WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[lmitzel]

Check with Rog and lmitzel and GoPerry and ask them if they're emotionally attached to IWU, too.

Why is everything turning green?

AAAAGH! Quick! Get the women and children to the rockets and lift off before it's too late!

If we're gonna talk about bad calls, can we get this level of vitriol directed at the time NCC got called for an over and back when the ball was 10 feet past the half court line? (Note: please don't, I don't want to rile myself up over something that didn't impact the outcome of the game.)

My all-time favorite, and I hasten to point out that this did not take place at the crackerbox, was the time I saw a ref attempt to assign a bench technical to a team whose Gatorade cooler was, he felt, too close to the floor. After his two colleagues pulled him into a hasty huddle, and after about three or four minutes of emphatic back-and-forth, he emerged from the huddle and walked over to the scorer's table to downgrade his T-bone to a mere warning. Meanwhile, during the huddle the team's student manager had moved the cooler back into a dead space next to the side of the bleachers.

In the last year of NCC's old Tip Off Tournament, we had a five minute stoppage to review a shot clock reset... on a ball that clearly hit the back of the rim. (Incidentally, the same ref who called that stoppage called the aforementioned over and back.)

Though for me... nothing will ever top Towelgate. (I know not officiating-related, but still funny.)

[Jester1390]

man the snobbery on this page is unbelievable.  I will retire from here.  Just be my little old self on HCAC page. Nothing but the best fellas

[RogK]

Millikin's game at Eureka has been moved from Sunday to Monday :
http://eurekareddevils.com/sports/wbkb/2021-22/releases/20220101su75z7
This adjustment may be weather-related. Or, everybody wants to stay home to watch the important Bears game!

[Gregory Sager]

Millikin's game at Eureka has been moved from Sunday to Monday :
http://eurekareddevils.com/sports/wbkb/2021-22/releases/20220101su75z7
This adjustment may be weather-related. Or, everybody wants to stay home to watch the important Bears game!

That got even more of a chuckle out of me than your quip about Bloomington/Normal, Rog.

[iwu70]

RogK, thanks for stating the obvious. 

At least we're not Decatur . . . right?

Here comes the January/February CCIW grind, and some more great basketball.

As you could well-expect, we greenies are still basking in the demolition of then #1 Yeshiva.  It should give our boys some pretty nice and powerful confidence going into the rest of the season.

Perhaps we can talk more current basketball . . . and less about the Hope-IWU tournament game, on the women's side, from two years ago.

'70

[RogK]

to which our Millikin friends may reply :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVEtfS0Hk8Q
- -
(hit the Skip Ad thing if it starts with adverts)

[Enginerd]

This will be the only thing I'll ever have to say about any of this ever again - it's counterproductive to the purpose of this board and frankly I'm too old to care.

I actually went back and watched the Hope-RHIT game again and honestly it wasn't as bad as I remembered it. I was wrong about the officials impact on that game. When I'm wrong I'm man enough to admit it and I was wrong about that game. I regret that it gave anyone an opportunity to paint it as an RHIT-Hope issue for me. I never once suggested Hope was "too good for Division III" but I did state that they are outrageously talented. I've watched a couple of their games this year and haven't seen anyone in a long while that can make wholesale "Grinnell" type line-changes/substitutions without any drop-off in talent. They're really good and I'm sure their kids are just as deserving and work just as hard as anyone. It's just boring to me when you begin the season knowing who's going to win the national championship barring some kind of lightning-strike loss in the NCAA's. Felt the same way with Thomas More a few years ago when they had the Moss kid. In fact, I was doing cartwheels in my living room pulling for Hope the year Hope beat TM on their home court in the NCAA's.

On the bright side of things, the renewed interest (?) in this mess prompted me to go back and look at that game (Hope-RHIT) again and I want to point out that Hope executed an absolutely brilliant OB play that resulted in a wide-open 3 that a post player knocked down to seal the win. If it wasn't set-up to specifically be that skip-pass then it was certainly a read that had been pointed out by the staff. Either way it was brilliant and the better team won. If you want to see a wonderful example of good coaching and an incredibly perceptive call/play I strongly encourage you to go and watch it. It happened in the last 90 seconds of the game I believe. For someone who loves basketball that's more important than the one or two calls that were missed. No one will remembered that the game was won or lost by anyone - but you can learn something about the soul of the game just by watching that one small moment. It's almost like the first time a novice chess players sees a truly brilliant move up close and in person.

As for the IWU game and a rebuttal of my point-by-point "accusations", I had way too much scotch that night and got the counter-numbers all screwed-up and was not very eloquent in defending my thesis. I'll state that there were a very large number of "hmmm" calls and no-calls that happened during the fourth quarter of that game. None of us (at least that I'm aware of) are theoretical physicists, so there's really no way, short of a better understanding of quantum mechanics (which, admittedly, I do not possess), to know whether the officials caused IWU to lose or Hope to win. I simply wanted to point out the things that were missed - they really were fascinating. More than most people, I think, I watch the officiating during games, be it middle school, HS, college, or the NBA/WNBA. I think the officials had a couple bad misses that hurt IWU in their game vs. RHIT this season which I've previously stated elsewhere. I've always been fascinated by good and bad officiating. Humans are being asked to discern things happening in hundredths of a second and definitively rule on them. I happen to think that the first 28-29 minutes of that game were very competently officiated. The final 11 minutes will always hold a fascination for me - but I resolved around 17 months ago to keep that to myself moving forward because it was a distraction and because I realized that I shouldn't have gotten that deeply into it because it became obvious to me pretty quickly that there weren't many people interested in whether the officials inadvertently influenced the outcome of the game - and similarly nobody was going to convince me that they didn't - so it was a pointless to continue and I made the decision to just shut-up about it and drop it....until of course until I was drug back into it by someone seeking to assert their intellectual superiority based on a disagreement that I walked away from a long time ago.

The game is over, it's done, and I'm sure someone else will have to go up there this year. Between the crowd, the arena itself, and the atmosphere Hope has an incredible home-court advantage. I honestly thought IWU had no chance going in but deserve a lot of credit for the game they played. Kudos to Hope for overcoming an eight-point lead and managing to pull the game out in the end.

The end. At least for me...

[Gregory Sager]

Thank you, Enginerd. I appreciate your candor and probity. Not many people would be willing to come onto a public posting site and give a mea culpa. I respect you for doing so.

[Enginerd]

I'll say this in regard to Illinois Wesleyan : Bloomington is about as close to Normal as you can get.

As for double entendres, I prefer "Bloomington Ain't Normal".

[RogK]

That would make a good bumper sticker.

[iwu70]

Yes, the B/N community is spending money, going through another "re-branding exercise" now, so all suggestions, serious or funny, are most welcome.  We all know that our universities have done the same, spending tons, doing focus groups, and coming up with slogans to supposedly clearly identify the institution and draw impressionable 16 and 17 years olds to shell out thousands to attend -- or at least their parents to shell out the money.  Marketing and "spin" in command.  Most of these exercises are silly, some even embarrassing.   Some quaint and fun . . . I like the one for University of Colorado = "Be Boulder" and the one for Northfield, MN. = "Cows, Colleges and Contentment," but otherwise, haven't seen too too many than seem worth the "branding exercise" money, supposed brilliant PR firms notwithstanding.  I'm sure some good ones could be made for Decatur, Wheaton and Naperville as well . . . and hopefully, Greg has some good suggestions for "Charcoal Delightsville."  All fun suggestions welcome . . . in good humor.

Loved the Q video about the IWU-Yeshiva game . . . a wonderful experience for all concerned . . .  and a great win for our Titans.  As I've said there and before, "once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker," especially if you were in the Big Apple during 9/11.  One can never forget or leave the proud spirit of the city out of your psyche if you were there during those months.  We look forward to welcoming our new Yeshiva friends to The Shirk next fall for the 2nd Sikma Invitational.  I'm sure it will be another unique and great experience, and another superb D3 basketball game.

Happy New Year, all!

iwu'70

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Slogan Idea:  BEER NUTS!

[iwu70]

Ryan, great idea . . . we wouldn't have The Shirk Center for Athletics and Recreation, one of the best facilities in all of D3, without BEER NUTS.  Do eat more, keep supporting them . . . maybe we'll get a new Fine Arts Center later on . . .  please!

Right now, the IWU slogan is "Be Breakthrough" -- so many schools must have used the same PR firm as when I travelled across the country, visiting various liberal arts campuses, I see these marketing slogans everywhere -- "Be Awesome,"  "Be More,"  "Be Beyond,"  "Be More Than You Can Be" "Be Bold" etc. . . .  all pretty lame in my book.  But, I guess short and snappy for Admissions' brochures and on-campus banners.  As I said, I only really liked "Be Boulder" for U of Colorado, Boulder. 

We'll see what the Bloomington/Normal commercial rebranding exercise comes up with for Bloomington/Normal . . . perhaps something about insurance, universities, agriculture and electric trucks, now with Rivian's big new endeavor just west of Bloomington/Normal, a multi-billion $ company now with over 3,000 employees, a recent $70 billion IPO.  So, "Be Electric?"  (but buy State Farm Insurance . . .)  Time will tell.

I'm hoping somehow IWU would more greatly reflect its Mission Statement and its long-term, hopefully enduring commitment to strong liberal arts, especially in any new capital campaign which is coming, and overdue . . . given realities, though, some of my classmates have suggested we rename to "State Farm University" or "Illinois Wesleyan Sports Institute."  All a bit tongue-in-cheek, but still reflecting some not-entirely-happy sentiments out there . . . about priorities and recent cutbacks. 

A good game Wednesday:  Elmhurst @ IWU.  We hope no let-down after the hype and excitement of the Yeshiva game in New York City.   

IWU'70 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

BE er Nuts?

[Gregory Sager]

Jayla Johnson is steadily working her way up the all-time scoring list at North Park. She's now up to sixth place with 1,217 points, and she's eight points away from passing two-sport legend and Vikings Hall of Famer Andrea Mendyk (1999-02) for fifth. This is all pretty remarkable stuff when you consider that, putting her Covid-truncated 2020-21 season together with the 2021-22 season that she's played to date, she's still played less than three full seasons.

Also, not to jinx her, but Jayla's on pace to set a new school single-season record for free-throw percentage. She's currently at .900 (45-50); the NPU single-season record is .866, set by Evie Peterson back in 2006-07.