MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

"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.

I look forward to each new Carthage press release to get Bosko's latest.  Between the season preview, player profiles, and press release quotes, he's on a roll this year.

While on the Carthage site yesterday, I learned that "...there are no better shooters in our conference..." than Sean Fendley.

http://www.carthage.edu/athletics/mens/basketball/profiles/

http://www.carthage.edu/athleticspages/mens/basketball/release.html

Man, if Norm Eash said this kind of stuff, the football board would be up for grabs for a week or so.

[Titan Q]

Some nice comments about IWU's youngsters by Sean Wallis...

WU Hoops Update: We've had three good wins against Illinois Wesleyan, Fontbonne and Coe College since my last post putting us at 8-2 going into the holidays. We're definitely happy with the wins, but I think we're still searching a little as a team for how we're going to be successful against top competition. Illinois Wesleyan is going to be really, really, scary good sometime in the future. I think Coach Rose did a great job and brought in a ton of young talent and when that group of freshmen mature—look out CCIW.

http://www.d3hoops.com/dailydose/2007/12/19/insider-thoughts-and-more-thoughts

I hope he's right!

[AndOne]

As expected, North Central takes out its frustration over its OT loss to Cal Lutheran on Monday by drubbing Caltech 100-62 in California.

No box available yet.

[Titan Q]

As expected, North Central takes out its frustration over its OT loss to Cal Lutheran on Monday by drubbing Caltech 100-62 in California.

No box available yet.

Here is a nice piece ESPN did on Caltech last year, after they broke their 207 game D3 losing streak on Jan. 6 vs Bard...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDBXctFlWTA

There is now a documentary on Caltech basketball called Quantum Hoops, which I've heard is very good...

http://www.athletics.caltech.edu/sports/mbb/mbb.html

[David Collinge]

There is now a documentary on Caltech basketball called Quantum Hoops, which I've heard is very good

Quantum Hoops is great. It's charming, light-hearted and a must-see for all fans of D-III sports.

Enjoy your trip to California for IWU's games against Oxy and Claremont.

OxyBob

Maybe it'll still be playing in Pasadena when Q is in the area?

http://www.quantumhoops.com/

[cardinalfanrochelle]

 
  Charming has nothing on posting a box score from a game.

  Come on DUDES, you attend a tech school put up some numbers on the tech equipment 



                     

[Pat Coleman]

Charming has nothing on posting a box score from a game.

Come on DUDES, you attend a tech school put up some numbers on the tech equipment

That's part of Caltech's charm. Also, don't expect CIT to update their results anytime soon; the last score posted on their web site is from Nov. 17 -- 6 games ago.

OxyBob

Seems up to date to me:
http://www.gocaltech.com/sports/mbkb/2007-08/schedule

[MilkMan25]

Great win for the Jays!!!  Looks like they could be finding some consistent guard play!   Im thinking having Saris and Childs split the time at pg may be good for Childs to take a little bit of pressure off of him and motivate him as well.  He seemed to really respond yesterday leading the Jays with 19! It seems like Ryder and Bainter are beginning to perform like they can.   

As far as I know Strzemp is fine.  Its just that he took a year off to heal and now has 3 big guys in front of him taking up the time at the 4 and 5 spot.   He has as much talent as anyone but just has to overcome that time off.

I have to say that I HATE d3 rankings.  They mean nothing!  People put to much stock into them.  Not to take anything away from the Jays because they are who I root for, and same for #9 Hope because they are a great program, but who really besides for myself would have guessed that Elmhurst could take out Hope???

[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?

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.

Thanks, Q.  I'm certainly not questioning the Titan fans. 

Being in Chicago, I haven't had a chance to get down to B-Town, so I was just curious.  And I agree, as far as D3 standards go, we're still very lucky with the support we get.  I was just hoping there was a good explanation, and that the general enthusiasm for Titan Basketball was still there.

It sounds like it is, and as this team continues to mature, we'll see the same great Titan support we've always seen.


Chris

[Gregory Sager]

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.

Chicken salad, on rye, untoasted ... and a cup of tea!

[tjcummingsfan]

You know chicken isn't the opposite of tuna, salmon is the opposite of tuna because salmon swim against the current, and tuna swim with it.

[Gregory Sager]

Good for the tuna.

[Gregory Sager]

I have to say that I HATE d3 rankings.  They mean nothing!  People put to much stock into them.  Not to take anything away from the Jays because they are who I root for, and same for #9 Hope because they are a great program, but who really besides for myself would have guessed that Elmhurst could take out Hope???

I picked against Elmhurst in both the CCIW pick'em contest and the national D3 confidence pick'em, and the respective rankings of the Bluejays and the Dutch had absolutely nothing to do with it. Hope plays a very strong, physical defense, especially on the perimeter -- just ask the Wheaton and Carthage folks -- which meant that Hope's biggest defensive strength corresponded to Elmhurst's biggest offensive weakness. You could argue that Hope did not have a big man who could neutralize Brent Ruch (especially since the Dutch wouldn't get much of a respite when Jared Hintzsche was in the game to give Ruch a breather), but if your guards can't get the ball down the floor and into the halfcourt set without mishap, what good does having a dominant center do you? The Dutch simply looked like a very difficult matchup for Mark Scherer and company to counter.

Well, as it turned out, Elmhurst did turn the ball over an unacceptably high 25 times tonight. But only eight of those turnovers were charged to Elmhurst's guards -- and, more importantly, the Dutch nullified the advantage of all of those mishaps by the Bluejays by turning it over 23 times themselves. Derek Van Solkema alone turned the ball over seven times -- and Van Solkema is normally excellent at taking care of the ball. He had never turned the ball over more than five times in a game over the past year and a half (and that was in a blowout win over an overmatched Olivet team last season), and only three times had he had as many as four ballhandling miscues in a game over that span. A seven-turnover night for Van Solkema must've been unthinkable for the Hope faithful.

Given that Hope advantage being nullified by the Dutch's own miscues with the ball, the most outstanding difference left between the two teams is Elmhurst's superior size and skill in the paint. And that was obviously the difference tonight, as Ruch had a 16 and 9 game, Hintsche had a 9 and 7 game, and the 'jays outrebounded the Dutch, 36-29.

[sac]

You know chicken isn't the opposite of tuna, salmon is the opposite of tuna because salmon swim against the current, and tuna swim with it.

How do the newborn Salmon get downstream?  Float?

[AndOne]

Charming has nothing on posting a box score from a game.

Come on DUDES, you attend a tech school put up some numbers on the tech equipment

That's part of Caltech's charm. Also, don't expect CIT to update their results anytime soon; the last score posted on their web site is from Nov. 17 -- 6 games ago.

OxyBob

Seems up to date to me:
http://www.gocaltech.com/sports/mbkb/2007-08/schedule

Maybe its me, but as far as I can see, there is still no box score for Wed afternoon's game with North Central up on the Caltech web site(or anywhere else).

I did learn that Reid Barringer set an all time NCC record for 3 pointers in a game with 11 (of 12) on his way to 36 points.