WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

For anyone who's interested, I'll be playing my taped interview with North Park women's basketball coach Amanda Reese at halftime of the Wheaton @ NPU men's game tonight. Game time's at 7:30, following the Wheaton @ NPU women's game. Here's the link.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Scoreboard has no links listed for tomorrow's IWU @ Elmhurst game - anyone know if there are livestats (and, if so, how to access them)?

[Hoosier Titan]

It's less than an hour before game time, and the Elmhurst web site has a live stats link.  Unfortunately, while they've got the opponent listed as Illinois Wesleyan, all the names of the players and the scoring appears to be left over from Elmhurst's last game with Augustana.  Hopefully things will update soon.

[Mr. Ypsi]

At the half:  IWU 35, Elmhurst 28

[Mr. Ypsi]

The Titans started the second half on fire, opening up a double-digit lead.  The Jays come right back with an 11-0 run to tie at 43, with 14+ to go.

[Mr. Ypsi]

This could be big - Lyndsie Long gets her 4th fould at 13:32; Titans up by two.

[Mr. Ypsi]

After the Jays took their only lead, 55-54, with 6+ to go, the Titans ripped off a 10-0 run to regain control.

It's now 68-60 with 2+ to go.

[Mr. Ypsi]

IWU wins, 74-64.  A very tight game most of the way.  The Titans lead virtually all the time, but never totally took command until the Jays' two big guns (Merklein and Long) fouled out 19 seconds apart (with only a minute remaining).

One thing I couldn't tell from livestats - the teams combined for 66(!) turnovers and a combined 6 for 28 from deep.  Sloppy play or ferocious defense?

[RogK]

Mr Ypsi, my take on it is that both sides played good defense most of the time and the officiating was very tight : a lot of fouls (49) were called, as well as much travelling and double-dribble violations.
The refs were very consistent and clearly didn't favor either side. What was relevant, though, was that IWU spread their fouls among more players than EC did. IWU's substantial depth allowed them to handle the close officiating with much less difficulty than what Elmhurst had.
While it was a hard-fought contest, I don't think either team was at its best.
I thought Karen Solari was the star of the game, with 7 or 8 excellent defensive plays. She also had 6 assists.
Big sister Christina was good too, of course : 16 pts, 8 rebs, 4 steals.
Interestingly, IWU played some stretches without any of their smaller guards (Harvey, Hasselbring, Gardner) on the floor.
Stacey Arlis poured in some quick baskets late in the game, sinking Elmhurst's hopes.
If I remember correctly, Hope Schulte guarded Lyndsie Long quite a bit, limiting her to just 8 FG attempts in 25:00.
Note to Hoosier Titan over in England : when you're back in Illinois for the '10-'11 and following seasons, you're really going to enjoy watching Melissa Gardner. Looks to me like she's going to be one of the best guards around.
Among the large crowd was most of Wheaton's team, studiously observing the action; they get the Titans next. In the opposite stands was Carthage's Katie Klemke, doing likewise.

[RogK]

I was unable to attend anything Saturday, but would have gone to the Wheaton - North Park game. Its halves certainly had different flavors. NP was up 24-14 at halftime, but Wheaton piled up 44 2nd half points to 33 for the Vikings, eking out a 58-57 win. NP's Dana Christensen got warm from 3point land and topped all scorers with 16.
Heather Gilmore had 8 steals and 19 pts for Carthage, who defeated Augustana 78-71. Diana Jacklin scored 25 (11/17, 3/3) and got 8 rebs.
Natalie Runge had 18 pts to lead Augie, followed closely by 16 each from Dori Gills and Lani Kasten.
North Park and Augustana each lost, but should be encouraged, not discouraged. It's not easy to move up in the standings, but they're each getting better.
In the Millikin win over North Central, Kaitlin Brassil scored 22 on 11 shots; not bad.
Elise Wildman finished with 25 pts and 10 rebs.

[Old Hoosier Baller]

While I agree with Rog K that the officials did not favor either team, I thought that they called the game far too close on both ends of the floor.  My view is that officials need to enforce the rules on a consistent basis and make the obvious calls while letting the players play the game.  That did not happen yesterday.  I also agree that the IWU bench is much deeper than EC, and that was the difference in this game.  I was most impressed with the way the Bluejays starters (along with Kelsey Monroe) matched up with the IWU starters.  The officiating nothwithstanding, it was a fun contest to watch. 

[bflong]

I agree with Old Hoosier Baller in that their comes a time when the little fouls need to be overlooked and the game needs to be played out by both teams (the only way to do that is for the refs to let them play the game).  More times than not the refs were calling fouls, traveling calls, double dribble; thus making it hard for either team to get into a rythm.  I have a feeling that next time these two teams meet it is going to be played very close, down to the wire!  Great game to watch--- two very good teams!

[hoop_junkie]

While I agree with Rog K that the officials did not favor either team, I thought that they called the game far too close on both ends of the floor.  My view is that officials need to enforce the rules on a consistent basis and make the obvious calls while letting the players play the game.  That did not happen yesterday.  I also agree that the IWU bench is much deeper than EC, and that was the difference in this game.  I was most impressed with the way the Bluejays starters (along with Kelsey Monroe) matched up with the IWU starters.  The officiating nothwithstanding, it was a fun contest to watch. 

Too many officials at the D3 level "look" for stuff to call rather than react to what they see and that leads to a lot of inconsistency as to what is a foul and what's not. I'm really frustrated by how inconsistent the officials are and how many times they misinterpet what they see happening. Part of the problem is many of these officials also work at the HS level and the refs at that level are so bad they might as well not even have refs. To me, you let kids play physical w/o the ball, but you protect the dribbler and you call fouls in shooting situations and you penalize players for poor footwork by calling every travel. The other call that really gets me is the number of bad screens that don't get called. I've seen a bunch of games so far this year and that is the number 1 thing that bad or inexperienced officials struggle to interpret correctly.

[iwu70]

For those of you who have seen IWU play recently, is it fair to say that Olivia Lett seems to be the "heir apparent" for Christina Solari?  She has provided some nice lift on the bench, playing 7-15 minutes and contributing well during those minutes.  Anyone with an insight?  The Titans only lose C. Solari to graduation so virtually the entire 10-11 person rotation will return next year.  That's scary. 

Keep in rolling Titans. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

For those of you who have seen IWU play recently, is it fair to say that Olivia Lett seems to be the "heir apparent" for Christina Solari?  She has provided some nice lift on the bench, playing 7-15 minutes and contributing well during those minutes.  Anyone with an insight?  The Titans only lose C. Solari to graduation so virtually the entire 10-11 person rotation will return next year.  That's scary. 

Keep in rolling Titans. 

Mark, I obviously have not seen them, but the mere thought that there is an 'heir apparent' to Christina must send shudders up other coaches spines!

I expected them to fall back (somewhat) to the pack with the graduation of 3 starters last year.  Mia Smith may be transforming into John Wooden!  (Though I suppose a few titles might be nice before I go quite that far! )