MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

Augustana is down 64-37 with 6:00 to play vs Quad City rival St. Ambrose (2-4), an unranked NAIA II team.  Augie has just been blown-out from the tip in this one...very ugly.

(St. Ambrose earlier defeated Olivet Nazarene, IWU's next opponent.)

A rough week for the CCIW so far!  In October I posted that I felt the CCIW would be way down this year (from last year, when the league was loaded)...I am starting to think I was right.

[John Gleich]

Thanks for the updates Q... Who is the frontrunner in the CCIW now?  The twi CCIW teams picked 1-2 just got throttled, NC on their homecourt.  Wheaton has lost a few tough games, as has IWU.  How long until league play starts (I think it's the new year, is that true?).  It looks like the teams have some things to figure out early on!

[ac_fan]

The final boxscore from the Augie game:

http://web.sau.edu/mbasketball/2006_stats/acsamb07.htm#GAME.BOX

Not much to comment on except Oliver Rorer played a half way decent game. His athleticism gets him some easy scores. Probably the worst I have seen Augie play/shoot in a long time. Going 1-15 from behind the arc is not going to win many ball games.

[knarocky22]

Flat out the worst I have seen Augie play in 4 years.  If they weren't turning the ball over, they were missing wide open threes.  Augie's big guys were flat out bad.  A game like tonight doesn't give me much confidence for the CCIW season with all of the good big guys in the league. 

If Augie is going to compete in this league, they are going to need someone to step up as the "go-to-guy."  All good teams have one.  Augie just doesn't have that guy they can go to when they absolutely need a score.  If they win, it is because a bunch of guys score about 10 points.  While it's great to have a balanced attack, you need a guy that can create his own shot and keep your team in the game when you are struggling (as Harrigan did several times last year).  If someone doesn't step up, this could be a very long year.

[pcarr]

Another in-region loss for Wheaton (Whitworth was also in-region).

Okay, I'll show my ignorance and ask the dumb question: Why is Whitworth (located in Washington, right?) an in-region game?  Because of where the game was played? 

I feel out of the loop.  Meh.  Either that or I'm still riding high from attending the soccer Final Fours.

[Mr. Ypsi]

The NCAA added a provision as far as in-region.  It now includes basically the entire West.  It's late and I can't recall the specific reason why.  I'm sure Greg can fill you in!

[Late nite]

Ambrose was a much better team than their record indicated---Augies bigs turned the ball over a lot (again), especially Dain---Guards had good looks all night, but were ice cold---defensively, it was pretty close to a layup drill for Ambrose---A night for the Vikes to forget, but also a lesson that they need to be ready to play every night---It was 8-0 before Augie could blink

[Gregory Sager]

Another in-region loss for Wheaton (Whitworth was also in-region).

Okay, I'll show my ignorance and ask the dumb question: Why is Whitworth (located in Washington, right?) an in-region game?  Because of where the game was played? 

Legislation passed at the 2006 NCAA Convention in August has altered the definition of what constitutes a region in D3. The division is now divided into four administrative regions, as defined in the NCAA Constitution, section 4.12.1.1.; Region 4 consists of Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and all the states west of them. Thus, a school located in Spokane, WA (Whitworth) is now a regional opponent of CCIW teams.

This doesn't change the previous structure of eight evaluation regions within the auspices of D3 men's basketball; the Midwest Region is still intact, so NPU's game against HCAC opponent Mount St. Joseph is still in-region, even though MSJ and all of its HCAC brethren are in administrative Region 3 (which includes Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky) rather than Region 4 (which includes Illinois and Wisconsin). Also, the 200-mile rule is still in effect, so Hope's game against Wheaton on Saturday will be an in-region game as well.

(The NCAA Constitution is a masterpiece of bureaucratic minutiae; while it is illegal to sell advertising for alcoholic products at NCAA championship events, an exception can be made for alcoholic products that are less than six percent alcohol by volume if they constitute no more than 14% of the total advertising space sold in a game program, or 60 seconds or less of airtime of a broadcast of an NCAA championship event. If NCAA administrators had all been born a thousand years ago, they would've been the monks who spent their lifetimes debating how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.)

[Gregory Sager]

Nobody has posted the final score of the Augie game yet. It was 77-54 in favor of St. Ambrose. Another head-scratcher.

A rough week for the CCIW so far!  In October I posted that I felt the CCIW would be way down this year (from last year, when the league was loaded)...I am starting to think I was right.

That's premature, Bob. The CCIW was 21-5 after Monday's games, which was a record-setting pace for cumulative non-conference performance. Two bad nights for the league is not a reason to throw in the towel. I think it's safer to say that there aren't as many CCIW teams that came into this season as finished products as there were last year. The talent is definitely there; it just needs more refining.

Also, it's a misnomer to call the 2005-06 edition of the CCIW "loaded". The top half of the league was certainly loaded. But the bottom half struggled badly. Three teams (Wheaton, Carthage, and North Park) finished with losing records in non-conference play, something which rarely happens in the CCIW. To get an idea of just how badly the bottom half of the league floundered in November and December of last year, take a look at the cumulative non-conference records of the CCIW's second division over the past seven seasons:

2005-06: 17-27
2004-05: 28-16
2003-04: 28-16
2002-03: 28-16
2001-02: 20-24
2000-01: 30-14
1999-00: 27-17

My early guess is that the top half of the league as of last year (Augustana, North Central, Elmhurst, and Illinois Wesleyan) will collectively decline to some degree this season, but the bottom half of the league as of last year (Wheaton, Carthage, Millikin, and North Park) should be better.

Thanks for the updates Q... Who is the frontrunner in the CCIW now?  The twi CCIW teams picked 1-2 just got throttled, NC on their homecourt.  Wheaton has lost a few tough games, as has IWU.  How long until league play starts (I think it's the new year, is that true?).  It looks like the teams have some things to figure out early on!

CCIW play starts on Wednesday, Jan. 4, with a single game (NPU @ Augie). A full slate of CCIW games are scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 7. Since the last non-conference game (Northland @ Carthage) will be played that Friday, there's almost a completely clean break between the non-conference and conference sections of the season.

North Central is still the favorite, although general acclamation seems to be that the Cards were never an overwhelming favorite. Don't let one bad night sway you otherwise.

As I said, I think that this is a season in which the talent is still very much there, but fewer teams came into the season fully formed (i.e., with established holdovers occupying four or five of the starting positions). That means more growing pains across the league early on -- and, with only a little more than a third of the non-conference slate in the books, we are still "early on".

[Gregory Sager]

If Augie is going to compete in this league, they are going to need someone to step up as the "go-to-guy."  All good teams have one.  Augie just doesn't have that guy they can go to when they absolutely need a score.  If they win, it is because a bunch of guys score about 10 points.  While it's great to have a balanced attack, you need a guy that can create his own shot and keep your team in the game when you are struggling (as Harrigan did several times last year).  If someone doesn't step up, this could be a very long year.

This is what I said about a month ago. Augie returned a lot of talent from last year's team, but nobody that I saw who had the particular skill sets of Jay McAdams-Thornton and Rick Harrigan. Those guys were true go-to scorers who wanted the ball in key situations (especially Harrigan), and they were both adept at creating their own shots anywhere on the floor. Augie still has time to identify and develop someone like that, but I agree with you -- distributing the scoring among a bunch of different players can very often be a mixed blessing.

[dansand]

Not too much I can add to what's already been said about Augie's game last night. Every team is going to have off shooting nights. What I found much more disturbing was their defensive effort. Ambrose got a ton of easy baskets, both in half court and transition and they absolutely killed Augie on the Bees' offensive glass. Augie got 13 defensive rebounds the whole game! Turnovers continue to be a big problem. The box score says 19 total and six for Dain. I would have thought both numbers were higher than that.

St. Ambrose, as Late nite said, is better than their record would indicate. Q mentioned that they've beaten Olivet Nazarene, and they've lost to strong NAIA teams Robert Morris (Chicago), Huntington and Missouri Baptist, but I still don't think they'd be better than the middle of the pack in the CCIW.

The lack of a go-to scorer could possibly be a problem this year, but it sure wasn't the problem last night. The Vikes were outplayed so completely I can't believe a go-to guy would have made much difference. Augie was dominated for 36 of the 40 minutes, the exception being a four minute run in the first half when they went from down 8-0 to up 12-8. Other than the the Bees controlled the whole game. Hopefully the Vikes can put this one behind them in time for Simpson on Saturday.

[Titan Q]

That's premature, Bob. The CCIW was 21-5 after Monday's games, which was a record-setting pace for cumulative non-conference performance.

Here are the CCIW's wins: Clarke, UW-Whitewater, Illinois College (2), Judson, MacMurray, IU-Northwest, St. Norbert (2), Rockford, Grinnell, Gustavus Adolphus, Franklin, Benedictine, Kalamazoo, Concordia-Chicago, Robert Morris-Springfield, Eureka, Beloit, Washington U, East-West, Bluffton.


"Record-setting pace" or not, I just don't know how many of the above teams are very strong.  3 or 4?

I understand the CCIW has less "finished products" coming in than last year.  I am also pretty sure though - based on my experiences around the CCIW and Division III - that the league just isn't nearly as strong as last year.  That is to be expected when you graduate 4 All-Americans (Dauksas, Amelianovich, Martin, Harrigan).

[Titan Q]

Also, it's a misnomer to call the 2005-06 edition of the CCIW "loaded". The top half of the league was certainly loaded. But the bottom half struggled badly. Three teams (Wheaton, Carthage, and North Park) finished with losing records in non-conference play, something which rarely happens in the CCIW.

Yes, but in conferece play...

#5 Wheaton -- lost in OT at IWU, beat IWU at home, beat Augie at home, nearly won @ Augie

#6 Carthage -- lost by 1 pt vs IWU, played Elmhurst very tough at EC, lost by 3 at home to Augie, and played Augie tough at Augie

#7 Millikin -- won @ Elmhurst, lost at home in OT to IWU


I'm not sure how much more competitiveness you'd have to have from teams 5, 6, 7 - in a league with four teams as good as IWU, Augie, NCC, and Elmhurst were - in order to be able to call the conference "loaded."

[usee]

I made it over to the Wheaton game last night and Wheaton definately lost a very winnable game. Wheaton was up by as many as 7 and down by about that much at different times. the incident with the ref seemed pretty bad to me. the ref was standing in the middle of the floor just over the timeline when panner intercepted a perimeter pass and as he crossed the timeline ran into the ref and lost the ball back to Chicago. I didn't see if the official was trying to switch sides at the time but it seems to me the officials usually triangulate the action (baseline and two sidelines) and move in and out of play relative to the flow. seemed like the official was out of position, in any case it was a bad break and turned what would have been a 6pt lead into a 2 pt game as Uof C converted on the other end.

Wheaton gave up many easy layups on backdoor cuts (something they have been very good at defending in the past based on their aggressive man defense) and Chicago made some long 3's from legit distances to keep it close. The biggest play was the 3 by Chicago off an inbound play with about a minute left that stretched their lead from 1 to 4. everyone reacted to the inbounds pass and not the passer. after inbounding the ball underneath he went right to the corner and recieved the pass back for a wide open three...reminded me of some of the long 3's John Stevens used to make from that spot. dagger.

The other observation I would have is if Wheaton wants to be competitive against NCC and any other top team(s) that emerge in the conference, they need someone besides Raymond to step up down the stretch and be willing to take a tough shot. Raymond was a manbeast last night. In addition to his obvious offensive contribution he made several hustle plays and defensive stops (including a great block with less than 2min to play that was whistled for a foul--bad call). But at the end of the game only Standard made a single key basket. Fiddler missed and no one else seemed to want the ball. Chicago forced wheaton into 2 bad possesions (wild shots before the shot clock went off) in a row in the last 4 minutes where wheaton was simply looking for Raymond to make a play.

Granted I haven't seen much wheaton basketball recently and that may be the way they play this year but those were my observations from a football guy. FWIW.

[augiefan]

Aside from IWU no CCIW team lost as much talent as Augie from last year. Harrigan and McAdams Thorton were both All Conference performers, who were far and away the best Augie had to offer, since Drew Carstens and company graduated. Augie also lost freshmen guards Kolze and Thomas by transfer. Kolze particularly would have been a future star in the CCIW and would have played a lot this year.

Hopefully, last night was an aberration, but good teams do not generally lose in blow out games against average competition. The QC rivalry with St. Ambrose is always a tough match up for the favorite, and the Bees gave a lot of pay back last night for Augie's recent success in the series.

None of Augie's home victories was very impressive, and the next game at Simpson may be a test of whether Augie is a contender or a spoiler. Perhaps it's time to let some JVs play, if the current varsity tanks that one.