MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gotberg]

NPU defeated Kalamazoo today 69-64.

http://www.kzoo.edu/sports/mb/mb06-07/mbstats06-07/1118kznp.htm

[devildog29]

Holy smokes!  IWU got down 21 points early in the 2nd half so I decided to go to the grocery store for some Thanksgiving groceries.  I come back and the Titans are hitting a shot at the end of the game to win it.  Great victory over the #4 ranked team in the country for the Titans!  Sounds like Trost didn't leave the cupboards bare when he left after all.

[iwu70]

IWU beat Whitewater in OT by 1 point.  Nice start for Coach Rose.  2-0 and a win over a highly ranked DIII team.

[Mac Attack]

Couple of slight corrections from the MacMurray-Millikin game tonight. Big Blue never led by 30. It was a 14 point game with about a minute to go in the first half when Millikin converted some Mac turnovers into layups for a 40-20 lead. Mac was flat bad in the first 20 minutes. Millikin pushed the lead to 25 early in the second half, but fell apart after that. Mac's press gave them all kinds of fits, and Mac had a chance to twice cut the lead to single digits with about five minutes to play. Millikin hit a bucket load of free throws the last two minutes to keep the lead at 12. Big Blue had their starting line-up on floor for pretty much the entire second half. Gensler hit a three right out of the shoot, and then was pretty much it until the last five minutes of the game when he broke down the press and made a couple of easy baskets and a bunch of free throws. Korte Long was the best player on the floor- but he only plays hard when he wants to. The Millikin coach was clearly frustrated with Long's lack of effort. This was a terrific game in the second half, and the fact that MacMurray appeared to be in much better condition had a lot to do with them making the game as close as it was. Sorry about the lack of stat crew - students were gone for Thanksgiving break, but that's no excuse.

[und63]

We saw the IWU scrimmage last night.  The Shirk will rock this year with excitement, even from the Geritol crowd.  There will be many pleasant surprises for all the "green" faithful and many unpleasant moments for the coaches who placed the Titans 5th in the CCIW race.
Granted, the opposition was nowhere near the CCIW caliber to be faced, but as a team I have never seen the movement, positioning, shooting ability and court awareness displayed by every player....in particular the sophomore-freshmen guard tandem I predict will be starting many games once the season starts.

Whoa, that's a lot of kool-aid for this early in the morning!

Boy, that green kool-aid is taste'n good right now!  Want some!

[rknuppel]

Hey everyone.  Long time since I've been on here.  Glad to see the games starting up again.  Looks like the Jays dropped their opener earlier tonight.  At Simpson with a 82-71 loss.  Sounds like Elmhurst struggled on defense with a couple of their guys.

On a positive note... Fellow Manito native Ryan Burks led the Jays in scoring in his first ever start, with 22 points.

Full article and boxscore here:  http://elmhurst.edu/athletics/news/?id=1151

[Titan Q]

IWU 69
UW-Whitewater 68 (OT)

http://www.uww.edu/athletics/mbasketball/statistics/iwuuww.htm

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/11/19/sports/121095.txt


* Andrew Freeman: 18 pts, 10 reb
* Mike Harrigan: 16 pts (3-3 3-pt)
* Darius Gant: 12 pts, 8 reb
* Zach Freeman: 9 pts, 14 reb


This was one of the most bizarre Illinois Wesleyan games I have ever seen, but also one of the most impressive in many ways.

In the first half, IWU was completely outmatched by the #4-ranked Warhawks and just played miserably.  Somehow it was only a 4 point deficit with 4:34 to play in the period, when Whitewater went on a 15-1 run to finish the half and secure a 34-16 halftime lead.  The Titans had 3 assists and 18 turnovers in the 1st...yes 18 turnovers.  It was just an ugly 20 minutes of basketball for Illinois Wesleyan - one of the worst I've ever seen.  It was just simply the men vs the boys.

Whitewater opened the second half with a 3-point play to take a 21-point lead, but then the Titans started competing.  Andrew Freeman had an outstanding half, as did numerous Titans -- Darius Gant, Mike Harrigan, Andrew Gilmore, and Tyler Smith all made big shots and played well as IWU starting climbing back in it.

With :29 to play, Mike Harrigan made two FT's to make it a 2 point game, 62-60.  IWU quickly fouled starting point-guard Gio Riley, who missed the front end of a one-and-one.  After a timeout the Titans got the ball to Andrew Freeman, who drove the lane and made a tough shot to give IWU its first tie of the game.  Whitewater missed a shot at the buzzer and it went to overtime.

IWU had two great chances to take control at the start of overtime, but on back-to-back possessions, the Titans missed both ends of the double bonus -- first Darius Gant, then Zach Freeman.  Whitewater went up 2, but Andrew Freeman scored to tie it.  Then the Warhawks again went up 2, with A. Freeman answering again. 

IWU's first lead of the game came with 1:23 to play when Zach Freeman connected on a FT, making it 67-66 Titans.  After a missed Warhawk shot and a timeout, IWU had it to go the length of the court for a chance to go up 3 or 4.  While dribbling up the floor, IWU point-guard Andrew Gilmore was called for palming -- just one of the many bizarre calls in the game.  Gilmore did nothing different than he did in bringing the ball up the floor every trip the entire game.  The ball went back to UW-W.

With :28 to play in OT, Whitewater took a one-point lead, 68-67, on two FT's by Billy Kolinske.  After a Titan timeout, a play designed for Andrew Freeman was foiled by Whitewater and the ball got to sophomore guard Andrew Gilmore, who sank a 10 footer in the lane for a 69-68 lead with :09 to play.  On the other end, Gilmore fouled Gio Riley on a game winning shot attempt with 2.5 seconds to play.  Riley missed both, IWU got the rebound, and time expired.

A few notes:

* Zach Freeman was held to 1 FG attempt through the first 35 minutes of this game (he only finished with 6 attempts).  Whitewater just totally decided to erase Freeman - and they absolutely have the bodies and depth to do it - and it wasn't until the second half that other Titans got going.

* Zach Freeman commited 11 turnovers - yes 11 - in the game, but 8 were on very strange traveling calls.  (Whitewater was whistled for a number of travels as well.)  I'm not sure I can think of 8 travels in Zach's first three years combined.  The officials in this game were horrendous -- the kind of officials that wanted to be right in the middle of everything.

* IWU out-rebounded the much, much bigger/stronger Warhawks 47-28, which is almost as mind-boggling as IWU's first half turnover total.  The frontline of A. Freeman (10 reb.), Gant (8 reb.), and Z. Freeman (14 reb.) can leap as well as any trio I can think of recently in Division III.

[Titan Q]

This was a real gutty performance by IWU.  To come back from 21 down in the second half, on the road at the team picked to win the WIAC, with this completely new cast was really something.

IWU has a long way to go and a ton of areas to improve in, but this team is very talented.  These guys who sat and waited their turn can really play, and what I like the most about them is that play very hard.  I think that rebounding margin vs an enormous Whitewater team just about says it all.

Still not sure where this is all headed this season, but I really like watching these guys play.

[robertgoulet]

North Central beat Bluffton 63-49 to improve to 2-0.


I don't have anything as far as stats go, sorry 

[robberki]

GOULET! Staring contest...GO!

[pineconefan]

Greg Sager, you mentioned you were headed out to Wheaton for last night's games.  This Pirate fan is interested in your assesment of Whitworth's win at Wheaton.

[ecdubb420]

Elmhurst struggled last night despite 65 points from the starting five.  In the second half, Scherer played a seven man rotation for a team who turned over the ball 24 times leading to many easy Simpson buckets.
The difference in this game besides turnovers was the fact that EC was playing only three guys with any type of varsity level experience (Brizzolara gets a pass due to missing last season) and having four of their top nine (according to Coach Scherer) out to injury.  Not to discredit Simpson, as they have three players who can flat out score (Soppe, Parkinson and Hittenmiller), but EC's lack of depth really showed tonight (again note injuries). 
To say they couldn't handle the full court press would be an understatement.  It was horrible, every time Simpson scored they set up the press and EC had a hell of a time getting the ball inbounds. 
Ruch and Michael had numerous good looks on the inside, but the rim was not kind to the big men tonight.  As Rknuppel stated earlier, Ryan Burks dropped in 22 and looked extremely impressive on the offensive end showing a great inside-outside game. 
He had the talent to play last year, but playing in front of two very solid seniors (who were also great team guys) was simply not going to happen.  This season could rely on him being able to knock down a few outside shots a night to keep the defense honest and not be able to double down on Ruch or Michael.
Game note: Robert Strzemp, Pat Bacon, Mike Sayre and Freshman Guard Matt Ryder did not dress.
Side Fact: This was Scherer's 100th loss as the EC coach.

[robertgoulet]

AH, Mr. Berki, that's why I come up here.





You win, you always do!

[cardinalpride]

North Central beat Bluffton 63-49 to improve to 2-0.


I don't have anything as far as stats go, sorry 

Here's a stat sheet from the NCC/Blufton game:

http://www2.noctrl.edu/athlet/basketball_m/06-07/ncc-bu.htm

[Gregory Sager]

Greg Sager, you mentioned you were headed out to Wheaton for last night's games.  This Pirate fan is interested in your assesment of Whitworth's win at Wheaton.

Whitworth is very good. A few things about the Pirates struck me right off the bat as bizarre: 1) They spent the first five minutes of the game chucking 22-footers before the possession was even ten seconds old, and yet head coach Jack Hayford wasn't out there yelling at them for it, so it was apparently deliberate; 2) the Pirates immediately went into a 1-2-2 zone, frequently extended into a three-quarters zone press, neither of which struck me as something a team would do as part of a game plan against Wheaton. Turns out that the rapid-fire-chucking was just an opening gambit, and the 1-2-2 zone is Whitworth's standard defense.

And that 1-2-2, plus the three-quarters zone press, actually turned out to be efficacious against Wheaton. The Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance could not hit an open trey to save their lives last night, which was very surprising -- Wheaton has always been a good perimeter shooting team under Bill Harris, and both Johnnie Standard and Kent Raymond are accomplished shooters. Yet the team as a whole went only 7-28, with Standard (1-5), Raymond (2-10), and freshman Ben Panner (2-7) being the biggest miscreants. Wheaton moved the ball very well on offense, with crisp passes and sharp cuts getting the hosts multiple open looks from the perimeter (aided by Whitworth's zone) -- and yet the Wheaties clanked open shot after open shot.

The game was tied 33-33 at the half, but Whitworth came out and scored ten quick points in the first two minutes of the second stanza, and Wheaton had to play catch-up for the entire half. They almost caught the Pirates at the end, in what would've been perhaps the biggest miracle comeback I've ever seen if it had come to fruition. Here's what happened:

Down by seven (70-63) with under ten seconds left in the game, Wheaton forward Matt Ankeny missed a trey. Andy Wiele, who did yeoman work on the boards in the second half, scooped up the rebound and was fouled by a Whitworth player who should've just let Wiele have the rebound (since it was the waning seconds of the game and the lead was secure). Wiele missed the first FT and made the second. Kent Raymond came out of nowhere and in one amazing motion poked his arm into the passing lane for the inbounds pass, stole it, brought the ball back to his ear and cocked it, and let fly with a trey that knocked the lead down to 70-67. I've seen Raymond do plenty of amazing things, but that flash of brilliance took the cake!

Then it got truly weird. With two seconds left and Wheaton still pressing the inbounds pass, Whitworth did one of those endline passes to a second out-of-bounds player that teams are allowed to use after a made basket. But the second Pirate fumbled the pass, which was only about a twelve-footer or so. The ball hit the floor for a single bounce, and the refs gave the ball back to Wheaton (against hearty protests from Hayford). Two seconds left, Wheaton ball underneath the Whitworth basket, and the hosts were in a position to send the game into overtime with a trey. Raymond received the pass at the top of the key, ducked under two Pirates who dived at him, and threw up a an off-balance attempt at the buzzer that bounced harmlessly off the right side of the backboard. Game over. But what a strange, exciting finish!