WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

Great game, two great teams in Kenosha.  CC comes back from 16 down in the first half to win.  Our Titans played very well.

CC 90 IWU 83

Just too too much Kuzmanic, a great game with 33, Wenzel 26.

For IWU, a great overall effort at Tarble:

K. Reaber 10
Baltes 18
McMahon 13
Seibring 16
T. Reaber 11
Jackson 9

For the Titans, just a bit too much trouble fouling on run and jump and just not quite enough rebounding.  But, I think IWU wins the rematch at The Shirk.  This game, against No. 12 Carthage, shows how much the Titans have improved over the season.

Yes, a loss, no doubt and CC now in the driver's seat for the CCIW crown, but still a lot of basketball to be played.

Great effort, high quality play by both teams.  Congrats to Carthage tonight.  See you in Bloomington.

IWU70

[shepherd]

Wheaton wins 118 to NCC 81.  The 118 points ties the record set last year for most points scored.
Hannah Considine returned after missing the last 11 games and scored 19 points going 9-9 from the free throw line. 
Ellie Zeller had 32 points.  Congratulations to Maris Hovee the senior leader is now number four in the Wheaton record books in blocks.
Overall a much needed win for this young Wheaton team who lost the three previous games. 

[Gregory Sager]

Millikin 70
North Park 68

Liz Rehberger: 18 pts (3-3 trey)
Soly Roman: 17 pts, 9 rebs, 3 stls
Nikki Przybyslawski: 11 pts, 4 stls

Alyssa Saklak: 24 pts, 6 rebs
Jasmine Johnson: 10 pts, 8 rebs, 3 stls

NPU squandered the forward progress it had made Wednesday against Wheaton by blowing a game yesterday that the Vikings should have won. If you had told me beforehand that Millikin's star, Brittany Czaplicki, would score only nine points, turn the ball over six times without notching an assist, and foul out of the game, I would've told you that North Park stood a great chance of winning in a walkover. But that's not what happened.

It was close throughout, with eight ties and 13 lead changes. NPU had an eight-point first-half advantage and MU had a ten-point bulge in the second stanza, but neither team was ever able to establish a secure lead. North Park did manage to erase a three-point deficit in the final half-minute on a rainbow trey by Liz Rehberger with 13 ticks remaining, but the Vikings panicked on the final possession, swarming ballhandler Rachael Weber as she drove and leaving all alone under the basket the one Big Blue player who had made them pay time and time again throughout the game, Alyssa Saklak. She made an uncontested layup to make the score 70-68, and Nikki Przybyslawski's desperation halfcourt heave at the buzzer wasn't really close. What made it worse was the fact that NPU would've been at a great advantage had the game gone to overtime, since two Millikin starters (Czaplicki and PG Susan Durkin) had fouled out of the game.

It's not as though Millikin played particularly well in victory. The Big Blue turned the ball over 29 times, 16 of them the result of NPU steals and a number of others caused by NPU defensive pressure. But North Park coughed up the ball 25 times in return -- and the Vikings were the self-induced victims of many more unforced turnovers than were the Big Blue.

The Vikings also burned themselves at the free throw line. Whereas they shot a sparkling 78% as a team on Wednesday in the win over Wheaton, they were an earthbound 17-27 (63%) yesterday on an afternoon in which their Big Blue counterparts couldn't seem to miss from the charity stripe (16-20, 80%).

It was a very disheartening loss. NPU had a chance to put some distance between itself and the pack -- but, instead, the Vikings fell back to the pack, a pack that now legitimately includes Millikin. The Vikings are simply going to have to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and resign themselves to having to slug it out game-by-game in order to make the CCIW tourney.

[iwu70]

Mia Smith got all over the Titans in her post-game press account of the CC-IWU game, basically saying that they knew all what Kuzmanic and Wenzel would be doing but did little defensively to stop it.  See Pgraph article.  Basically saying Kuzmanic is a great player, but we (the Titan defense) made her look better than she is. 

Harsh, but I think honest and true.  Sure hope the Titans put up a better defensive effort and plan in the game at The Shirk in February.

It was an excellent game with two very fine teams, surely the top of the line in the CCIW this season.  CC has many weapons, and Kuzmanic and Wenzel just went off with monster games @Tarble.  Wenzel, of course, with many layups when CC beat the IWU press.   Titans battled them almost even 'til the last 2 minutes when CC and Kuzmanic went on a 9-0 run.  Just shows you gotta play the entire 40 minutes in games like this in this league.

Second half of the CCIW cycle has more games away for IWU, but key game, the rematch with CC is back at The Shirk.  Plenty of basketball still to be played.

IWU70

[thunder38]

Go Thunder, Hovee has been third on the career blocks list for much of, if not all of the season. She passed Jill Trenz for fourth on the all-time rebounding list on Saturday night.

[shepherd]

Go Thunder, Hovee has been third on the career blocks list for much of, if not all of the season. She passed Jill Trenz for fourth on the all-time rebounding list on Saturday night.

Sorry my bad.

[iwu70]

Congrats to Cathage's Ms. Kuzmanic on Player of the Week, second-straight week.  She sure had a monster game against my Titans. 

Carthage up in the week 8 poll, to #10 I believe.  WC and IWU still getting a little little bit of love in ORV. 

Stay safe, stay warm over there -- the polar vortex still mis-behav'in for sure.

IWU70

[RogK]

This is a few days late (was off-line, a condition some would say I retain permanently) :
On Saturday I saw two interesting games; one was the Millikin win at NP, which Greg already covered. Earlier that day, I saw a 112-99 Olivet Nazarene win at Roosevelt (Wheaton beat Roosevelt 91-79 this season, so we have an NCAA connection!). ONU won the rebounding 65-61 and made 24/61 3FGs; their best player (guard Miranda Geever from Moline -- too bad Augie didn't get her) had 27 pts, 9 assists and 5 steals in 20:00. A teammate made 8 threes in 15:00. Roosevelt had a forward register a triple-double and a guard (Casey Davis) score 51, among them her 2000th career point. A lot of impressive athleticism from both sides.
Our CCIW "system" team, North Central, didn't fare as well as ONU did, falling behind Wheaton 15-0 and 28-7.
Wheaton committed only 15 TOs.
As noted here already, Wheaton enjoyed the return of Hannah Considine, one of the top forwards in the league. This makes them deeper and stronger. Also, NatalieRose Brogan finally got to play, after injury prevented any action as a freshman last year and for half of this season. If I recall, she was well-regarded prep player in Michigan, so Coach Madsen is probably enthused to see her getting back into playing condition.

[iwu70]

IWU over the Big Blue, 94-78.

Seibring 26
McMahon 21
Baltes 14
T. Reaber 12

MU with over 30 TOs.

IWU70

[Gregory Sager]

It was an unbalanced schedule tonight, as NPU and Carthage had the night off.

NCC knocked off Augie in the airplane hangar, 97-85, and Wheaton nipped Elmhurst, 57-56, at King Arena.

That means that Carthage's lead over Illinois Wesleyan is now at a half-game, 7-0 to 7-1. Wheaton is back securely in third at 5-3, and the Elmhurst loss puts NPU back in fourth at 3-4. The Bluejays are now tied with their fellow DuPage County birds from Naperville for fifth place at 3-5, with Millikin at 2-6 and Augie bringing up the rear at 1-7.

[iwu70]

Titans played better D vs. MU, and also had excellent overall ball-movement and passing on offense.  Seibring hit 5 treys, Baltes I think 4.  McMahon an overall strong game. 

Gotta just keep grinding out the wins, get back to another shot at Carthage at the Shirk.

IWU70

[RogK]

Reactions to last night's results :
Both Wheaton/Elmhurst games this season were tight until late or very late. Credit the Thunder for getting enough done to win both. Otherwise, they'd be 3-5 and EC would be in 3rd place. Elmhurst should still be regarded as a good team.
Credit North Central for being resilient, if inconsistent as a group.
Among those on the lower rungs of the league ladder, it seems North Park is the only one with much chance at finishing 7-7. But, a 6-8 record may again be good enough to make the CCIW tourney. Maybe several teams will tie at 5-9?

[Gregory Sager]

NPU simply has to be more consistent in order to secure a playoff berth. The Vikings play "young", which is to say, they have a tendency to be up one game and down the next. Sometimes it even varies half by half. It's what comes from having a team that's dominated by freshmen and sophomores.

[iwu70]

Congrats to Lexi Baltes on regional nomination for Academic All-American.  A tough, very smart player, at 3.89 GPA. 

Keep it rolling Titans -- on the court and in the classroom.

IWU70

[RogK]

As always, everyone travel safely tomorrow, whether short distance or long.
I suspect that I'll confine myself to Chicago.