WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Backseat Driver]

Final:
St. Mary's 66
Wheaton 63

Just too many missed opportunities for Wheaton tonight. The Thunder turned the ball over three times in the final minutes, finishing with 26 turnovers overall. Wheaton shot 59% for the game but had 26 fewer attempts than the Belles due to the turnovers and allowing 16 offensive boards. Probably the toughest pill to swallow is the 14-27 effort at the foul line. Probably just some first game jitters.

Lauren Graham and Brooke Olson each with 17 points, Lindsey Brenneman and Maris Hovee had 12. A pretty balanced offensive attack from Wheaton, which finished 3-8 from long range.

[Backseat Driver]

Other scores from tonight:

Elmhurst 78
Coe 70

Dominican 88
North Central 81

North Park 49
Benedictine 47

Carthage 61
St. Norbert 48

No final from Platteville yet, but Millikin trailed by double digits in the second half. If that held up, a surprising and disappointing loss for the Big Blue against the preseason #9 WIAC team

[Backseat Driver]

Platteville over Millikin 69-61, so a 3-3 start for the CCIW.

[Gregory Sager]

NPU's win over Benedictine certainly wasn't pretty. The shooting of the Vikings made you want to cover your eyes; 31% from the field, 14% from downtown, and a horrific 38% (8-21) from the charity stripe. If the Vikings had shot anywhere near the vicinity of where they usually perform from the FT line, they would've won easily.

The missed shots pretty much ran the gamut: Blown layups, clanked bunnies, shanked midrangers, and a plethora of just-slightly-awry bombs. Two things allowed the Park to pull this one out. One was defense; the Vikings used their superior athleticism to harry BU all night defensively, and they did a great job of jumping passing lanes. The Eagles turned the ball over twenty times, twelve of them NPU steals, while the hosts only coughed it up eleven times. In fact, NPU's A:TO ratio was an uncharacteristically solid 10:11. The other major factor in NPU's favor was offensive rebounds; the Vikings grabbed an impressive 18 offensive caroms, to only five for the Bennies, en route to a 40-34 overall bulge in rebounds for North Park. Combine the steals and the O-rebs, and you can see why North Park put up 62 shot attempts to only 42 for Benedictine (and six more free throws than the Bennies, to boot).

Shooting will come and go on any given night (although I'd rather not think about NPU having another evening as nightmarish as tonight's from the FT line), but defense and rebounding are constants that will always keep a team in a game. It was good to see North Park do so well on D and on the boards, as it bodes well for the season.

Sarah Peterson led the way with 12 points. Aside from her FT shooting, which was as woeful as was that of her teammates', she played a very impressive overall game -- 4 rebounds (3 offensive), 3 assists, 3 blocks, 3 steals, and only one turnover. Roxie Jones, who did most of her damage in the second half, had 11 points and 10 rebounds. Kamauria Acree looked rusty after a year off (as did backup PG Bridgette Gray, Kamauria's fellow injured-reserve-list refugee), but did contribute four steals. Shaina Yalda was more aggressive offensively than I've ever seen her.

Amanda Reese used eleven different players tonight, all of whom saw time in both halves, and that was in spite of the fact that the Vikings didn't have the services of senior guard Anti Collman (out due to a concussion). It's a whole new thing to see an NPU team with depth; it was only two years ago that the entire roster was down to seven women at one point. In fact, NPU played its first-ever women's basketball JV game this evening as well.

Not the most impressive of nights for NPU, but ... well, it's a start. And at least it's a win.

[RogK]

A few scattered items:
I was at the North Park win and can't add much to what Greg reported. While others players had their moments, Sarah Peterson was better than anyone else on either team. She has really made herself into a valuable player at both ends of the court.
Millikin committed 41 turnovers in their loss at Platteville.
In Carthage's big win over St Norbert, they limited the visitors to 15 second half pts : 2/19 2FGs, 2/10 3FGs and 5 FTs. Now that's a major defensive clamp-down!
North Central (lost 88-81 at Dominican) got a 14 14 game from Emily Collins and three newcomers combined for 8-for-10 3FG shooting. It's good news for the Cardinals to have several players contribute to a diversified offense, considering that they graduated top scorers from last year's team.
Finally, a nice start for Elmhurst, particularly Meghan Merklein, who led with 25 pts and 6 rebs. Devin Vaughn had 9 assists.

[iwu70]

Titan open Friday 6 p.m. vs. Coe @UWEC.  Let the games begin!!!

Good luck to Coach Smith and all the Titans.

IWU70

[Backseat Driver]

Augie was a 78-73 winner over Monmouth tonight

http://www.augustana.edu/athletics/wbasketball/stats/2011-12/12wbb01.htm

[RogK]

A good start for Augie. Judging from the stats, they must've been attacking the hoop a lot. They had 37 FT att and made .615 of their 2FG att (24/39). Their 26 TOs were a little high.
With 2 minutes left, it was tied at 68, but Augie finished strong(ly), scoring 10 in those 2 minutes.

[bblover]

I did catch the first half of the Coe-Elmhurst game. Elmhurst was incredible in the first half offensively. It moved the ball extremely well (extraordinarily well for a first game) and shot the eyes out. It was 4-8 on its 3s and even better on its 2s, i.e., many easy inside shots. Merklein gave Coe fits, but Elmhurst had 9 that scored in the first half alone. Unfortunately, the defense was not as impressive, particularly the interior defense, an area that has plagued Elmhurst for years. Elmhurst led by 10 at half when I left. I understand the lead got up to 17 with 17 minutes left. Elmhurst let that lead drop to 1 (of course, just to make it interesting) with 3 minutes left before it began to play again. The final score was 78-70 in favor of Elmhurst. For the game, Elmhurst hit 7-14 on its 3s.

[Backseat Driver]

Lee Pfund Classic tips off this afternoon.

1:00- Claremont-Mudd-Scripps vs. UW-LaCrosse

CMS was 20-7 last year and returns 4 of their top 6 scorers. Today is their season opener. UW-Lax was picked to finish 5th in the WIAC after losing quite a bit from last year's Pool C team. The Eagles opened the season with a 63-52 loss to Loras on Thuesday.

3:00- Wheaton vs. Illinois College

Illinois College is making its second consecutive appearance in the Pfund Tournament. The Lady Blues were picked to finish 6th in the MWC and lost 88-76 to MacMurray in their season opener.

Today's losers face each other tomorrow at 1:00 while the winners square off at 3:00 in the championship game. Beth Baker will be honored at halftime of whichever game Wheaton participates in on Saturday. http://athletics.wheaton.edu/news/2011/11/17/WBB_BBREC.aspx

[iwu70]

Pgraph article today indicates three lady Titans are out, at least for 2-3 weeks.  Amy Burton will likely start today.  The Titans will need Karen Solari and Shelby Jackson back as soon as possible. 

Good luck to the Titans today as they begin the long long, 2011-12 season journey vs. Coe @ UWEC.  Another game tomorrow also @ UWEC.   A tough tough road, in the pre-CCIW portion, and probably not much easier after that either!

GO TITANS!

IWU70

[iwu70]

Titans, leading Coe 66-60 with about 3 minutes to go.

Sad to say it appears Olivia Lett was injured, ankle. 

More shortly.

IWU70

[iwu70]

IWU over Coe, 77-66.  Titans put on the pressure for steals, shot a better percentage in the second half and pulled away a bit in the latter 6-8 minutes.  This game was closer than the score indicates.  Titan post and interior players played pretty well.  Run and jump used to good effect.  Always good to win the first one.  Five players in double figures.  Titans likely play UWEC tomorrow.  Congrats to the Titans. 

IWU70

[Mr. Ypsi]

Mark, try to get updates on Olivia's injury - with the schedule they've got coming up we sure could use her!

[iwu70]

No word on Olivia Lett.  Have to watch and see if she plays today, vs. UWEC. 

Good start for the Titans. 

Tough loss in football today.  A game of inches.  (and uncooperative zebras).   

IWU70