MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gotberg]

North Park 90, Illinois Wesleyan 81 --   Congratulations to the Viking players and coaches on their big victory!  Is that North Park's first win at the Shirk?

North Park wins in Bloomington:

1969

1980

1981 (NPC scores the game's last 18 points, holding the Titans scoreless for the final 7:30 and IWU shoots no free throws in a 72-54 NPC win).

1990 (I believe) = The Vikings win in Bloomington and the Titans win in Chicago.  North Park's last NCAA tourney team.

2007 - congrats to the Vikings (a whole lot of good North Park players never won in Bloomington).

MW 70:3

The Shirk was opened in 1994, so yes, this was the first win for NPU at the Shirk.

[robberki]

Amazing win by the Vikings today. I'm so proud of the players and the coaches, great, great job. I knew they would play both smart and hard.

[mr_b]

Today's game at the Shirk should be good. I think if NPU can play it's hardest and smartest they will definately win. My strategy almost worked on Wednesday but sometimes luck goes the other way. This time, I'm sure NPU will be able to work some magic at IWU. Chalk it!

Good call, Mr. Berki!

[markerickson]

Here's some info from the IWU website...

The Illinois Wesleyan men's basketball team lost a 90-81decision to North Park on Sun., Jan. 21 at the Shirk Center. The Titans (8-8 overall and 1-4 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) were led by Zach Freeman (shown) with 26 points and seven rebounds, while Mike Harrigan (12), Andrew Freeman (11) and Andrew Gilmore (10) also scored in double figures. IWU shot .569 from the field (29 of 51) but were outrebounded, 35-21, and the Vikings (11-6, 3-3 CCIW) connected on 13 of 21 3-point shots. It is the first time an IWU team has ever lost four times in a season at the Shirk Center and the loss ended a 17-game home win streak against North Park. The Titans travel to Rock Island on Wed., Jan. 24 to face league-leading Augustana at 7:30 p.m.

I, the poster, cannot fathom how the Vikings outrebounded the Titans.  Given the shooting at home vs Millikin, I cannot believe the Vikings sunk 13 treys much less scored 90 points on the road.

The Viking staff needs to infuse the energy and style from the last two games toward the remaining games to reach my prediction of a season above .500.

Go Colts!!

[Titan Q]

Here is the Pantagraph article on the IWU/NPU game...

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/01/21/sports/122750.txt

[martin]

Go Colts!!

How fast can we turn markerickson's karma negative?

[martin]

The box score shows an attendance figure of 750.

At least from the view provided by the webcast, that number seems very generous.

The side of the Shirk Center bleachers that were full (the north sideline) was not visible with that camera angle.  750 is a fair number.

I don't think this was a very good attendance day for anything in the greater Chicago area (other than the Bears) - if the Bears game was not incentive enough to stay in, the snow provided the final push.  There were only 235 at the Chicago-Rochester game.  For a UAA game, they should get at least 400.  Two prior home conference games had attendance of 1,285 and 830.

Yes - BN is in the greater Chicago area which has now sprawled to include Milwaukee, Madison, Rockford, BN, and NW Indiana.

[Gregory Sager]

I had to miss the streaming video of the Vikings @ Titans game Sunday afternoon, as I was at a Bears-watching party and didn't have access to a computer. But, like Rob, I had a pretty good feeling about NPU's chances coming into this game. At last night's game in King Arena I talked to several Wheaton and Elmhurst fans who thought that North Park has the better team and would win Sunday's game. Still, given the historical misfortunes of the Vikings in Bloomington, I was still nervous until I got the call on my cell phone announcing the final score from the Shirk Center. NPU's win certainly wrapped up a pretty good day for at least this Chicago sports fan.

I, too, was taken aback at how strongly North Park dominated the glass against the erstwhile best rebounding team in the league. It astonishes me that Darius Gant, who was averaging 7 rpg for the Titans in CCIW play, was shut out on the boards on Sunday. I'm guessing that Anthony Lenoir drew the assignment of handling Gant and did a great job on him.

I'm less surprised that the Vikings shot the ball so well from outside, although 13-21 is a pretty torrid performance for anybody. After all, the Vikings were one of three teams in the league shooting treys better than 40% going into the game (Sunday's contest vaults them into first place with a .466 mark from downtown), and they're averaging .381 as a team for the entire season. A lot of that has to do with Joe Capalbo (6-7 from downtown against Wesleyan, 32-59 for a .542 clip for the season). CCIW opponents are beginning to realize what a multi-faceted threat the Vikings freshman is on the offensive end of the floor.

I really love NPU's balance. Seven players are averaging 7 ppg or better, and on Sunday seven players scored eight or more points: Capalbo with 22, Nick Williams and Lenoir with 12, Jay Alexander with 11, Stephano Jones with 10, Uriah Rice with 9, and Antonio Stevens with 8. Julian Boyd came off the bench and scored 16 against Elmhurst the other day. And this doesn't include Jason Gordon, who is slumping at the moment, who represents NPU's best all-around scoring threat. It's a pick-your-poison type of team, and it's great to see so many different players contributing for the Park.

This was a solid win for North Park. Congrats to the Vikings on a job well done. Now Old Home Week begins, as the only head coach in America who has a basketball court named for him on the campus of one of his school's rivals brings his Red Men to the corner of Foster & Kedzie on Wednesday night. I suspect that a number of former Vikings will return to their old haunts to see the game, especially with both North Park and Carthage doing better this season than either program has done the past few years. It should be fun.

The Viking staff needs to infuse the energy and style from the last two games toward the remaining games to reach my prediction of a season above .500.

Your prediction is certainly holding up better than anyone else's where the Park is concerned, Mark. But as I said the other day, when NPU plays with this kind of effort and focus, a lot of great things are going to happen for this team that nobody outside of the Vikings locker room expected back in November.

Incidentally, that was a great game at King Arena last night. I thought that ecdubb really captured the essence of the game in his recap. Wheaton played with great urgency and verve, while Elmhurst looked lost and sluggish -- right up to when the 'jays looked up at the scoreboard with four minutes left in the game and saw to their surprise that they were down 13. After that they played like a house on fire, but it proved to be too little, too late. Elmhurst made it close, but Wheaton made just enough free throws to hold off that furious late rally. It was a great object lesson that it takes more than a few minutes of really good basketball at the end of a game in order to win it. If the 'jays had somehow pulled it off, they would've been stealing a win that Wheaton clearly deserved. As it was, the team that won was the team that earned it the most.

One question, though: Who put the live firecracker down Phill Denham's shorts? On Saturday night he was moving about two gears faster than I thought he was capable of moving.

[wheatonfanaddict]

You can actually thank OurHouse for the Thunder's change of heart Saturday evening. I sent them a copy of his post refering to the team as "garbage" and they took it from there. I was driving home from Columbia, South Carolina that night and could only call WETN to get updates on the game. From the very beginning I could sense that Wheaton was playing like a "team on fire."

Ya gotta love the CCIW!

[79jaybird]

Congrats to North Park and especially Coach Breneghan and his players.  What a tremendous job by that entire staff at turning around the NPU program.  Give or take a few plays NPU could have beat (and in many cases, should have beat) Elmhurst and would perhaps could have been on a 2 game winstreak.  Either way, great win for the Vikings who I think are going to be a influential "player" in who decides the CCIW Champ/4 team playing field for the CCIW Tourney.

[OurHouse]

You can actually thank OurHouse for the Thunder's change of heart Saturday evening. I sent them a copy of his post refering to the team as "garbage" and they took it from there. I was driving home from Columbia, South Carolina that night and could only call WETN to get updates on the game. From the very beginning I could sense that Wheaton was playing like a "team on fire."

Ya gotta love the CCIW!

Wheatonfan:

If you look back at my post, I said Wheaton is a "garbage" team without Raymond - you have to ask yourself, "could the bulls win 6 rings without Mike Jordan"?

The answer is the BIG, "NO" - why was Pippen calling for Jordan to come back? Because the Bulls where a "garbage" team without Jordan. Ask yourself if that other smaller guard on Wheaton can carry the team - I DON'T THINK SO     

I must congratulate them for beating Elmhurst though   

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

If you look back at my post, I said Wheaton is a "garbage" team without Raymond - you have to ask yourself, "could the bulls win 6 rings without Mike Jordan"?

I think the point is that the late 90's Bulls without Jordan still would have made the playoffs.  Far from "garbage."  It's not the sentiment that people were complaining about, but the choice of words.

[markerickson]

Jordan could not have made it without Jerry Krause!

While I laud NP's weekend effort, consistency should be the team's goal for the rest of the season.

On the women's side, I saw Head Coach Surridge at church yesterday - you'd never know he had a pacemaker installed approx one week ago.

[usee]

You can actually thank OurHouse for the Thunder's change of heart Saturday evening. I sent them a copy of his post refering to the team as "garbage" and they took it from there. I was driving home from Columbia, South Carolina that night and could only call WETN to get updates on the game. From the very beginning I could sense that Wheaton was playing like a "team on fire."

Ya gotta love the CCIW!

Wheatonfan:

If you look back at my post, I said Wheaton is a "garbage" team without Raymond - you have to ask yourself, "could the bulls win 6 rings without Mike Jordan"?

The answer is the BIG, "NO" - why was Pippen calling for Jordan to come back? Because the Bulls where a "garbage" team without Jordan. Ask yourself if that other smaller guard on Wheaton can carry the team - I DON'T THINK SO     

I must congratulate them for beating Elmhurst though   

hey outhouse,

the only garbage on here is your continued condescensing reference to  players. the fact is if you take away any teams best player that team isn't nearly as good. wheaton is still a good team without Raymond (they are 3-0 without him this year). if you want to have that debate then then post with civilized words and I am quite sure most on here will engage.  When you continually denigrate a program and its players with your choice of words you aren't going to get very far.

[martin]

For all the Chicago area people (and other Bear fans) on this board, should this be a Bear free zone for the next two weeks?  We will be inundated with all things Bear by every other form of media.  I really appreciate the local television reporters who do the stand ups in bars.  They serve a great purpose.

There is no chance of this reaching the fever pitch of the 1985 Bears - back then the players were even wackier than the fans.  Now many of the fans are just stupid. From today's Tribune:
"Three people were rescued from Lake Michigan Sunday night after they apparently jumped in the water near Soldier Field after the Bears' victory over the New Orleans Saints."

As far as CCIW hoops go, I would have a hard time predicting the four teams that will make the post-season tournament.  Using a dartboard to pick the regular season champ would be as accurate as any other means.