WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[RogK]

In the game I saw, Kelly Brooks scored 14 (4/5, 6/8) and grabbed 6 rebounds in 14:00 to help Wheaton (8-2, 2nd place) get past Augustana 73-52.
Wheaton was up 35-14 at the half and by 40-16 minutes into the 2nd. Then Augie's senior guard Sarah Rachwalski proceeded to outscore the Thunder 11 to 5 over a three minute stretch, bringing the score to 45-27 and bringing her teammates to their feet.
From that point on, Wheaton maintained a 20 point-ish lead for the duration.
Lynnea Kvam had a nice game for Wheaton, scoring 13 and getting 4 steals.
Noelle Dryden contributed nicely with 5 rebounds and 3 assists in just 12:00. Her enthusiasm is always a big plus for the Thunder.
Sarah Jones had 8 pts, 4 rebs, 2 steals and a bad crash to the floor in her 16:00. It was quite worrying for a minute while she writhed in pain on the floor. It appears that her ribs were hurt, but she recovered and re-entered the game in the 2nd half.

[Old Hoosier Baller]

A few items relating to the Elmhurst Bluejays.  Initially, congratulations to Lyndsie Long for being named CCIW Player of the Week and to senior Brittany Bobruk for passing the 1,000 point threshold this past Saturday at Augustana.  Brittany's contributions and team leadership will most certainly be missed on the Bluejay bench next year as she closes out a great career for the Jays!

Keeping with my comments of last week with respect to the parity in talent with regard to most CCIW teams this season, the North Central-Elmhurst game of last night once again shows how just a bounce here or there determines the outcome of many of these games.  Other than the IWU contest, the other four losses for the Jays have been by five points or less this season.

In addition to Lyndsie Long's 22 point/10 rebound performance against the Cardinals, the Jays continue to receive solid contributions from the freshman duo of Meghan Merklein (12 pts/3 rebs) and Megan Ney (8pts/4 rebs) who have moved into the starting line-up.  The two freshmen are playing significant minutes this season and continue to gain valuable game experience that will undoubtedly benefit the Jays next season as well. 

[RogK]

to Hoosier Titan and anyone else planning to see IWU at Olivet Nazarene on the 17th :
That game is listed as a 7:00 start now --- used to be 5:30.
It may not be quite as wild a game as earlier anticipated. ONU, in its last two games, apparently abandoned its trademark style of playing 13 players with frequent "line changes" and full-court pressing and scores in the 90s and 100s. Their last two finals were 73-62 and 82-60.
Only 8 players have been used. I don't know what happened with the five "missing" players, whether they're off the team or not.

[Hoosier Titan]

Rog,

Thanks for the heads-up on the ONU game and situation. If they are really down to eight players, I can see why they might have had to change their style.  Looks like they've lost a lot of firepower if those players really are gone.

The story of the IWU-Millikin game was the Titan defense.  IWU didn't shoot particularly well, but forcing 27 turnovers and getting 19 offensive rebounds made up for less-than-stellar shooting.

[Darryl Nester]

Pardon the intrusion to your board ... I've been working on a program I wrote a couple of years ago to analyze scenarios for the HCAC standings, trying to extend it so that it could do a similar analysis for any other conference.  The CCIW is my first official "guinea pig" conference in this regard.

The table at the end of this post lists--as a percentage of all possible outcomes for the remaining 15 games--the final seeding for each team.  These are not probabilities (unless you believe that each team has an equal likelihood of winning each game).

I assumed in making this table that your conference's tie-breaking procedure was the same as those of the HCAC (I was too lazy to investigate this myself).

Team	Overall	Home	Away	Remaining Games
Illinois Wesleyan	11-0	5-0	6-0	vs. WC, vs. NCC, @ EC
Wheaton (Ill.)	8-2	3-2	5-0	@ IWU, vs. MU, @ CC, vs. NPU
Carthage	6-4	4-1	2-3	@ NCC, vs. EC, vs. WC, @ AC
Elmhurst	5-5	2-3	3-2	vs. NPU, @ CC, @ MU, vs. IWU
Millikin	5-5	2-3	3-2	vs. AC, @ WC, vs. EC, @ NCC
North Central (Ill.)	5-5	2-3	3-2	vs. CC, @ NPU, @ IWU, vs. MU
Augustana	1-10	1-5	0-5	@ MU, @ NPU, vs. CC
North Park	0-10	0-5	0-5	@ EC, vs. NCC, vs. AC, @ WC

Team	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5	#6	#7	#8
IWU	93.54%	6.46%	--	--	--	--	--	--
WC	6.46%	81.85%	10.09%	1.52%	0.08%	--	--	--
CC	--	8.64%	41.98%	26.24%	15.76%	7.38%	--	--
MU	--	0.79%	10.53%	26.45%	31.79%	30.44%	--	--
EC	--	0.37%	20.11%	22.60%	24.87%	32.05%	--	--
NCC	--	1.89%	17.30%	23.18%	27.50%	30.13%	--	--
AC	--	--	--	--	--	--	64.04%	35.96%
NPU	--	--	--	--	--	--	35.96%	64.04%

[RogK]

Welcome, Darryl,
Are you trying to make our brains hurt?

[Darryl Nester]

Welcome, Darryl,
Are you trying to make our brains hurt?

What?  Do you mean that not everyone is as geekishly enthralled by numbers as I am?

[RogK]

Does your formula consider what the results of the first meetings of the remaining matchups were? Or does it just use home and road records?

[Darryl Nester]

The home/away records are solely there for information; they do not enter into the final table.  My program considers all possible outcomes for the remaining games, then breaks any ties using the process applied in the HCAC (which I assumed was similar to yours):

1) if two teams have the same record, break the tie based on head-to-head competition.
2) if the teams split their head-to-head matchups, compare performance against other teams in the conference, working from the top of the standings on down.

When three or more teams are tied, ties are broken in a similar way.

[Titan Q]

On IWU's Stacey Arlis...

http://basketball.dailyherald.com/story/?id=271808

[Hoosier Titan]

Illinois Wesleyan matched the intensity they have been showing on defense with their offense today to defeat Wheaton 101-57.  The Titans shot well from long, from the paint, from all over the court.  For the game they shot 56.7% overall, 43.8% on threes, and 73.7% from the line.  Mallory Heydorn had 14 points (4 3's), 8 assists and no turnovers, and 2 blocks in 26 minutes, while Christina Solari had 15 points on 7/10 shooting and 9 rebounds.  Off the bench, Stacey Arlis was perfect:  6/6 from the field and 4/4 from the line for 16 points in 17 minutes; Kylie Castans had 13 points and 5 rebounds in 12 minutes. 

Kathleen Fidelia led the Thunder with 18 points on 6/7 shooting.

With the win, the Titans clinched the CCIW Championship and will thus host the CCIW tournament in two weeks time. 

[Titan Q]

Congratulations to Mia Smith and the Titans for clinching the CCIW title!  What a season so far.

[Darryl Nester]

As Hoosier Titan noted, the #1 seed is set.  Here are the updated standings, and how the scenarios look for the other seeds:

Team	Overall	Home	Away	Remaining Games
Illinois Wesleyan	12-0	6-0	6-0	vs. NCC, @ EC
Wheaton (Ill.)	8-3	3-2	5-1	vs. MU, @ CC, vs. NPU
Carthage	7-4	4-1	3-3	vs. EC, vs. WC, @ AC
Elmhurst	6-5	3-3	3-2	@ CC, @ MU, vs. IWU
Millikin	6-5	3-3	3-2	@ WC, vs. EC, @ NCC
North Central (Ill.)	5-6	2-4	3-2	@ NPU, @ IWU, vs. MU
Augustana	1-11	1-5	0-6	@ NPU, vs. CC
North Park	0-11	0-5	0-6	vs. NCC, vs. AC, @ WC

Team	#1	#2	#3	#4	Tournament?
Illinois Wesleyan	100.00%	--	--	--	Yes
Wheaton (Ill.)	--	75.00%	20.41%	4.49%	99.90%
Carthage	--	22.66%	38.87%	29.69%	91.21%
Elmhurst	--	1.56%	27.15%	22.92%	51.63%
Millikin	--	0.78%	11.33%	29.51%	41.62%
North Central (Ill.)	--	--	2.25%	13.40%	15.64%

[Hoosier Titan]

The game time for Illinois Wesleyan at Olivet Nazarene (NAIA DI), at Bourbonnais, is indeed 7:00 p.m. 

We wondered about the obvious change in ONU's lineup and style of play over the last couple of games.  Here's a story from the Daily Journal which sheds some light on the subject:
Tigers move on following suspensions of four players

So the style of play will be considerably different from what one would have expected at the start of the season.  Still, a new opponent will be good for the Titans.  ONU hit 13 3's in their defeat of Purdue Calumet yesterday, so they still have players to be reckoned with.

[Fawkes316]

I'm sure the announcer at ONU is happy for the break! When they came to Wheaton, it was almost impossible to keep up with all the substitutions.