WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Hoosier Titan]

Sadly, the Titans lost 110-106 in overtime.  A real defensive struggle.  The Titans set a record for rebounds in one game, but amazingly had 52, yes 52 turnovers.  Gracious.  That takes great skill to do.  What is going on with basics with our Titans this year?  Wild.  A pretty rough start to the year at 5-3.  A good test coming up at Kean.

Congrats to Stacey Arlis as CCIW player of the week last week.  See the CCIW website for the detailed write-up.  She is really coming into her own as a significant low post presence for scoring and rebounding.  Christina Solari would be proud.

Hope we can take better care of the ball in future.  

Happy holidays to all CCIW chatsters.

I had thought about attending this game and thought better of it with the weather.  I watched the streaming broadcast and was very glad we did not make the trip.  Very, very disappointing performance by the Titans, who simply did not show up ready to play.  They dug themselves an enormous hole with turnovers and, well, dumb plays.  They did manage to claw their way back, but it took so much effort that they were exhausted by the end.  If those 52 turnovers are not a school record, I don't want to know what the record is.

This is truly a Jekyll and Hyde team--you never know which one is going to turn up.  The one possible mitigating factor might be fatigue--it was a long, snowy trip last weekend to and from Stevens Point, right after finals--but Mia Smith wasn't having it.  It's mystifying.

[billys]

I would have guessed if anyone had been prepared for the Grinell/Olivet style it would have been Illinois Wesleyan who's used to playing at breakneck speed. Considering Olivet averages well over 50 3-point attempts a game and only shot 39 last night those TO's must have directly translated to lay-ups?

[Hoosier Titan]

I would have guessed if anyone had been prepared for the Grinell/Olivet style it would have been Illinois Wesleyan who's used to playing at breakneck speed. Considering Olivet averages well over 50 3-point attempts a game and only shot 39 last night those TO's must have directly translated to lay-ups?

I'm not by any means an expert on that style of play--I hate it, even when it works.  But Olivet has at least one player who's pretty effective at bodying up under the basket, and they didn't always go for the three.  They got plenty of open looks from short range, thanks to the turnovers and fast pace, and they took them.

[RogK]

Hoosier Titan, I think you may have preferred the Carthage game last night: Chicago 49, Lady Reds 46.
Chicago and Carthage each like a fairly slow game, with strong half-court defense, of which there had to be plenty. Only 3.1 baskets were scored for every four minutes of play. No easy baskets allowed, but none scored either.
Clearly, their coaches feel that, given their personnel, a slowish game is to their advantage. Fair enough. But, one still wins and one loses.
At the opposite extreme is ONU, which feels an accelerated game is to its advantage. They sub frequently and think that with their athleticism and depth they can wear the other team out. Setting back into a half-court defense does not fit their logic because it slows things down. Also, they normally want to shoot 60 threes per game, in addition to getting some high pct lowpost scoring. Shooting threes makes the game faster because you usually need far fewer passes than if you are trying to go lowpost all the time.
IWU is not as devoted to speed as ONU is. But, IWU has certainly preferred a faster game than the rest of the CCIW of recent years. Still, one fast team won, one lost.
Some fans (not you HT, but others) and coaches deride a lot of full-court defense. I find that attitude to be irrational. If that's how you can get the ball back without the other team scoring (the WHOLE PURPOSE OF DEFENSE), then it works. Forechecking has value in hockey and can in basketball, too. Depends on if you have enough players to do it, since it is tiring.
Despite the 52 turnovers, IWU still had time to make 41 of 79 FGs and get 31 FT att. And, they must have guarded the 3pt line tightly, to prevent ONU from piling up points that way.
HT, I wouldn't put a lot of blame on IWU for losing in OT. Instead, I'd give them credit for what had to be very substantial, exhausting effort. And I give a lot of credit to Coach Smith for scheduling the annual ONU game. Only she, Wheaton's Coach Baker and Millikin's Coach Kerans have taken on the significant challenge of playing ONU in recent years.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Hoosier Titan, I think you may have preferred the Carthage game last night: Chicago 49, Lady Reds 46.
Chicago and Carthage each like a fairly slow game, with strong half-court defense, of which there had to be plenty. Only 3.1 baskets were scored for every four minutes of play. No easy baskets allowed, but none scored either.
Clearly, their coaches feel that, given their personnel, a slowish game is to their advantage. Fair enough. But, one still wins and one loses.
At the opposite extreme is ONU, which feels an accelerated game is to its advantage. They sub frequently and think that with their athleticism and depth they can wear the other team out. Setting back into a half-court defense does not fit their logic because it slows things down. Also, they normally want to shoot 60 threes per game, in addition to getting some high pct lowpost scoring. Shooting threes makes the game faster because you usually need far fewer passes than if you are trying to go lowpost all the time.
IWU is not as devoted to speed as ONU is. But, IWU has certainly preferred a faster game than the rest of the CCIW of recent years. Still, one fast team won, one lost.
Some fans (not you HT, but others) and coaches deride a lot of full-court defense. I find that attitude to be irrational. If that's how you can get the ball back without the other team scoring (the WHOLE PURPOSE OF DEFENSE), then it works. Forechecking has value in hockey and can in basketball, too. Depends on if you have enough players to do it, since it is tiring.
Despite the 52 turnovers, IWU still had time to make 41 of 79 FGs and get 31 FT att. And, they must have guarded the 3pt line tightly, to prevent ONU from piling up points that way.
HT, I wouldn't put a lot of blame on IWU for losing in OT. Instead, I'd give them credit for what had to be very substantial, exhausting effort. And I give a lot of credit to Coach Smith for scheduling the annual ONU game. Only she, Wheaton's Coach Baker and Millikin's Coach Kerans have taken on the significant challenge of playing ONU in recent years.

A mere coincidence that every CCIW title the last 17 years has been won by Wheaton, Millikin, or IWU?  I doubt it.

[RogK]

hmmm, I wouldn't necessarily make that connection. But, I think those three coaches have looked at it as an opportunity to test/improve their teams' abilities in certain areas of the game.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Oh, I wasn't trying to give ONU THAT much credit, just that they are willing to schedule ANYONE to test their teams.  IWU, for example, begins every season against perennial top ten teams DePauw and WashU.

[Hoosier Titan]

Ever since reading Rog's description of the Chicago-Carthage game this afternoon I've been trying to decide what style of play I DO like, because 49-46 sounds pretty excruciating to me.  So I'm not sold on "The System," and I'm not in favor of slowing it down that much.  I guess it's obvious that coaches have to use the skill set available to them in their players.  Given that, I favor playing just as fast as the players can handle, no faster and no slower.  Sometimes teams try to move the ball so fast that they force themselves into turnovers and rushed shots.  At times it seemed that was what IWU was doing last night.  They don't usually do that, so perhaps ONU were causing the rushed play and the turnovers, and more power to them if that's the case.

[RogK]

Two CCIW teams were in action last night.
Elmhurst topped Rockford (are they called the Files?), 64-54. Megan Ney was 8/8 in 18:00 and had 4 steals. Meghan Merklein also scored 16.
Augustana lost at Aurora, 68-65. Kristen Fox had 13 rebs and 11 pts.
Hoosier Titan, I'm glad to have induced broad reflection in your mind regarding basketball. And, I like your conclusion : play as fast as the players can handle.
I also noticed that you threw in some British grammar, since you lived in the UK recently : "ONU were" rather than "ONU was".
Some of the more astonishing stats from IWU/ONU have already been mentioned, such as the Titans' 72 rebounds. I wonder if their 54 def rebs was a record.
Another unusual stat is that, in a 45:00 game, no ONU player was in for more than 17:00.

[RogK]

Maybe it's not too early to have a look at some stats, bearing in mind that an apples vs oranges situation exists since some teams have played tougher non-conference schedules than others'.
Scoring : Elise Wildman MILL 22.4, Julia Robert MILL 16.8, Roxxanne Jones NP 16.3, Lindsey Brenneman WHE 15.1, Nikki Preston IWU 15.1;
Rebounds : Sarah Peterson NP 9.1, E Wildman 9.0, Natalie Runge AUG 7.3, J Robert 7.1, Diana Jacklin CART 6.8;
FG pct : you know who IWU .662 (Malibu Stacey);
Assists : Shaina Yalda NP 6.33;
FT pct : .833, Hope Schulte IWU and Jackie Errico NC;
Steals : Heather Gilmore CART 3.88;
3FG pct : Torey Walker NP .556;
3FG made : J Robert 3.25;
Blocks : D Jacklin 2.88;
Assist/TO ratio : S Yalda 5.18
more at --
http://www.cciw.org/custompages/CCIW_Links/WBasketball/Stats/1011/CONFLDRS.HTM

[Hoosier Titan]

Two CCIW teams were in action last night.
Elmhurst topped Rockford (are they called the Files?), 64-54. Megan Ney was 8/8 in 18:00 and had 4 steals. Meghan Merklein also scored 16.
Augustana lost at Aurora, 68-65. Kristen Fox had 13 rebs and 11 pts.
Hoosier Titan, I'm glad to have induced broad reflection in your mind regarding basketball. And, I like your conclusion : play as fast as the players can handle.
I also noticed that you threw in some British grammar, since you lived in the UK recently : "ONU were" rather than "ONU was".
Some of the more astonishing stats from IWU/ONU have already been mentioned, such as the Titans' 72 rebounds. I wonder if their 54 def rebs was a record.
Another unusual stat is that, in a 45:00 game, no ONU player was in for more than 17:00.

That "play as fast as you can but no faster" mantra is either utterly trivial or Zen-like in its depth; I haven't decided which.  It came to me while watching the IWU men's tournament with Aurora, Ripon, and Buena Vista.  None of the teams were terrible, but all of them wanted to play run-and-gun style basketball, and a lot of the players just couldn't bring it off, due to problems with either endurance or ball handling.  Don't forget the John Wooden aphorism along the lines of "Be quick, but don't hurry."

The Brit-ism just crept in, as witness the fact that I said "IWU was in the same sentence."  Just confused about which side of the pond I live on!

[WLCALUM83]

Two CCIW teams were in action last night.
Elmhurst topped Rockford (are they called the Files?), 64-54. Megan Ney was 8/8 in 18:00 and had 4 steals. Meghan Merklein also scored 16.
Augustana lost at Aurora, 68-65. Kristen Fox had 13 rebs and 11 pts.
Hoosier Titan, I'm glad to have induced broad reflection in your mind regarding basketball. And, I like your conclusion : play as fast as the players can handle.
I also noticed that you threw in some British grammar, since you lived in the UK recently : "ONU were" rather than "ONU was".
Some of the more astonishing stats from IWU/ONU have already been mentioned, such as the Titans' 72 rebounds. I wonder if their 54 def rebs was a record.
Another unusual stat is that, in a 45:00 game, no ONU player was in for more than 17:00.

Regarding Rockford being called the "Files", yes I'm tempted to go that route again, but I don't want 2010-11's equivalent of Angel Martin messing things up again (like what happened on my Maranatha/Rockford gridioron pick) (Ba dumm bumm!)   

 

[WLCALUM83]

As long as we're on the subject of NAthCon teams, for you Millikin followers, here are the stats for the Wisconsin Lutheran squad you'll be playing tomorrow night, barring a weather interruption--

http://northernac.org/sports/basketball_women/statistics/2010-11/wlc.htm

(Here's hoping I didn't just jinx my own team   )

[RogK]

WLCALUM83, your mention of Angel gave me a good laugh. Jim could always rely on Angel to be unreliable. That series (The Rockford Files, for you young readers) featured a good amount of comical wisecracks, not to mention decent drama. Now that I think about it, I may need to buy it on DVD.
You may be addressing a nonexistent audience when you talk to "Millikin followers" in these pages. I don't think we've had a post from a Millikin fan here in the last 5 or 7 years. Coach Kerans reads our stuff, but she may be the only Millikinite who does.

[Gregory Sager]

Assists : Shaina Yalda NP 6.33

In the first official tally of D3 statistics for the 2010-11 season, the NCAA website listed NPU point guard Shaina Yalda as third in the nation in assist:turnover ratio at 4.70. That first tally was thru the games of December 12. Since then, Shaina has posted a 10 assists:1 turnover performance in NPU's rout of Kalamazoo, upping her a:t ratio to 5.18. The player who had been in second place, Serafina Nuzzo of Denison, had an 8:3 night in the Big Red's win over Grove City on Tuesday, lowering her a:t to 4.27 and propelling Shaina into second place in the nation in a:t ratio. The player in first place, Brandi Cresap of Minnesota-Morris, has a hard-to-fathom 9.00 ratio (36:4), and the Cougars have not played since 12/12. They next play on Friday.

Shaina was also listed as twelfth in the nation in assists per game as of 12/12, with 5.9 apg. Her performance against Kazoo increased her apg to 6.33, and without looking up the box scores of all eleven women who were listed ahead of her in the 12/12 tally I'm guessing that she's somewhere in the lower half of the top ten now.

Of course, none of this is terribly important, and it's still comparatively early in the season. My guess is that it's going to be harder for Shaina to maintain this torrid a:t pace in league play. Still, it's great to see just how well she's doing at her job as the Vikings' floor general in the larger context of D3 women's basketball.

NPU's next game is Saturday afternoon in River Forest against a red-hot Dominican team that's 9-1 and is on a nine-game winning streak.