MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[martin]

GS - I think Massey is probably fairly accurate at this time.  The non-conference season is over so there is a big enough pool of games to make accurate comparisons.  I don't think the rankings will change that dramatically with the conference season.  Except for the NESCAC, everyone plays a home and away against conference foes.  Teams will move up and down but not dramatically (define dramatically).  Early in the season, teams can move up or down over 100 places in a week.  I think most teams will finsih with 15-20 places of where they are now.

[Gregory Sager]

GS - I think Massey is probably fairly accurate at this time.  The non-conference season is over so there is a big enough pool of games to make accurate comparisons.  I don't think the rankings will change that dramatically with the conference season.  Except for the NESCAC, everyone plays a home and away against conference foes.  Teams will move up and down but not dramatically (define dramatically).  Early in the season, teams can move up or down over 100 places in a week.  I think most teams will finsih with 15-20 places of where they are now.

I can guarantee that any ranking system that thinks the USA South is the fifth-best conference in all of D3 is not "fairly accurate".

[Pat Coleman]

Those aren't the most accurate Massey ratings. They don't use margin of victory. Try these:

http://www.mratings.com/rate.php?lg=cb&sub=III&mid=1

[Gregory Sager]

Well, the big day has finally arrived. The CCIW season gets underway this evening in Rock Island with Augustana hosting North Park. Tomorrow night Carthage will administer corporal punishment to a badly-outmanned Northland squad up in Kenosha, and then it'll be nothing but CCIW games for everyone from this weekend thru the end of February.

I don't imagine that many people are giving NPU a chance to win this evening's game, aside from Paul Brenegan and his players and staff, which is fine. The Park wasn't going to come into January owning anyone's respect, anyway, no matter how well the Vikes did against their bantamweight non-conference schedule. And the loss to Coe out in Cali the week before Christmas -- the same Coe team that had been shellacked a couple of weeks earlier by Augie -- was a truly unimpressive coda to the 8-3 record NPU posted for November and December. This North Park team is certainly better than the editions of the past few seasons (although they could hardly be worse), but the jury's still out on how well the royal blue and gold will be able to hang with the big boys in January and February.

What the Vikings need is some early success to sell them on the idea that they can compete. They have the talent to do it but they lack the experience, and their execution is still a long ways away from where it should be. Tonight is going to be a big step up for the Park in terms of opponents, and the Vikes will have to improve their execution accordingly. That doesn't simply mean taking better shots within the context of the offense, it means making them; over the past four or five games NPU hasn't shot well at all. Some of that can be taken care of by just working harder to get the ball into Anthony Lenoir in the post. They're also going to need to take care of the ball better, given Augie's penchant for playing in-your-grill defense on the ball, and the Park will also need to crash the boards hard and box out to compensate for the size deficit. The defense? Not worried about that. This NPU team can really get after it at the defensive end of the floor. It's the shooting, the ballhandling, and the rebounding that have been inconsistent.

Decided underdogs they may be, but at least I don't have the same feeling I've had the past several years when NPU has visited Carver -- the feeling that the boys from the big city were walking into a gunfight armed with a peashooter.

[Late nite]

Just finished looking at this week's rankings---I agree that Augie is probably a 10-15, but Stevens Point at #1???---I know that finishing is an important component of the game, which the Vikes did not do in this ballgame, but Augie was in control 30-35 minutes against the Pointers---Home floor was the difference in the game---If the game had been at Augie or on a neutral site, I have no doubt that the Vikes were the better team---If Point is the best team in the country, then there is hope for about 30 other teams when the tourney comes around in March

[cardinalpride]

Any CCIW predictions this year?

[devildog29]

I had a chance to catch the IWU-Albion game while I was in town for Christmas.  It was nice to see with my own eyes all the obvervations Q and others have been making on the board, and I tend to agree with most all of them.  Z. Freeman is a beast, period, no more needs to be said.  Darius Gant has great athleticism so why doesn't he "show up" (either with his play or in the stat sheet) more often?  I was impressed at Gilmore's ability to create shots for himself, and as somebody mentioned a while back, if he was a bit quicker, he'd be unstoppable.  He's just a half step slower than the opposing guards it seems, so his shots are a bit tougher to get off.  Nonetheless, he still does a nice job putting the ball in the basket. 

Q or whoever, my other question is what happened to Tolliver?  I don't know if I missed something earlier on this board, but he wasn't even listed on the varsity roster for the game.  Did he get hurt earlier or is he just not playing well enough to make the varsity team?  I've never seen him play, but it seemed he was a decently touted recruit when he "committed" (I know all the stuff about there's no official signing, etc.) to IWU.  Just wondering what happened.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

As Greg as said the talent level is way improved - yet I still found two things missing the two times I saw NPU play (the home opener and on the road versus Judson): team cohesion and team conditioning.

At times they look like five guys that the coach just happened to put on the floor and then rolled out a ball and said "play".

And just about all the time I saw a team that looked physically tired - I just don't know if they were in shape.

From what I've read on this board in November and December my own guestimation is that NPU may have a chance at winning three games - but I am not real confident on even that many.  Another long CCIW men's basketball season for North Park begins in Rock Island tonight.

MW - 70:3

[John Gleich]

Latenight,

I wasn't at the game, so this is just a general comment, but Point led (or was tied) for the last 11 minutes of the game.  And these 11 minutes are the most important, as they contain the final minute and the 0:00 mark, which determines the winner.

In the words of John Madden, the team who scores the most points wins the game, and UWSP scored 10 more than Augustana in the second half, overcoming the halftime deficit of 7.

Point does a few things better than every other team in the country.  They're averaging the fewest TO's per game in the country at 9.45 per game.  This is almost one TO less than the leading D-1 teams, Butler and Stanford.  UWSP is also playing, according to the Massey Rating, the second toughest D-3 schedule in the country.  They also are shooting 84.6% from the line, leading the country as well.  This is a full 6% better than the next best team in Division 1 (California at 78.6%).

You mentioned that UWSP finished out the game.  Like I said above, this is the most important time.  It doesn't matter if Augie was leading for 39 minutes, if they lose the lead when the clock hits zero, then they've lost the game.

Just ask IWU in their game against Lawrence in the NCAA's last year... is it more important to lead at the end, or during the bulk of the game?

As long as points determine which team wins the game (and this doesn't appear to be changing any time soon), the team who scores more points is declared the winner on that night, as was UWSP.

Whether UWSP is the best team in the country is debatable.  There is a skant 6 points between the 1st and 3rd teams.  If any of these teams sneezes, then they may jump up or down in the rankings.

... And it is just January.  Lots of season to go.

[AndOne]

Q or whoever, my other question is what happened to Tolliver?  I don't know if I missed something earlier on this board, but he wasn't even listed on the varsity roster for the game.  Did he get hurt earlier or is he just not playing well enough to make the varsity team?  I've never seen him play, but it seemed he was a decently touted recruit when he "committed" (I know all the stuff about there's no official signing, etc.) to IWU.  Just wondering what happened.

Not only is Tolliver no longer listed on the roster, his picture has been deleted from that page of the Wesleyan basketball web site. Word is he is looking to transfer to another school. He may not even be enrolled at Wesleyan for the 2nd semester.

[Gregory Sager]

As Greg as said the talent level is way improved - yet I still found two things missing the two times I saw NPU play (the home opener and on the road versus Judson): team cohesion and team conditioning.

At times they look like five guys that the coach just happened to put on the floor and then rolled out a ball and said "play".

And just about all the time I saw a team that looked physically tired - I just don't know if they were in shape.

From what I've read on this board in November and December my own guestimation is that NPU may have a chance at winning three games - but I am not real confident on even that many.  Another long CCIW men's basketball season for North Park begins in Rock Island tonight.

MW - 70:3

So you're downgrading from your preseason prediction of four CCIW wins for NPU, eh? I guess that as far as the Vikings fan base is concerned, this can be considered "internal bulletin-board-material generation".

[Titan Q]

I had a chance to catch the IWU-Albion game while I was in town for Christmas.  It was nice to see with my own eyes all the obvervations Q and others have been making on the board, and I tend to agree with most all of them.  Z. Freeman is a beast, period, no more needs to be said.  Darius Gant has great athleticism so why doesn't he "show up" (either with his play or in the stat sheet) more often?  I was impressed at Gilmore's ability to create shots for himself, and as somebody mentioned a while back, if he was a bit quicker, he'd be unstoppable.  He's just a half step slower than the opposing guards it seems, so his shots are a bit tougher to get off.  Nonetheless, he still does a nice job putting the ball in the basket. 

Q or whoever, my other question is what happened to Tolliver?  I don't know if I missed something earlier on this board, but he wasn't even listed on the varsity roster for the game.  Did he get hurt earlier or is he just not playing well enough to make the varsity team?  I've never seen him play, but it seemed he was a decently touted recruit when he "committed" (I know all the stuff about there's no official signing, etc.) to IWU.  Just wondering what happened.

Sophomore Teddy Toliver left IWU just before the Christmas break began.  I assume he was unhappy to find himself out of the varsity rotation this year.  I've heard, although I can't confirm, that he is in the the process of transfering to North Central.  Toliver's best friend is Chris Drennan, a sophomore at NCC.  (Toliver and Drennan were teamates at Normal Community H.S. before Toliver's family moved to Springfield...he graduated from Springfield Southeast H.S.)

As desperate - and I do mean desperate - as IWU has been for help at the point-guard position since Sean Dwyer's injury on November 18, Toliver did not make his way into the rotation.  Kevin Bryant and Anthony Gunnell have emerged as the best options at the point for 5-6 minutes per game to spell Andrew Gilmore, and those two are pure shooting guards.  Toliver got a shot immediately after Dwyer's injury, playing about 6 minutes per game vs Illinois College, Ohio Wesleyan, and Judson.  Quite frankly, he just didn't look like a competitive player out there.  Toliver basically did not get into any of the final 4 IWU games he dressed for.

Toliver won't be eligible to play at NCC until this time next year due to the CCIW transfer rule (if that rumor is true).  He will have two years of eligibility left.  For a program that already has freshman point-guard Brandon Smith and is bound to recruit a good PG in this class or the next (Pete mentioned they're on Glavan from Loyola, for example), I'm not sure where Toliver will really fit in as a Cardinal. 

Teddy played in the IBCA Class AA all-star game for the South in 2005 (link below), alongside Jordan Morris (IWU), Chris Drennan (NCC), Drew Gensler (Millikin), and quite a few D1 scholarship players. 

http://highschoolelite.com/feature/4=13.html

http://www.highschoolelite.com/2005/toliver.html


I wish him the best wherever he ends up.

[Titan Q]

Anyone know why Trey Bowens did not start in Carthage's last game (vs Lewis), after starting in the first 9?

http://www2.carthage.edu/athletics/mens/basketball/lewis.htm

[Gregory Sager]

Anyone know why Trey Bowens did not start in Carthage's last game (vs Lewis), after starting in the first 9?

http://www2.carthage.edu/athletics/mens/basketball/lewis.htm

I'm sure that one of the Carthage folks knows the answer to that question, but I'm guessing that it was a disciplinary matter; Bowens was probably late to practice or something, and as a result Bosko had him begin the game on the bench. The only important fact is that Bowens played his usual starter's allotment (29 minutes, which is actually more than the 26.8 minutes per game he usually plays).

Speaking as the fantasy league GM who has Bowens in his starting lineup, I can honestly say that I am not concerned.

[Titan Q]

I have my first CCIW fantasy player action tonight.  Looking for 16 points and 5 rebounds out of Nate Swetalla vs NPU.