WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[GoPerry]

Wheaton 69, Chicago 72

By all rights, the Thunder should never have been so close late in the game.  After 3 quarters they were down 13 pts having committed 23 turnovers and the Maroons weren't playing well or else it would've been more.  But then Wheaton played their absolute best quarter so far this season and came back to actually tie the game.  I give them a lot of credit to not give up and fight back even though they fell short.  The Thunder need to play the rest of the season more like those last 10 minutes - with some urgency and defensive intensity.   

Jenn Berg had 17 pts with 6 boards.  8s were wild for sister Jill 8 pts, 8 rebs, 8 blks.  Hannah Frazier 12 and 4, Devin Kyler 10 and 7. Jordan Myroth came close to the quadruple double, 16 pts, 9 rebs, 8 assts, 11 turnovers.  She missed a bunch of close layups but made up for it by staying aggressive and getting to the free throw line.  Hope she stays that way and cuts down the tos.  She was very good in the 4th q.

Taylor Lake had 20 to lead the Maroons.  Olariche Obi contributed 13pts and 8 rebs.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 76
Aurora 48

Jayla Johnson: 14 pts, 3 stls
Zakiya Newsome: 11 pts, 3 stls
Sinead Molloy: 6 rebs
Angelina Villasin: 3;1 a:to, 3 stls

This was what I call a "doughnut game" -- two solid parts separated by a hole in the middle. The Vikings were picking pockets, jumping passing lanes, and getting easy fast-break points like nobody's business throughout the first quarter, en route to a 27-5 bulge in the first minute of the second quarter. Then the end of the NPU bench came in, the Vikings bogged down at the offensive end of the floor, and the Spartans caught fire. They whittled the NPU lead down to eight at the half, and scored a bucket in the first thirty seconds of the third quarter to close within six at 35-29. That lit a fire underneath the Vikings, though, as NPU proceeded to go on a 15-2 run over a five-minute stretch of the third period that put the game away.

The most exciting aspect of the game was seeing two separate Zakiya Newsome drives to the basket in which she burst past two defenders, got to the rim, and finished. Knee brace or not, she's clearly back all the way from the torn ACL that cut her freshman season short last year.

[RogK]

37 points by Izzy Anderson in Augie's 75-67 loss to UW-Whitewater. Alexis Jones helped the Vikings' cause with 15 pts and 5 reb.
Getting back to Izzy, she made 10/11 FTs, very good. She scored 27 via 21 FG att, for a very good .643 eFG%. Also added 5 reb and 3 assists.

[RogK]

Washington U 70, Millikin 61.
For the Grande Bleue, Aubrey Magro scored 16 on 10 FG att. Yanni Saddler scored 23 via 4 FTs and .413 eFG shooting. Jordan Hildebrand had 5 steals and 8 rebs.
It could be encouraging that Millikin won quarters 1 3 and 4 by a composite 51-43, but being on the short end of the 27-10 2nd quarter could be discouraging.

[RogK]

Wheaton blocked 19 shots in their recent game, but even without those, they'd lead D3 WBB.
They have 62 for the season; 2nd place (three teams tied) has 40.
Their per game lead is of the same ratio, 12.4 to 8.

[GoPerry]

Wheaton blocked 19 shots in their recent game, but even without those, they'd lead D3 WBB.
They have 62 for the season; 2nd place (three teams tied) has 40.
Their per game lead is of the same ratio, 12.4 to 8.

I've been tracking this too RogK.  Wheaton forwards have lots of height and length.  The fact that WC keeps getting outrebounded, sometimes by wide margins and especially on the offensive glass, is an ongoing frustration.  Blocks and rebounds don't necessarily have to go hand in hand I understand.  But you'd think there be a little better correlation.

[Gregory Sager]

The CCIW as a whole isn't rebounding well. Only two of the nine teams have plus reboundimg margins (Carroll is +3, Carthage is +1), and they're hardly dominant in that category. That correlates to the fact that only three CCIW teams have plus scoring margins (Carthage is +21.3, Illinois Wesleyan is +10.3, and Wheaton is +1.2; North Park breaks even, as the Vikings and their opponents have scored the same number of points this season). The league as a whole sits at only .500 after playing 48 non-conference games.

[iwu70]

In looking through all the stats so far for the CCIW teams, Carthage seems to be playing at the highest level.  They are tops or near tops in many categories.  The opening game Saturday with IWU should be a good test to see where these two squads are at this stage of the season.

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

Team stats mean little at this point, Mark, because the nine teams have played wildly varying schedules in terms of opponent strength.

It's really only worth looking at the league as a whole with regard to team stats (aside from free-throw stats, of course), since the competition balances out over the 48 games played.

[Mr. Ypsi]

And, at this point in the season, I'm more interested in whom you beat than you whom you lose to.

Hmm.  I'll have to give that one some more thought Gordon.  Good wins seem to mean alot to the voters and I think they should.  I would also say that losses vs higher ranked or similarly ranked teams shouldn't hurt too badly either.  But I'm less sure why bad losses don't seem to affect voters as much?  Amherst's home loss to Eastern Connecticut was a bad one.  Shouldn't a ranked team like Depauw be able to beat RHIT - even after getting handled by 20 vs IWU? 

Geez GoPerry - have you paid ANY attention to Midwest women's basketball outside the CCIW the past several years? RHIT entered the past two NCAA tournaments without their starting PG whom had been lost in the conf. championship game BOTH years. Two straight 24-4 campaigns, including a ROAD win at undefeated UAA Champion Chicago last season. A one-point loss to Illinois Wesleyan and a five-point loss on the road at DePauw were their only non-conference blemishes. RHIT has been absolutely decimated by injuries early on this season and might not have everyone back until after Christmas, if at all. The 2-3 record isn't very impressive, but their non-conference schedule will wind up putting them in the SOS top 6-8 before conference play starts. Check it out yourself. Two straight wins over Chicago, a win on a neutral court vs UT-Dallas, and they finished the 2017-18 season ranked #4 in the final regional rankings (ahead of Trine).  RHIT even spanked IWU by 30 a couple years ago-which remains the only CCIW non-conference game never reported or discussed on this board in the past 5 years or so, that I can tell...

I don't know...SHOULD DePauw just spank poor little old RHIT?

I would think a win over DePauw might be seen as a huge step for a team that has battled a lot of adversity, as opposed to a humiliating defeat for DePauw - and if you want to split hairs and point out that the game was played on RHIT's court, I would counter that DePauw managed to win at then-#9 Trine, but not "lowly" RHIT. I know it's hard to understand how a school that can only recruit engineering majors can compete with the rest of D-III (see MIT as well), but there is far more there than meets the eye, if you care to look. I don't know what kind of season RHIT will have, especially with all the injuries, but they deserve a bit more credit than that...

Enginerd:

Wow!  Ok- I'll apologize if my comment insulted you and the team that I know you support so well.  However, I believe you are reading way too much into that single reference.  I am a little more familiar with RHIT and their strong defensive capabilities, over the last couple years from Wheaton having played them and being in the same NCAA pod etc.  But having said that, my comment had nothing to do with what any program has done last season or any past season and it certainly was NOT about trying to dis the Engineers in the least.  It was more about how a current team today, ranked in the top 25 of a subjective poll, imho should be expected to beat an unranked team that had just lost by 25 (to a team that was no longer ranked).  The fact that RHIT was playing with injuries(I didn't know) and had key players out makes my point even more.   It was a question pertaining to voters viewing current results on the floor more empirically and fact-based in their voting.  You could have substituted Depauw with any top 25 team name and RHIT with Wheaton or any unranked team and my question/point was precisely the same.

Note to GoPerry: Don't take any digs at IIT's or MSOE's women's basketball teams, if you know what's good for you.

Way ahead of you on that one now! 

LoL - no need to apologize. The whole ranking thing has been a bit frustrating as a fan. For instance, despite a (at that time) sparkling SOS, and a 12-3 record, with the three losses to Hope (at Hope, where a post player threw-in a 3 with 20 seconds left), IWU, and DePauw, AND a win on the road at Chicago, RHIT didn't even get so much as a single vote in the D3Hoops poll until mid-January last season. Meanwhile, Baldwin-Wallace cracks the Top-25 THIS year with a 4-0 record against mediocre competition. It's as though voters were just waiting for ANY reason to vote for an OAC school...

Folks just aren't aware what an achievement it is to be COMPETITIVE, let alone actually win games against schools like IWU, DePauw, Chicago, UT-Dallas...etc - for STEM schools like MSOE, RHIT, and MIT. MIT might actually be the best of the STEM schools this season, and are more than capable of making some noise in March.

Rochester IT (the OTHER Rochester) has had a nice little run recently, and I'm sure it bugs people to no end to lose to the nerds at CalTech, whom finally have a coach and have bothered to actually recruit anyone...

I saw this when you first posted it, but delayed a response to try to find the article I remembered.  Never did find it, but here goes anyway, off (fallible) memory.

Caltech (at least on the men's side) has TRIED to recruit.  A few years ago they sought ardently for a certain recruit, but couldn't get him thru admissions.  Instead he became a star at his "safety school" - MIT!  Only at Caltech could MIT be regarded as a "safety school"!   (I'm not sure the problems at Caltech are the coaches not recruiting!)

[iwu70]

Greg, generally agree with you on the stats, though it does give some indication of the relative quality of the teams so far.  I realize there are widely varying schedules and quality of opponents, though I think CC and IWU have played somewhat similar schedules.  We'll see when the teams start matching up head to head.  I expect a close game tomorrow CC vs. IWU.  And, looks like IWU, CC, and WC are the top three teams competing for the league title this year.  IWU has improved quite a bit over their six tough games to date.  I saw several games at Shirk before departing for Asia and have looked at the other games more recently.  Still some key contributors not quite on track as yet -- Schneider and Anderson.  Less help from Munroe than I expected, and perhaps more quality minutes from Brovelli than expected.  Maddie Merritt is really playing well, like a senior leader.  Seems Shanks is well-settled in now as the PG.  In coming games, I expect really great things from Sosa, as I feel she really is a starter-quality player already, even with less overall experience.  Any given night, someone new can step up.   Coach Smith has thrown a few of the freshmen into the fray already, to see what they are made of.  Helps with overall depth.

Happy holidays to all the chatsters.

IWU'70

[iwu70]

Titans over Carthage at the half 42-30.  Sosa on fire.

IWU'70

[iwu70]

IWU over Carthage at The Shirk, 85 - 71

The Kendall Sosa show:   27 pts., 8-10 FG, 5-7 from trey, 6 RBs.  (a sophomore).   Love her game.
Shanks with 16

More later, when I see the entire box score.  IWU seems to cut off Live Stats as soon as the game ends. 

A hard-fought game, but the Titans really showing their depth and high-quality offense tonight.

Good to start the CCIW campaign with a good win over one of the contenders.

IWU'70

[Mr. Ypsi]

Mark, can you confirm or refute that that was Sosa's career high?  Good timing, since the season's top scorer (Maddie Merritt) got in early foul trouble and ended with only 7 points - depth is a wonderful attribute!

Nina Anderson is having a very rough season so far.  The player I personally am somewhat disappointed in is Raven Hughes.  She's not doing poorly (6 points and 8 rebounds tonight), but I really thought she would be a break-out star this season.  Ah, well, it is still early in both the season and in her career (she's a sophomore), and perhaps she's doing great things I'm not noticing but Coach Smith is - she's second on the team in minutes played!

[iwu70]

A more full report:

IWU 85 CC 71

For IWU:
Sosa 27 on 8-10, 5-7 3s, 5-6 FTs, 6 RBs, 2 Assts.  -- Yes, a career high for her.  Quite a line.
Shanks 17 and 9 RBs.
Schneider 11 and 7 Assts.
Brovelli 8 and 10 RBs
Hughes 6 and 8 RBs

Merritt and Schneider fouling out

It's pick your poison with the TITANS, on any given night.  Merritt was well-defended tonight

For Carthage:
M. Kaelber 19
B. Gilbert 15
S. Woodward 11
M. Berigan 11

CC didn't quite shoot the percentage from 3 that they needed.

IWU winning the rebounding battle 47-31, a key to the game.

Ypsi, you are right, seems Anderson and Hughes have not really hit their stride as yet.  Munroe now in the PG back-up role.   I think Hughes may still be a bit slow, tentative with the knee.  Hughes starting now, as Shanks took up the starting PG spot.  Hughes not moving as smoothly or quickly as last year.  But, good contributions, esp. on rebounding.  Time will tell.  Anderson a real streak shooter, so I'm sure she'll light it up one of these days.  The TITANS have lots of weapons.

I'm most impressed so far with steadier PG play by Shanks, the quality minutes from Brovelli, and, of course, the overall smooth and quick offensive game from Sosa.  She could be a real star in this league going forward.  The IWU sophomores are already very experienced players -- Hughes, Sosa and Brovelli. 

A good start, good win to begin the CCIW run.

IWU'70