MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[AndOne]

Honest question, are there any Wheaties on the board that would care to share their thoughts on the situation regarding our Crazies?  I'm certainly not saying that the ejection of NP fans affected the outcome of the contest, but it really was pretty disgusting to kick college student out into the cold for not really doing anything wrong.  The only thing I could think was that the Host team was just embarrassed about being out-fanned in their home arena.

So the ejected students did absolutely nothing inappropriate?

Whats "inappropriate" at Wheaton may just be considered good clean fun at most other colleges/universities. After all, the NPU students, per Greg's post, were dancing!!  .  See my earlier post above covering Wheaton's philosophy covering this activity.

BTW... dancing is now allowed at Wheaton, so the whole dancing is inappropriate slant doesn't jive.

The NCAA, The CCIW and Wheaton College promote good sportsmanship by student-athletes, coaches and spectators. We request your cooperation by supporting the participants and officials in a positive manner. Profanity, racial or sexist comments or other intimidating actions directed at officials, student-athletes, coaches or team representatives – as well as public intoxication, the consumption or possession of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products are grounds for removal from the site of competition and other disciplinary actions.

Nothing highlighted was broken by those kicked out.

Exactly TJ!

MUGS---

Neither I nor anyone else ever said dancing wasn't allowed, I merely pointed out that the Wheaton Covenant itself states that the dancing, and I'm sure all other activities as well, must not be "immodest, harmfully violent, or sinfully erotic," and wondered which category the Wheaton administrators deemed the scandalous actions of the NPU studends to be in violation of.

[robberki]

tjc/fan
I'd guess we tend to see and hear things as we'd like them to be...sometimes, eh? 

sheesh...he either said it or he didn't. Who gives a rip...let's get back to basketball talk.

[markerickson]

more basketball talk

Keeping in mind that NP has not won at Wheaton for many years, what acts were so abysmal that Coach Harris had to use such reprehensible language?

Sans salacious skankiness, sober students shuffle to Chicago without seeing scintillating strips and steals. 

WWJD = What Would Jesus Do?

[veterancciwfan]

First time post this season. Random thoughts:

1) When is the last time the best player in the CCIW has been a freshman? Never I would assume. If my assumption is true, then the logical assumption is that the league is down/weak.

2) I've seen only 3 league games (IWU vs. N.C., M.U., and EC). But from what I have seen and from conservations with others who have seen all of the CCIW teams, my opinion is that Elmhurst has the most talent. But that's not unusual. And usually Elmhurst manages a way to squander its opportunities (referring to the few successes Elmhurst has had in NCAA tournament appearances).

3) IWU does have some freshman talent and the mantra from day 1 from IWU fans that "we'll get better" seems to be playing out. IWU is a much better defensive team now than in Dec. Of course, it's not hard to improve on pathetic, which is how I would describe IWU's defense in several nonconference games I witnessed.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

The NCAA, The CCIW and Wheaton College promote good sportsmanship by student-athletes, coaches and spectators. We request your cooperation by supporting the participants and officials in a positive manner. Profanity, racial or sexist comments or other intimidating actions directed at officials, student-athletes, coaches or team representatives – as well as public intoxication, the consumption or possession of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products are grounds for removal from the site of competition and other disciplinary actions.

I smite thee, oh wicked whale !!!

If those dastardly North Park fans were asked to cease and desistin having their type of fun  by anyone in authority at Wheaton - then the host school as every right to interpret its own level indecency, profanity, lewdness and pornography.

Wheaton authorities were within their rights to demand adherence to any arbitrary rules that they have set for visiting fans - even if it seems unsportsmanlike to the visitors.

Notwithstanding, North Park would be well within it rights, therefore, to ask Wheaton students to refrain from attending the upcoming game in Chicago, as their presence at the contest might lead to them being exposed to the same level of indecent, profane, lewd and pornographic behavior and it might hurt their sensibilities and thus corrupt their continued righteous witness.

DoS

[Dennis_Prikkel]

First time post this season. Random thoughts:

1) When is the last time the best player in the CCIW has been a freshman? Never I would assume. If my assumption is true, then the logical assumption is that the league is down/weak.

2) I've seen only 3 league games (IWU vs. N.C., M.U., and EC). But from what I have seen and from conservations with others who have seen all of the CCIW teams, my opinion is that Elmhurst has the most talent. But that's not unusual. And usually Elmhurst manages a way to squander its opportunities (referring to the few successes Elmhurst has had in NCAA tournament appearances).

3) IWU does have some freshman talent and the mantra from day 1 from IWU fans that "we'll get better" seems to be playing out. IWU is a much better defensive team now than in Dec. Of course, it's not hard to improve on pathetic, which is how I would describe IWU's defense in several nonconference games I witnessed.

answer to #1 - 1966 - Jesse Price of Millikin, 1957 - Mel Peterson of Wheaton.

[Titan Q]

First time post this season. Random thoughts:

1) When is the last time the best player in the CCIW has been a freshman? Never I would assume. If my assumption is true, then the logical assumption is that the league is down/weak.

I think that is a very flawed assumption because the league has a 1st Team All-American-caliber upperclassman in Kent Raymond, as well as two other All-American candidates in Ryan Burks and Brent Ruch. 

If Steve Djurickovic is the best player in the CCIW as a freshman, all it means is that Steve Djurickovic is really, really good.  Raymond, Burks, and Ruch are outstanding.  With the numbers the Carthage freshman is putting up, we'd be having the same discussions if it was 2005-06, the year the league had 4 Final Four-caliber teams and 4 All-Americans (Dauksas, Amelianovich, Martin, Harrigan).

As I have stated here many times this year, I think the league is down, without question.  But the fact that a freshman may be the CCIW's best player isn't one of the indicators of that.

[Titan Q]

All of the whining over the North Park/King Arena fan incident is getting even more annoying than the pages and pages of debate after the North Central/NPU game regarding the officiating.

We have one of the most entertaining races in years unfolding and 4 more big games coming up in 48 hours.  Basketball talk would be more entertaining for all.

[Mugsy]

All of the whining over the North Park/King Arena fan incident is getting even more annoying than the pages and pages of debate after the North Central/NPU game regarding the officiating.

We have one of the most entertaining races in years unfolding and 4 more big games coming up in 48 hours.  Basketball talk would be more entertaining for all.

Which is why I said I was done interrupting the intelligent (93% of posters here) bball banter. 

[Titan Q]

CCIW statistical leaders (through 4 games):

SCORING
1.Djurickovic, Steve (CC) - 23.5
2.Rogers, Matt (NCC) - 22.0
3.Raymond, Kent (WC) - 21.0
4.Burks, Ryan (EC) - 20.3
5.Panner, Ben (WC) - 19.3
6.Drennan, Chris (NCC) - 18.0
7.Wessels, Brett (AC) - 17.5
8.Ruch, Brent (EC) - 16.8
9.Williams, Nick (NPU) - 15.8
10.Wiele, Andy (WC) - 14.5
11.Johnson, Sean (IWU) - 13.8
12.Bowens, Trey (CC) - 13.0
13.Fendley, Sean (CC) - 12.8
14.Chamernik, Brett (IWU) - 12.3
15.Gant, Darius-IWU (IWU) - 11.3
16.Rosenkranz, Travis (IWU) - 11.0
17.Gordon, Jason (NPU) - 10.5
18.Franciskovic, Neb (CC) - 10.0
19.Ogunleye,Tunde (MU) - 9.8
19.Stevens, Antonio (NPU) - 9.8
19.Ryder, Matt (EC) - 9.8

REBOUNDING
1.Gant, Darius (IWU) - 11.8
2.Wiele, Andy (WC) - 11.3
3.Collins, Chandlor (AC) - 8.5
4.Raridon, Mitch (NCC) - 7.3
4.Ruch, Brent (EC) - 7.3
6.Djurickovic, Steve (CC) - 6.8
6.Chamernik, Brett (IWU) - 6.8
8.Alexander, Jay (NPU) - 6.3
9.Burks, Ryan (EC) - 6.0
10.Rogers, Matt (NCC) - 5.5

ASSISTS
1.Rosenkranz, Travis (IWU) - 6.00
2.Djurickovic, Steve (CC) - 5.25
3.Raymond, Kent (WC) - 4.25
4.Pelton, Matt (AC) - 4.00
5.Bainter, Dustin (EC) - 3.25
5.Higgins, Joe (CC) - 3.25
7.Ruch, Brent (EC) - 3.00
7.Raridon, Mitch (NCC) - 3.00
7.Saris, Jimmy (EC) - 3.00
10.Barringer, Reid (NCC) - 2.50
10.Childs, Chris (EC) - 2.50

[usee]

Certainly a big week for the CCIW race as Q has pointed out. It is moving week in the title chase. Wheaton will stay in the race or become a spoiler with road games at IWU and Elmhurst. (their 2 losses are road games). Elmhurst plays at the crackerbox and then home vs wheaton and we will know where they stand by saturday night. those to me are the key games to watch the race unfold

[Gregory Sager]

It may look as the Wheaton administration went overboard on calling the Wheaton police (and perhaps rightfully so - I wasn't at the game).  However, I will say historically it is the Wheaton police force that often goes overboard on the number of officiers they deploy.

From personal experience:

[snip]

Having lived in Wheaton for over 37 years, I've learned that if something requires police attention, you'll get more than you really need.  In most cases it is comforting... in some cases it ends up looking ridiculous.

To me what is crazy about the whole thing is that there has always been some fun associated with the rivalry between Wheaton and North Park, but I can not think of a single case where it has become violent at all.  I can see having secuity at any sporting event, but primarily campus police.  I can see rare cases that require bring a local police squad in (1-3 police).  But it sounds like this was way overboard...

Good point, Mugsy, and thanks for supplying some context to the situation. There wasn't any need to call out the cops -- the two officers that were already there for the game as part of their normal duties were more than capable of handling anything that might have arisen, and the event staff should've simply taken care of things themselves with the Crazies. But your post does give us some idea as to why there was such a heavy police presence all of a sudden.

[Gregory Sager]

Was I the only one in King Arena that heard the wheatie coach rip #21 a new butt hole? The biggest beef I had (sitting front row, I heard it loud and clear) with his screaming, shrieking approach was that he never actually told the poor kid what he did wrong. He just repeated at least a half dozen times how stupid the kid was.  That's pretty classless.

This is the first time I've ever heard Bill Harris called "classless."

If Bill Harris is classless then guys like Bosko and Giavonni must be Satan. That's one of the more ridiculous things I've seen on here.

Its also the first time I have heard a coach labeled as "classless" for coaching his players.

Here's the deal: yelling at a player without telling them why you're yelling is not coaching.  For the record, I don't know enough about Harris to call him classless, I just think that particular situation was pretty sad and definitely lacking class.

Well, you did call him classless so I guess we accept your apology.

Also, I think you should know enough about coaching to know that during the battle (read: game) is not always the time to stop and correct a player. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. typically a coach chooses when to teach his players and just like a professor won't stop you in the middle of a midterm exam and explain why you missed a question, a coach may not stop in the middle of a game to explain what you did wrong. Be assured, however, that player was instructed at some point what he did wrong. You can't take one incident out of context and label a coach "classless". that's pretty weak.

What typically happens in this situation is that a head coach might yell at a player as he comes off of the floor but then, as usee said, he'll turn back quickly to the business at hand of running his team; meanwhile, an assistant coach will then take the offending player aside and go over in detail what he did wrong. I didn't see the play that you described, Scream, but my guess is that after Bill Harris finished yelling at Jeremy Berntsen and turned his attention back to the game, either Nate Frank or Owen Handy took Berntsen aside and explained to him what he had done wrong.

That's not a classless act; it's simply the way that most coaching staffs handle instructing their players in the heat of the moment when the players return to the bench.

[Gregory Sager]

Honest question, are there any Wheaties on the board that would care to share their thoughts on the situation regarding our Crazies?  I'm certainly not saying that the ejection of NP fans affected the outcome of the contest, but it really was pretty disgusting to kick college student out into the cold for not really doing anything wrong.  The only thing I could think was that the Host team was just embarrassed about being out-fanned in their home arena.

So the ejected students did absolutely nothing inappropriate?

I'm not saying it is reason to be kicked out, but a bunch of students going out onto the court, even along the baselines "COULD" be grounds for dismissal.  I don't think I would have removed them for that, but by rule it would be permissible.  I can't say definitively because I wasn't there and I didn't see what happened.

I wasn't going to say anything more about this, but since I've spoken to a number of people who were directly on the scene, I'll try to add some detail to clear up what exactly happened:

The Crazies never went out onto the court. As I said the other night, they went onto the walkway between the endline and the stands on two occasions: First, during halftime when both teams were in the locker room, to do the Highland fling to "Scotland Forever", and the second time during a second-half timeout in which they again went onto the walkway in an attempt to construct a pyramid.

After speaking with several Crazies and a couple of nearby older adults about what happened, what I've learned is that when the Wheaton event staff broke up the pyramid, C-Train told the Crazies to cease and desist from leaving the stands again. The Crazies challenged him with questions that he did not want to answer, such as, "Why aren't we allowed to be down here during timeouts, when the Wheaton cheerleaders are allowed to jump around on the walkway at the other end even when the ball is in play at that end? Why is there one set of rules for the Wheaton students, and another set of rules for us?" This challenge to his authority was not taken well. Even though I don't have any kids of my own, I know that the, "Do it because I said so" answer is not always accepted without resistance even by eight-year-olds. College students, or at least most of the ones I've encountered at NPU and elsewhere, are far less likely to accept such arbitrary commands from someone in authority -- especially when they believe that they are being treated unfairly. They weren't abusive or profane in expressing their grievances, but express them they did. And that's when the two-way radio came out and the call went out to the WPD.

As far as what's permissible, as I said last night Wheaton College is entirely within its rights to throw anyone out of the gym for any reason its representatives see fit, whether its a good reason or a bad one.

[Gregory Sager]

Another incident involving Harris was when one of the ref's....and I'm surprised no one has said anything about this....very animatedly, with full body gestures and hand gestures....explained a call that Harris had questioned.  The ref really was showing up Harris, I think, but make himself look silly.  I thought it was classless.

That ref was Armando Deguzman, and he really read Bill Harris the riot act. He got right up in Bill's face and totally let him have it. Kudos to the coach, because he held his tongue, took his medicine, and had a very contrite look on his face.