MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[thundermike11]

Forgot to post...

I was at a high school game last night.  I was standing in the lobby after the game waiting for Coach Steinbrueck to finish talking to a recruit when Illini coach Bruce Weber walks out of the gym into the lobby (he was watching a kid play as well).  I had an IWU pullover on and he walked up, extended his hand, and says, "Good to see you coach.  Ready for Wheaton?"  First, I was shocked a Big Ten coach knew the pairings for the CCIW tournament.  Second, I realize I can't say, "I'm not a coach...I'm the radio guy"...or "I'm Titan Q on CCIW Chat"...or "I'm Coach Steinbrueck's personal assistant."  So I go with it...

Q: "Yeah, it's always tough to beat a good team 3 times, but we're gonna try, coach.  They have a great player we have to deal with.  Who do you guys have next?"

Weber: "Iowa - we need to find a way."

Q: "I hear ya - good luck."

Weber: "Did #32 graduate?  Akeliavonich?"

Q: "Keelan Amelianovich...yes, he graduated 2 years ago.  He was good, coach."

Weber: "He gave us trouble.  How is Stamas doing?  He played for my brother."

Q: "He starts on our JV team, coach."

Weber: "JV team?  Must be a good JV team - he can play."

Q: "We think so.   So, that Indiana deal is a mess."

Weber: "Yeah, but I give those kids credit for playing through it."

Q: "True."

(Illini recruit walks into lobby.)

Weber: (Extending hand) "Good luck to the Titans, coach."

Q: "You too coach - hang in there."


Coach Steinbrueck (walking up): "What were you talking to Bruce Weber about??"

Q: "Just a couple coaches shooting the breeze, Stein."

Well played Titan, well played 

[Mr. Ypsi]

'Coach' Q, that was hilarious! +k

I, too, find it amazing that Weber knew the CCIW pairings - you suppose he's trying to poach Raymond?   (Better not be one of our freshmen! )

[Gregory Sager]

Just a note on a H.S. senior who every team in the league is interested in, Jeremy Pflederer of Tremont.

Not true, Lanny. NPU is not on Pflederer. I would be surprised if Carthage is on him as well, since I've never known the Red Men to recruit someone from a small town south of Peoria -- well, at least not since Carthage was located in a small town south of Peoria. North Central doesn't usually recruit out there in the sticks, either.

Augie, Wesleyan, and Millikin? Of course. Elmhurst? Yes, downstater Mark Scherer likes his fellow country boys. And since Pflederer's sister goes to Wheaton, it's likely that Bill Harris and Nate Frank are on him, too. But that's hardly "every team in the league."

[Mr. Ypsi]

Just a note on a H.S. senior who every team in the league is interested in, Jeremy Pflederer of Tremont.

Not true, Lanny. NPU is not on Pflederer, and I think it's hard to know whether or not Wheaton is on Pflederer without knowing his religious background.

Bob already posted that his sister is a Wheaton student - my guess is that he passes the test.

[Gregory Sager]

Just a note on a H.S. senior who every team in the league is interested in, Jeremy Pflederer of Tremont.

Not true, Lanny. NPU is not on Pflederer, and I think it's hard to know whether or not Wheaton is on Pflederer without knowing his religious background.

Bob already posted that his sister is a Wheaton student - my guess is that he passes the test.

I posted before I'd gotten as far as Bob's post, Chuck, and changed it once I read it.

[thundermike11]

Just a note on a H.S. senior who every team in the league is interested in, Jeremy Pflederer of Tremont.

Not true, Lanny. NPU is not on Pflederer. I would be surprised if Carthage is on him as well, since I've never known the Red Men to recruit someone from a small town south of Peoria -- well, at least not since Carthage was located in a small town south of Peoria. North Central doesn't usually recruit out there in the sticks, either.

Augie, Wesleyan, and Millikin? Of course. Elmhurst? Yes, downstater Mark Scherer likes his fellow country boys. And since Pflederer's sister goes to Wheaton, it's likely that Bill Harris and Nate Frank are on him, too. But that's hardly "every team in the league."

This could just have been use of hyperbole. 

[Gregory Sager]

Just a note on a H.S. senior who every team in the league is interested in, Jeremy Pflederer of Tremont.

Not true, Lanny. NPU is not on Pflederer. I would be surprised if Carthage is on him as well, since I've never known the Red Men to recruit someone from a small town south of Peoria -- well, at least not since Carthage was located in a small town south of Peoria. North Central doesn't usually recruit out there in the sticks, either.

Augie, Wesleyan, and Millikin? Of course. Elmhurst? Yes, downstater Mark Scherer likes his fellow country boys. And since Pflederer's sister goes to Wheaton, it's likely that Bill Harris and Nate Frank are on him, too. But that's hardly "every team in the league."

This could just have been use of hyperbole. 

I'm sure it was. And I responded with a use of nitpickery.

This is what basketball is all about: Knowing your role.

[Gregory Sager]

2) The opportunity the CCIW tournament presents is something I think is being overlooked by many.  Q and others have said that Wheaton would be right on the line but would probably make it in without having another loss on their record.  We thought that Elmhurst should be in last year and we all know what happened there.

Remember though, Elmhurst lost a game in the conference tournament last year, which means that their Pool C chances were worse after the tournament than they were before it.  Most would agree the Bluejays just missed the Pool C cut in 2007, so it is very possible the CCIW conference tournament loss kept them out.

Wheaton is in almost the indentical position this year.  In looking at the new regional rankings (link below) with Wheaton now ahead of Chicago and currently the highest ranked Pool C candidate in the Midwest, I think it is fair to say they'd have a great chance to get in without another loss.  If Wheaton loses to IWU or Augie/Elmhurst, their position is hurt - I don't think that can be disputed.  So again, Wheaton has to beat IWU and then most likely win an upset game (vs Augie on their floor) to get the Pool A bid...otherwise, they are in worse position as they are today.

Also consider the 2008 UAA situtation (the only conference left without a tournament I believe).  Let's say Chicago (9-3) beats Wash U (9-3) at Chicago this weekend.  And Brandeis (9-4) takes care of NYU (6-7) at home, and Rochester (8-5) wins at Carnegie Mellon (6-7).  Most agree the UAA will get four teams in - Chicago as the Pool A and Wash U, Brandeis, and Rochester as Pool C's.   Now, let's say the UAA has a 4-team conference tournament (like the CCIW) in which #4 seed Rochester has to play #1 seed Chicago in round 1.  If Rochester loses that game, their Pool C position is hurt.    As it is, without the tournament, they're in easily.  If Chicago loses the game, they'd be hurt bigtime...on the Pool C bubble at best.  Same with Brandies, which would have to face Wash U in the other UAA semifinal game - they'd be hurt by a loss.

You're guaranteed to have 3 of the 4 teams in a 4-team tournament - presumably, the teams that end up being the league's top 3 Pool C candidates - lose a game.  You know two are going to go 0-1 and one will go 1-1.  Those 0-1's and 1-1's hurt.

http://www.d3hoops.com/dailydose/2008/02/27/ncaas-third-regional-rankings

Let me be clear - there are a lot of things about the tournament I like from a fan's perspective (many of the things posted here).  And sure, I love the thought of teams controlling their own destiny.  But this thing was billed as a way to get more teams in the NCAA tournament and that is just simply "false advertising."  Some years it might help accomplish that, but some years it will hurt.  Looking at this from a CCIW big picture perspective, I do not think the conference tournament makes sense in a league as good as the CCIW, where every year multiple teams will have a solid resume after the final regular season game.  Play 25 games and let the resumes speak for themselves - in the longrun, that is the best way for the CCIW to get the most teams in. 

Excellent post, Bob.

[Gregory Sager]

And that was the primary impetus for my idea about the possibility of having a non-qualifier for the conference tourney (one of the 5th-8th place teams) be the host.
The odds favor the regular season champ also winning the conference tourney, but even if they don't, they're still going to the national tourney anyway.

You can't make that statement so definitively.  Above I gave the example of the UAA situation, for example.  There is a very good chance Chicago will win the UAA title.  If the Maroons had to play in a conference tournament and lost, they could very easily be on the outside looking in of Pool C.

And as we look at the CCIW, is it crazy to think the league champ could finish 10-4 or even 9-5 in conference play?  How many games did Augie win they could have lost?  I see the CCIW's parity - which was as strong this year as I've seen in my 20 years around the league - only increasing as we move forward.  Just think about next year...

- Augie returns everyone but Swetalla
- IWU has a ton of young talent
- Wheaton will always be in the mix...even if Raymond leaves
- Elmhurst may have two 1st Teamers (Ruch, Burks)
- Carthage has one of the best players in Division III
- North Park has a ton of young talent
- NCC has Rogers and Drennan back
- Millikin will get better as Smith settles in and gets more talent

Every team in the league is working hard to compete in men's basketball right now.  I see the CCIW continuing to be a slugfest, year in and year out.  If that is the case, and the champ has 4 losses (or at least 3), that means there is a good chance that team is not any sort of lock for a Pool C bid when you add in 3-4 non-conference losses vs a good schedule.

It is not inconceivable at all to think there could be a CCIW regular season champ not make the NCAA tournament (with the conference tournament in place).  I continue to feel that the league's priority - and AQ winner - should be the team that earned the title of champion by surviving the 14-game CCIW slate. 

I think that this is correct. The best case that can be made as to why the CCIW champ is not a shoo-in for the D3 tourney in the CCIW-tournament era is to look at the WIAC. Our state-school neighbors to the north have for years been seen as the top league in D3, so our situation is very comparable to theirs with regard to how our top teams stack up in terms of Pool C's five primary criteria. But there have been three instances in this decade in which the regular-season champion or champions of the WIAC did not make the D3 tourney field: co-champions UW-Stevens Point and UW-Whitewater in 2000-01 (WIAC tourney champ UW-Eau Claire was the sole WIAC rep) and UW-River Falls in 2003-04 (WIAC tourney champ -- and eventual national champ -- UWSP was the sole WIAC rep that March).

Also, what about co-champions? A conference tournament doesn't really do anything to help them, either. Of course, the CCIW was saddled with two of its three tri-champions having to stay home in 2003, but the year before the WIAC also had tri-champions -- and two out of those three teams had to stay home, too. And, as I mentioned above, neither of the co-champions of the WIAC in 2000-01 got the chance to dance. So their conference tournament didn't help them at all.

Winning the CCIW championship is no guarantee of a Pool C bid in the event of the champ losing in the conference tourney.

[Gregory Sager]

That being said, my point was only that in essence all four of these teams are already in the post-season. I think that for how tough the conference season is, teams like Elmhurst and IWU should at least have that opportunity to play themselves into the big tournament by winning the CCIW tournament. 

Yes, but the point is that Wheaton could play itself out of the D3 tournament by losing the CCIW tournament. The conference tournament's quite often a zero-sum proposition; it might help get a team in, but it can also help force a team out. That's precisely what happened to Elmhurst last year, and it could very well happen to Wheaton this coming weekend.

As for the conference tournament already being the postseason, this is true in the technical sense. But it certainly does not have the same feel as the D3 tournament as far as a postseason vibe is concerned. I don't think that anyone will ever mistake a conference tournament atmosphere, or the sense of accomplishment in making it to the conference tournament, with a D3 tournament atmosphere or the sense of accomplishment in getting put on the dance card. And it's certainly not the same thing when you're talking to a high school prospect about what your program has achieved.

[Gregory Sager]

Although I started souring on the idea of the CCIW tournament after what happened to Elmhurst last season, I like the creative approaches that AndOne and Fox40 are taking to tweak the four-team CCIW tourney format and make it better suited to protect the CCIW's Pool C interests.

While AndOne's neutral-site CCIW tourney proposal might help make the conference tourney more competitive (and thus more exciting for the fans), and it certainly couldn't draw any worse than what it has been drawing in Rock Island, there's a fairness issue at stake. Since the CCIW champion isn't necessarily guaranteed a Pool C berth in any given year if it loses, for reasons that Bob and I have already described at length, depriving it of the right to host the tournament could make it that much tougher for the champ to get into the D3 tourney. In essence, the reward for finishing at the top of the heap after fourteen games would be nothing more than the chance to play the fourth seed on Friday night rather than the third seed or the second seed. That's not much of a reward for the big accomplishment of winning the league.

In some ways I really like Fox40's think-outside-the-box approach. Why not give the CCIW champ the chance to opt out of the conference tourney if it so chooses? Chuck asks if the D3 selection committee would penalize the CCIW champ if it did that, but the fact of the matter is that there's nothing that the committee could do about it. The D3 handbook does not state how automatically-qualifying conferences are to determine their Pool A representatives -- it merely uses the undefined term "conference champion" -- and the committee is locked into using the five primary criteria in order to determine Pool C selections. There's no provision for penalizing a team for opting out of its conference tournament. Opting out of the conference tournament could also give a coach the chance to rest up his team (especially if he has injury problems) and to allow them to focus upon their schoolwork for an extra week.

On the other hand, I wonder just how many coaches of conference champions would utilize that opt-out clause. I can see coaches insisting that their teams play in the conference tournament just to stay sharp, or to improve their seeding in the D3 bracket, or to spite a rival, or just out of a sheer cussed refusal to back down from the chance to compete. If someone gets the chance this weekend, ask Grey Giavonine if he'd opt out of the CCIW tourney if he could, taking his chances with what is basically a guaranteed Pool C berth for his team this season while Illinois Wesleyan, Wheaton, Elmhurst, and Carthage battle it out for the Pool A berth. I'd sincerely be interested in reading his response.

All in all, though, I'd rather abandon the tournament altogether. I place a high value upon the CCIW getting multiple teams into the D3 tourney, and the conference tourney has worked at cross-purposes to that goal, as demonstrated by last year's Elmhurst debacle -- in spite of the expansion of the D3 tourney and the league office's promises that the conference tournament would help the CCIW's multiple-team chances rather than hurt them.

[sac]

If teams could opt-out of the tournaments that decide AQ's with visions of garnering Pool C's, I believe you'd start to hear alot of griping from those "on the bubble" C teams who put their records on the line in the conference tournaments.

I'd also hate to be the 18th team to opt out, only to find out there were no more C's available. 

[Gregory Sager]

If teams could opt-out of the tournaments that decide AQ's with visions of garnering Pool C's, I believe you'd start to hear alot of griping from those "on the bubble" C teams who put their records on the line in the conference tournaments.

A coach from a bubble team could gripe away to his heart's content about an opt-out CCIW champ garnering a Pool C berth, and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. It would simply be a matter of that CCIW champion's coach gaming the system -- just as we gripe about the fact that the NESCAC as a whole games the system by opting to only play a single round-robin.

I'd also hate to be the 18th team to opt out, only to find out there were no more C's available. 

You pays your money, you takes your chances.

[Titan Q]

Just a note on a H.S. senior who every team in the league is interested in, Jeremy Pflederer of Tremont.

Not true, Lanny. NPU is not on Pflederer, and I think it's hard to know whether or not Wheaton is on Pflederer without knowing his religious background.

Bob already posted that his sister is a Wheaton student - my guess is that he passes the test.

Let's just say Wheaton assistant Nate Frank spent Friday evening at Ridgeview H.S., and then this past Wednesday at Dee-Mack H.S. (Mackinaw, Il.)...both in the sticks.  Ralph Hodge (Olivet Nazarene) is also chasing young Mr. Pflederer around.  Augustana and Elmhurst were on him but I don't think he's interested. Not sure about Millikin - no one seems to be bumping into the Big Blue on the recruiting trail this year. 

Good kid, good guard.  Think Jon Nielson.  My guess is he'll be wearing blue & orange next year.

[aceon2]

Just a thought on the conference tourney.  Why not pre set where the conference tourney will be held each year?  Just rotate it between the 8 schools.  Could you imagine the Conference tourney in the Cracker Box at NPU, now that would be fun...