WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Jester1390]

im surprised you guys dont do weekly predictions competition like the fine people on the hcac board do

[RogK]

The more I watch sports, the less interest I have in any expectations someone tries to set prior to a game.
Players should give their best effort in any game, with no concern for what may be expected to happen in that game.
What the players do is all that I find relevant. Let them all start each season and each game with a blank slate.
Predictions are about prognosticators proving how astute they are. That doesn't interest me, but others can have fun with it.

[Jester1390]

rog that is called the betting line

[iwu70]

Rog, I'm with you.  I much prefer watching what actually happens on the court . . . and the fun and drama of the competition, the passion and effort of the players.  I'll watch to see how correct or not Massey is . . . but it doesn't really matter much at the end of the day in terms of fan . . . or my interest in following D3, following my Titans . . .  and, of course, I know some of the players and wish to give them all support during the season.  It is a grind for them, with all the workouts, practices, their academic demands and the travel.  It takes great focus and dedication. 

From the previous games Chicago has played, it does seem they should be favored over IWU this Saturday.  We'll see if Massey is correct . . . of if the Titans' recent improvement continues upward, beyond what might be factored in by the Massey calculations. 

I'm much more optimistic about these Titans than I was earlier on in the season, after our rough 1-4 start, when we had tons of trouble on the offensive end . . . a low shooting percentage, with very few treys falling.  Things are looking up to a significant degree now, especially defensively . . . not sure how far this upward trajectory can take this edition of the Titans.

IWU'70

[Roundball999]

I prefer watching what happens on the court too.  But if that were the only thing of interest... we wouldn't have these boards, rankings, D3Hoops, and yes Massey too.  Those are all different ways, beyond the game itself, to extend one's interest and involvement as a fan.  All to be consumed or not by a fan according to their personal preferences.  I appreciate the options.

[Gregory Sager]

I prefer watching what happens on the court too.  But if that were the only thing of interest... we wouldn't have these boards, rankings, D3Hoops, and yes Massey too.  Those are all different ways, beyond the game itself, to extend one's interest and involvement as a fan.  All to be consumed or not by a fan according to their personal preferences.  I appreciate the options.

Well, yeah. Everything aside from the game itself is incidental to a large degree, although a lot of us enjoy it -- and I think that if Rog thought about it for awhile he'd include himself in that category as well, since, after all, he posts here (posting is something outside of the boundary of "what the players do is all I find relevant") and enjoys sorting out stats and posting them here. Not to give Rog a hard time, of course -- I'm just saying that, as you implied, if the games itself were all that mattered we'd do nothing more than watch them while checking our phones to find out what happened in the other league games, because d3boards.com would be superfluous.

I don't think that the outside stuff is entirely incidental, though, because expectations can play into motivation, and motivation can affect games. While I think that the whole idea of "bulletin board material" is typically overstated, there's no doubt in my mind that upsets are a real thing. Sometimes a team plays above expectations because that team's opponent is regarded as being a better team, and sometimes it works in reverse, with the presumably better team playing below its capability due to complacency.

Rog is correct that each team starts a new season with a 0-0 record and a new game with a 0-0 score. But the fact is that teams don't start out even-steven, despite the preseason standings and/or the pregame score. Millikin and Elmhurst may have both started the CCIW season 0-0, but nobody in his or her right mind thought in early November that the Big Blue and the Bluejays therefore had an equal chance to win the CCIW title this season -- and it's not likely that the people in the stands in Faganel Hall eight days ago objectively thought that Elmhurst had just as much of a chance to win the game as did Millikin when the two teams were going through their pregame layup lines. I think we all know that. All this stuff -- the preseason coaches poll, the stats, the posts, the d3hoops.com Top 25, the Massey ratings, etc. -- is about that fact.

[RogK]

Labeling a game result an upset sometimes says : the win was an aberration with little meaning, the winning team is still inferior, it was an "uncharacteristic" performance for the losing team.
I reiterate my main point : judge teams solely by what they accomplish this season, not by preconceptions of what they are supposed to be.
And if you re-read my post, you'll not find any prohibition on discussion or evaluation the actual results of a game.
Imagine arriving in a city you've never visited and going to a game (high school or NAIA) featuring teams that you have never heard of. As you observe the game, you discover and appreciate the effort and talent with absolutely no preconceptions of who "should" be able to do what. I try to appreciate the talent and effort anew in each D3 game, resisting the temptation to diminish a player's achievements in that game because we've seen her do well many times before.

[Gregory Sager]

Labeling a game result an upset sometimes says : the win was an aberration with little meaning, the winning team is still inferior, it was an "uncharacteristic" performance for the losing team.

I don't think that the "little meaning" part of what you're saying is true at all. Aberration or not, there's plenty of meaning involved in taking an L on your record -- and plenty of meaning in the newfound confidence that might boost the morale and future performance of the underdog that got the W. And losing an upset could spell the difference between winning the league and not winning the league. There's a whole truckload of meaning in that.

I reiterate my main point : judge teams solely by what they accomplish this season, not by preconceptions of what they are supposed to be.

But what they've accomplished this season creates the preconceptions of what they are supposed to be. Forget for a moment what I said about Millikin and Elmhurst in the context of preseason. Let's go back to that game at Faganel Hall on December 8. Millikin came into the game 5-3, a modest record to be sure, but all three of the Big Blue's losses came at the hands of very strong teams. More to the point, Elmhurst came into the game with a 1-7 record, and it was a 1-7 record that almost completely consisted of games in which the Bluejays were on the wrong end of trouncings. They were averaging almost 22 points per game fewer than their opponents. You and I both saw the Bluejays at the NPU Tip-Off Tournament ... how could there not be preconceptions of how that game on December 8 would turn out, based upon what we had seen as well as what the data says?

And if you re-read my post, you'll not find any prohibition on discussion or evaluation the actual results of a game.
Imagine arriving in a city you've never visited and going to a game (high school or NAIA) featuring teams that you have never heard of. As you observe the game, you discover and appreciate the effort and talent with absolutely no preconceptions of who "should" be able to do what.

I don't need to imagine it, as I experienced it firsthand over Thanksgiving weekend at the boys HS game in Indiana I spoke about earlier. It was a lot of fun going into the game somewhat blind. And I've had plenty of similar experiences watching online D3 games from around the country. I do understand the appeal. But it's not really possible, IMO, to glean that same kind of experience when watching teams play in the same league over and over again, teams whose players you've grown familiar with from watching them throughout their careers.

I try to appreciate the talent and effort anew in each D3 game, resisting the temptation to diminish a player's achievements in that game because we've seen her do well many times before.

I'd like to think that I do the same thing without attempting to erase preconceptions that I know I can't honestly erase (and which wouldn't help me as a broadcaster, because part of what I'm supposed to do is provide context to the greater arc of a season or a career). I think it's perfectly possible to appreciate a player's accomplishments while being fully aware of what that player has or hasn't done before. I got just as excited watching Jayla Johnson take over the third quarter of the Chicago @ NPU game as I had in the several previous instances over the past 2 1/2 years in which I've seen her go off like that, and I was just as appreciative of how rare it truly is for a basketball player to have the ability to do what she did. And, conversely, I got really excited when Esther Miller, who has always been a defense-first "intangibles" player off the bench throughout her career, broke out in the opener against St. Kate's with an 18 and 14 effort. In fact, it was exactly that context -- knowing the player that she had been, as compared to what she was doing in that game against St. Kate's -- that made it so exciting to watch. There's no progression without context.

[RogK]

Then I'll ask you this : in the various CCIW sports you've broadcast, are there any Wheaton, Elmhurst or North Central players or coaches named Meyer?
Following the recent firing of Jacksonville NFL coach Urban Meyer, is there someone we could lightheartedly call Suburban Meyer?

[Gregory Sager]

When I was a teenager I had a special edition of old-timer baseball cards, and one of them was an Urban Shocker card. He was a right-hander who pitched for the Browns and the Yankees, mostly in the 1920s. Shocker was a member of the pitching rotation of the 1927 Yankees that is generally considered to be the greatest baseball team of all time.

One of my wisenheimer friends took that card and wrote "CITY SURPRISE" on the top in pen. He thought that he was being funny, but I was ticked off because he had ruined the card.

[RogK]

I think that wisenheimer owes you a near-mint George Mitterwald card.

[Jester1390]

Greg i have it even worse. I had over 10,000 baseball cards  some junk but alot of good ones.  When i went away to the military at 18 my mom put them in a duffle bag and threw them in the garage without me knowing. lets just say 3 years later they were all worthless from water damage from freezing and refreezing

[Gregory Sager]

My mom threw out all of my baseball cards while I was away working at camp one summer. This was bad enough, but I was aware that one card I had was special -- a 1974 Randy Jones card with Washington "Nat'l Lea." printed on the card instead of Padres for the team name, because that was when the franchise was on the verge of moving from San Diego to Washington DC. McDonald's magnate Ray Kroc bought the franchise and vowed to keep it in San Diego just as the Topps presses were in the midst of their first run in January '74, so the Washington "Nat'l Lea." cards became an immediate collector's item. I thought that I had a baseball card that would be worth so much that I could retire on it someday, and I was furious that my mother had tossed it into the garbage along with the rest of my collection.

I used to needle her about throwing away my "retirement card," until the advent of the Internet and eBay allowed me to get a look at what the 1974 Randy Jones "Nat'l Lea." was actually going for on the resale market. Just checked it again today, and there's a 1974 Randy Jones "Nat'l Lea." card for sale on eBay with an asking price of $24.90.

It would've been a short retirement.

[iwu70]

Greg, better to save and collect Chinese scrolls from famous painters and some vintage opera recordings . . . much more valuable that baseball cards!    Just say'n.  LOL. 

I just donated some valuable scrolls to dear 'ole IWU, for display in the Ames Library . . .  I'm glad the Asian students we have at IWU can now have some art in the Library of a genre and style that is more familiar to them.

Looking forward to the IWU-Wash U match-up this weekend.  Should be a dandy!

IWU'70

[RogK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxHnXajIex4
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