustrating for NPU, because there were stretches when the Vikings offense went stagnant and they could've used his knack for putting the ball in the basket.