MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[knarocky22]

I'm not ready to crown Augie as repeat CCIW champions quite yet.  Coe was a good team, but they're not quite as athletic as North Central or some of the other teams the Vikings will see down the road in the CCIW.  However, Augie played very well tonight.  Wessels is looking to get to the basket more, which I like.  Dain limited his turnovers and fouls.  The one thing that really worries me would be a team with a very athletic front line (e.g. North Central or IWU).  Good game for the Vikings tonight.  For the sake of all of us Augie fans, let's hope they continue to improve going into the conference season. 

[Late nite]

Impressive team win for Augie---Coe came into the game undefeated, averaging over 80 points a game and picked to win their conference---The Vikes smothered them with full court pressure and waves of fresh players---Positive contributions from most of the players who saw the floor---Wessels continues to grow as an offensive threat, as he was able to create offensive opportunities as the shot clock ran down on more than one occasion---He has become a weapon---Delp and Brusveen were again productive at the 2 spot and combined for 22 points---Washington contributed to the swarming defense off the bench and also brought some offense to the 3 spot---Collins, Rukavina and Rose were athletic and active ---Many positives tonight, especially the defense---Turnovers were down and improved interior passing led to a lot of open layups---Biggest plus of the night was the impressive depth that the Vikes displayed---If the Vikes can maintain this defensive intensity every ballgame, they have enough offensive options to win a lot of games

[Titan Q]

Wash U 75
IWU 63

http://bearsports.wustl.edu/mensbball/GAME7.HTM

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/12/10/sports/doc457ba07895d2c480011183.txt


Wash U played extremely well yesterday at the Shirk Center and IWU did not.  The story of this one was Wash U's sufficating defense.  The Bears harassed IWU's perimeter players the entire game, forcing a 9:16 assist:turnover ratio out of the Titans and making it extremely difficult for IWU to run any offense.  IWU got another tremendous performance out of Zach Freeman (26 points, 11 rebounds, 10-15 FG) and a nice game from Darius Gant (14 pts, 10 reb), but that was it.  I can't point to any third player who had a decent game really.

IWU is just extremely thin at every position.  As I've said before, I'll take IWU's starting 5 vs just about any in the CCIW, but there's just no depth.  The lack of depth obviously has a negative impact on the starters, who are forced to play big minutes and carry the entire load.

Wash U is a solid team.  It's amazing how different a team can look from one game to the next.  Last Saturday I watched the Bears sleepwalk through a half of basketball vs Pomona-Pitzer, looking extremely disorganized and uninterested.  Yesterday they came out charged up and they played extremely hard vs IWU.  They're a dangerous team because they have so many weapons.  Ruths is a very good low post player, Nading is becoming an excellent Division III wing, point-guard Wallis is steady, and freshman 2-guard Aaron Thompson looks like he's going to be a great player.  Wash U also has tremendous depth -- Mark Edwards has has two or three outstanding recruiting classes in a row.  This looks like a tournament team to me.

IWU gets a good Chicago team Saturday -- the Titans will have to play much better than this to have a chance.

[OurHouse]

Wash U 75
IWU 63

http://bearsports.wustl.edu/mensbball/GAME7.HTM

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/12/10/sports/doc457ba07895d2c480011183.txt


Wash U played extremely well yesterday at the Shirk Center and IWU did not.  The story of this one was Wash U's sufficating defense.  The Bears harassed IWU's perimeter players the entire game, forcing a 9:16 assist:turnover ratio out of the Titans and making it extremely difficult for IWU to run any offense.  IWU got another tremendous performance out of Zach Freeman (26 points, 11 rebounds, 10-15 FG) and a nice game from Darius Gant (14 pts, 10 reb), but that was it.  I can't point to any third player who had a decent game really.

IWU is just extremely thin at every position.  As I've said before, I'll take IWU's starting 5 vs just about any in the CCIW, but there's just no depth.  The lack of depth obviously has a negative impact on the starters, who are forced to play big minutes and carry the entire load.

Wash U is a solid team.  It's amazing how different a team can look from one game to the next.  Last Saturday I watched the Bears sleepwalk through a half of basketball vs Pomona-Pitzer, looking extremely disorganized and uninterested.  Yesterday they came out charged up and they played extremely hard vs IWU.  They're a dangerous team because they have so many weapons.  Ruths is a very good low post player, Nading is becoming an excellent Division III wing, point-guard Wallis is steady, and freshman 2-guard Aaron Thompson looks like he's going to be a great player.  Wash U also has tremendous depth -- Mark Edwards has has two or three outstanding recruiting classes in a row.  This looks like a tournament team to me.

IWU gets a good Chicago team Saturday -- the Titans will have to play much better than this to have a chance.

IWU turns the ball over way to much - they need a general on the floor and a go to guard - Gillmore and Harrigan are not great passers and really not quick enough to run the offense let alone create opportunities for the bigger guys. They are good shooters but they need someone that can create oppotunities while the ball is in his hands....I think that guard that is injured (freshman) would stabalize this issue - he really wouldn't need to score but help minimize Gillmores and Harrigans turnover ratio and be that guard to help offensive/defensive production (once he is back, this should help somewhat)

Also, I think Rose should use some of his JV guys - they are no worse then some of the others....Rose has his work cut out for him!

[The Roop]

Redmen win 60-48 at Beloit. No stats out yet

http://www.beloit.edu/~sportcnt/inside/basketball/men/2006-07%20season/carth06.htm

The stat that stands out most is Beloits 1 for 16 shooting from 3 point range. Hard to pull the upset when you do that. Pretty well played game on both sides despite the low score. Very physical. Refs could have blown the whistle a little more than they did in my opinion, but it the play remained clean and there were no cheap shots. Fieck and Weber had to leave the game for Beloit after train wreck-like collisions but those were good no calls in each case.

Fiecks' not known for his 3 point shooting and Weber, to be polite, is a work in progress so Beloit didn't lose because of their absense. For Carthage, Schlemm and Franciskovic seem to foul more than they need to but I think Coach Djurickovic will break them of that habit. Now I've seen both coaches that lead "The Park" to National Championships.

[Titan Q]

IWU turns the ball over way to much - they need a general on the floor and a go to guard - Gillmore and Harrigan are not great passers and really not quick enough to run the offense let alone create opportunities for the bigger guys. They are good shooters but they need someone that can create oppotunities while the ball is in his hands....I think that guard that is injured (freshman) would stabalize this issue - he really wouldn't need to score but help minimize Gillmores and Harrigans turnover ratio and be that guard to help offensive/defensive production (once he is back, this should help somewhat)

I do not disagree, but for now all Ron Rose and the Titans can do is play with the hand they've been dealt.  With Sean Dwyer injured, Andrew Gilmore is the closest they have to a CCIW caliber point-guard.  Gilmore has been playing through a couple of pretty significant injuries and doing his best.  Ideally, Gilmore is probably a 2, but for now he has to play the point.  The other guards (Harrigan, Morris, Bryant) are all pure 2's.   

Without question IWU needs a "general on the floor", but the closest they have to that is in a walking boot on the bench.  For now, the Titans just have to go with what they have and do their best.

[OurHouse]

IWU turns the ball over way to much - they need a general on the floor and a go to guard - Gillmore and Harrigan are not great passers and really not quick enough to run the offense let alone create opportunities for the bigger guys. They are good shooters but they need someone that can create oppotunities while the ball is in his hands....I think that guard that is injured (freshman) would stabalize this issue - he really wouldn't need to score but help minimize Gillmores and Harrigans turnover ratio and be that guard to help offensive/defensive production (once he is back, this should help somewhat)

I do not disagree, but for now all Ron Rose and the Titans can do is play with the hand they've been dealt.  With Sean Dwyer injured, Andrew Gilmore is the closest they have to a CCIW caliber point-guard.  Gilmore has been playing through a couple of pretty significant injuries and doing his best.  Ideally, Gilmore is probably a 2, but for now he has to play the point.  The other guards (Harrigan, Morris, Bryant) are all pure 2's.   

Without question IWU needs a "general on the floor", but the closest they have to that is in a walking boot on the bench.  For now, the Titans just have to go with what they have and do their best.

That is the guards name I was looking for - Sean Dwyer. Did not know who he was and tried to get the name on the web site matched with whom I saw in "des boot"
....I do agree with you, Titan Q, that sometimes the hand that is dealt is tough to overcome -  this scanerio could not of been worse for Coach Rose especially in his first year.

Question then: do you see any players that play JV that could fit the bill or help out during this "problem time"? Like a Washington, Toliver, Bloom, Chamernik??

[Gregory Sager]

Greg,

Bosko (NP) played Moody Bible Institute because the AD there at the time was such a great guy.  Probably the only time in college basketball history where the visiting AD was the PA announcer.

You should've asked for a bigger cut of the gate, Joe. 

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, for the second time?  When was the first?

October 25, when Carthage was the only other undefeated side in the league besides NPU in men's soccer, and it looked as though the Vikings were going to need a favor from Wheaton in order to win the undisputed CCIW title. Wheaton obliged by whipping the Carthaginians that day, 5-0, at Keller Field. I figured that my rooting for Wheaton while wearing orange provided such powerful mojo to the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance that it did the trick. 

[Gregory Sager]

As a former Midwest Central student and athlete, and a good friend of Elmhurst' Ryan Burks, I want to say Congratulations on the other night's ball game. What a great win for the BlueJays and for the CCIW.

Also, good luck to Midwest Central alum Andy Battey, taking on North Central tomorrow.

It's great to be back in CCIW land- Go Bluejays!

Welcome back to CCIW Chat, Rodney! Hope you're doing well.

[Gregory Sager]

As far as basketball goes, some thoughts... Our defense was fantastic for the first 4 minutes of the game.  We ran it up to 11 nothing before they started their rain of 3's on the night.  Rockford hit 16 of their 32 3's (and I'm really surprised the percentage is that low, it sure felt like over 50%).  Sheldon Evans is the point guard we've needed for 5 years (maybe more).  We have become a very unselfish team, to the point of passing up some good shot opportunities (sometimes for better ones, sometimes not).  But we are passing, and running an offense, something that never happened with Rees.  We need someone who wants to score, it hurt not having Jason on the floor tonight.  And what do you think Greg, have we found the ref who shouldn't ever step foot in the crackerbox again?

I could name several refs who would fit that description, but, yeah, the three regulars who reffed Friday night's game are not guys whom I would put at the top of my list of good CCIW refs. Nevertheless, the officiating really didn't make much of a difference in the game.

As odd as it seems, I don't really have a tremendous amount of complaints about NPU's narrow 91-88 victory over Rockford on Friday night, even though the Regents are 0-6 (they got hammered by Lakeland on Saturday afternoon, no doubt because their coach insisted upon running an ineffective full-court press for forty minutes against NPU on Friday night with his undermanned team). The Vikings are a defensive team that really shouldn't be giving up that many points to anyone, let alone a struggling outfit like Rockford, but some nights a team just gets blazingly hot from outside for no good reason at all and the only thing you can do is shrug your shoulders. The Regents shot 50% from downtown (16-32), and as TJCF said it seemed like they shot a much higher percentage than that. It's certainly not par for the course for Rockford, which has been only a 31% (46-146) trey shooting team in their other five games. They were simply throwing up ridiculous stuff that kept going in -- sideline fallaways, 22-foot leaners, even a too-strong heave from between the circles that banked in off the glass. The worst thing about it was that everyone in a Regents uni was doing that stuff, so it's not as though the Park could devote its energies to putting one guy on lockdown. Give credit to Rockford for hanging tough and for somehow managing en masse to channel Meadowlark Lemon -- but I really can't say that NPU played a terrible defensive game, in spite of the score.

The Vikings can be taken to task, however, for a slackening of effort on the defensive boards in the second half that gave the teeny-tiny Rockford waterbugs some extra possessions. The Vikings also missed a ton of bunnies, most of them baseliners that went up too hard. Also, although they moved the ball very well on the perimeter, the Vikings settled for too many outside shots against the Rockford zone when they should've tried harder to pound the ball inside; Rockford had absolutely no one who could stop either Anthony Lenoir (11 pts, 11 rebs) or Nick Williams (17 pts) in the post.

It's fair to say that the Vikes missed Jason Gordon, who was attending to his grandmother's burial in Jamaica, but the two players who picked up most of his minutes (Joe Capalbo and Uriah Rice) both played well in his absence. Sheldon Evans, as you noted, was fantastic -- 12 pts, 5 assists, 5 steals, and only one turnover. Stephano Jones had a strong game as well (12 pts in only 17 minutes of play), and Jay Alexander (15 pts) had perhaps his best game of the year at both ends of the floor. Gordon probably would've made the Vikings more successful against the zone because of his versatility, but nothing in the world would've stopped Rockford from hitting all of those circus shots.

It was one of those "a win's a win" deals. You breathe a sigh of relief, give a passing thought as to whether or not an NPU/Rockford series that dates back to the late 1950s ended for good this weekend (Rockford College is teetering on the edge of closing), and you move on to the next game.

[Gregory Sager]

Nobody mentioned it, but Millikin became the third CCIW team to beat HCAC preseason favorite Franklin this season, knocking off the Grizzlies at the Grizz by a 76-68 score on Saturday night.

CCIW overall: 40-14 (.741)
..................... vs. NAIA-1: 1-2
..................... vs. NAIA-2: 2-1
..................... vs. USCAA: 2-1
..................... vs. other: 1-0
..................... vs. D3: 34-10 (.773)
................................ vs. D3 non-regional: 5-1
................................ vs. D3 regional, non-MWR: 8-2
................................ vs. D3 Midwest Region: 21-7 (.750)
........................................... vs. HCAC: 4-1
........................................... vs. indies: 2-0
........................................... vs. MWC: 6-2
........................................... vs. NAthC: 4-1
........................................... vs. SLIAC: 4-1
........................................... vs. UAA: 1-2

[markerickson]

North Park's next two games are in a holiday tournament in Huntington Beach CA.  Who will participate and who is the host?

[BeastMaster]

Millikin really played well on Saturday.  Freshman Joscar Demby played 22 minutes and really looked good.  Good game overall by the Big Blue as they have another test coming up tomorrow night against Illinois College at the Griz.  Should be a pretty good game hopefully with the Big Blue coming out on top. 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

As far as I can tell there is no host playing in the tournament.  North Park, Coe, Dominican and Lake Forest will be there.  NPU faces Lake Forest in the first round.  This may just be an excuse to go someplace warmer in the middle of winter.