MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[petemcb]

I don't beleive in giving the nod the to the upperclassman if even.  How can you be even in subjectivity.  All Ammerican status shouldn't be ruled out because he's underclassman.  And we're not talking even close here.  He was MOP for his conf. Regional POY, Here's a senario for the underclassman in question, preseason All American,  was the regional POY, Conf MOP, AND played for Illinois Wesleyn then he most definitely would have gotten on AA team somehow.     AS far as removing one from the AA team how about Cramer for Hope,   lost to Wheaton and Carthage, lower scoring/rebound/assist/FT % and minutes played.    Come hit me with the karma

You asked for your karma to be hit.  No!

If you are going to dare me to do something, then I am going to ask you to type your post correctly with proper spelling and punctuation.

Keyboard dyslexia, I understand.  I hit one hand before the other all of the time.  However,  the CCIW board is the "board of boards" on this site and exacts a demanding standard! 

......which, of course, is a lot better than being the "board of boreds".

[Pat Coleman]

But not as good as being the bard of the boards.

[joehakes]

Man, it's going to be a long time before October 15!

[Late nite]

Ypsi---Just read your reply to my statement---Freeman was an all-region player last season as a center (I thought Jones was the center?) and this year he was an All-American as a forward (when he was clearly the 5)---Very interesting to find a spot that fits the player and not necessarily the player to fit the spot

[AndOne]

But not as good as being the bard of the boards.

Oh my God, the next thing we know, someone will be quoting Shakespeare!   

[diehardfan]

But not as good as being the bard of the boards.

Oh my God, the next thing we know, someone will be quoting Shakespeare!   

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition. Oft got without merit and lost without deserving. - Othello

I WIN!!! 8)

[Gregory Sager]

True ... but you listed Zach Freeman as a forward so that you could get two centers onto the first team, slotting Freeman alongside his fellow low-post denizen Ben Strong of Guilford. Zach Freeman was a center, not a forward. In fact, he was the only player of any substantial size whatsoever on his team this season, which made his "center-ness" even more glaring. Yes, the line is often blurred between center and power forward, but it really wasn't in his case ...

I disagree.  To me, you can call Zach a "center" or a "forward" or a "4" or a "5"...whatever.  Zach can play either position and has over the course of his career.  This year he certainly played more 5 than 4, but he really is more of a true 4.

Put it this way...if the goal is to create teams that could take the floor together in real life, Pat's in good shape with the 1st Team because Zach can play his natural position (the 4) and Ben Strong the 5.  I think anyone who has seen Zach play is OK with him being called a "forward"...

That reasoning doesn't wash, because there's any number of shooting guards who could play small forward, but didn't ... and there's any number of small forwards who could play shooting guard, but didn't. Where do you draw the line? You draw it where the player in question actually played ... and Zach Freeman played center this year.

Again, this is not an issue of whether or not Freeman deserves to be on the first team, nor is it an indictment of Pat's AA-teams-should-be-feasible-in-real-life methodology. It's a matter of internal consistency regarding Pat's original statement that AA teams should reflect the actual positions played by the players in question. Late Nite gets to the crux of the matter:

Ypsi---Just read your reply to my statement---Freeman was an all-region player last season as a center (I thought Jones was the center?) and this year he was an All-American as a forward (when he was clearly the 5)---Very interesting to find a spot that fits the player and not necessarily the player to fit the spot

... which is precisely what Pat has scrupulously intended to avoid over the years.

I realize that I'm being nitpicky about this. (Me? Nitpicky? Nooo!) I just want to see consistency applied to everyone under consideration for AA. I realize, probably as much or better than anyone who posts here besides Pat, just how hard it is to construct an All-American team on the D3 level, and I fully sympathize with Pat because it's hard to take the inevitable flak from disgruntled fans every year when the team is announced without feeling the need to explain yourself. But, as Bob himself alluded, it's intrinsically difficult to base the construction of an AA team upon a strict policy of set positions when the game of basketball itself tends to be much more elastic as it pertains to positions than the classic two guards / two forwards / one center lineup would allow. Basketball is much more a game of interchangeable parts than it is a game of specialization.

[Ralph Turner]

But not as good as being the bard of the boards.

Oh my God, the next thing we know, someone will be quoting Shakespeare!   

It seems your prayer was answered! 

[Gregory Sager]

Thanks, Pete

When I was asked the question, I was quite surprised. The parents that asked may well have kids being recruited by EC and/or MU. IF Coach Scherer did apply, I would think he would have an excellent chance. And, of course, if he did, then I doubt Coach Baines did--as he would quite likely have the inside track to take over the EC head job.

It sounds like a silly rumor to me, although I have no insight whatsoever into Mark Scherer's career motivations. What the Scherer-to-Millikin story sounds like to me, though, is a rumor that might be passed along by opposing coaches who are trying to recruit the same kids as Elmhurst. It's a common recruiting ploy: Find out what other school is interested in the prospect, and then plant a rumor in the prospect's ear that the coach from that rival school is looking elsewhere for a new job.

[Gregory Sager]

2. To fans of Kent Raymond (and maybe ALL CCIW fans) (and MAYBE also to all D3Hoops fans)----If you have a player who was voted the PLAYER OF THE YEAR in one of only EIGHT regions of the country, and you have an All-American team consisting of 25 players, including honorable mention, HOW---in God's Green Earth does one of the EIGHT most outstanding players in the country not make an All-American team that consists of TWENTY FIVE players. It makes NO sense whatsoever. If the voters designating the 8 regional PLAYERS OF THE YEAR are the same ones that vote for the All-American team, they are contradicting themselves in the very least! If Raymond is good enough to be a regional PLAYER OF THE YEAR, it sure seems logical that it follows that he is also one of the ALL-AMERICAN players. 

I said I was going to stay out of the Kent Raymond discussion. I lied.

There's the obvious argument, which is that I've seen D3 All-Americans by the truckload over the past thirty years, so I know what one looks like -- and Kent Raymond clearly fits the bill. Aside from that, I find the above argument expostulated by AndOne against Raymond's omission, which is that Raymond deserves to be on the d3hoops.com AA team on the grounds that a guard who is voted regional Player of the Year ought to be automatically deemed among the ten best guards in the division, to be pretty airtight in its mathematical precision. Of course, it works only if you accept the premise that the Midwest Region's players, at all stratas of performance, are equal to or superior to those of the other seven regions. Given this region's reputation, I think we can all accept that premise.

But there's another argument that I consider equally sound, and that's the argument that the CCIW MOP should automatically be deemed worthy of All-American status by virtue of the conference's strength. Those who get ticked off at me for constantly touting the CCIW's prowess aren't going to like this argument, but I don't see much (if any) opposition to the idea that the CCIW is a power conference and ranks among the top two or three in D3 in terms of the league's relative level of play. And if the CCIW is numbered among D3's elite conferences, then how can its Most Outstanding Player not be considered among the elite on an individual level? It's akin to saying that the ACC Player of the Year isn't worthy of D1 All-American status.

In the days before d3hoops.com the NABC All-American team was the only benchmark available for determining All-American status in D3. And it was (and still is) harder to make the NABC All-American team than the d3hoops.com All-American team, because it's smaller (either 15 or 16 players up until a couple of years ago) and in recent years it has had a fixed regional quota. Yet in the 19 seasons that predate this website's AA teams in which the NABC presented the awards and the CCIW had a relevant MOP (i.e., it was won by someone other than NAIA entrants Jack Sikma and Greg Yess of Illinois Wesleyan), the CCIW MOP was named to the NABC All-American team 11 times. That's an outstanding batting average for an AA team that only goes 15 or 16 players deep for the entirety of D3.

Since the inception of the d3hoops.com All-American team at the end of the 1997-98 season, the CCIW MOP has annually achieved even higher standards in terms of national honors:

player	year	d3hoops	# selected	NABC	# selected
Brent Niebrugge	1998	3rd	20	1st	16
Korey Coon	1999	2nd	20	2nd	16
Rob Hamann	1999	---	20	---	16
Korey Coon	2000	1st	25	1st	16
Jason Wiertel	2000	3rd	25	2nd	16
Ryan Knuppel	2001	1st	25	1st	16
Antoine McDaniel	2002	2nd	25	1st	16
Joel Kolmodin	2003	1st	25	---	16
Keelan Amelianovich	2004	2nd	25	1st	16
Adam Dauksas	2005	1st	25	1st	24
Rick Harrigan	2006	2nd	25	2nd	24
Kent Raymond	2007	---	25	1st	24

Not only has the CCIW MOP made the d3hoops.com AA team every season, with one exception, up until this season, the CCIW MOP has always made at least the third team -- and in most cases he's been either a first-teamer or a second-teamer. Aside from that same exception, the smaller and rigidly-quotafied NABC team has also honored the CCIW MOP as a matter of course, with the singular anomaly of Joel Kolmodin not making the team in 2003. The two Midwest Region players who filled the NABC All-American team's quota from this region in 2003 were Chicago's Derek Reich and Hanover's Matt Moore. I can't argue with Reich's inclusion; however, Moore's a bit of a puzzle to me. I never saw the guy play, and I'm sure that he was very good (he scored over 1,300 points in his career, and he led Hanover to a 29-2 record and a Sweet Sixteen finish that year), but I'm curious as to how he stacks up against Kolmodin in terms of performance. It's interesting to note that Moore was only a sophomore that year.

The exception here, of course, is Wheaton's Rob Hamann in 1999. (It's interesting to note that Wheaton seems to be particularly snub-prone when it comes to having MOPs recognized as AAs.) Hamann's exceptionalism is understandable. More than was true of any other MOP in recent years, he was really more of a very good player than a great player. Hamann was more like the first among equals rather than the star for a CCIW-championship Wheaton team that featured four All-CCIW starters ... with the fifth starter being sophomore Luke Moo. Given Wheaton's first-place finish that season, it was understandable that the coaches would've picked a Wheatie to share the MOP with Korey Coon (who was clearly the best individual player in the league that year) ... and equally understandable, given Hamann's comparatively modest stats, that the Wheaton senior tri-captain was snubbed for AA status.

Anyway, the point is this: Given the CCIW's prominence in competitive terms and the established track record of CCIW MOPs in terms of AA status, it becomes even more bewildering that Kent Raymond was snubbed.

[AndOne]

Greg----

That the CCIW is considered a "power" conference was part of my thinking when I was composing my post.

I was focused more on the basic mathematical expression showing the relationship of the relative merits of one element of the compound to the total number of positions within the model. 

After reading your far more lengthy AND far more articulate treatise, I am hopefully correct in my belief that you are in agreement with the basic premise of my argument.
 

[Gregory Sager]

Greg----

That the CCIW is considered a "power" conference was part of my thinking when I was composing my post.

I was focused more on the basic mathematical expression showing the relationship of the relative merits of one element of the compound to the total number of positions within the model. 

After reading your far more lengthy AND far more articulate treatise, I am hopefully correct in my belief that you are in agreement with the basic premise of my argument.
 

Yep.

[AndOne]

 8)

[AndOne]

But not as good as being the bard of the boards.

Oh my God, the next thing we know, someone will be quoting Shakespeare!   

It seems your prayer was answered! 

Fear would be a more accurate description than "prayer"   

[Dennis_Prikkel]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

MW 70:3