MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[AndOne]

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?

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?

Chris has torn ligaments and is in a fiberglass cast as well as a walking boot. Unfortunately, his season has ended prematurely.

Brandon has a groin pull. I was initially surprised he was dressed for the NPU game Wed after just sustaining the injury Sat. However, dressing suggested the possibility he could have played last night. After testing it pregame, that proved not to be possible and it was felt a little more recovery time was needed. Seems like there is a very good chance Brandon will be available at Carthage Sat.   

[tjcummingsfan]

crazy conference. NCC sweeps Wheaton who sweeps NPU who sweeps NCC. go figure.

North Park did something right, eh Dennis?

[OurHouse]

Coach Harris comments on the game:

he thought his team didn't know they needed a 3 on last possession. Harris thougt they should have won. a few key missed free throws and several missed layups.

Coach Harris was right. Wheaton let the Vikes off the hook tonight, and Augie took advantage (although it took them a while). The Thunder missed a bunch of layups, especially in the first half.

It was a weird game. Some illnesses/injuries forced Coach G to go with a strange lineup. Both the Swetallas were on the bench with Joe Caricato and Alex Washington in their place. Dain played only 11 minutes in very short spurts, but was reasonably productive for such limited playing time (7 pts, 5 rebs), Nate had 2 points and no rebounds in 22 minutes. They were both obviously off their games.

Drew Wessels took on more of scorer's role tonight and finished with 14 points, eight assists and just one turnover--another fine game. He also did a pretty good job on Kent Raymond although Raymond did have some success early breaking down the Viking defense off the dribble.

Jordan Delp struggled a little bit with Wheaton's bigger guards on him (I think it was Panner most often). His usually very effective mid-range game was stifled, but he did slip away for some huge threes down the stretch.

Like I said, I think Coach Harris hit it on the head. If the Thunder had made a few of those missed layups they'd have won the game.

Could you imagine what the score would of been without Raymond in the line up? Wheaton would of got killed - they are nothing without him....       ....DAH

[AndOne]

[

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.

This is the same scorer's table who initially handed out final stats sheets where the players minutes added up to 100 (1st half) rather than 200. Its easy to understand how far off they were on the attendance figures. Looked like about 400 to me as the side opposite the players benches was sparsly populated, but I will bow to Gregory Sager's estimate of 500 as he is intimately familiar with the enviorment. 

[robberki]

I had a dream last night that North Park just won it's 4th championship in a row and DP was on here complaining about lack of offensive movement.

[Sideliner]

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.

I think Daniel's best game of the year was his performance at the 12/30 game at Judson College.  He scored 25 points (12 - 14) and pulled down 19 rebounds in a 40 minute performance.   That's pretty impressive.

[Titan Q]

I think a lot of people have big games vs Judson.  Zach Freeman went 11-11 from the field, scored 29, and pulled down 16 rebounds in 31 minutes of play. 

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2007/iwumbb5.htm


I'm still shocked DePauw went to the final minute vs Judson...DePauw is a pretty good team.

[augiefan]

Think how Coach Youngblood and Beloit College feel. They actually lost to Judson.

[augiefan]

So what's the latest on the Swetalla brothers? I assume Nate's limited minutes were a result of his injury in the Carthage game, but what's up with Dain. Flu or something of greater concern? Augie needs those guys on the court for serious minutes to win the regular season CCIW title.

[usee]

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.

I think Daniel's best game of the year was his performance at the 12/30 game at Judson College.  He scored 25 points (12 - 14) and pulled down 19 rebounds in a 40 minute performance.   That's pretty impressive.

did you pull these out of the family scrapbook Mr. Walton?

[Sideliner]

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.

I think Daniel's best game of the year was his performance at the 12/30 game at Judson College.  He scored 25 points (12 - 14) and pulled down 19 rebounds in a 40 minute performance.   That's pretty impressive.

did you pull these out of the family scrapbook Mr. Walton?

All of the box scores are on the NCC website; it was easy to obtain.

[theseguysaregood]

Anyone have the tiebreaker details or a link to the conference site (if there is one)?  As I look at the standings and remaining schedules, I would give it better than 50/50 that it comes down to tiebreakers for the 4th spot.

[Sideliner]

Anyone have the tiebreaker details or a link to the conference site (if there is one)?  As I look at the standings and remaining schedules, I would give it better than 50/50 that it comes down to tiebreakers for the 4th spot.

http://www.cciw.org/

[tjcummingsfan]

Men's & Women's Basketball
Seeding will be determined by regular season finish. Ties are broken by the following:

1. Head-to-head competition.
2. Record against team(s) above the tie beginning with the highest ranked team.
3. Record vs. team or teams in 3 rd place. If still tied, go to the next place for determination, et cetera.
4. Road record against conference schools.
5. Record in their last nine games.
6. The point spread of the tied teams' head-to head competition.
7. Coin toss



I would even bet the 3rd place spot will come down to a tie-breaker also. 

[petemcb]

Sideliner, you can make your point without continuing to use up a foot or more of recycled quotes......just like this.  I think there's been enough favorable commentary on Dan's play to let it speak for itself.  We all love his play..........no box scores necessary.