MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[augiefan]

I too enjoyed the Augie victory at Wheaton. There have been very few Augie wins in Wheaton over the last decade, and this was a solid win. Wessels has really developed into a great guard, who even is coring a little more this year.

Any word on when and if Oliver Rorer will be back. I think Augie will need him back soon, if they plan to challenge for the championship. Perhaps Dansand, who must be out campaigning for Libertarians, can come back on line and give me a Rorer update.

Raymond did not look very good last night, at least by his standards, but he played virtually the entire game, so he must be fit to play. Perhaps he's still a little rusty. At least April can take solace in the fact that her second favorite CCIW team beat her beloved Thunder.

I too was amazed by the road team's sweep. I think I picked everyone of those games wrong, which should drop me closer to last place. The NPU and Millikin wins were particularly surprising. NCC's disappointing season to date has to be the surprise of the conference so far, along with Elmhurst at this point appearing to be the class of the league, but a trip to Augie still awaits them.

And to answer April's question WAUG does still broadcast Augie games, but only the home games. Good to here from Marte as well. Go Army!!

[AndOne]

Anyways, it seems like there is a lot of parity in the teams and every team is closely matched and are some of the best in D3.  This reminds me of the football season where any team could win on any given Saturday.

My two cents, the team with the healthiest roster at the end wins.  Sounds like Dain and Raymond and Dwyer being out has hurt their teams a lot.  Elmhurst, possibly the healthiest team right now, is doing the best at the moment.  Of course, these are my opinions and I dont' follow basketball as much as most people on this board.

I wouldn't be surprised if a 4 loss team wins the CCIW tourney.

Wouldn't be very surprising at all considering Elmhurst appears to be the only conf team with a chance to finish with less than 4 losses (Sorry CC fans, but I just don't see the Red Men, or Redmen if u prefer, with 3 losses currently running the table with as long as we still have to go)

[AndOne]

I agree Fendley is going to be a great player in the CCIW, I just feel he might be a year away. Once he adds about ten pounds of muscle and acclimates to the college game, I think he'll be outstanding. I know from a pure shooting standpoint, there's not many better at the D-3 level. As far as him and Higgins pushing each other, I disagree because I don't think Fendley will ever play the point, but I guess anything is possible. I wasn't aware Elmhurst starts 6'10'' and 6'8'' on the inside, and has a 6'9'' guy coming off the bench (I believe those are the correct heights) but for teams to compete with them they are going to have to find a way to make them take a lot of outside shots because their post guys are both physical and have great moves down low

REDMAN----

After seeing Fendley play 5 or 6 times last year as a HS senior, I agree that the chances of his maning the point anytime in the future would be slim at best.

First of all, ball handling is not his strength. In the CCIW this needs to be the chief attribute for a PG given the generally tough defense throughout the league. Secondly, Sean does not really possess enough speed to effectively run the point. His strength is spot-up shooting. I raved about his shooting to anyone who would listen last year. Not playing in his face is asking for instant death. He probably drools if any team plays a zone when he is in the game. Any opponent should especially NEVER let him go stand unguarded in the corner or else its almost an automatic 3.

Additionally, his not being a burner with the ball brings up another factor against his playing the point as opposed to the 2 guard. That being his shooting is not nearly as good when he is forced to create his shot off the dribble rather than running through a screen or two to an open spot.     

For Carthage to receive the maximum benefit Sean can provide, the 2 guard is the spot.

[martin]

UWSP's 1.79 ratio is pretty impressive.  This is the UAA:

ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO
# Team                  G  Asst   Avg Turn   Avg  Ratio
-------------------------------------------------------
1.Washington.......... 11   233  21.2  151  13.7   1.54
2.Chicago................ 12   174  14.5  128  10.7   1.36
3.Carnegie Mellon.... 12   196  16.3  163  13.6   1.20
4.Rochester............. 12   179  14.9  168  14.0   1.07
5.Brandeis............... 13   211  16.2  199  15.3   1.06
6.NYU..................... 12   207  17.3  203  16.9   1.02
7.Emory.................. 11   158  14.4  195  17.7   0.81
8.Case.................... 12   151  12.6  208  17.3   0.73


I don't think the NCAA maintains this stat - will dig some more.

[AndOne]

I think there are a lot of teams that would love to have a 1.00 A/TO Ratio right now!

[martin]

I must be obsessive - went to the NCAA site (through games of 1/7), took the teams that were in the top 50 in both assists and turnovers, the top 5 in turnovers, and 2-6 in assists.  #1 in assists is Redlands at 24 per game.  For some reason, NCAA did not have their turnovers.  I went to their website - they have more turnovers than assists.  Here are the ratios:

      Games   Assists   Tos      A/T
                  
t   Wis.-Stevens Point   13   200   121   1.65
b   Washington-St. Louis   11   233   151   1.54
b   Pomona-Pitzer   4   72   49   1.47
b   Wooster     13   245   167      1.47
a   Utica   9   193   136      1.42
b   Waynesburg   9   149   106      1.41
a   Grinnell   10   206   149      1.38
b   Trinity (Conn.)   12   225   163      1.38
t   Chicago   12   174   128      1.36
b   Maryville (Tenn.)   14   233   173      1.35
b   Texas-Dallas   13   234   176      1.33
t   Carleton   10   150   116      1.29
b   Cal Lutheran   4   67   52      1.29
b   Whitworth   13   230   179      1.28
t   Lewis & Clark   12   160   126      1.27
b   Scranton   13   218   173      1.26
b   Manhattanville   12   197   161      1.22
a   Emory & Henry   11   233   206      1.13
t   Muskingum   12   136   123      1.11
a   Brockport St.   9   183   168      1.09

The letter before a school's name indicates:
t - top 5 in turnovers
a - top 5 in assists
b - top 50 in both


I don't know why they have just 4 games for Cal Lutheran.

UWSP is impressive - .2 ahead of the second best team.  Against Lakeland, UWSP had 24 assists and 6 turnovers, raising their ratio to 1.76.  Those numbers don't quite agree with Old Schools or what is on UWSP's web site.  I don't know why their numbers and what the NCAA reports are off.

[diehardfan]

Raymond did not look very good last night, at least by his standards, but he played virtually the entire game, so he must be fit to play. Perhaps he's still a little rusty. At least April can take solace in the fact that her second favorite CCIW team beat her beloved Thunder.

And to answer April's question WAUG does still broadcast Augie games, but only the home games. Good to here from Martie as well. Go Army!!

Thanks for the info... do you know what the link is? The one I have is outdated.

From the Wheaton webcast, it was noted that Raymond's leg was wrapped. They also made a comment that Kent Raymond playing at 70% is better than no Raymond at all. Wheaton really needed him, so he played, but he's definitely not 100% yet in addition to probably being a little rusty. I have to wonder if it wouldn't have been better to give Kent breaks and play Mohan a little more. Must have been a really tough call.

And my second favorite team besides Wheaton is not Augie. My other favorite teams change with where I'm living and what players I like. In the past when I've had a thing for certain players (in a asexual way) like Jason Kalsow (and 2/3 of the point team), Keelan Amelianovich, Jimmy Lehan, John Camardella, Chris Martin, Dan Walton, JD Byers, Chris Braier etc. my support has tended to follow. Since moving to CA I have a thing for Cal Tech... but it's mostly not Augie because the other teams I like simply aren't that delineated... hard to differentiate between .002% of my support and .003%.

[diehardfan]

a   Emory & Henry   11   233   206      1.13
edit: Wheaton fits in here....
t   Muskingum   12   136   123      1.11

Ugh, and we are the best CCIW team?

[John Gleich]

Martin,

You inquired why the NCAA's stats weren't updated... if you check the date, then they're only updated on (roughly) a weekly basis.  Point's on the website found HERE are through all 15 games, as opposed to 13 games on the NCAA site.

[Gregory Sager]

Daryl Von Schouwen does a nice piece on Brian Lee in his "Small College Notes" column in today's Sun-Times.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/colleges/206628,CST-SPT-small11.article

I'm not tech-savvy enough to give the link, but on the back page of the Daily Herald's sports section today is a very uncommon, and reasonably lengthy writeup on the North Park vs. North Central game last night.  That might be a first. 

Thanks for the catch, Pete. Here's the article:

http://dailyherald.com/search/searchstory.asp?id=268121

Interesting you say this. I was listening to Bill Harris on WETN before last nights game and he said "I believe the team that stays healthy will win the conference". Other things from Coach Harris from the interview:

-said there were 6 teams of final four caliber in the conference.

Interesting. I think he's overstating the team-by-team talent level in the league a bit; I see a lot of CCIW teams that are worthy of the bottom ten of the Top 25 or the "Others Receiving Votes" category, but I'm not sure that I see any Final Four teams at this juncture. But I had to chuckle a bit at the fact that he didn't name those six potential Final Four teams, seeing as how I have a pretty good idea to which six teams he referred -- and the team whose gym he has to visit on Saturday is not one of them. Give the coach credit for not making himself bulletin-board material for the opposition.

With regard to the discussion about A:TO, I have to say that while it's a category I look at to analyze teams, it's not one to which I ascribe paramount importance. Assists are important, yes, but different styles of play will engender different levels of assist totals. A team with exceptionally quick guards that can handle the ball well and are capable of breaking down any opponent off the dribble will tend to accumulate fewer assists than a deliberate, pass-cut-screen-shoot team, even if those penetrating guards are adept at dishing off in the paint or making kickouts to spot-up shooters behind the arc. Also, a team of ballhawking or overplaying guards that relies heavily upon a strong transition game will tend to accumulate fewer assists than teams with more halfcourt-oriented scoring. There's more than one way to build a winning basketball team, and I'm not sure that assist totals are always an adequate way of comparing winning teams that have differing styles.

Above and beyond that, assists are probably the least reliable of D3 basketball statistics, because there's an element of subjectivity involved in assigning them and I'm not always sure that the people working the table who handle assists are up to the task. That's not to cast aspersions upon anybody, because I think that working the table is a demanding and thankless task, and the people who do it deserve our appreciation and support. But I've talked to enough coaches over the years to know that most of them tend to take assist totals with a grain of salt. Sometimes it's because the assist spotter can be a little prejudicial towards the home team where dimes are concerned, but mostly it's because not everyone who's doing the task seems to have read the NCAA statistician's manual with regard to assigning assists. (If you'd like to read it yourself, it's on pages 28-31 of the manual, which can be called up as a PDF file from the NCAA website.) Assist totals can be a bit arbitrary if your assists spotter isn't exactly sure what constitutes a legitimate assist and what doesn't.

[Gregory Sager]

It's good to see all of the teams represented on the board. I'm excited to see NP starting strong. It's been a long time coming for Greg and Dennis and the rest of the NP faithful. I hope they can keep it going all season.

Nice to hear from you again, Martie. Yeah, the NPU faithful is pretty excited about the fortunes of the program beginning to turn around. Now we just have to convince the NPU undergraduate students, apart from the ever-faithful Carlson Crazies and the other student-athletes, that the Vikings are worth gracing with their presence in the gym on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. NPU needs more than old people like Rob Berki and Mark Erickson and I to make noise in the stands.

[cardinalpride]

I too enjoyed the Augie victory at Wheaton. There have been very few Augie wins in Wheaton over the last decade, and this was a solid win. Wessels has really developed into a great guard, who even is coring a little more this year.

Any word on when and if Oliver Rorer will be back. I think Augie will need him back soon, if they plan to challenge for the championship. Perhaps Dansand, who must be out campaigning for Libertarians, can come back on line and give me a Rorer update.

Raymond did not look very good last night, at least by his standards, but he played virtually the entire game, so he must be fit to play. Perhaps he's still a little rusty. At least April can take solace in the fact that her second favorite CCIW team beat her beloved Thunder.

I too was amazed by the road team's sweep. I think I picked everyone of those games wrong, which should drop me closer to last place. The NPU and Millikin wins were particularly surprising. NCC's disappointing season to date has to be the surprise of the conference so far, along with Elmhurst at this point appearing to be the class of the league, but a trip to Augie still awaits them.

And to answer April's question WAUG does still broadcast Augie games, but only the home games. Good to here from Marte as well. Go Army!!

NCC's dissappointing season to date...You know what, just like coach Harris said, " this is a marathon not a sprint".  I'm going on record as saying when it's all said and done NCC will win the CCIW title.  You heard it here first!!!!!

[Gregory Sager]

If you all had to see it shake down right now, how would you rank the conference, in terms of best chance to finish on top in the end (one through eight)?

Your first post in ages, VB, and you have to go and ask a seemingly-unanswerable question. We'll see whether or not it leads to a spirited debate or to utter silence because there's too many people like me who are afraid to give an answer.

NCC's dissappointing season to date...You know what, just like coach Harris said, " this is a marathon not a sprint".  I going on record as saying when it's all said and done NCC will win the CCIW title.  You heard it here first!!!!!

On the other hand, VB, here's a CCIW Chat regular who isn't shy about answering your question with regard to at least one spot in the standings. More power to you, CP. You're a braver man than I.

[Pat Coleman]

Attention CCIW fans:

CCIW native diehardfan has been elected to the Posting Hall of Fame.

Please make a note of it.

[Gregory Sager]

It's great to see this many impact freshman on the Vikes.  While I'm looking forward to what the team can do down the stretch this year, I'm looking forward to the years to come even more.

What I particularly like about this group of freshmen is that they seem to be as coachable and enthusiastic as they are hard-working. The caliber of ballplayers that Paul Brenegan and his staff are bringing into the program is improving in more ways than one. They're bringing in recruits from winning programs who expect to win at NPU, and are willing to put in the work in order to improve themselves and improve the team rather than simply coasting on their athletic abilities. There was a lot of the latter mentality over the course of this decade in the Vikings program; I don't see it anymore with the current crop.

I've said all along that Paul Brenegan and his staff were willing to put in the hard work necessary, both in practices and on the recruiting trail, to turn around a very troubled NPU basketball program. The hard work is beginning to pay off a bit, but there's still a long, long, long way to go to get the program back to what it once was. As Brenegan said the other day in the Sun-Times, the team is still very much a work in progress -- and, to be perfectly honest, it's a team that still has some holes. The Vikings will hit their share of rough spots over the next eleven games.

But I think it's going to be a team that improves steadily throughout January and February -- and I think that Williams, Capalbo, Stevens, etc., will not only continue to improve this year and into next year, but that they'll be joined by another outstanding class of newbies next season. I'm very excited by what I'm hearing about NPU's prospects. Paul Brenegan and Steve Schafer are beginning to make their mark as strong recruiters.

It's been a long time coming, but I'm very hopeful that the Park is finally turning the corner.