MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[mr_b]

Final from the Crackerbox: North Park 64, Millikin 59

[mr_b]

Nice win for the Vikings at home over the Big Blue.  Millikin led 31-28 at the half, but the Vikings trailed by as many as 10 points early on and closed the gap in the waning moments of the half.

The Vikings came out with some enthusiasm to open the second half, led by Devin Burnett's consecutive baskets.  The Vikings gained the lead and Millikin fought back, but North Park refused to panic.  The team that started the game was young -- three freshmen (Burnett, Keith Willert, and Mike Ventura), one sophomore (Jay Alexander), and one senior (Brett Mathisen) -- and played with a lot of heart.  Mathisen led all scorers with 21, while Bjorn Berg turned in another steady performance off with bench with 15 (3 three-pointers).  Alexander added 10, Burnett 9, and Ventura, Willert, and Ed Whitaker each contributed three.  For the Big Blue, Drew Gensler led with 16 points and Lance Brooks chipped in 14.  One unusual stat was that Millikin's first free-throw of the game was taken with 2:20 to go in the second half; they ended up going 3-for-4 at the line, while the Vikings were 10-for-12.

As an aside, there were about 400 people in attendance, led by a solid contingent of Carlson Crazies sporting Swedish flags, a stuffed Canadian goose, a fan with two heads, and a third head (presumably fake) perched on the end of a pole.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I really thought that out of Wheaton, Millikin, and Carthage, at least ONE of them would make a run for the conference tourney (and someone MAY yet), but it is looking increasingly like we already know the top four.  (And having been swept by NPU, Millikin, despite wins over NCC and Elmhurst, had better be concerned whether they can even manage 7th!)

Tomorrow's game is HUGE for the regular season title (though perhaps a bit diminished with the tourney) - if Augie wins, we can ALMOST go ahead and give them the crown (3 game lead with 6 to play).  If Elmhurst wins, Augie is still in the driver's seat, but the race is on.

[Gregory Sager]

Great game in the crackerbox tonight. As Mr. B said, NPU had to fight back from an early 27-15 deficit. For some reason, the Vikings have seemed to wallow aimlessly for a good chunk of the first half in many of their games this season before they finally get going. Jay Alexander was a big spark, hitting a pair of treys in the Park's run to bring the game close at the half.

NPU ran off an 11-2 spurt to start the second half to lead 39-33, and they led most of the way in the final stanza. But Millikin never allowed them to pull away, as the Park never led by more than six points, and the visitors actually took one-point leads at the 10:41 mark and the 4:16 mark (both, it's worth noting, on tough jumpers by Drew Gensler). Still, NPU answered each time -- both times on Bjorn Berg treys, one at the 10:16 mark and the other at the 2:53 mark after a nervous minute and a half of scoreless basketball.

The Vikings won the game because they showed the patience and the good sense to use their best offensive weapon: Brett Mathisen's left-handed bank down in the left block. At the 2:04 and 1:40 marks he made the same successful post-up move with Lance Brooks guarding him, both times pushing the Park's lead from one back up to three. With 32 seconds left and the Vikings up 60-57, NPU freshman PG Keith Willert went to the line for a one-and-one to put the Big Blue in a deep hole. But his throw rimmed out, and Gensler came down and heaved up a ten-foot fallaway prayer with two Vikings in his face at the :23 mark that brought Millikin within one. Berg covered for his young teammate by swishing two FTs after being fouled by Keenan Harrington on the inbound with 19.7 seconds left. Berg was laughing on his way to the line; I knew that the Swedish icewater in his veins was flowing and that he'd draw nothing but net on the throws.

NPU played Millikin's ensuing possession with great poise and skill. The Vikings had two fouls to give and they used them both, keeping Millikin from getting a good flow going to set up an open shot from the perimeter. All the Big Blue could manage was a running off-balance trey attempt by Gensler with three seconds left that rimmed right. Brooks tracked down the rebound, but stepped out of bounds in front of the Millikin bench trying to get off a desperation trey attempt. Mathisen was fouled on the inbound with one second left, and he made both ends of the one-and-one to conclude the game at 64-59, NPU.

NPU played very solid defense, holding the Big Blue to 36.7% from the field in the second half and 41% for the game. Devin Burnett played an outstanding floor game, probably his best game of the season. Jay Alexander really played well also, and the two seniors were money when it counted down the stretch. As for Millikin, Gensler is as good as advertised; the baby-faced freshman assassin from Mount Zion knocked down all kinds of big shots and showed no fear in being the go-to guy. He's not Kent Raymond, but he's going to be a handful in this league for the next three seasons, nevertheless.

As Mr. B said, the Carlson Crazies were back and in fine form. They've inducted some actual Swedes into their ranks and have thus expanded their repertoire to include a lot of Swedish hockey and soccer cheers. It was good to have them back from their inadvertent vacation, as they brought a lot of energy to the gym.

The rest of the league may be treating the Park like Ike treated Tina, but at least NPU has Jimmy Millikin's number. Great feeling walking out of the gym with a W tonight.

[Gregory Sager]

Illinois Wesleyan 95, Carthage 61

Wesleyan ran away and hid in this one, as the Red Men shot less than 33% for the game. Keelan Amelianovich had 23, Zach Freeman 20, and Adam Dauksas 15 for the Titans. Keena Johnson had 19 for Carthage, as Kyle Jeffery was held to nine points on 2-11 shooting.

North Central 77, Wheaton 60

Up by only four at the half, the visiting Cardinals went on a 16-4 run between the ten- and five-minutes marks of the second half to put Wheaton away. Dan Walton led five Redbirds in double figures with 18 points, joined by Adam Krumtinger with 15, Anthony Simmons with 14, Chris Drennan with 12, and Adam Teising with 11. John Mohan had 18 and Tony Bollier 14 for Wheaton, as they were held to 40.8% shooting from the field and were outrebounded by the Cards by a 33-22 margin.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg,

I realize you'd probably rather savor it than analyze it, but do you have ANY rational reason how NPU's only two conference wins could be over a team that opened the conference season by winning AT Elmhurst, also beat NCC, and took IWU to OT?!  Is Millikin THAT inconsistent?  Were their earlier games complete flukes?  Is there some sort of talent match-up that favors the Vikings against this specific opponent?

I just do NOT understand!

(BTW, loved the Ike and Tina line!)

[Cardsfan4life]

I was at the Wheaton and NCC game tonight.  I was very impressed by the 2 freshman that got in.  1. Chris Drennan had a good game and help the Cards get there run started.  The other, Mitch Raridon didn't score as much as Drennan but filled in well for ice cold Ray Vicario.  Also I wonder why Simmons didn't start?  

[Gregory Sager]

Some of it comes down to individual matchups, Chuck. Brett Mathisen had two of his best games this season (23 pts in Decatur, 21 pts in Chicago) with Lance Brooks guarding him. And the Vikings have a big, athletic perimeter defensive specialist in Devin Burnett who seems to do a good job of keeping Drew Gensler reasonably under control; Gensler's averaging 17.7 ppg, but he's scored only 13 and 16 against the Park. Burnett is really starting to emerge as a glove at the defensive end for NPU.

It's hard for me to speak about games I didn't see, but Elmhurst didn't appear to learn the dual lessons of pounding it into the post and containing Gensler as much as possible in their loss to Millikin. The Big Blue shot 56% from the field and 54% from downtown as Gensler went off for 37 points against the 'jays. More telling, Elmhurst bigs Nick Michael and Brent Ruch only got off 11 shots between them in that upset loss. If I'm Mark Scherer, I go to Michael and Ruch all day on Wednesday in the rematch down in Decatur. Interestingly, both Michael and Ruch were in the crackerbox tonight with Elmhurst assistant Troy Forbes. I don't think I'm telling them anything that they don't already know.

Millikin shot 51% against North Central, but only took six trey attempts, making two of them. The Cards turned the ball over 17 times, so my guess is that Millikin had some transition going in that game. And it may have been one of those nights when the Millikin big men actually came to play at the defensive end, as Anthony Simmons got his 21 points on 22 shots.

There's a number of Wesleyan people here who could better analyze what Millikin did right and what Wesleyan did wrong in that OT win by the Titans, but it looks like the Big Blue played good ol' fashioned hardnose D in that one. Wesleyan shot only 35% from field, and Millikin raked from downtown (8-15). Basically, it's Millikin's rivalry game, so you have to figure they were geeked up out of their minds for it.

So that's my answer: NPU has a couple of good matchups vis-a-vis the Big Blue, one to exploit the post and the other to contain Millikin's star scorer, and Brenegan did a good job of putting his team in position to take advantage of them.

[John Gleich]

They [Elmhurst] would want the Platteville game back, to be sure.

Especially because, with their loss to Eau Claire tonight, Platteville is just 8-7 in-region and 4 or their last 6 games are against teams ahead of them in conference.

I think they need to worry about Millikin as well.  The Big Blue has some big wins... but they're 7-7 in-region right now... and the Bluejays lost this game at home.

If both these teams fall below .500, that's 4 points on the QOWI... and for a team like Elmhurst, who is boarderline at absolute best from a QOWI standpoint (78th, with a QOWI as of Thursday at 9.286).  If UWP and MU were below .500, their QOWI would drop to 9.064 and 89th, which is even worse.

[Mr. Ypsi]

PS,

What you say is true, but a_s and I were speculating under the assumption that Elmhurst loses at most one more regular season game, plus the conference championship.  If so, I think their QOWI will be well within C standards; if not, their in-region record will not even merit a look at QOWI.

[Titan Q]

Here is the IWU/Carthage boxscore...

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2006/miwu18.htm

And the article from the Pantagraph on the game...

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/01/29/sports/105124.txt


21 days ago these same two teams, playing with the same guys, played a 1 point game in Kenosha.  Last night IWU led by 19 at halftime and by 28 at the 10:00 mark of the 2nd.  It's a funny game.

The Titans looked sharp on both ends of the floor.  Offensively they made the "extra pass", which was something IWU did not due Wednesday vs Augustana's pressure defense.  On the defensive end last night the Titans did a great job on the CCIW's leading scorer, Kyle Jeffery.  Jeffery was just 2-11 from the field for 9 points.  IWU's big guys got right up on Jeffery everywhere he went and just seemed to frustrate the heck out of him.   On Wednesday IWU held the league's 2nd leading scorer, Rick Harrigan, to 3-13 from the field.  This is encouraging as this week the Titans have to contend with Anthony Simmons, the CCIW's 4th leading scorer, who absolutely killed them in Bloomington on January 4 (9-18 FG, 2-4 3-pt, 29 pts).  Simmons did most of his damage in that game from 17 feet and beyond.

I hate to miss the big game at Elmhurst today but I leave this afternoon for a 2-day work trip to Cleveland.  Always a nice place to visit in the winter.

[tjcummingsfan]

I have been waiting entirely too long to be able to post about a game I actually saw.

What a night to come watch NP play.  They get their second conference win of the season, and complete a men's and women's sweep over the Big Blue this year (the NP women knocked off the defending National Champs down in Decatur yesterday).

Greg and Mr B hit most of the game stuff, but one thing I wanted to add was that NP looked like they were very comfortable with the ball.  They had 7 turnovers in the game, and if you think about that compared to where they were earlier in the season its amazing.  The offense, most of the time, looked inconsistent, with some players looking a bit confused as to where they should be.  As was pointed out Brenegan started 3 freshman and a sophomore, so the comfort level on the floor can only increase. 

This game made me thoroughly excited to be back on campus to watch Viking basketball again next season.

[countrylover]

Big game today at Elmhurst--- Martin needs to take over. If he does'nt settle for lazy jumpers outside and just punches it inside there is no stopping him or Elmhurst for that matter.

[augie_superfan]

Well Augie shut him down when they played in Rock Island earlier...they held him to just attempting 9 shots & 12 points so he wasn't settling for anything, he just couldn't get shots.  If Augie can do that again and not let Michael get easy layups like last time, then they will have a good chance of winning.

[countrylover]

All I am saying is that Martin is the best player in the CCIW and when he puts his mind to something there is not a coach or team in the leauge that can stop him. Augie did man handle him at Augie,  but you have to admit that Martin is notorious for Coasting through games. It can't be a light switch for him that turns on and off but this game he should know what is at stake.