MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[John Gleich]

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.

You're right Q, this was nice pub for the CCIW...  But did you notice that in discussing the other area colleges (notably Aurora) the author stated that they were leading the NIIC...?  OOPS!

[Brick]

Right now I'd say it's a safe bet to start making hotel reservations in the QCA for the second year in a row....

[knarocky22]

Now why'd you have to go and say that with 3 games left?  Anything can still happen.  That game down in Bloomington scares me.

[Titan Q]

Now why'd you have to go and say that with 3 games left?  Anything can still happen.  That game down in Bloomington scares me.

If IWU can knock off Wheaton Saturday, that Wednesday game vs Augie would be big for the Titans.  IWU would actually be very much in the #4-seed race with a win over Wheaton. 

I thought IWU out-played Augustana in Rock Island...I'd like to see the game in Bloomington mean something for the Titans.  The atmosphere at the Shirk Center Saturday for the Wheaton game should be great.

[Titan Q]

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.

Again, here is the remaining schedule...

Wheaton 6-4 (@ IWU, Millikin, @ Elmhurst, @ Carthage)
Carthage 5-5 (North Central, North Park, @ Millikin, Wheaton)
North Park  5-6 (@ Elmhurst, @ Carthage, IWU)
North Central  4-6  (@ Carthage, Elmhurst, @ Augustana, IWU)
Ill. Wesleyan  3-7 (Wheaton, Augustana, @ North Park, @ North Central)


I like Carthage to win their 3 homes games and finish 9-5 or 8-6 (if they lose in Decatur).   After that, I think it is wide open due to the schedules left.  Wheaton has a nasty road remaining.

They're all big from here on out, starting with Saturday night:

February 10 
Millikin @ Augustana, 7:30 p.m. 
North Central @ Carthage, 7:30 p.m. 
North Park @ Elmhurst, 7:30 p.m. 
Wheaton @ Ill. Wesleyan, 7:30 p.m. 

[Gregory Sager]

Right now I'd say it's a safe bet to start making hotel reservations in the QCA for the second year in a row....

I wouldn't. Augie is only a game up on Elmhurst in the loss column, and with three games remaining for the Doggies it's quite possible that they could stumble once while the 'jays run the table in their remaining four contests. In the event of a co-championship, the tiebreaker to determine which co-champ would host the tourney would come down to who finishes third. If the third-place team is Wheaton, then Augie wins the tiebreaker over Elmhurst, 2-0 to 1-1, and the tourney will be held in the QC. If it's Carthage that winds up third, instead of Wheaton, then Elmhurst bests Augie in the tiebreaker, 2-0 to 1-1, and the tourney will be held at Faganel Hall.

Augie is easily the front-runner to host the conference tourney, but the Doggies are not yet into "safe bet" territory.

However, one thing that went unnoticed last night is that Augustana clinched a CCIW tourney spot, the first team to do so. The worst that Augie can finish is 9-5, and there are already four teams in the league that have six or more losses.

[dansand]

Right now I'd say it's a safe bet to start making hotel reservations in the QCA for the second year in a row....

The opinions expressed here are those of Brick and do not necessarily reflect the positions of dansand, Knarocky, and I'd be willing to bet...augiefan. 

Augie's definitely in the best position, but especially with their current health problems, I think it's far from a safe bet at this point.

[Gregory Sager]

Now why'd you have to go and say that with 3 games left?  Anything can still happen.  That game down in Bloomington scares me.

If IWU can knock off Wheaton Saturday, that Wednesday game vs Augie would be big for the Titans.  IWU would actually be very much in the #4-seed race with a win over Wheaton. 

On the other hand, if Illinois Wesleyan loses to Wheaton while Carthage and North Park each win, the Titans would be eliminated outright from the CCIW tourney picture as early as this Saturday night. Since NPU and Carthage have a game remaining with each other, either the Vikings or the Red Men would therefore be guaranteed to be the fourth CCIW team to finish with seven wins, whereas Illinois Wesleyan could finish no better than 6-8.

Even if the Vikings and/or the Red Men can't finish their part of the deal on Saturday night, a Wesleyan loss to the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance at Shirk would mean that the Titans are reduced to only a couple of very obscure scenarios that would remain between them and elimination. I've tried over the past few hours to work out the various permutations of the next two weeks to figure out how the #3 and #4 seeds are likely to shake out. If Illinois Wesleyan loses on Saturday, and if my calculations are correct (I make no guarantees ), there's only two possible scenarios available that would get the Titans into the CCIW tournament by virtue of owning the tiebreakers in a possible 6-8 tie for fourth place. One would involve a tie with North Park under very specific circumstances, and the other would involve a three-way tie with Carthage and North Park, again under very specific circumstances. In the first scenario, 10 of the 14 remaining CCIW games besides the Wheaton @ Wesleyan game would have to break the right way for the Titans. In the second scenario, 9 of the 14 remaining CCIW games besides the Wheaton @ Wesleyan game would need to end in the Titans' favor in order for the scenario to come to pass. A Rube Goldberg machine would have a better chance of working properly than either of those two scenarios.

North Central is in a better situation than is Illinois Wesleyan, and not just because the Cards are a game up on the Titans. The Cardinals play three teams above them in the standings over their next three games, including the league's current top two. As daunting as that sounds, it's actually what you want when you're a longshot like NCC, because it gives you a chance to strengthen your tiebreakers. The Cards could emerge from that stretch owning season splits with Augie, Elmhurst, and Carthage, and that's something that none of the other contenders in the middle of the pack can claim. Put that together with their sweep of Wheaton, and if the Cards somehow manage to pull this off they will be in great shape heading into their final game against Illinois Wesleyan in the airplane hangar a week from Tuesday. Of course, this is all dampened by the fact that the Cards will have to run that gauntlet shorthanded with the loss of Chris Drennan and the possible loss of Brandon Smith.

The whole CCIW tourney picture should be a lot clearer by the end of Saturday night.

[Gregory Sager]

[

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. 

Actually, the stat sheets that you saw were preliminary ones, not final ones. I don't know how other tables do this, but the NPU scorer's table always runs off preliminary sheets that don't necessarily have the minutes realigned for the second half (which is why the minutes totaled up to 100 rather than 200 on the sheet you saw). I'm not 100% sure why this is done (perhaps Mr. B knows), but my guess is that this is for the media folks that need instantaneous box scores for their broadcasts. Since WONC (North Central's radio station) was carrying Wednesday's game live, the preliminary sheets were probably run for the benefit of their broadcasting team.

After the Stat Crew operator double-checks the substitution log with the spotter (who tracks substitutions by hand throughout the game for both time and personnel), the proper minutes are entered into the box score if necessary. The final stat sheets, complete with PBP and correctly-aligned minutes played, are then run off on the printer downstairs and given to the staffs of the two teams (and to yours truly, who studies them on the el ride downtown in order to prep for my agonizingly-long game recaps on CCIW Chat ).

This is how it's done for North Park women's games (I'm the official scorer for NPU women's home games), so I'm guessing that the reasoning for doing it this way at men's games at North Park is identical. If you check either the NPU or NCC sites, you'll see those final box scores that are accurate as to minutes played. North Park SID Kevin Shepke is very good about getting them up on the site within a half-hour or so of the final horn.

As for the official NPU attendance figures, I'm not entirely sure why the estimates are so wildly exaggerated. I've volunteered my own estimates from time to time, but I don't think I'm pollyanna-ish enough with crackerbox crowd guesses to be taken seriously. As I said, I think 500 was a generous estimate. I would lean much more to the 475 figure I also threw out there on Wednesday night. Dunno if you saw the southwest section behind the NPU bench, but it was pretty packed; also the entire crowd wasn't all there at the same time, as many of the North Park students were latecomers (a chronic problem on Wednesday nights, given that night classes are very popular among undergrads at the Park) and a lot of the high school students in the northeast section across from the NCC bench left early.

[Brick]

I'm not trying to jinx anyone, but if I know the guys on the team and and Coach G, they have to be one of the more determined groups in the confrence...after the loss up at Carthage, and a near miss at home against Wheaton, I would not want to play the Vikes in the up coming week and a half...

Yes Augie has a scary game down in Bloomington, however I would expect Elmhurst to stumble at least one more time giving the Vikes a 2 game lead with 3 games remaining...

Just my two cents!  

[theseguysaregood]

I don't think anyone looking at things realistically (even Titan Q) would say that IWU or NCC are in a good position to make it.  At the same time, this is a case where you can make some reasonable s-t-r-e-t-c-h assumptions and everyone but, Milliken has a chance.

Often a team that has not been mathmatically eliminated will be looked at as still having no chance (even by their own supporters).  I don't think that is the case with the CCIW at this point.

Milliken's win @ Elmhurst and IWU's almost win @ Augie show that on a given night anything can happen.  With only a few games left, it only takes a couple of those "surprise wins or loses" to change the picture for several teams.

I still think it will take a 7-7 record to get the fourth spot.

[Titan Q]

Congratulations to Zach Freeman.  Let's see if he can make a run at that "Academic All American of the Year" award won by Keelan Amelianovich last year.


BLOOMINGTON -- Illinois Wesleyan senior Zach Freeman has been elected to the first team of the all-District V academic men's basketball squad.

Freeman will join players from seven other districts on the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America national ballot.

A 6-foot-7, 210-pounder, Freeman has a 3.48 grade point average as an elementary education major. He did his student teaching last fall at Washington Elementary in Bloomington.

Freeman is averaging a team-high 21.9 points and 9.0 rebounds.

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/02/09/sports/doc45cbeb2f86e54719061829.txt

[Dennis_Prikkel]

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.

No, but my great-great grandchildren will hopefully be cheering them on....  

Jude 18


With three games left wouldn't it be nice for North Park if they....

1- finally posted a win against a team in the top four of the league standings.

2- were able to sweep IWU for the first time in 26 years.

3- end losing streaks to Elmhurst or Carthage.


Be ye never satisfied with mediocrity - for if you are - that be your lot in life.

MW 70:3

[robberki]

I'm not trying to jinx anyone, but if I know the guys on the team and and Coach G, they have to be one of the more determined groups in the confrence...after the loss up at Carthage, and a near miss at home against Wheaton, I would not want to play the Vikes in the up coming week and a half...

Yes Augie has a scary game down in Bloomington, however I would expect Elmhurst to stumble at least one more time giving the Vikes a 2 game lead with 3 games remaining...

Just my two cents!  

I happen to know that determindness in the CCIW is ranked like this:
Carthage
North Cenrtal
North Park
Augustana
Elmhurst
Illinois Wesleyan
Wheaton
Milliken

Making Augustana no better than 4th on the determindness scale.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

I happen to know that determindness in the CCIW is ranked like this:...

Milliken

Wasn't he the governor of Michigan?

Or is that just Nebraskah speeling for the school in decater? 


You know what the "N" stands for on the Cornhusker football helmets don't you?....