WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[RogK]

Backer, welcome to these pages. Of course I was teasing about Kelsey's graduation. Her dad has told me how excellent she is in the classroom.
iwu70, I think those two will have to wait until next year, along with Melissa Gardner. Maybe Holly Harvey will make this year's list, in lieu of one of the others.
On the other hand, Hasselbring was fabulous (15 pts, 15 reb, 4 st, 0 TO) in the win at Kean, which may be IWU's most impressive victory of the season.

[thunder38]

i could see harvey sliding in there or solari snagging a third-team nod.  it's possible Brenneman grabs a third team nod as well.  her scoring numbers are down from last year but that's mainly because she has more scoring around her this year.

[RogK]

The conference has plenty more players worthy of nomination than can possibly fit into the 15 spots available. I don't know if any coaches discuss this with the players, but we do know that many good players will not make all-conference, even though their value to their team is highly appreciated.

[Gregory Sager]

how about a partial filling-in of the all-CCIW team?
1st team (arranged according to penultimate letter in last name, of course) :
Elise Wildman, Jackie Errico, Laura Karsten, Stacey Arlis, Heather Gilmore.
2nd team (arranged by whim) : Olivia Lett, Hope Schulte, Diana Jacklin, Brooke Olson.
3rd team : Lindsey Brenneman, Nikki Preston.
This would leave four spots, to be awarded to Kristen Fox, another Big Blue like Beth Wellbaum or Julia Robert, one or two EC Bluejays, one or two NP Vikings?

Roxie Jones is a lock for NPU, probably on either the second team or the third team. I'd love to see Sarah Peterson make it from NPU as well, but I doubt that it'll happen.

[RogK]

I've been assuming that the voting would be done tomorrow in Bloomington.
Wrong.
http://www.cciw.org/news/2011/2/24/WBB_0224112748.aspx
IWU got 4, Wheaton 3, Carthage Elmhurst Millikin 2 each, Augie and NC 1 each. North Park 0.
Congratulations to Laura Karsten, Most Outstanding Player!
Likewise to Kent Madsen, Coach of the Year!
Both are deserving, but I am surprised that those awards were not split between Wheaton and IWU.
I'm also surprised at neither Roxie nor Sarah getting on the list.

[Gregory Sager]

NPU -- and Roxie -- got ripped off.

I can see how an 0-14 team might get shut out of the All-CCIW awards. That's happened before, although it's worth mentioning that the Millikin men's team, which finished 0-14 as part of a CCIW-worst-ever 1-23 overall season, still managed to place a player on this year's All-CCIW men's third team. But the NPU women finished 3-11 -- bad, but not 0-14 bad -- and tied for seventh with Augie (which technically puts NPU ahead, since the Chicago Vikings swept the Rock Island Vikings).

Roxie placed seventh in points (13.8 ppg), seventh in rebounding (6.6 rpg), and second in steals (2.57 spg) in CCIW play, plus she also placed on the lists for FG percentage and FT percentage. Every coach in the league game-planned to stop Roxie in the low post terms of defending against NPU. And she did it all in spite of suffering from a respiratory ailment that cut into both her minutes and her effectiveness throughout the latter two-thirds of the CCIW season.

Roxie Jones was totally disrespected by the other seven head coaches in the CCIW.

[thunder38]

NPU -- and Roxie -- got ripped off.

Roxie Jones was totally disrespected by the other seven head coaches in the CCIW.

Couldn't agree more Greg.  Especially after seeing her play the second time through I thought she could even crack the second team but that's just a wrong doing.

Congrats to Kent Madsen on Coach of the Year and Laura Karsten on Most Outstanding Player!

[Hoosier Titan]

Congratulations to all the players on all the teams, and to Laura Karsten and Coach Madsen!

I think all are deserving winners.  I'm just a little curious--I thought that on the men's side, it was an automatic that the coach of the team winning the regular season won the coaches' award.  Thus, the Augustana and North Central coaches are Co-Coach of the Year for the men.  I certainly think Coach Madsen has done a fine job under difficult circumstances.

Greg, I agree that Roxane Jones should have been on one of the teams.  The comparison with the Millikin men is an apt one.

And now on to the games!

[Gregory Sager]

I'm just a little curious--I thought that on the men's side, it was an automatic that the coach of the team winning the regular season won the coaches' award.

It's not a one-size-fits-all league rule. The various CCIW sports have differing criteria for determining Coach of the Year. For men's basketball, the award automatically goes to the coach(es) of the league champion(s); hence, Grey Giovanine of Augustana and Todd Raridon of North Central shared the award. For women's basketball, it's a peer vote. Kent Madsen of Wheaton won it because he outpolled his seven rivals.

[bbaskets]

Congratulations to the 2011 CCIW All-Conference Women's Basketball Teams, Laura Karsten and Coach Madsen.  The majority of the honors were very deserving and as always, there were several players that were more deserving of the honor that did not make the cut due to the fact that the winning teams, as in the past, tend to get more players on the All-Conference Teams.  It is unfortunate that the CCIW tends to honor players just because they are on a winning team even though other players in the conference had better statistics and were more deserving of the honor. 

In response to all of the Titan Fans' postings regarding the 2011 CCIW All-Conference Women's Basketball Teams, you should all be very pleased with the outcome.  Having 4 players on the All-Conference Teams is exceptional and something to be proud of.  Wanting or expecting more would have only taken the honor away from other players in the conference that were truly deserving of the honor, not just because they were on a winning team).

[RogK]

bbaskets, I think we all admire each of the CCIW's players, regardless of their team's win-loss record.
I'd say that four all-conference players is the maximum that any one team should get. IWU, with a 13-1 conference record (or if they went 14-0), deserves four. They must have numerous outstanding players to win 13 out of 14 games, whether or not those players have the top individual stats.
On the other hand, if you say that a team with much fewer wins has nearly as much all-conference talent as do the best teams, then you have to account for that team's losses some other way. Was the coaching crummy or were the remainder of the teammates awful?
I'll re-state what I think is a rational starting point for allotting all-conference spots : there were 56 games won in conference play; there are 15 all-conf spots; therefore, 3.73 wins earn a spot on all-conf. I don't say that this formula must be followed rigidly, but credit has to be given to the players that won the most games.

[RogK]

Here is the distribution of final scores from this season, CCIW games only:
30s - 2
40s - 7
50s - 30
60s - 33
70s - 30
80s - 7
90s - 3
That's a real clump in the mid-range, with 93 of 112 scores in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

[Gregory Sager]

bbaskets, I think we all admire each of the CCIW's players, regardless of their team's win-loss record.
I'd say that four all-conference players is the maximum that any one team should get. IWU, with a 13-1 conference record (or if they went 14-0), deserves four. They must have numerous outstanding players to win 13 out of 14 games, whether or not those players have the top individual stats.
On the other hand, if you say that a team with much fewer wins has nearly as much all-conference talent as do the best teams, then you have to account for that team's losses some other way. Was the coaching crummy or were the remainder of the teammates awful?
I'll re-state what I think is a rational starting point for allotting all-conference spots : there were 56 games won in conference play; there are 15 all-conf spots; therefore, 3.73 wins earn a spot on all-conf. I don't say that this formula must be followed rigidly, but credit has to be given to the players that won the most games.

I didn't expect NPU to put multiple players on the All-CCIW team. I understand how it works as well, if not better, than anyone else around here, as I've been following CCIW basketball for over thirty years. Winning teams get more players, losing teams get fewer players. I don't have any problem with that. What I do have a problem with is NPU getting shut out altogether, and Roxie Jones getting shut out in particular.

[RogK]

You're right, Greg.
Using my formula (3.73 wins earns a spot on all-conf), IWU earned 3.49 spots (got 4), Wheaton earned 2.95 (got 3), Millikin earned 2.41 (got 2), Elmhurst earned 1.34 (got 2), NC earned 1.07 (got 1), Augie earned .8 (got 1), North Park earned .8 (got 0).
So, North Park was most under-represented (by .8), followed by Millikin (.41).
It should be uncommon to not have all 8 teams represented on the all-conf team. The unrepresented team would have a really poor record (0 to 2 wins?) and no one who had a particularly good season. North Park was better than that and Roxie did have a fine season.

[Hoosier Titan]

I agree with Rog's analysis of the allocation of spots on the all-conference teams.  And I agreed earlier with Greg that it was 1) unusual and 2) particularly unfair this year that no player from North Park was selected for the all-conference team at any level.  I haven't seen any IWU poster or anyone else complain about the number of spots allocated to IWU.