MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gotberg]

I didn't make it down to Whitewater, anyone know the North Park/MSOE score?

According to Whitewater's site:  MSOE 69, NPU 63

I checked back on Whitewater's site and it now says "No Team Score" for the MSOE/NPU game.  I'm not sure if the scored I previously posted is correct?

[WahooThunder]

Wheaton 98, Kalamazoo 59

Raymond even better than advertised.  33 points in 27 minutes, including 27 in the first half.

Panner and Wiele also looked good for the Thunder.  Foul Trouble for Jake Carwell and Stephen Young was the only negative for Wheaton tonight.  Jason Cellier, a Freshman, saw significant minutes playing with the first team and scored 6 points, so he maybe someone unexpected who gives them a little more depth.

Benedictine defeated Wittenberg in the early game, so it will be Wheaton vs. Benedictine for the Championship tomorrow.

[WahooThunder]

Also noteworthy, Bill Harris gets the game ball for his 400th career victory.

[iwumichigander]

Also noteworthy, Bill Harris gets the game ball for his 400th career victory.

That is worthy.  congratulations to Bill!!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Congratulations, Coach Harris!

Wheaton probably doesn't have the talent to challenge for the title or the post-season, but for any given game I would never discount their chances with Raymond on the floor and Harris on the bench.

[iwumichigander]

From Albion - It was a first college game for the freshman; and, it showed throughout the game.  Tri-State had no real answer for Darius Gant.  It is not often you see a 6' 4" with his quickness and jumping ability.  Rosenkrantz played limited minutes for IWU tonight but impressive in his inital outing.  Sexauer was also impressive tonight.

Tri-State, having trouble making a trey in the first half, found their range in the 2nd half to make it a contest.  Tri-state makes up for lack of size with agressive defense and quickness.

Titans did not let themselves get rattled in the late going to close the seond half tied.  IWU did show a lot of poise for an extremely young team which won in OT.

[iwu70]

Good start for the baby Titans . . . freshmen gang.  Sounds like a pretty good win as a start for Coach Rose's young team.  Way to go Darius -- we're with you for a really big season this year. 

Big story is the Lady Titans.  I know this is a DIII men's site, but you gotta love the Lady Titans trouncing the pre-season #1, Wash U.  Guess they get pre-season #2 on the next night!  A serious test for the start of their young season. 

Good luck to all the CCIW basketball teams, programs as the pre-conference play gets underway bigtime.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Mark,

Actually Wash U was pre-season #1 in men's; "merely" #6 in women's.  And DePauw was "only" #5 pre-season, not #2.  But enough quibbling, it was a heckuva start for the season, and hopefully tomorrow (tonight, really) will be even better!

[Titan Q]

Here is the IWU/Tri-State boxscore and Pantagraph article...

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2008/iwubb1.htm

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/11/17/sports/doc473e6e92a1414003872737.txt


* Darius Gant: 19 pts, 13 reb
* Jordan Morris: 19 pts, 6 reb, 3 assists
* Doug Sexauer: 15 pts, 4 reb
* Sean Johnson: 10 pts, 2 reb, 3 assists
* Brett Chamernik: 10 pts, 4 reb
* Matt Schick: 6 pts, 8 reb, 6 assists

I was proud of the way the Titans competed tonight -- a lot of guys made big plays when it mattered.  Should be a great game tomorrow vs Albion (3:00pm CST).

[WahooThunder]

Congratulations, Coach Harris!

Wheaton probably doesn't have the talent to challenge for the title or the post-season, but for any given game I would never discount their chances with Raymond on the floor and Harris on the bench.

As well you shouldn't.  I would have to disagree with you about them having the talent to make it to the postseason, as everything I have seen through two exhibitions and one regular season game seems to indicate otherwise.  This team is not terribly deep, but Raymond is heads, shoulders, knees, and toes above every other player in this conference and is able to take over a game like no other player I have seen at this level.  Panner is excellent defensively and despite inconsistent shooting is a pretty good scorer as well.  The biggest difference this year though is going to be the improved inside game.  Andy Wiele has bulked up considerably and looks like a completely different player, perhaps even All-CCIW caliber, and I think eventually Jake Carwell will provide a nice complement to him inside.  Phill Denham also provides rebounding and defense in the frontcourt and I am optimistic that Stephen Young, who started tonight will be a solid contributor as well.  As long as Raymond and Panner are healthy, they really don't need that much backcourt depth, because both of them will be playing 35+ minutes a night, but Jeremy Berntsen looks like a better and more confident player coming off the bench and this Cellier kid is a good shooter and could give them some good minutes, and Andrew Jahns should be a contributer by the time they get into conference play as well.  In my mind, as long as the starters can stay healthy, this will be enough for them to win 20+ games and still be playing come March.

[Gregory Sager]

MSOE 69
NPU 64

http://www.northpark.edu/athletics/mbasketball/stats/2007stats/11-16mbb.htm

Unexpected trouble tonight for the Vikings. I knew that MSOE would be good enough to give North Park a game, but I honestly did not expect it would go down to the wire, much less turn out to be a loss.

NPU scored the first eight points of the game, but never built a lead larger than that. The Vikings did get the lead back up to eight at 39-31 with 1:06 left in the half, but five quick points by the Raiders made it only 39-36 at the half. MSOE led most of the second half, but never by more than four points before two Bruce Durham FTs and a coast-to-coast layup by Durham put the Vikings in front, 62-61, with 3:28 left in the game. From there it was all downhill; the Vikings turned the ball over on their next three possessions and went 0-5 from the field down the stretch, making only one measly free throw as they reprised last season's inability to get it done in crunch time.

Nick Williams led the Vikings with 19 and Durham had 10. However, Williams took 13 shots to get his 19 points, and Durham took 10 shots himself. Jason Gordon only had three FG attempts the entire game; for NPU to be successful, Gordon's the one who needs to be taking all of those shots, not Durham. North Park's freshman PG clearly had an uneven college debut tonight. Antonio Stevens added nine points, and Joe Capalbo and Jay Alexander had seven apiece. Alexander and Williams had five boards apiece to lead the Park, which was outrebounded, 32-23, by MSOE -- this is clearly an area that needs work. Scott Murphy, who is one of the best players in the NAthCon, led MSOE with 16 and 9.

The Park only shot 41% from the field, 28% from downtown. That's not going to get it done. Along with the terrible rebounding deficiency, it appears that NPU shot its way into the loss column tonight. But give credit to MSOE for playing a great game and pulling off the upset.

This is a very disappointing loss. There's no way around that. NPU has to regroup and come out strong on Saturday against Eureka, whom they now will have to face twice within a four-day span.

[Gregory Sager]

I think the jury is still out as to whether or not North Park's program has been rejuvenated.  It certainly is giving the appearances of moving in the correct direction.  But I think we all realize NPU needs to show it on the court as IWU needs to show improvement to overcome its current struggle.

North Park improved by nine games last year. When the 2006-07 D3 stats come online on the NCAA site, I'm sure that that nine-game improvement will either be tops in the division or close to it. That's a rejuvenation.

NPU also improved by three games in the CCIW, the biggest improvement within league play last season. Only four times in CCIW play, and five times all season, were the Vikings not in a position to win the game in the last minute of play.

The word "rejuvenation" is a valid description of North Park's 2006-07 season. As tonight's loss to MSOE demonstrated, however, the Vikings are still very much a work in progress and have a long way to go.

[iwu70]

Ypsi, thanks for the corrections.  Still a great start for both men and women.  Hope the guys can beat Albion and keep it going now.  The ladies are in for a great season, it would appear.  Not too surprizing given all the talent they have coming back.   Hope you got to see the Titans in person this time 'round.  They don't come over Michigan way all that often, do they?   Was the fan bus over there this weekend?

Hope all goes well for all CCIW teams in the pre-CCIW games.

[Gregory Sager]

Congratulations, Coach Harris!

I'll get a chance to personally congratulate him tomorrow, as I'm going to be out at Wheaton for the second night of the Pfund, but thanks to ThunderStones for pointing out this milestone achievement.

Tonight I was in the airplane hangar for North Central's debut against the mystery team from World Harvest Bible College. It wasn't the most scintillating display of basketball I've ever seen, although North Central did hold up its end in terms of competence. As I had figured, WHBC really wasn't anything more than a glorified intramural team, and NCC won a laugher, 81-52. It was actually even more lopsided than that; Todd Raridon put in his third string with five minutes left in the game and the Cards up, 81-41, and the youngsters were apparently seized with collective stagefright as they missed all six of their shots and turned the ball over three times. No harm done, though.

Raridon's starting five for both halves featured Josh Corso at center, Chris Drennan and Dominique King at forward, and Mitch Raridon and Dean Prince in the backcourt. Everyone who is likely to start for NCC this season, including Matt Rogers, Reid Barringer, and Jeremy Williams, suited up and got into the game within the first seven minutes. The first ten minutes or so featured some truly ugly opening-weekend basketball, as neither team broke into double figures until the game was 8 1/2 minutes old. WHBC couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, and NCC missed a ton of layups. Eventually the Cards settled down and the obvious discrepancies in talent and skill began to display themselves. NCC essentially did what it wanted, as the post players were awarded prime real estate down in the blocks on every possession and there were plenty of open looks to be had all over the court -- defense wasn't really the strong suit of the Warriors, either.

North Central was clearly raw and ragged, but the Cards also appear to play well together as a unit. As AO has said, that'll be the key to their entire season, as they're neither very big nor overwhelmingly talented. I predict that Matt Rogers, who scored 20 points in only 24 minutes of play, is not going to see his numbers diminish much even though he's transferred into a better league. His skills around the basket were clearly a step above everyone else's on the court tonight, and he'll definitely get his points even when the Cards face tougher comp. Drennan and Barringer had 14 apiece, and Williams added nine. NCC outrebounded the Warriors by a whopping 48-23 total.

I sat next to the wife of one of the World Harvest Bible College players, and she told me that the WHBC team is not only non-scholarship but non-recruited. The team was assembled via open tryouts this fall. What's more, basketball was put on hiatus for two years at WHBC, and the team was only brought back this year. Her husband was the only player who had previous college basketball experience. This went a long way towards explaining why the Warriors were not only not all that talented, but not all that adept at playing as a team. When the point guard calls "Motion!" but the team goes into the same variation of four-man stand-around that they otherwise display on offense, you know that you've got a bunch of largely-untrained guys. Their head coach is a female (the first one I've ever seen coach a men's team), and she used to be the head women's coach at Miami of Ohio. She spent most of the night shaking her head in disgust; my guess is that the good Reverend Parsley has left her with an extremely difficult task in terms of running that program.

Because of the way that the schedule works out, this will be the last chance I get to see NCC before January. It'll be interesting to see how much the Cards have progressed by then. Lindenwood, which is apparently a fairly good NAIA-2 team, will give North Central its first real test tomorrow night.

Not much of a student crowd tonight. The pep band, cheerleaders, dance team, and players combined outnumbered their peers in the stands. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the cool gesture that the Cards did after the game -- they crossed the court and applauded NCC's excellent pep band, who did a great version of "Stacy's Mom" and a really interesting minor-key variation of the National Anthem. Any pep band that can negotiate the acoustical nightmare of the airplane hangar gets a thumbs-up from me.

[iwu70]

Ypsi, the Pgraph piece on the Titan women had Wash U at #1 and DePauw at #2.   Or so they say.  I guess we're looking at different polls.  I see what you say on the D3hoops.com women's poll with Wash U at #5 and Depauw at #6.  Good tough competition to start with in any case.  Albion-IWU men's game should be a good one.  Looks like good things are going to happen to IWU basketball all 'round this season.

Congrats to IWU's Marcus Dunlop of the CCIW football co-champions on being named a Lincoln Laureate!