WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[BleedBlue4Life]

Also of note in the MU/IWU game, Cecily Aldridge played in her game for the Big Blue since having surgery on a brolen hand and wrist in the DePauw game on 12/8.  She could make a significant impact for the Big Blue as the season winds down.

[thunder38]

updated standings for tournament contenders heading into Saturday

IWU         9-1
Wheaton 9-2   .5 GB
Millikin      7-3  2 GB
Carthage 7-4  2.5 GB
---------------------------
Elmhurst  4-6  4.5 GB

pretty uphill battle for Elmhurst at this point especially with games still left against Wheaton and Millikin.  Wheaton might have the toughest remaining schedule with IWU, @ Millikin, and Elmhurst still left on the docket.  Carthage is going to have to knock off Millikin in their last meeting if they have any chance of moving up.

[RogK]

I saw most of the Wheaton/Augustana game (took off with about 6:00 to go and caught my Metra with approx 64 seconds to spare).
The Thunder were very sharp, moving the ball well and firing threes from all over (making 14 of 29, the equivalent of .724 2FG shooting).
Augie began the game in Awful mode, falling behind 19-4. During one stretch, 4 of 5 of their possessions ended in turnovers. It seemed like it was October 15 and they hadn't established any familiarity with each other. Their only really good stretch was for a period in the 2nd half, when Wheaton had its subs in.
Augie's top forward senior Natalie Runge has been out injured for several weeks. If she can't return this month, let the record show that she had a very fine career for the Vikings. They sure could have used her last night, as well as (dare I say) Lani Kasten. Without Runge and fellow senior Kristin
Fox next year, things may again be tough. What does the Augie AD think of the WBB program?
Wheaton's Brooke Olson endured a very hard foul, by the way. If Augie was trying to instigate something, it didn't work. Brooke smiled at her teammates and stoically made her free throws.

[RogK]

In that Carthage win, four Lady Reds scored 12 or more, topped by Diana Jacklin's 20 (8/11, 4/5). Megan Ney (7/10, 10/12) excelled for the Jays : 24 pts, 10 rebs.
Christine Karl (7/8, 6/6) led four North Central players in double figures with 20 pts. Roxie Jones tallied 19 and 11 rebs for North Park. NC won 73-57.

[buf]

This week's Central regional rankings:

Central
1. Illinois Wesleyan 13-3 16-4
2. UW-Stevens Point 19-2 19-2
3. UW-La Crosse 16-5 17-5
4. UW-Whitewater 13-5 16-5
5. Chicago 17-3 17-3
6. Washington U. 14-2 17-3

[Out_Of_My_Kitchen]

This week's Central regional rankings:

Central
1. Illinois Wesleyan 13-3 16-4
2. UW-Stevens Point 19-2 19-2
3. UW-La Crosse 16-5 17-5
4. UW-Whitewater 13-5 16-5
5. Chicago 17-3 17-3
6. Washington U. 14-2 17-3

Based on these rankings, I would say this region is wide open after Illinois Wesleyan and Stevens Point.  La Crosse goes from unranked to third!  Still big games coming up in this region the next two weeks.  IWU @ Wheaton, SP @ LC, and Chicago @ Wash U.  Lots of things COULD change based on these games. 

[OldSchoolHoopsFan]

Aren't we supposed to be debating CCIW MOP.

I ran some statistics and the results were interesting.  First of all, I do not want to imply that stats are a complete measure of the contribution on the basketball court.  They are just a starting point for discussions.  That being said, here is what I did.

I took all the conference players stats as of 2/9 and broke them down on a per minute basis.  Than I took the 40 players with the most total minutes and ranked them on Minutes Played, 2 Point Shooting %, 3 Point Shooting %, Free Throw %, Orff. Rebs., Def. Rebs., Fouls, Assists, Turnovers, Blocks, Steals and Points. After adding those rankings together I ranked the players by their totals.  Here are the top 10:

   Player    GS
Whe    Karsten, Laura   137
Mil   Wildman, Elise     180
IWU   Lett, Olivia     182
NC    Errico, Jackie   183
IWU   Preston, Nikki     184
Elm    Monroe, Kelsey   189
Elm    Merklein, Meghan   191
Whe    Brenneman, Lindsey   197
Car    Jacklin, Diana   198
Aug   Fox, Kristen   201

After seeing all of these players play I am not surprised that they appear on the list, but I was surprised that Laura Karsten has such an overwhelming edge.  Then I noticed that she was in the top 10 in all three shooting Pcts., Def. Reb., Assists, Turnovers, Steals and Points and in the top 15 in every catagory except Blocks and Minutes Played (missing 4 games).

For the offensive only stats the top ten lines up this way:

   Player    Offense Only
Whe    Karsten, Laura   40
IWU   Preston, Nikki     85
NC    Errico, Jackie   94
Elm    Monroe, Kelsey   96
IWU   Lett, Olivia     100
Whe    Brenneman, Lindsey   101
Car    Ripkey, Dani   101
Mil   Zeigler, Crystal     102
Whe    Potts, Elisabeth   115
Elm    Merklein, Meghan   117

And the meager defensive stats available total up like this:

   Player    Defense Only
IWU   Schulte, Hope     44
Mil   Wildman, Elise     48
Car    Jacklin, Diana   48
NP   Peterson, Sarah   54
NC    Karl, Christine   59
IWU   Lett, Olivia     60
Whe    Karsten, Laura   63
Elm    Ney, Megan   63
Elm    Joiner, Rashida   63
Car    Gilmore, Heather   65

I have atached a Word file with the full rankings and anyone who wants the stats to play with on their own can email  me and I will sent them the Excel file. 

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Hoosier Titan]

I ran some statistics and the results were interesting.  First of all, I do not want to imply that stats are a complete measure of the contribution on the basketball court.  They are just a starting point for discussions.  That being said, here is what I did.

I took all the conference players stats as of 2/9 and broke them down on a per minute basis.  Than I took the 40 players with the most total minutes and ranked them on Minutes Played, 2 Point Shooting %, 3 Point Shooting %, Free Throw %, Orff. Rebs., Def. Rebs., Fouls, Assists, Turnovers, Blocks, Steals and Points. After adding those rankings together I ranked the players by their totals.  Here are the top 10:

   Player    GS
Whe    Karsten, Laura   137
Mil   Wildman, Elise     180
IWU   Lett, Olivia     182
NC    Errico, Jackie   183
IWU   Preston, Nikki     184
Elm    Monroe, Kelsey   189
Elm    Merklein, Meghan   191
Whe    Brenneman, Lindsey   197
Car    Jacklin, Diana   198
Aug   Fox, Kristen   201

After seeing all of these players play I am not surprised that they appear on the list, but I was surprised that Laura Karsten has such an overwhelming edge.  Then I noticed that she was in the top 10 in all three shooting Pcts., Def. Reb., Assists, Turnovers, Steals and Points and in the top 15 in every catagory except Blocks and Minutes Played (missing 4 games).

OSHF,
This is interesting, and I'm sure that much discussion will ensue.  I haven't taken part in any previous discussion involving stats, so I feel that I'm coming in late here.  I see from your Word document that the "GS" referred to above must be the Gross Score near the right hand column.  But what does that mean?  It doesn't seem to be a total of all the standings. What am I missing?

[OldSchoolHoopsFan]

OSHF,
This is interesting, and I'm sure that much discussion will ensue.  I haven't taken part in any previous discussion involving stats, so I feel that I'm coming in late here.  I see from your Word document that the "GS" referred to above must be the Gross Score near the right hand column.  But what does that mean?  It doesn't seem to be a total of all the standings. What am I missing?

HT, You are not missing anything.  You just caught me revealing one of my favorite stats - Assist to Turnover Ratio.  I accidently posted it on the Word table instead of TO/M ranking.  Attached is a corrected Word Table.  Now the totals should match.  Thanks for catching that.



[attachment deleted by admin]

[iwu70]

Titans win a close one at Wheaton, almost dying by the 3 ball, only 5-25 or 20%.  If the perimeter Titans start hitting a decent percentage, I hate to think how far this team can go.  Chuck, you can almost break out the champagne now, me thinks.  Looks like strong rebounding saved the day . . . and again a stellar performance by six woman, Karen Solari.  Gotta stay with it now and play out the string of the final three games against the lower half of the league.  Again, Stacey Arlis had a monster game.  I just don't know how you keep her off the CCIW first team.  Look at the stats, especially in big games against the top post competition in the league.  I'm sure her teammates get her the ball in the right place, but look at the finish and the shooting percentage.  If she doesn't get CCIW player of the week this week, then there's no week when it will happen.  Congrats to Coach Smith and the Titans.

Keep it rolling!

[Hoosier Titan]

Just back from the games at Wheaton.  First, a word about IWU men's point guard Travis Rosenkranz.  In the second half Travis brought the ball up court at his usual speed, and looked to be trying to drive to the basket.  He got right under the basket, closely guarded, and slid to the floor, where he just lay there.  Medical personnel were soon called and he was strapped to a board and taken to the hospital for tests.  Word is (see the men's board for more details) that he has a bad concussion after receiving an inadvertent knee to the head.  Best of wishes, Travis!

Both games were hard-fought with very little breathing space for either team.  The IWU women survived poor 3-point shooting thanks primarily to the stellar post play of Stacey Arlis (26 points on 11/15 shooting, 3/4 on free throws, and a career-high 11 rebounds).  iwu70 is right:  Karen Solari also had 11 rebounds and was a key player in the win.  Arlis now is 22/26 (0.846) for the week, with an average of 25.5 points and 7.5 rebounds for the two games .  Player of the Week?

The Thunder were hitting the three, three each from Laura Karsten and Elizabeth Potts en route to 19 and 17 point totals respectively. 

It was a crazy day around the CCIW, and I'm hoping others will fill in the picture on this.  IWU went to Wheaton a half-game a head of the Thunder, with Millikin another game behind in the loss column and Carthage in fourth.  At the end of the day the standing are the same, but Millikin lost to 8th-place Augustana at home, Carthage lost to North Central by 14, and fifth-place Elmhurst lost to seventh-place North Park by 25 just to continue the trend.  As a Titan fan I'm relieved by the results, but the basketball fan in me wants to know what happened.  Do tell!

[Gregory Sager]

NPU had an exceptional first half in its easy win over Elmhurst yesterday afternoon. It was as if the Vikings let loose a season's worth of frustration by scoring a torrent of points in the opening twenty minutes. I'm not sure what the school record is for points in a half, but 51 has to at least be close to it. The Vikings went 9-11 from treyland -- one of the two misses was a halfcourt heave at the buzzer to end the half -- including a 5-5 performance from downtown by Sarah Peterson, and they outshot the 'jays from the field, 53% to 29%, as North Park went into the locker room with a commanding 51-24 lead. NPU couldn't keep up that pace, of course; in fact, the Vikings scored only four points in the first nine minutes of the second half. But some solid defense kept Elmhurst from ever getting any closer than an 18-point deficit, and down the stretch the Vikings pulled away to what was their easiest CCIW win in quite some time, 75-50.

North Park played very sharp defense, holding Elmhurst to under 26% from the field for the game and shutting down the team's leading scorer on the year, Meghan Merklein, completely (2 pts, both earned at the free-throw line). The Vikings had nine steals on the afternoon. Eleven of the fourteen Vikings who played in the game scored. Dana Christensen led all scorers with 17 points, while Sarah Peterson added 15 and Lyndsey Thompson chipped in 10 for NPU. Meghan Fitts led Elmhurst with 16, while Megan Ney added 14.

Good to see the Park rally for a strong win late in what has been a somewhat disappointing season thus far.

[BleedBlue4Life]

In Decatur, it was a tale of two halves.  Millikin was up 23-17 at the break with MU's largest lead being 9 pts.  In the second half, Augie outscored MU 48-41.  Augustana caught fire from outside the arc.  They were 7-12 fron long distance in the second half and was 10-22 for the game. 

[bblover]

So which of the three major upsets this past weekend was the most unexpected? Here is my view.

I was most shocked by the Augustana upset at Millikin. Playing in Decatur is especially tough. That was a real stunner.

I would put the NC home victory over Carthage as number 2. Perhaps, Carthage relaxed, knowing that it will make the playoffs regardless of how it finished, and given that they beat IWU at IWU, they let up versus NC. Regardless, a big win for NC.

Elmhurst losing to NP was not a huge surprise. An undermanned NP team came pretty close to upsetting Elmhurst at Elmhurst a few weeks ago. At the same time, after losing to Augustana at home recently, Elmhurst was a long shot, at best, to make the playoffs. Losing by 25 points, however, was a shock. Elmhurst has looked very good a couple times this season, but it also has looked very bad a number of times. It never seemed to find a good consistent level. To NP's credit, they showed some pretty potent outside weapons -- watch out next season.

Clearly, the CCIW has become more competitive -- no more (easy) bottom three. Also, the power  of the 3-point shot as an equalizer was amply demonstrated this weekend. Congratulation to Augustana, NC and NP. Well done.

[RogK]

I'll certainly agree with Player of the Week for Stacey Arlis.
NC's Jackie Errico had another fine game in Saturday's win, making 2/3 2FGS, 6/7 3FGs, 7/7 FTs for a highly efficient 29 pts; she also had 9 rebs. NC's team totals were 19/30 2FGs, 12/20 3FGs, 15/15 FTs. Which brand of cereal did they eat for breakfast? C's Diana Jacklin had 20 pts (8/10, 4/4) and 7 rebs, while Cailee Corcoran had 12 rebs, 6 steals, 17 pts.
NC is now tied for 5th with Elmhurst, each still in the hunt for a conference playoff spot.
Greg, did you see any reason why Merklein played only 8:00? Injury? Was she benched for taking a cell call while shooting a free throw?