WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[thunder38]

My daughter is a high school player and just started looking at some D3 schools. We noticed that Wheaton currently has an assistant as Acting Head Coach. We wondered if anyone knew why Coach Baker is not coaching this season and whether she is expected to return. Thanks in advance for any info.

Coach Baker is out this season due to health issues.  I'm not completely sure what the status is for the long term whether she's expected to return next year or not.  If she doesn't I think Kent Madsen has definitely earned his shot to be next in line.  It's definitely not an ideal situation but Madsen has stepped up in a big way for this program and has done a nice job helping to transform the culture of the program over the last year.  He should definitely be in the running for Coach of the Year assuming the Thunder don't collapse down the stretch.  The addition of Sarah Harris has also been a big addition to the coaching staff as she brings some good experience and insight to the staff and is very effective with preparation.

[thunder38]

Very entertaining game last night at King.  I wasn't sure what to expect coming in since North Central played Wheaton very close over at Gregory until the injury to Karl and with Wheaton coming off such an emotional win against Millikin on Wednesday night.  There was certainly no let down for the Thunder and there was no let up from the Cardinals.  Wheaton was in a great situation in the first half when two quick fouls against Newson sent her to the bench with 17+ minutes left and then two fouls on Errico sent her out with five minutes left but Wheaton was ice cold from  the outside (4-25 on the night) and North Central's half court offense was efficient.

The second half was back and forth for a lot of the time with North Central opening up their biggest lead of the night at 52-47 with eight minutes left and it felt like the Cardinals had the right things working to maybe pull away a little bit but Wheaton ran off a 19-4 run to take a 66-56 lead that was too much for the Cardinals to overcome.

Great post play for the Thunder with Kelly Brooks scoring a career high 20 points in 21 minutes off the bench and Annie Bowen adding 14 points.  They definitely needed the posts with the starting guards (Brenneman, Karsten, and Olsen) combining to shoot 6-27 even though Brenneman was 9-10 from the free throw line.

Jackie Errico was worth the price of admission for the Cards tallying 29 and 12.  She just never gives up on a play and it's fun to watch.  Good contribution also from Jenny Swanson who shot the ball very well to get her 17 points.  Great shooting night from deep for the Cards shooting 39% for a team that was shooting 27% on the year coming into play.  Even after missing all but two minutes of the first half Newson was not a threat on the offensive end and North Central really need someone to step up and becoming that third big scoring threat.

On an interesting night of play in the CCIW, Wheaton was able to hold serve at home and set up a big match-up in Kenosha on Wednesday night.  Congrats to Carthage on their big road win in Bloomington.

[scorow]

Thanks, Thunder 38.  We could tell that they are having a good season in Coach Baker's absence.  I hope that the situation is not too serious and that she is able to return.

[RogK]

Congratulations to Coach Bernero and his flock for being the first CCIW team to topple the Titans this season.
Congratulations to Augustana for getting into the Win column. bblover, do you have any compliments to direct at Augie, or did you not see that game?
I went NAIA Saturday and saw a very sharp U of Chicago team yesterday.

[dansand]

North Park at Augustana originally scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed until Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. preceding the men's game. Obviously, that could change again.

[Mr. Ypsi]

North Park at Augustana originally scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed until Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. preceding the men's game. Obviously, that could change again.

Is that due to the predicted weather conditions?

[dansand]

North Park at Augustana originally scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed until Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. preceding the men's game. Obviously, that could change again.

Is that due to the predicted weather conditions?

Yes. Predicting a total of 12-18" of snow and high winds for the Quad Cities over the next couple of days. Sounds like ice to the south. Could play havoc with the CCIW schedule.

[Mr. Ypsi]

North Park at Augustana originally scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed until Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. preceding the men's game. Obviously, that could change again.

Is that due to the predicted weather conditions?

Yes. Predicting a total of 12-18" of snow and high winds for the Quad Cities over the next couple of days. Sounds like ice to the south. Could play havoc with the CCIW schedule.

That's what I assumed.  Y'all stay safe out there!

We're not supposed to get hit until late Tuesday/most of Wednesday.  Too cold for the freezing rain/ice storms, but I've seen predictions of snow anywhere from 8 to 15+ inches and high enough winds that whiteouts, huge drifts, and loss of power are definite possibilities.

[Mr. Ypsi]

New poll is out.  IWU drops from 6 to 9 (staying behind #3 Kean, whom they beat, and falling behind #6 UWSP and #7 WashU, both of whom they beat, but staying ahead of #15 DePauw, whom they lost to ).  [Can't complain TOO much - they are still by far the highest ranked team with 4 losses!]  Millikin fell from 12 points to 5, but Carthage re-entered the ORV with 15 points.

[Out_Of_My_Kitchen]

Will Carthage be ranked in the central region rankings?  They come out this week.  IWU should be ranked very high. 

[RogK]

Elmhurst at Millikin and IWU at NC are also postponed.
Whether (weather) any games will occur Wednesday is a bit iffy, too.
Meanwhile, congratulations to NC's Jackie Errico, the new CCIW Player of the Week.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park at Augustana originally scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed until Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. preceding the men's game. Obviously, that could change again.

Both the women's and men's NPU @ Augustana games are likely to get postponed again from Wednesday to Thursday. In order to reach Rock Island in time, it's necessary for the NPU bus to leave the North Park campus no later than noon -- and the National Weather Service travel advisory is in effect until 3 pm Wednesday. When I spoke with NPU men's basketball coach Paul Brenegan last night, he seemed pretty pessimistic that the games would get played on Wednesday.

It would be easier if the games could be postponed until the week of the CCIW tournaments, but Augustana has already pushed back its women's and men's games at Illinois Wesleyan to that week.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

First Regional Rankings: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3hoops/category/ncaa-stuff/regional-rankings/

[Mr. Ypsi]

While I'm pleased, of course, I'm rather surprised that IWU held off UWSP for #1 in the region.  Though, on second thought, we DID beat them head-to-head (AT SP), and (while I didn't actually calculate it) have a very strong 'results against regionally-ranked opponents' (especially if the Central Region committee went ahead and just assumed Kean would be ranked in their region).

[Mr. Ypsi]

Just noticed that for at least the second year in a row, IWU has beaten ALL of the other ranked teams in the Central Region - way to go, ladies!