MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

It was a night for the CCIW to eat humble pie, and it was almost much, much worse.  Wheaton let a Chicago team that was missing its best player, 6'5 senior forward Nate Hainje (on the bench in street clothes with a twisted knee), creep back from a 19-point deficit with twelve minutes left and almost steal the game at King Arena.

Wheaton wasn't really at full strength, either, as Kent Raymond is currently battling stomach flu and didn't look like his usual self this evening. He did score 17 points and had five assists (he should've had at least three more, but his teammates couldn't always finish their open looks at the basket). Matt Corning, who played a very solid game for the Maroons (19 pts, 6 rebs), really made Raymond work at the defensive end and further drained the Wheaton star's energy.

Wheaton led wire-to-wire, and the two big reasons why the hosts were able to run out to a 16-point halftime bulge were Andy Wiele and Ben Panner. The latter scored 12 of his 17 points in the first half, including a buzzer-beating trey, and Wiele scored 12 of Wheaton's 14 points during a stretch late in the half in which the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance opened up the lead from six to thirteen points. Wiele looked unstoppable in the low post. The only reason why Chicago was even within shouting distance was because of Wheaton's persistent inability to get back in transition.

The second half was more of the same for the first eight minutes plus, as Wheaton built the lead to as much as 20 (49-29 at 18:22) and to 19 after a Wiele layup at the 12:12 mark (60-41). It was then that the wheels came off for Wheaton. Maroons PG Jake Pancratz took his game to a level I hadn't ever seen him attain before; he was clearly the best player on the floor down the stretch. He pushed the ball up the floor, made big shots, and threaded the needle with a grab-bag of great passes. As Chicago started knocking down treys, the Wheaton defense extended and became vulnerable to cuts; the Maroons ran a back-door clinic in that last eleven minutes or so. At the other end of the floor, the chronic inability of anyone besides Raymond, Panner, Wiele, and Jacob Carwell to score -- and the much stiffer deny-the-spot defense that Chicago applied to Wiele in the low post -- kept Wheaton from answering the Maroons' run.

I really think that Chicago would've won the game if it had started that comeback a minute or so earlier; as it was, the Maroons lost a valuable 41 seconds when Jake Pancratz blew an uncontested layup at 2:13 with the score at 73-69, and had to wait until an Adam Machones layup at the 1:38 mark to cut the lead to two. Chicago did get the final possession with :23 left, but a loose ball rolled to the other end and forced the Maroons to call a timeout with :07.7 left on the clock and the ball 65 feet from the basket. Since Wheaton had two fouls to give, Panner held Pancratz twice as he tried to move the ball into the frontcourt, eating up almost all of the time left on the clock. The final Maroons inbound came with only :01.1 left, time enough only for a desperation Corning trey attempt from the corner that caught the inside angle of the rim.

Wheaton comes away from the game with a victory; Chicago comes away knowing that it can compete with a good team in a hostile gym even without the services of Nate Hainje. I guess that that's a win-win of a sort.

[Gregory Sager]

Only 4 Wheaton players scored, and the Thunder had zero points off the bench...80% of Wheaton's 55 field goal attempts came from 3 players (Wiele 18, Panner 14, Raymond 12).

That's a legitimate point, and it should also be noted that Wiele, Panner, and Raymond have attempted over 73% of Wheaton's shots on the season as well -- in spite of the fact that one of Wheaton's four games was a 39-point blowout win over Kalamazoo in which Bill Harris emptied his bench with ten minutes left in the game. Aside from that trio and Jacob Carwell -- who actually shot more tonight than he has since he joined the team -- the other four Wheaton players only attempted four shots between them.

Wheaton could use Andrew Jahns right about now (he did play in tonight's JV prelim against Olive-Harvey). Without a little more balance on offense, the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance might find itself in a situation similar to the one K-Mark described for Carthage in which players who aren't really contributing on offense aren't being closely guarded. One of the reasons why Wiele was less effective down the stretch in tonight's game than he'd been for the first thirty minutes was because Chicago was able to send a second man in on him with impunity.

[cardinalpride]

Here's a boxscore from the NCC/Greenville game tonight.  Seems the pesky panthers gave the cardinals a game for most of the night.

http://www.northcentralcollege.edu/x32046.xml

http://www.northcentralcollege.edu/athletics/stats/basketball_m/07-08/nccm-gc.htm

[Gregory Sager]

Here's a boxscore from the NCC/Greenville game tonight.  Seems the pesky panthers gave the cardinals a game for most of the night.

http://www.northcentralcollege.edu/x32046.xml

http://www.northcentralcollege.edu/athletics/stats/basketball_m/07-08/nccm-gc.htm

I was just about to post something about that game, CP. I was quite surprised at how well lightly-regarded Greenville (0-3) played tonight in the airplane hangar. The Panthers were up by as many as six points with 11:15 left in the game (55-49), and were in a 62-62 tie with NCC with as little as five and a half minutes to go before the Cards turned on the afterburners and finished the game with a 22-3 run that featured a 12-12 performance from the line.

Looks like a breakout night for Jeremy Williams. His 27 points matched what he had totaled in NCC's first four games combined.

[cardinalpride]

Looks like a breakout night for Jeremy Williams. His 27 points matched what he had totaled in NCC's first four games combined.

Hopefully Jeremy is getting comfortable and finding scoring opportunities in the Cardinal offense.  Its very encouraging to see the improved FT shooting.  The last time the cardinals shot 87.5% with 30 or more FT attempts was........Never.

[AndOne]

North Central seemed to approach tonight's game with Greenville in a somewhat lackadaisical manner. It was as if the Cards seemed to think all they had to do was take the court, and the game would be over by halftime. One of the main problems was once the game did begin, it quickly became apparent the Cards had left the defensive portion of their game in the locker room. This was coupled with several lazy passes out on the perimeter, the combination of which allowed Greenville to hang around and trail by only 5 at halftime.

The 1st half of the 2nd stanza saw more of the same, and with 11:32 left in the game, the Panthers were up by four. Following a turnover and another missed shot, Mount Raridon finally erupted with 11:15 left in the contest. While his displeasure was directed primarily at his team, one of the officials also caught a portion of the coach's wrath. He promptly T'd Coach R up, and looked to be on the brink of hitting him with a 2nd T. With the 2 free throws, NC trailed by 6 at 55-49. However, at that point, it appeared the light went on for the Cards, and they finally began playing with an increased sense of urgency and stepped up the intensity and pressure at both ends of the floor, finally drawing to within one with 6:19 left. It was at this point that Jeremy Williams seized the moment and basically put the Cards on his back leading a furious comeback that left the Panthers wondering what hit them.
In short order, Williams hit a 3 pointer, stole a pass and drove the length of the court to lay it in and draw the foul which he converted, and worked inside to lay in another deuce. When the dust had cleared, the scoreboard showed that in the last  11:15 the Cards outscored the Panthers 35-10.

Individually, it was a breakout game for Jeremy Willians as GS indicated. His 27 points were scored in 29 minutes of action, and included 9 of 10 from the field and 8 for 8 perfection from the line. Jeremy also pulled down 8 boards.

Chris Drennan hit mainly from close inside to rack up a nice 20 point outing. He hit 7 of 9 from the field and 6 of 8 from the line. His average now stands at 18.8. He also grabbed a team high 9 rebounds.

Matt Rogers was "held" to 16, his lowest total of the year, and saw his average drop to 22.8.

Dean Prince continued his floor generalship with a sterling 9 assist game while committing only 2 turnovers. 

[Titan Q]

I agree. Nobody who wasn't at the game should cast any judgments as to whether or not the charge call against Wessels was "lousy". The fact that none of the Augie people are complaining about the call is telling. I would imagine that Dan was on the UWL @ Augie broadcast team, so I'm interested in reading what he has to say about the call.

In the archived broadcast, that play starts at 1:34:30 on the player.  No beefs from the broadcast team on the call and Dan said that Wessels gave a look like, "Oh...I got caught."

http://www.audiosportsonline.net/Augustana/Basketball.htm

[cubs]

I'm surprised how Elmhurst defended Oshkosh's inbounds play with 4 seconds left.  The inbounds is just to the left of the basket and NO ONE is defending the player throwing the ball in.  I've always been in the school of thought that you don't want that player to have a "free look" throwing it in...and then when that player is Oshkosh's BEST PLAYER (D.J. Marsh), it was pretty obvious that he was going to get the ball back.  Sure, it's easy to say in hindsight, but I almost said to the guy next to me that Marsh was going to get the ball back.  Sure enough, he throws the ball in, gets a screen, steps out near the 3-point line and drills a baseline jumper for the win.  If Marsh isn't throwing it in, there might be a possibility that you may want to double him, but to leave him open on the inbounds pass...

OS-
I did make that comment to the guy next to me!!!!

However, the guy that was guarding DJ, had to drop to the basket to stop the cutter (J. Johnson) otherwise he would have gotten an easy lay-up attempt.  This in turn caused him to be "late" on getting out to Marsh.  The play was actually designed for Seckar-Anderson to get the 5-6 ft bank shot, however he passed up the shot and passed to Marsh for the game-winner.

[Jim Matson]

Being held to account by Bob, Greg and AO makes me look bad.  But I still think it sure sounds strange to hear a charging call on a 3 point shot - especially a successful one.  Nonetheless, I'll swallow MY whistle and give the ref credit on the call...and I'm no Augie fan.

[cardinalfanrochelle]

 After watching the NCC game last night all I can say is one player was on fire   and that was Jeremy Williams, he did it all last night ,awesome shots,perfect from the line, good "D", nice drives to the hoop and to top it off with a steal, ran the floor with it and chalk up 2 with a foul = 3 pts on the board 8) 8) 8) . The Cardinals had three players perfect from the stripe : last night, good shooting guys. Good win, now focus on Forresters..........

[dansand]

I agree. Nobody who wasn't at the game should cast any judgments as to whether or not the charge call against Wessels was "lousy". The fact that none of the Augie people are complaining about the call is telling. I would imagine that Dan was on the UWL @ Augie broadcast team, so I'm interested in reading what he has to say about the call.

In the archived broadcast, that play starts at 1:34:30 on the player.  No beefs from the broadcast team on the call and Dan said that Wessels gave a look like, "Oh...I got caught."

http://www.audiosportsonline.net/Augustana/Basketball.htm

Yeah, although disappointed, I can't complain too much on the Wessels call. It wasn't a charge. They called him for a little bit of a clear out before he put the shot up. It certainly wasn't anything blatant, it looked like just a subtle little nudge, but just enough to give him an advantage, which I'm sure is the criteria to make the call. If they don't call it, you'd say it was a great play by a crafty veteran. It was a great shot regardless.

Give LaCrosse a lot of credit, they controlled the tempo for the most part and Augie had very few transition opportunities. The Vikings have really excelled in the transition game early this year. LaCrosse, who came in averaging fewer than 10 turnovers per game, did turn it over 15 times, but most were travels, illegal screens, etc.--the type of turnovers that don't lead to transition opportunities. Augie also dominated the boards, but couldn't generate many fast break chances that way either.

While Augie didn't shoot it very well (42%) the bigger disappointment, I think, was on the defensive end. The Eagles came in shooting just 39% overall and 29% from behind the arc, but were 57% from the field and 10-20 from three-point range in this one. Tony Mane and TJ Nereng carried the UWL offense. Mane, in particular, hit some tough shots against pretty good defense, but we saw more breakdowns defensively from Augie than we did down in Missouri, which led to some easy back doors and wide open three's. Bottom line is, if the Vikings had played defense the way they did down in Missouri it never would have come down to that final play.

Attempting to glean some positives from this one, I'd have to point to Dan Rukavina, who played his best game this year and contributed some really important points and rebounds, especially on the offensive end. Matt Pelton looked for his own offense a little more tonight also, which was good to see. He also had 0 turnovers for the second game in a row.

[79jaybird]

Was listening all night to the Elm/UWO game.  Two evenly matched teams and overall a good game.  What got Elmhurst in trouble and completely changed the gameplan were FOULS!  In both halves Elmhurst got into foul trouble early, which made life much easier for the Titans. 
Elmhurst did have their opportunities at the end of the game to pull away from UW-O, but DJ Marsh came up big at the end.
Ruch scored 29 points and was unstoppable, but he was the only one really driving inside the paint.  Burks was kept relatively quiet.
The positive- Elmhurst limited their turnovers and had a golden chance to steal a victory from a 4-0 Titan team that IMO, should be in the Top 25.
The thing to work on- the fouls. 2 of them were on 3-point attempts which gave the Titans 6 FT's which they hit 89% of in the game.

[fcnews]

Does anyone know where I might view a box score from the NCC v. GC game last night? I've tried the NCC, CCIW and SLIAC websites. Any help would be appreciated.

[Sakman 1111]

Points from foul shots 12 to 32 with huge advantage to OskKosh. Elmhurst actually had 10 or so more field goals. Hard to even keep a game colse with those stats. Monster game for Ruchs with solid contributions from the guards and Strzemp. All in all a solid game against a good opponent even with the loss.....Now beat Alma at home Saturday.....

[REDMENFAN]

Here's the link to the Carthage article in today's paper.  Congrats Carthage, and the rest of the CCIW teams that got a W lastnight.

http://kenoshanews.com/article_comments/view_comments.php?articleNum=2165478