MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[LU_nut]

Thanks Point Special.  I think I started this mess.  I continue to believe that the WIAC is slightly better than the CCIW year in and out.  I do actually get to see teams from both conferences each year.   I respect both conferences as having the best big guys in the country.   I also think that Point is going to be great this year.  I do not think I have underestimated the loss of Krull.....I saw him play in person 4 years in a row including the unbelievable OT win against LU his freshman year.  They had good depth last year and are gonig to surprise Old School by dominating this year.   

I have stated before that the best team I hae seen in the last 5 years is the SP back to back champs.  The second best team is the IWU team two years ago.   They either were weak mentally or poorly coached......no way they lose as many games as they did and not win when they got to the final four.  I am a huge Freeman fan.  Not sure if their guards were as good as advertised including their all american point guard(by reputation).   If they played evey game close to potential, they do not lose.  Either poor coaching or something else.  That is not a bash on the team.  On the contrary, I think the team was as good as any team I have seen other then SP back to back champs.

[almcguirejr]

Final:

Hope 83
Wheaton 53

Bill Harris on WETN postgame show...

"Hope absolutely plastered us."

"They trapped Raymond every time and played very physically...they knocked him to the floor 8-10 times."

"We just played poorly, let's face it."

"We were out-physicalled."

"We couldn't even make layups."

Raymond never recognized any of the traps and dribbled into them numerous times. He had 12 turnovers tonight.

Hope was very physical tonight.  They are very effective at using their forearm on defense instead of the hand check to control the ofensive player.  The refs did not call this all night despite Coach Harris talking to them about it many times.

[Gregory Sager]

Since we are obviously going to be hearing about Brent Ruch a great deal, I have a basic question.  Over the years I taught 3 students named Ruch, and they had 3 different pronunciations: Ruck, Rook, and Rush!  How does Brent prefer his surname?

The Elmhurst P.A. announcer says "Ruck", so that's what I go by.

[Gregory Sager]

Hope 83, Wheaton 53
http://www.calvin.edu/sports/mbasket/stats/2007_08/cciw1.htm

Kent Raymond, 23 pts, 12 TOs

No other Wheaton player scored more than six points (Ben Panner). Phill Denham led the team with seven boards. Wheaton turned the ball over 33 times, went 1-10 from downtown, and trailed by as many as 41 points before Glenn Van Wieren called off the dogs and started bringing in the end of his bench with about ten minutes left. The one bright spot in a very dim evening for Wheaton was that Andrew Jahns made his debut for the blue and orange tonight. In fact, he's the one who hit Wheaton's lone trey.

The one thing that's on every Wheatie's mind right now, of course, isn't the loss itself ... it's the health status of Andy Wiele. Ben Panner and Jacob Carwell are both important pieces to the Wheaton puzzle, but Wiele and Raymond are the two absolutely indispensable men on that Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance squad.

Calvin 75, Carthage 63
http://calvin.edu/sports/mbasket/stats/2007_08/cciw2.htm

Trey Bowens, 26 pts
Steve Djurickovic, 14 pts
Bill Shemerdiak, 8 rebs

As I expected, Calvin was just too big for Carthage to handle. The Knights outrebounded the Red Men, 43-35, and Carthage only got 11 points out of all of its forwards combined. In fact, 40 of the 63 points scored by the Red Men came from two players, Bowens and Djurickovic. As K-Mark indicated, the Red Men need to diversify their scoring a bit.

While Calvin led wire-to-wire, the Red Men did come within a point on a couple of occasions, the later one coming with 12:33 left in the game on a Steve Djurickovic jumper that made the game 46-45. From that point onward, though, it was all Knights. The hosts reeled off a 27-8 run over the next ten minutes, and it took a singlehanded eight-point flurry by Bowens in the final minute of the game to bring the margin down to a respectable 12 points.

As with Wheaton, the bright spot for the Red Men was the first appearance of the season of a heretofore-injured key player. Sean Fendley got into the game this evening, and while he was only on the floor for a single minute this has to be seen as an encouraging development for Carthage -- especially since they obviously need a shooter like Fendley to take some of the pressure off of Bowens and Djurickovic.

[Titan Q]

Steve Djurickovic sure gets to the FT line a ton for a freshman.  He was 8-8 tonight and is now 37-45 on the season.  He is averaging 11 free throw attempts per game...that is really something.  To put that in perspective, last season Kent Raymond averaged 8 FTA per game...Drew Carstens averaged 6 per game as a senior at Augie in 2003-04...Chris Martin 7 per game as a senior at EC...Bryan Crabtree 8 per game as a senior at IWU in 1996-97 (just to pick a few guys I can think of who got to the line a bunch). 

6-3/170 Djurickovic did not attempt a 3-pointer tonight and has yet to make one for Carthage...he is 0-6 on the young season.  I'm interested to see him play.  From looking at stats, it seems like he's a tough, slasher type player...kind of a Drew Carstens without the 3-point range right now.  We don't see this type of player all that often in the league...seems like most of our G/F players ("wings") are 3-point shooters first, penetrators second (Amelianovich, Burks, etc.).  And the ones who are slashers tend to be a lot bigger -- like Chris Martin (6-6) or Tyler Nading (6-7) at Wash U.  Sounds like Carthage has a great 4-year player in young Mr. Djurickovic.

[Gregory Sager]

He's also an effective passer for someone just getting his feet wet on the collegiate level; 15 assists in his first four games in a Red Men uni is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, he's only turned the ball over ten times in those four games. You'd expect a slasher at this stage in his career to be turning the ball over a lot more than that.

[AndOne]

Man, I really jinxed poor wiele. Last post ever for me!

I'll take some of that action, Usee. Whatever the odds!   

[Mr. Ypsi]

Since we are obviously going to be hearing about Brent Ruch a great deal, I have a basic question.  Over the years I taught 3 students named Ruch, and they had 3 different pronunciations: Ruck, Rook, and Rush!  How does Brent prefer his surname?

The Elmhurst P.A. announcer says "Ruck", so that's what I go by.

Thanks, Greg.  I took great pride in figuring out names (many students with vowel-impaired eastern European names or east Asian names said I was the first instructor to ever get their name right, though they may have been sucking up ), but the short ones were often the worst.  I had many students named Koch over the years, and to this day the former NYC mayor is the only 'Kotch' I've encountered (nearly 50-50 between Coke and Cook, with one poor girl whose family insisted on 'Kock' - no word on her eventual career choice!).

I was hoping for belated redemption with 'Roosh' (my mis-guess for all 3 students), but 'Ruck' it is.

[Titan Q]

I have stated before that the best team I hae seen in the last 5 years is the SP back to back champs.  The second best team is the IWU team two years ago.   They either were weak mentally or poorly coached......no way they lose as many games as they did and not win when they got to the final four.  I am a huge Freeman fan.  Not sure if their guards were as good as advertised including their all american point guard(by reputation). 

Adam Dauksas had an awfully good career, Nut. 

* He left as the all-time leader in assists at Illinois Wesleyan (589) -- a school with a great basketball tradition and a ton of outstanding point-guards.

* He was named the CCIW's Most Outstanding Player in 2004-05 and made the 1st Team All-CCIW twice.

* As a senior he averaged 13.6 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 6.4 apg, shot .408 from 3 (73-179), and had an A:TO ratio of 2.5:1.

* In the 2nd round of the tournament in 2005-06 at UW-Whitewater, a very tough/hostile venue vs the WIAC champ, he had 31 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2006/ncaa02.htm

* In the game to send IWU to Salem, the win vs Puget Sound - a team that harrasses the ball up and down the floor, Adam had 26 points, 6 rebounds, 13 assists, and 3 turnovers...including the 3-pointer to push the lead back to 4 with 3:00 left when it got down to 1.

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2006/ncaa4.htm

With some of those highlights here:
http://europa.iwu.edu:8080/ramgen/news/IWU_on_ESPN.rm



Adam Dauksas played with as much emotion as any IWU player I've ever seen.  With that type of player comes some ups and some downs - he wore his heart on his sleave.  Adam Dauksas got IWU to Salem, and he'll be the first to tell you he didn't play that well when he got there.  Regardless, he's one of the top 2-3 Division III point-guard (all aspects of that role considered) I've seen...he was a special player.

[sac]

What has happened here? Could this be the same Andy Wiele?

I hardly recognized him, the young man has certainly put his time in the weight room.

6-3/170 Djurickovic ........  I'm interested to see him play.  From looking at stats, it seems like he's a tough, slasher type player....

Exactly right, and they tried to post him up some,... pretty quick, but he's no where near 170lbs, maybe carrying 20lbs of potatoes.   I think he took Carthage's first 3 shots.  He's not shy.

[Gregory Sager]

Are all of Saturday's games still greenlighted? I've been hearing all sorts of nasty stories about what we can expect from the weather tomorrow. I spoke with Jay Alexander at tonight's NPU women's game, and as of this evening the Vikings are still planning to travel to Iowa tomorrow for their game against Loras.

If at all possible, let's get the yea or nay posted here as to whether each of Saturday's games are still supposed to be played. I'd hate to have people travel to a gym only to find out when they get there that the game has been postponed or canceled.

[Gregory Sager]

6-3/170 Djurickovic ........  I'm interested to see him play.  From looking at stats, it seems like he's a tough, slasher type player....

Exactly right, and they tried to post him up some,... pretty quick, but he's no where near 170lbs, maybe carrying 20lbs of potatoes.

... or 20 lbs. of pljescavica, gibanica, and proja.

[Titan Q]

He doesn't have the numbers that Andy Wiele does this year, but here is a nice story on IWU starting center Brett Chamernik...

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/11/30/sports/doc4750c01f8986b251561621.txt

The photo with it from the Olivet Nazarene game shows just how much work he put in the weight room this off-season too. 

Brett is very undersized for a CCIW Center at 6-5, but he is a strong kid (230 lbs, and not an ounce of fat on him), and he's off to a nice start (10.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 14-20 FG, .700 - 18 min/game).  He's worked very hard to help the Titans this year.

[Titan Q]

Are all of Saturday's games still greenlighted? I've been hearing all sorts of nasty stories about what we can expect from the weather tomorrow. I spoke with Jay Alexander at tonight's NPU women's game, and as of this evening the Vikings are still planning to travel to Iowa tomorrow for their game against Loras.

If at all possible, let's get the yea or nay posted here as to whether each of Saturday's games are still supposed to be played. I'd hate to have people travel to a gym only to find out when they get there that the game has been postponed or canceled.

As far as I know, freezing rain/snow and Gorlocks are still forecasted to head up I-55 tomorrow.

[AndOne]

He doesn't have the numbers that Andy Wiele does this year, but here is a nice story on IWU starting center Brett Chamernik...

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/11/30/sports/doc4750c01f8986b251561621.txt

The photo with it from the Olivet Nazarene game shows just how much work he put in the weight room this off-season too. 

Brett is very undersized for a CCIW Center at 6-5, but he is a strong kid (230 lbs, and not an ounce of fat on him), and he's off to a nice start (10.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 14-20 FG, .700 - 18 min/game).  He's worked very hard to help the Titans this year.

Q---

When I saw Chamernik this summer I couldn't believe it. I had to ask Lawson and Schouten who the hell the other "new kid" was.