MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

He's certainly gotten bolder over the past few years in the things that he says for public dissemination, that's for sure.

[AndOne]

I see from tonight's Carthage box score that Joe Higgins had one assist and three turnovers. A poor ratio to say the least. There isn't much doubt his primary role is to be an assist man and get the ball to Carthage's plethora of good shooters. He certainly isn't in the lineup to score. As I recall, he did a good job of setting up the offense last season. If tonight's game is representative of how he has directed the offense so far this season, perhaps thats one reason for the up and down year the Red Men are having so far?

Often, if the point guard's assist totals are low, that tells me the shooters are having to create a lot of their own shots. This requires extra effort possibly resulting in more  fatigue that may have the shooters running on near empty tanks in the final minutes when the game is on the line. With Steve D, Bowens, and Fendley (when he finally gets his "basketball legs"), Carthage certainly has the firepower. Could a possible answer to their offensive woes be to try another PG that will more efficiently get the ball to both the outside shooters and, at least occasionally, inside to keep the perimeter defenders honest?   

[Gregory Sager]

CCIW to date
Overall record: 46-19 (.708)

...	vs. NAIA-1	2-1
...	vs. NAIA-2	4-1
...	vs. USCAA	0-1
...	vs. other	2-1
...	vs. D3	40-16 (.714)
		vs. D3 non-region	2-2
		vs. D3 region	38-14 (.731)
		... vs. HCAC	4-1
		... vs. IIAC	7-1
		... vs. MIAA	5-4
		... vs. MWC	3-1
		... vs. NAthC	4-2
		... vs. SLIAC	10-0
		... vs. WIAC	1-2
		... vs. UAA	2-2

[Gregory Sager]

I see from tonight's Carthage box score that Joe Higgins had one assist and three turnovers. A poor ratio to say the least. There isn't much doubt his primary role is to be an assist man and get the ball to Carthage's plethora of good shooters. He certainly isn't in the lineup to score. As I recall, he did a good job of setting up the offense last season. If tonight's game is representative of how he has directed the offense so far this season, perhaps thats one reason for the up and down year the Red Men are having so far?

Often, if the point guard's assist totals are low, that tells me the shooters are having to create a lot of their own shots. This requires extra effort possibly resulting in more  fatigue that may have the shooters running on near empty tanks in the final minutes when the game is on the line. With Steve D, Bowens, and Fendley (when he finally gets his "basketball legs"), Carthage certainly has the firepower. Could a possible answer to their offensive woes be to try another PG that will more efficiently get the ball to both the outside shooters and, at least occasionally, inside to keep the perimeter defenders honest?   

Not to defend Higgins, but a quarter of Carthage's shots have come from Steve Djurickovic, who at this stage of his career is almost entirely a slasher; only 22 of his 145 FGAs have been from beyond the arc, and he has almost exactly half of Carthage's FTAs (105 of 211). If your primary scorer gets his points almost exclusively from taking the ball to the hole off the dribble, your point guard isn't going to get many assists. Indeed, Djurickovic has more assists than does Higgins, which is understandable since Steve D.'s the one who's breaking down the defense and causing it to collapse upon him.

Together, Djurickovic and Trey Bowens have taken over half of Carthage's shots. While Bowens does like to shoot from downtown (76 of his 151 shots), he certainly isn't shy about driving to the basket, either. In the absence of a low-post game, the guys who should be loading up Higgins' assist totals are the pure shooters such as Vukosavljevic and Fendley ... and they just haven't gotten all that many attempts thus far this season.

I'd agree that Higgins should probably have more assists for the Red Men, especially since he never does anything with the ball but pass it ... but he's not exactly playing in a lineup that's conducive to collecting dimes.

[Gregory Sager]

Steve Djurickovic is putting together a prodigious season as a free-throw shooter. As I mentioned in my last post, he's been to the line 105 times already -- an average of 10.5 FTAs per game. His closest competitor in the CCIW, Kent Raymond, has been to the line 53 times -- an average of 6.6 FTAs per game. Djurickovic's made 83 of them (8.3 FTs per game), while Raymond, who is again second in this category, has made 47 of them (5.9 FTs per game).

The Carthage single-season FT record is 190 successful one-pointers, set back in 1966-67 by Jack Lutz. At his current pace, Djurickovic is going to rocket right past Lutz and finish with 208. That's as many as Drew Carstens ever made in a season for Augie (2001-02), and one fewer than Bryan Crabtree made in 1996-97 (but keep in mind that Crabtree played in 31 games that year). Djurickovic will launch 263 throws this season if his average attempts hold up, which would fall four FTAs shy of the Carthage record set by Bill Kadlecik in 1957-58. Obviously, Djurickovic's relatively high success rate from the line (he's currently knocking 'em down at 79%) enters into that.

However, even if he makes it to Carstens and Crabtree territory in terms of makes, he won't be close to the CCIW overall record. Scott Steagall of Millikin dropped in 260 from the charity stripe back in 1950-51, on 324 attempts. Those are amazing numbers -- but consider the fact that the Big Blue played 31 games that season. When you average it out, Steagall made 8.39 FTs per game and averaged 10.45 FTAs per game ... numbers virtually identical to Djurickovic's to date.

The really impressive thing, of course, is that Djurickovic is only a freshman.

[Titan Q]

Here is the Pantagraph article on the IWU/Hanover game...

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/12/19/sports/doc4768b1840d8ff530907351.txt

The Titans trailed by 1 at halftime, 39-38.  Hanover opened up a 54-50 lead with 13:51 when IWU got a big 3 minute stretch out of 6-7 freshman Doug Sexauer.  Sexauer scored four consecutive baskets - 3 back-to-the-basket, low-post moves and an 18-foot jumpshot.  That flurry kept IWU in the game with 10:00 to play.

Hanover led 65-64 with 7:07 to go, but the Titans went on a 12-1 run to take control of the game.  Darius Gant led the 4-minute run, scoring 8 points, grabbing 3 rebounds, and getting a big steal.  Sexauer added 2 more big baskets as well.  Up  76-66 with 2:57 to play, the Titans closed it out.

I thought it was important for the Titans to leave the gym last night 5-4 instead of 4-5.  They played very well down the stretch and got a pretty nice W.

The Titans still have a lot areas to improve in if they want to make a push for that last CCIW conference tournament spot, the biggest being perimeter defense.  Hanover was 14-31 from beyond the arc last night, after Chicago went 11-27 Saturday.  On the season, IWU opponents are .408 from 3-pt range, which is just awful.

On the bright side, IWU's offense has been pretty good so far.  The Titans are .485 from the field in '07-08, led by the low-post players: Darius Gant 45-76 (.592), Brett Chamernik 41-59 (.695), and Doug Sexauer 36-70 (.514).  The perimeter players have been a little inconsistent, but I think will keep getting better as the season goes on.

The Titans are now off until their trip to the L.A. area for two Division III games - at Occidental (4-1) 12/29 and at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (5-3) 12/31.

http://www.oxyathletics.com/sports/mbkb/index

http://www.cmsathletics.org/sports/winter/mbkb/index

[titanfan]

Q,

What's going on with attendance this season?  It looks like the ONU game had a typical Non-conference crowd (1550), but the last 3 have been 850, 650, and 600.  I realize the Dominican game was Thanksgiving weekend, but how about the most recent two.  Has the Shirk Center just been empty?

[Titan Q]

Q,

What's going on with attendance this season?  It looks like the ONU game had a typical Non-conference crowd (1550), but the last 3 have been 850, 650, and 600.  I realize the Dominican game was Thanksgiving weekend, but how about the most recent two.  Has the Shirk Center just been empty?

The first factor in the thin non-conference crowds is just simply bad dates.  Dominican was Thanksgiving weekend (no students and plenty of other stuff going on - heck, I wasn't even there), Webster was rescheduled from a Saturday evening to a Sunday afternoon due to weather, and then last night's game was obviously while the students are on break, and a week before Christmas to boot.  Last year for the Albion game over Christmas break, there were 800.  The Sunday game vs North Park drew 750.

The second is that this is a rebuilding team.  The hard-core Titan fans are all still there, in their usual seats of course, but you don't get the "casual" B-N/IWU fan that comes out to see a Top 25 team.  There are a lot of years where a game like last night's, even with the date, would draw a big crowd -- when IWU and Hanover were both Top 10 teams, for example.  A ton of basketball fans from the community, with no ties to IWU, will come out for a game like that.  Last night a 4-4 team played an unranked Hanover team.  As this group starts to create an identity and succeed, those casual fans will be back.  The regulars will be there through all of the ups and downs.

So, a combination of the two, but these dates have certainly been bad.  As you point out, there was a usual Shirk Center non-conference crowd there for ONU (1550).  The crowds are extremely predictable - I can come within about 100 of guessing the attendance the day before the game just based on the date.  The Titans need to get back to hosting a home tournament early and playing as many games as possible while the students are on campus.  IWU has a huge advantage in the Shirk Center and the Titan fanbase, but the last couple years the schedule sure hasn't made the most of the homecourt (4 home non-conference games last year and just 4 again this year, with 2 being over breaks...the Webster reschedule was just a bad break.)

I think we'll see a nice crowd come January 9 when CCIW action starts and the students are back on campus.  The Titans averaged 1983 per game in the 6 CCIW home games last year, excluding the Sunday game vs North Park while the Bears were playing the NFC championship game.

[Mugsy]

The Red Men are really only an enigma when you look at their opponents first, Chuck. That's an easy thing to do, and it's very tempting, but I think that it's time that we started looking at the Red Men first. And when you do that, the picture becomes much clearer, because Carthage is clearly following a straight line in terms of the way the last couple of weeks have gone for Bosko & Co. OK, so that straight line is almost vertical, but it's nevertheless a straight line from the horrific 18-point loss to TIU to the bizarre but relatively narrow loss to EWU to the nailbiting home win over Oli Naz to tonight's long-distance road win over a ranked Trinity (TX) team that felled the Tigers from the unbeaten ranks.

In light of Carthage's 10-point loss to a rather undistinguished Southwestern team (whose 3-3 record going in included a loss to 2-6 Swarthmore ), is there anything you wish to recant from last night?

The Carthage Enigmas, I say!

I may resort to going "oppo" to whatever my first thought is on Carthage games in the Pick-Em's since the result seems to go opposite of the prevailing view.

[sac]

Here's the link to todays Hope/Elmhurst livestats, broadcast at miaa.org

http://www.hope.edu/pr/athletics/livestats/

[augiefan]

Augie in good year is fortunate to have the fan support IWU gets in a transition year. The lack of community and student support for good Augie teams is very disappointing.

[OurHouse]

Here is the Pantagraph article on the IWU/Hanover game...

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/12/19/sports/doc4768b1840d8ff530907351.txt

The Titans trailed by 1 at halftime, 39-38.  Hanover opened up a 54-50 lead with 13:51 when IWU got a big 3 minute stretch out of 6-7 freshman Doug Sexauer.  Sexauer scored four consecutive baskets - 3 back-to-the-basket, low-post moves and an 18-foot jumpshot.  That flurry kept IWU in the game with 10:00 to play.

Hanover led 65-64 with 7:07 to go, but the Titans went on a 12-1 run to take control of the game.  Darius Gant led the 4-minute run, scoring 8 points, grabbing 3 rebounds, and getting a big steal.  Sexauer added 2 more big baskets as well.  Up  76-66 with 2:57 to play, the Titans closed it out.

I thought it was important for the Titans to leave the gym last night 5-4 instead of 4-5.  They played very well down the stretch and got a pretty nice W.

The Titans still have a lot areas to improve in if they want to make a push for that last CCIW conference tournament spot, the biggest being perimeter defense.  Hanover was 14-31 from beyond the arc last night, after Chicago went 11-27 Saturday.  On the season, IWU opponents are .408 from 3-pt range, which is just awful.

On the bright side, IWU's offense has been pretty good so far.  The Titans are .485 from the field in '07-08, led by the low-post players: Darius Gant 45-76 (.592), Brett Chamernik 41-59 (.695), and Doug Sexauer 36-70 (.514).  The perimeter players have been a little inconsistent, but I think will keep getting better as the season goes on.

The Titans are now off until their trip to the L.A. area for two Division III games - at Occidental (4-1) 12/29 and at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (5-3) 12/31.

http://www.oxyathletics.com/sports/mbkb/index

http://www.cmsathletics.org/sports/winter/mbkb/index

Titan:

I do agree with you that in order to make a serious run this year in the CCIW, the Titan perimeter will need to get stronger both on offense and defense - I have been at all 9 games this year and they seem to fall off the intensity level after 1/2 of a 1/2....

In order to be a contender, they have to give 200%, 100% of the time - nothing less!

jmho~

[Titan Q]

Final from Orlando:

#21 Elmhurst 74
#8 Hope 71

Ryan Burks makes 3 FT's with no time on the clock for the win - must have been a controversial foul call at the buzzer.  A really nice win for the Bluejays (and the CCIW).

* Brent Ruch: 16 pts (6-9 FG), 9 reb

* Ryan Burks: 15 pts, 5 reb

* Freshman PG Jimmy Saris had 10 big points for the Bluejays...I think almost all in the 2nd half.

* There were 48 combined turnovers, including about 6 or 7 in the final couple of minutes.

[petemcb]

A few other tidbits:  Ryder and Hintzsche with 9 pts. each to help carry the scoring load, 15 assists from 7 different players, and a 16 point Hope lead at 7:36 of the 1st half. 

Elmhurst fans, what is the deal with Strzemp?  Is he healthy yet, or not?  It looks like he didn't play a lot.  People were thinking this might be the year he stepped forward and contributed like we all were guessing a couple of years ago.

[d3allstar]

"Trinity is going to win 20 or 21 games," said Carthage coach Bosko Djurikovic. "They don't play in a league that's as good as the CCIW, so when we make a trip like this, we expect to succeed. Half a loaf isn't good enough. We have a chance to finish this trip 2-0, and that's what we want."

Tough loss to a buc team from an "inferior" conference... c'mon coach, let's not be dumb.