MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Pat Coleman]

The Wheaton announcers didn't really have any room to be complaining out the refs, Raymond was getting away with a lot all game until the end when they finally called a couple on him.   

I hate to say it, but the Wheaton broadcasters this year are not only awful, they're unprofessional homers. I miss Holmgren.

I miss Paul Carr. In fact, you can't say enough about how good Paul Carr was.

[Gregory Sager]

I am a huge fan of Dave Wrath. I haven't seen him in years and it's definitly my loss, I assue you.  There's no way it was intentionally misleading... people don't become HOF SIDs by being intentionally misleading.... And if anyone continues to talk badly about Dave I will have to get mean. 

Anyhow, the little handouts of stats that people can get in Rock Island put everyone to shame.... but especially the SCIAC SIDs.  I hope Augie people know how lucky they are to have him!

You're right April. And, yes, they do know how lucky they are to have him. Dave made it a point to seek me out and introduce himself to me and offer his assistance if I was ever looking for any info (and I'm just some schmoe who shows up at the football and basketball games). He's a class act.

Agreed. Dave Wrath is a gentleman as well as a crackerjack SID. I'm sure that there was no attempt to deceive as far as his IBCA Coach of the Year press release was concerned.

[Gregory Sager]

The Wheaton announcers didn't really have any room to be complaining out the refs, Raymond was getting away with a lot all game until the end when they finally called a couple on him.  

I hate to say it, but the Wheaton broadcasters this year are not only awful, they're unprofessional homers. I miss Holmgren.

Best Covie broadcaster in the biz, that kid.

The Wheaton announcers didn't really have any room to be complaining out the refs, Raymond was getting away with a lot all game until the end when they finally called a couple on him.  

I hate to say it, but the Wheaton broadcasters this year are not only awful, they're unprofessional homers. I miss Holmgren.

I miss Paul Carr. In fact, you can't say enough about how good Paul Carr was.

Definitely. I also miss Paul's posting here. Even when he wasn't able to see the games live, his posts were always an oasis of sanity and incisiveness.

[Gregory Sager]

A couple questions from the North Park/NCC box...

http://www2.noctrl.edu/athlet/basketball_m/06-07/m2-7.htm

1. Why did Brandon Smith and Chris Drennan not play?

Smith has a slight groin pull. He told the NCC coaches he couldn't go tonight.

Drennan was in civvies and a walking boot. Not sure if he broke his foot or not, but I'm told that he's done for the year.

It was definitely a game of attrition, as NPU had three of its usual starters among the walking wounded tonight. All three played, but the only one who was effective was Anthony Lenoir (who was sporting a splint and bandage on the pinky of his shooting hand).

2. Were there really 1200 at the Crackerbox?  North Park reported 1600 for the Carthage game, 1600 for Elmhurst, and 1600 for Wheaton.  Are those correct too?  What is the official capacity?

The NPU scorer's table tends to be a little creative with attendance figures. The NPU media guide lists the crackerbox's capacity as 1,800; as I said on CCIW Chat a few weeks ago, the only way you could fit 1,800 people in the NPU gymnasium seats is if they're all prepubescent children. The seating capacity of the crackerbox is 1,100 -- tops.

Tonight's crowd was somewhere in the 475-500 range. I'll be generous and say 500.

[Gregory Sager]

Congratulations to the Vikings on their "lucky 13th" win.

And kudos to Mark Erickson for being the only NPU fan brave enough to post on CCIW Chat back in November that the Vikings would have a winning season in 2006-07. If there was a thumbs-up smiley, I'd give you one, Mark.

Man does it feel good to win a close one at home!

Amen and amen. The Vikings have been totally snakebit in the crackerbox since the holidays. I was almost surprised that they managed to pull off the win at home, whereas I would've felt much more comfortable down the stretch if the game was on the road.

It was ugly basketbal for a solid 2/3 of the game, and North Central benefitted from that more often than not.  North Park made more stupid mistakes, and gave up unforced turnovers than usual, which was extremely frustrating.  The North Central big men just killed us tonight.  I haven't seen the box score but I can't imagine they have less than twice the rebounds North Park (as a team) has (and I mean just the 3 big guys, Krumtinger, Simmons, and Walton), and they easily have 3/4 of the Cardinals points combined.  They just owned us, plain and simple.

Surprisingly, NCC only outrebounded the Park by 33-25. Like tjcf, I thought that the disparity was much greater than that. The Cards did make the most of their advantage on the offensive boards; they led there, 11-7, but had a much wider advantage than that in terms of second-chance points, 18-5. While North Park played very good defense at times, it's just plain hard to keep up the pace on D for fifty or sixty seconds at a stretch. Some of the problem with controlling their defensive boards was the fact that NPU played a lot of zone (a no-brainer defense against a big team that lacks perimeter threats), and it's hard to put a body on people when the ball caroms out while you're in a zone. Some of the problem was the size disparity. But there was a hustle issue at work, too; North Central just wanted those rebounds more. They were even getting to the intermediate-range rebounds where you'd figure NPU's quickness would give the Vikings the advantage.

The front three of NCC scored 53 of the Cards' 68 points and pulled down 29 of their 33 rebounds. If the Redbirds had any sort of an outside game this evening, they would've won the game. With Brandon Smith out and Reid Barringer on an extremely short leash (he made a defensive miscue and was out of the game quicker than you can say "Frank Stallone"), North Central simply had no one who could keep the game honest from the perimeter. NPU doubled down on the post all night with impunity.

Walton really impressed me, he's composed, plays hard, and not cocky at all, he's the kind of basketball player I love to watch.

Yeah, Walton is so much fun to watch because he's so technically sound. He is always in the right spot at the right time, and he fights like a tiger on the boards. However, in spite of the 18 points and 13 rebounds he accumulated, I doubt that he'd point to tonight as his best game. He only went 7-18 from the field, which means that he had a rather unimpressive 1:1 FGA-to-points ratio. Nick Williams did a good job of guarding him, with help when Walton caught the ball down low. I thought that the star of the game for NCC was Adam Krumtinger (19 pts, 8 rebs, 8-12 from the field). Anthony Simmons (16 pts, 8 rebs) is clearly not the same player he was before his injury, but he's still better than probably 90-95% of the forwards in D3.

A couple of things that North Park needed to do to run away with this game (and they probably should have)... run run run.  In the starting line-up the only player who couldn't easily beat their man off the dribble was Capalbo, and he drained a couple 3's in the face of his defender, so it didn't matter.  The should have used their speed to drive to the basket all day.  The other thing is simply take care of the ball, when Simmons, Walton and Krumtinger got in foul trouble North Park wisely tried to work the ball in to the men they were guarding, but we ended up throwing it away more often then we got the pass in their.

Give the Cards credit. They did a nice job of getting back in transition. Neither team scored any fastbreak points, and NPU only scored two more points than did NCC off of turnovers. The early plan was to attack in the post, since all three North Central big men racked up two quick fouls and Drennan's absence meant that they had no experienced backup forwards available. But at the end of the game, it was North Park's quickness off the dribble, in the person of Uriah Rice, that made the difference. The basket that brought NPU to within one at 66-65 with 2:18 left, his two FTs that brought the Park back to within one at 68-67 with :53 left, and his winning bucket 35 seconds later that gave the Vikes the lead at 69-68 were all the result of Rice beating Raymond Lawrence off the dribble and taking the ball to the cup.

The huge huge huge bright spot in the game was the fact that the Vikes went on a 16-0 run at one point to take a 3 point  (61-58) lead after being down by 13 (45-58) led by their 3 star freshmen Capalbo, Williams, and Stevens (along with Lenoir and Rice).  Knowing we have freshman who have the poise to take over a game like that and play with the intensity they did  is so exciting.  Hopefully they can play with that kind of intensity this Saturday against Elmhurst, we're going to need it at their place.  

I agree that it was great to see the three freshmen in the game when NPU made that big run to turn the game around, but it was actually the two seniors who were putting the ball in the basket. Anthony Lenoir made seven straight points, including a huge trey from the top of the key in which he stood there and dared NCC to come out and guard him before he took the shot, to get the comeback rolling by cutting the lead to 58-52 in favor of the Cards. And, as I noted, it was Rice who made the six crucial points in crunch time, and he also had a big trey with 4:50 left that gave NPU its first lead since the beginning of the second half. Of the 25 points the Park scored from that 58-45 deficit at the 9:03 mark onward, Lenoir scored 11 of them and Rice had 10. That's the sort of senior leadership this team had so badly needed.

Great game tonight. Tough loss if you're a Cardinals fan, but it's another solid step forward for a Vikings team that's still very much in the hunt for a CCIW tourney berth.

[mr_b]

Were there really 1200 at the Crackerbox?  North Park reported 1600 for the Carthage game, 1600 for Elmhurst, and 1600 for Wheaton.  Are those correct too?  What is the official capacity?

The NPU scorer's table tends to be a little creative with attendance figures. The NPU media guide lists the crackerbox's capacity as 1,800; as I said on CCIW Chat a few weeks ago, the only way you could fit 1,800 people in the NPU gymnasium seats is if they're all prepubescent children. The seating capacity of the crackerbox is 1,100 -- tops.

Tonight's crowd was somewhere in the 475-500 range. I'll be generous and say 500.

I took a stab at 450, but 500 is not an unrealistic figure.  The data-entry folks must be counting ears as well as noses.

[Late nite]

NOBODY gets more calls than Raymond---The officials bailed him out more than once when he took a bad shot---It was a layup drill for Wheaton in the first half---Good thing they couldn't convert---Wheaton will be a tourney team if they continue to play defense the way they played last night---Guard penetration was the only offense that Augie could muster---Post play was non-existent except for the toughness of Rose---Chandler Collins should be playing much more than a couple of players who are getting major minutes---He is a talent

Not much to say about the Augie/Wheaton game tonight except that a win is a win.  Wessels had a solid game tonight.  The offense just doesn't run as smoothly when he's out of the game.  Delp was fairly quiet until down the stretch when he was simply the man.  The Wheaton announcers didn't really have any room to be complaining about the refs, Raymond was getting away with a lot all game until the end when they finally called a couple on him.  With a 1.5 game lead and 3 to play, the race is Augie's to lose.  You can't ask for more than that. 

[79jaybird]

If in fact Drennan is done for the year, that is too bad and I hope he is able to go next year.
Raymond and getting away with fouls?  That is not a news headline.  That is well known and yet it continues to happen, so I don't pay much more attention to it.
Titan Q,  I agree slots #1 and #2 are pretty much written in, as long as Augie/Elm don't stumble.  I disagree with you that Carthage is going to get the #3.  Maybe the Redmen just had a bad night @ EC yesterday, but they looked pretty bad in that second half.  I think the #3 slot is going to be Wheaton and the #4 is (most likely) North Park.
2-8 Millikin and 1 of those wins was against us at home. Ouch!  That loss to Millikin is leaving a sour taste in my mouth, and could very well be the reason Augie wins the conference outright. 

[Scream]

Man does it feel good to win a close one at home! 

AMEN to that!

The Park win last night was larger than it probably even seems - for many reasons; experience, confidence, standings, fan support, recruiting, respect for the players, coaches and program, etc. 

[Scream]

10 Things I loved about the Park game last night:

10. The players stuck together.
9. The 16-0 Park run
8. Krumtinger, Simmons, and Walton were all in foul trouble
7. Capalbo looking for and hitting shots.
6. The togas are really a classic.
5. Nic Williams playing tough
4. Park fought hard to finally get the lead for good with 11 seconds left.
3. The 16-0 Park run was immediately after a Simmons dunk.
2. The scoring was pretty spread out
1.  The WIN and the small step forward the program took.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

1- Elmhurst parents I was sitting with last night were also bemoaning the loss to Millikin.

2- The intensity of Coach Mark Scherer in the first half of last night's game was totally out of character.  Scherer was darn near a cheerleader in the first half of last night's game - jumping up and clapping for every basket and nice defensive play.  During a couple of defensive lapses and one timeout in particular he really tore in to his club.

Having seen Elmhurst play a number of times this year - I can tell you that there usually is a lull in the Jays intensity when Scherer starts his rotations about 7 minutes into the game.  Scherer's histrionics must have been an attempt on his part to get his club's reserves through that lull.  Despite Scherer's best efforts on the sidelines the Red Men were able to catch up against the Jay reserves, but never able to take the lead.  The starters pushed the lead to nearly double digits in the closing minutes of the 1st half.

In the 2nd half Scherer was as calm as a retiree sitting on a park bench and watching the world go by.  He arose for a couple of Carthage called timeouts, but that was about it - I think his first half efforts must have tired him out.

MW 70:3

[Titan Q]

Nice CCIW pub. in the Sun Times today...

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/colleges/248733,CST-SPT-small08.article


Powerhouse CCIW enjoying vintage season

February 8, 2007
SMALL COLLEGE NOTES BY DARYL VAN SCHOUWEN

Wheaton coach Bill Harris calls the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin the ''ACC of Division III basketball.''

It's strong, talented, well-coached and deep with four teams -- No. 10 Augustana, No. 12 Elmhurst, No. 15 Carthage and No. 25 Wheaton -- capable of copying what Illinois Wesleyan did last year: finish third in the league and reach the national final four.

[Sakman 1111]

Elmhurst looked as awesome last night as Carthage looked disorganized. When the Bluejays are hitting from the outside they are a very difficult team to beat. I have a difficult time with Coach Scherer's sub rotations but I guess it is hard to complain when successful. Ruch in my book is the MVP of the league even as a sophomore.

[ecdubb420]

Scherer's sub rotations are a direct result of his team playing terrible defense during the five games before IWU.  He is simply trying to keep his men as fresh as possible and also keep the defensive intensity way up.  Offensively there is no way he can think that the backcourt of Sayre, Childs and Bainter is going to contribute anything, but the key is not allowing the opponents to get of easy basket after easy basket. 
His seven man rotation is still going to get the bulk of the minutes and I'd expect this mentality to change if EC is struggling to put the ball in the basket as asking Childs, Bainter, Aloisio, and Sayre to contribute on offense will not yield positive results.
This rotation wore Carthage down as they simply ran out of gas with about 10 minutes left.  The indication that they gave up should not be confused with the lack of energy they had in their tank late in the game.  The fatigue caused them to play poorly, which made them frustrated which made this game a blowout.

On to another point.  Why oh, why do teams let EC beat them from the outside?  They are #2 in the nation from beyond the arc!!!! 44.6% for crying out loud.  I understand that teams are wanting to key on Ruch and Michael, but if they continue to do that Burks and Co. will burn them.  Watch the first 7 mintues of the IWU and CC game to understand this.  For a team that is notorious for starting off slow (and not looking for early outside shots), it boggles my mind that in the last two games (and many more) teams are daring the Bluejays to shoot from outside.
I also question the 18 3pt attempts for the BlueJays, I counted closer to 14.  Then again, my stats and official stats never match up, so take that for what its worth.

In the post game interview with Scherer, he was very quick to jump on his team pointing out to the poor job they did protecting the ball down the stretch.  Again, this indicates to me that he knows what this team can do and is going to let them know what they need to improve no matter how big the win.  This lets me know that practices will continue to be tough in the EC camp. 

Robert Strzemp scored his first points of the season and was looking for contact.  Both great signs, but I'm thinking he will continue spot duty for the rest of the season.  He has been tearing it up in JV, so it does look like his stamina is catching up to his good health.  It also appears that he has added significant range to his offensive game.   Watch out for a healthy Rob in 07-08 (yes i remember a few of you who said he had more upside than Ruch last year).

Thankfully a project just came to my desk or else this could go on awhile.  #6 in the region?!?  Now thats bulletin board material.

[Sakman 1111]

Scherer's sub rotations are a direct result of his team playing terrible defense during the five games before IWU.  He is simply trying to keep his men as fresh as possible and also keep the defensive intensity way up.  Offensively there is no way he can think that the backcourt of Sayre, Childs and Bainter is going to contribute anything, but the key is not allowing the opponents to get of easy basket after easy basket. 
His seven man rotation is still going to get the bulk of the minutes and I'd expect this mentality to change if EC is struggling to put the ball in the basket as asking Childs, Bainter, Aloisio, and Sayre to contribute on offense will not yield positive results.
This rotation wore Carthage down as they simply ran out of gas with about 10 minutes left.  The indication that they gave up should not be confused with the lack of energy they had in their tank late in the game.  The fatigue caused them to play poorly, which made them frustrated which made this game a blowout.

On to another point.  Why oh, why do teams let EC beat them from the outside?  They are #2 in the nation from beyond the arc!!!! 44.6% for crying out loud.  I understand that teams are wanting to key on Ruch and Michael, but if they continue to do that Burks and Co. will burn them.  Watch the first 7 mintues of the IWU and CC game to understand this.  For a team that is notorious for starting off slow (and not looking for early outside shots), it boggles my mind that in the last two games (and many more) teams are daring the Bluejays to shoot from outside.
I also question the 18 3pt attempts for the BlueJays, I counted closer to 14.  Then again, my stats and official stats never match up, so take that for what its worth.

In the post game interview with Scherer, he was very quick to jump on his team pointing out to the poor job they did protecting the ball down the stretch.  Again, this indicates to me that he knows what this team can do and is going to let them know what they need to improve no matter how big the win.  This lets me know that practices will continue to be tough in the EC camp. 

Robert Strzemp scored his first points of the season and was looking for contact.  Both great signs, but I'm thinking he will continue spot duty for the rest of the season.  He has been tearing it up in JV, so it does look like his stamina is catching up to his good health.  It also appears that he has added significant range to his offensive game.   Watch out for a healthy Rob in 07-08 (yes i remember a few of you who said he had more upside than Ruch last year).

Thankfully a project just came to my desk or else this could go on awhile.  #6 in the region?!?  Now thats bulletin board material.

I understand very well why the rotation but thanks for the explanation any way. Good to see Strzemp get the big three minutes and as for tearing up the JV.......I would hope so. His stamina has been fine for quite a while and simply his eligility and him are going to waste on the JV but enough whining on that subject. Overall excellent game last night by the Bluejays....should be a good one Saturday.....