MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[augiefan]

IWU and Augie clinched CCIW tournament berths tonight. Hopefully, Augie will have their act together Wednesday night. IWU is certainly playing better than anyone else in the conference right now.

[Mr. Ypsi]

IWU and Augie clinched CCIW tournament berths tonight. Hopefully, Augie will have their act together Wednesday night. IWU is certainly playing better than anyone else in the conference right now.

Wednesday will also probably let us know where the tourney will be.  If Augie wins, they host.  If IWU wins they still have to beat NPU in B'town or have Augie lose in Naperville, but they would certainly be the likely hosts.

[iwumichigander]

It was a nice win by the Titans whom got really lucky in the 2nd half.  
Wesleyan out rebounded Wheaton 37 -20 for the game. However, the stat which really stands out is the 2/16 13% 3 Pt shooting by Wheaton - a combination of great defense on the perimeter (particularly by Dwyer on Raymond) and a little bit of an off night by the Wheaton perimeter shooters.

In the first half, IWU had pretty much shut out Weile who took the ball to the hoop in the 2nd half to end up with 13 pts (tied with Denham) while Raymond finished with 17.

Chamernick had 17 pts & 10 boards while Sean Johnson had 15 points.

It will be a big night Wednesday in Rock Island as Augie scratched out a win in Decatur.

[aceon2]

That's exactly what I was getting at, Bob. Hence, what I told aceon is the implicit meaning behind the words, "We need to recruit better."

Again, "better" doesn't merely (or even necessarily) mean more talented student-athletes. It also means student-athletes who are an improved fit for your program and your school.

Sorry Greg, as this may be a little late getting back, but I believe Bob hit it on the head and that was my intended point with Bosko bringing in only one "All around solid recruit"  in Steve.  I had intended as All-around to mean both from a basketball standpoint and an academic standpoint.

Bowens has been academically ineligible for parts of 2 seasons.   From what Ive heard, Kyle Jefferey's main quarrel and the reason he left was the way things were run.  Mike Hart was a good talent but he was not a superstar by any stretch of the imagination.  To say Casanova Brown had "phenomenal CCIW potential" is a bit of a stretch to me.  As a freshmen he played less than 8 min a game and had half as many assists as turnovers.   As you stated maybe he meant "we need to recruit better" in an implicit way.  That may be true.  But my point was that Bosko has been singing the same tune year after year since the Mcdaniel/Garnes/Powell era.  He consistently has said for 4-5 years now that he needs to "recruit better."  He has consistently said that he just "doesnt have good enough players."  To me 5 plus years is an awfully long time to take to "rebuild" a program to a championship contender.  Take a look at where Carthage has finished in the seasons since Mcdaniel(02-03)  You will find they have finished 4th, 5th, 6th, and 5th respectively and currently they sit in 5th place.   To me that seems to be unacceptable from a HOF coach who just 7 years ago was in the Final Four with that same Carthage program.  One only needs to look as far as the job that Ron Rose is doing at IWU to see the way he has rebuilt that program and the future looks very bright only one and a half seasons removed from a final four trip.  Maybe I am picky, maybe I am an optimist, but I would expect that Carthage could year in and year out compete for at least the Conference Championship.  Recently that just hasnt been the case. 

[aceon2]

Heres the updated standings

Augustana 9-3
Illinois Weleyan 9-3
Wheaton 7-5
Elmhurst 7-5
Carthage 6-6
North Central 4-8
North Park 4-8
Millikin 2-10

[yank52]

I have now seen two games for NPU, one home and one away.
Too many benchwarmers, a lot of height not being utilized and this team lives by the 3 and dies by the 3.  they compete but can't finish, whenever they play against height its one shot (in or out) with no offensive rebounding.

[Gregory Sager]

Elmhurst 58, North Park 54

http://elmhurst.edu/~athletic/Home/M-Basket/stats/2007-2008/melm23.htm

NPU couldn't buy a trey tonight, although there were open looks aplenty against Elmhurst's zone. Disregarding NPU's 13-21 performance from downtown the other night in Naperville, Mark Scherer dared the Vikings to beat his team from beyond the arc, and the Vikings couldn't do it. They hoisted up 31 trey attempts, half of the team's 62 total shots, and only hit nine of them -- three of them in the last minute as the Vikings tried to pull out a desperation comeback.

North Park did fight hard, overcoming Elmhurst's huge size advantage (the 'jays started both Hintzsche and Ruch tonight) to a certain degree with good help defense and double teams coming from different angles. The Park's 2-3 matchup zone also worked well, for the most part, although as the game wore on and their legs lost a little juice the Vikings were a tad slow to recover in a couple of late key instances that led to crucial treys by Matt Ryder at 8:46 (which put Elmhurst up four) and Ryan Burks at 2:16 (which put Elmhurst up six). The Burks trey was one of the three biggest plays of the game, along with Antonio Stevens missing the front end of a 1-and-1 with a minute and a half left to play and Elmhurst up six, and Hintzsche's rebound of a missed Brent Ruch FT with :42 left.

The Vikings did an excellent job of sustaining their possessions by getting many long rebounds off of their myriad trey misses in the first half; the Vikings had eight offensive rebounds by intermission. Again, however, the legs weren't quite there by game's end, and Elmhurst's superior size won out on the boards down the stretch.

It was an extremely frustrating loss, both because it effectively ends NPU's season and because the Vikings were in the game all the way to the end in spite of their awful shooting. It was one of those games that really drove home the point that North Park simply needs to get bigger. There's really no way around that. When you're spotting the other team that much size, your only recourse is to shoot lots of treys -- and if your shooting is cold, then your uphill climb to victory isn't merely steep, it's practically a cliff face.

[aceon2]

Greg,

Let me also just say this:  I in no way am questioning Bosko's coaching ability.  That would simply be ignorant.  I think he is as good as anybody with the X's and O's and his track record cannot be questioned.  I simply have quarrels with the job he has done recruiting as of late.  And it seems Bosko does as well.  Im just antsy for another CCIW championship to come home to Kenosha again, and from what Ive seen and heard the last 4-5 years, it just hasnt gotten any better. Steve and Fendley are building blocks for the future.  Heres to hoping he is true to his word and the recruits start lining up.   

[kenoshamark]

Carthage wins 71 to 70.

http://www.carthage.edu/athleticspages/mens/basketball/ncc2.htm#GAME.BOX

Looking at the play by play, it shows NC going up by one with 2 seconds left and then Steve hitting a jumper at what appears to be the buzzer.

[usee]

IWU certainly deserved to win more than Wheaton did tonight at King arena but The Thunder sure had plenty of chances they squandered to take this one away. Wheaton's first half defense and rebounding was atrocious as Wesleyan hit wide open threes and what seemed like a dozen or more layups and the Thunder were lucky to be as close as 12 at the half. the second half was IWU's turn to let wheaton have some easy baskets and the Thunder turned up the defensive pressure to crawl back into the game. I wouldn't call Sean Johnson's 3 a dagger as wheaton had the ball down 2 and Carwell missed a layup to tie with about 19 seconds to go and Raymond missed a wide open 3 with about 6 left.

While I thought Dwyer played good defense on Raymond it wasn't anything he doesn't see every night in the CCIW and he simply missed many wide open shots. Jahns missed 3 wide open treys and the biggest dissappointment was wheaton's 9-17 from the free throw line. If wheaton is able to make even one more of their open jumpers.....but then again darius gant's 4 missed free throws could have sealed an easier win.

The officiating was typically inconsistent and I actually thought many of the worse calls went against IWU tonight. Dwyer was mauling Raymond and Panner was all over Sean Johnson. Wiele got away with some really physical play on defense at least 2 times down the stretch. the foul on Gant that sent raymond to the stripe was incidental compared to the muggings that were happening elsewhere on the floor. At least with all the inconsistent officiating there wasn't a really bad call at the end that determined the outcome (although the 5 second call was a very close attempt at giving away the game by the ref).

All in all I thought IWU deserved to win because they played better for the full 40 minutes. Disappointing, but the truth sometimes hurts.

[spencer44]

sounds like a couple exciting endings in the cciw tonight.  How did Carthage get the ball to Steve so deep for him to hit a 2 after a basket in two seconds?  You would think they would make it very difficult for him to catch the ball let alone in the front court. 

Did I also see that there were only 100 people in attendance at North Central?

[usee]

the NCC website says Stevie Bosko hit a tough fade away as time expired. The play by play says drennan's layup to go up 1 was w 5 seconds left and Stevie hit the winner w 2 left at the other end.

[Mr. Ypsi]

usee (or anyone present at King),

On the 5 second call, the inbounder (Morris? can't recall) clearly signaled for a TO before the ref blew his whistle; I vaguely recall that the rule is the TO call has to be in the first four seconds, in which case maybe the call was correct - anyone know the rule?

As far as the foul against Wheaton w/ c. 12 seconds left, the WETN announcers were certainly irate (though they admitted they didn't have a good view); the TV camera missed the play entirely - any reactions on the call?  (Moot point, probably, since Gant missed the FTs.)

When I called Johnson's 3 a 'dagger' I didn't have the usual "nail in the coffin" implication in mind.  But I went instantly from being almost certain the Titans could not hang on to fairly confident that they would.  My emotional state is fickle that way!

[usee]

I had no problem with the foul call against Gant. Carwell needs to make a layup in that situation. The 5 seconds was really close. Panner was suffocating Johnson and there was nowhere to throw the ball. I don't know the rule. It was a tough call to make with the inbounder calling TO.

[usee]

Again, I didn't think the officiating was horrible but it was pretty inconsistent. One minute the refs would be allowing panner or dwyer to mug their assignment and the next they are calling a touch foul on gant, chamerink or jahns. for the most part they let some pretty physical play happen and then they would call small stuff. As I mentioned before some of the most questionable calls went against IWU. There was a mugging by wiele against chamerink (i think)with about 4 minutes left that didn't get called, the 5 second call was questionable at best, and another drive by either rosenkranz or dwyer in front of the IWU bench was an uncontested mauling.