WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

NPU managed to hang around with Carthage last night at the Toolshed before succumbing, 71-58. Reigning CCIW Player of the Week Rachel Torres had another solid night with 20 points, 6 assists, and 4 steals for the Vikings, while Soly Roman added 12 points off the bench.

While I didn't watch the game, due to my broadcasting duties in NPU Gymnasium for the men's game, it looks to me like the Vikings lost this one at the free-throw line. Not because they shot poorly from the charity stripe, although 5-9 isn't anything to write home about; they lost because the Lady Reds got to the line a whopping 31 times, making 21 of their attempts. A free-throw disparity that big tells you plenty about just how experienced, athletic, and aggressive Carthage is.

Still, I had worries that NPU was going to drop this game by 20 or more. Given the youth of the Vikings, I can live with a 13-point loss in Kenosha to what is clearly the best team in the league.

[RogK]

Carthage has been to the foul line more lately. Here are their FT attempts for games 1 through 13 :
14, 19, 7, 19, 20, 22, 7, 11, 10, 27, 26, 13, 31.
With NC in town tomorrow, something in the range of 25 to 30 could be expected, since NC opponents have shot an average of 30.5 so far. That 30.5 figure should be understood in the context of the abnormally large quantity of possessions in a North Central game.

[Roundball999]

Carthage has been to the foul line more lately. Here are their FT attempts for games 1 through 13 :
14, 19, 7, 19, 20, 22, 7, 11, 10, 27, 26, 13, 31.
With NC in town tomorrow, something in the range of 25 to 30 could be expected, since NC opponents have shot an average of 30.5 so far. That 30.5 figure should be understood in the context of the abnormally large quantity of possessions in a North Central game.

I sat through the Hope-NC game earlier this season, when Hope shot 35 FTA and NC 21.  Honestly, it got a little tedious especially toward the end....

[RogK]

Hope did a majority of the fouling late in that game; NC shot 9 FT att in the final 6:00, while Hope shot 5.
Neither team had a FT att in the final 2:33.

[Roundball999]

Hope did a majority of the fouling late in that game; NC shot 9 FT att in the final 6:00, while Hope shot 5.
Neither team had a FT att in the final 2:33.

Understood and am not surprised.  I mainly meant that ANY game stoppage seemed long at that point in the game.  Maybe because I'm not used to "system" games but the game seemed to go on for a very long time.  The constant "line changes" mean that most dead balls last longer than usual as the teams shuffle players in and out and get set.  That coupled with the typical high number of foul shots seemed to make the game last longer than usual from opening tap to final buzzer.  Might just be my perception from one game and I don't imagine anyone keeps stats on total length of games.  Yeah, I know, 40 minutes right?  ))

[RogK]

Your perception is correct, as far as I know. NC's games are very likely the most time-consuming of any in the CCIW (and maybe in all of D3 WBB) for the reasons you listed.
Fortunately, there aren't any media timeouts in CCIW games. I hope there weren't any in the one you saw.
Speaking of timeouts, NC (and other "system" teams) will frequently use their own timeouts just to send in subs, so those stoppages are briefer than a regular timeout.

[iwu70]

Good luck to the Titans up at NPU on Saturday.  I think it will be a close, hard-fought game.  Any road win in the CCIW is a good win.  Augie gave IWU a good fight, though the Titans played very inconsistently -- strongly in the first half, rather shakey, mistake-prone and weak in the second, winning only by 10 in a game that should not have been so close.  Seibring is hurting.  Baltes, Jackson and McMahon playing very very well, so far. The Reabers and the other role players have to step up more.

Lots of basketball to be played.

IWU70

[iwu70]

Some really great news on the early recruiting front for the IWU program -- see Pgraph again today.  Ehresman, the current Pantagraph Area Player of the Year, is being joined at IWU by Central Catholic's Molly McGraw -- averages 18+ per game and is a real athlete.  She's scored 1358 points for Central Catholic to date.   Also track and field star in high jump, long jump and triple jump, with a high jump already that would have placed 4th in the DIII national track meet.  Her CC teams have been 88-17 in the recent 3+ years.  Sounds like a great recruit, strong jumper and scorer, for Mia Smith and the Titans going forward.  I'm sure there's more to come, but what a fabulous start to the recruiting year.  A lot of good basketball players in the B/N area. 

Welcome to the Titan nation, Ms. Molly McGraw, class of 2018.  Ehresman and McGraw sound like a great, complimentary duo.

 

[iwu70]

IWU over NPU 85-60.  "Run and jump" again producing the result.

Seibring a good game - 15
Holness likely a career high - 15
T. Reaber 12
Baltes 10
K. Reaber 9
McMahon 9

Very good Titan defense in the first half.  It was all "academic" after that. 

Enjoyed the video and the call by Mssr. Sager from North Park University.

Titans now 9-5, 3-0 in CCIW play.  Should be some very good games vs. CC and WC upcoming.  Titans will have to play their best to challenge these two teams, IMHO.

IWU'70

[RogK]

I attended the IWU/NP contest and would like to add that Lexi played her usual smart game; Kasey Reaber was sharp, too, including some excellent passes. Holness was indeed productive in her 16:00. NP missed a couple of key players : Williams (injury), Torres (attending a funeral).
Carthage wiped out North Central 119-78. Michelle Wenzel scored 26 pts, had 9 rebs, 4 steals, 3 assists. Her pair of games warrant CCIW Player of the Week, I'd think. Or is Carthage not going to get one this season because they have so many good players? Then again, Coach Bernero could nominate Stephanie Kuzmanic, who picked up 17 assists (only 4 TOs). The Lady Reds committed a modest 23 TOs against the NC trapping. They made 47/68 2FG att and 5/8 3FG att. NC made 11/41 3FGs and maybe should study the shooting form of the Lady Reds' 3FG specialists.
I'm glad to see that Sofia Svensson is well enough to return to action; she played 13:00.
Elmhurst topped Millikin 76-63. Karen Senette led with 18 pts; Devin Vaughn did a lot well, with 11 pts, 6 rebs, 6 assists, 4 steals. Brittany Czaplicki had 24 pts for the visitors.
Wheaton defeated Augie 66-54. Ellie Zeller scored 17, Lauren Graham 13; Maris Hovee had 14 rebs, 3 steals, 3 blocks. Chaney Tambling scored 12 for the Vikings.

[iwu70]

RogK, thanks for all the updates, info.

You can see how much AC has improved, playing Wheaton to a reasonably close game, too.

Yes, Baltes is such an unrelenting hard worker.  I love her game.  If the Titans can pull it all together and play their best as a team, they have a shot with CC and WC.  Seibring is not completely healthy, some players rather inconsistent and the Titans seem to have a Jekyl and Hyde personality -- either playing brilliantly or playing stupidly.  It's a mystery.  So far McMahon and Baltes playing up to All-CCIW level.  Jackson has had her moments.  Key factors always for the Titans are rebounding enough and playing well enough in the half court when  "run and jump" is not producing the desired result of a huge gap in TOs.  They are a team of peaks and valleys, it would appear.  Hope they can pull it all together, have great contributions from the role players, and play a full, complete 40 minutes vs. WC and CC.  Holness is the most pleasing surprise this year and has a great great future as a Titan.  Some really good recruits announced this week, so the future is bright after this current top-notch, high-performing group of seniors departs.  Taylor Reaber has played very well in her minutes off the bench, too.  All IMHO.

Much more basketball to be played -- it's a long long season, grinding it out time now.  Road trips must be so so tiring for these committed, dedicated student athletes and so many of them are in very demanding academic majors, too -- lots of pre-med kids, science students, in tough majors, quite serious students.  Gotta admire how they manage it all.  My hat is off to them, truly.

My kudos to Coach Smith and all the Titans on the 3-0 CCIW start.  Keep it rolling Titans!

IWU70

[RogK]

Here are the standings, excluding games involving Carthage, Wheaton and IWU :
Elmhurst 1 - 0
North Park 1 - 0
North Central 1 - 1
Augustana 0 - 0
Millikin 0 - 2
One way to look at who might get the 4th conference playoff spot. So far, these 5 teams are 0 - 9 vs the top 3.

[RogK]

Congratulations to Michelle Wenzel, new CCIW Player of the Week. For the whole season so far, she's made .647 of her FG att (88/136). In conference play, she's at 83 pct (25/30)!

[iwu70]

Congrats to Ms. Wenzel.  Some serious, high % shooting. 

Big game upcoming -- IWU vs. Wheaton.  Should be a good one, and a way to really see where these teams are now -- how far IWU has come back from its pre-CCIW run, gauntlet of tough games.

IWU70

[Gregory Sager]

NPU pretty sorely missed reigning CCIW Player of the Week Rachel Torres on Saturday. Illinois Wesleyan is not the right team to play if you're missing your starting point guard. The loss of leading rebounder Dominikque Williams hurt, too, as the Vikings ended up with a -13 on the boards on Saturday afternoon. But I'm not sure how much of a difference they would've made, because the panic that I saw from the Vikings when the going got tough seemed to be pretty much a team-wide affair. It even registered at the offensive end; when the Vikings did manage to break the press, they almost invariably missed the ensuing layup or the easy bunny. NPU's shooting as a whole was atrocious for the day: 30% from the field, with a lot of the misses being close to the rim, and a baffling 5-30 (17%) from downtown. They did shoot extremely well from the charity stripe (19-24 for 79%), but they didn't get there enough for it to really make any difference.

It was a see-saw game for the first 14 1/2 minutes, with a whopping eleven lead changes, and neither team really asserting itself. But at that point, with Wesleyan up 22-21, the Titans press really kicked in. And in spite of Amanda Reese Crockett's entreaties, the Vikings simply handled it poorly. They passed the ball backwards (the ultimate no-no against a full-court press), they heaved it blindly up the floor, they dribbled straight into halfcourt traps -- in short, they did everything they could to convince me that they'd never seen continuous full-court pressure before. That makes no sense on the face of it, because the Vikings had whipped North Central in the airplane hangar just seven days before. Of course, without having seen NCC thus far this season, I don't think that I'm going out on a limb in saying that Illinois Wesleyan runs its press a whole lot better than does North Central. Nevertheless, the team-wide breakdown that the Vikings suffered in that final five and a half minutes of the first half -- a 17-0 run by the Titans that led to an eye-popping 23-6 finish to the half -- should not have happened. And the youth of the Vikings should not be an excuse for it.

The Park just looked beaten in the second half. They never really rose out of the funk into which that end-of-the-half explosion by Wesleyan had put them, not even when Mia Smith called off the press about halfway thru the second stanza. Just an all-around stinker of a half by the Vikings, who seemed to play as though they were just trying to get the game over with. I thought that Soly Roman (10 pts, 6 rebs) put forth a good effort, and Kayla McCall shot well (it was good to see her back after she missed the Carthage game due to a sprained ankle), but nobody else really had a game worth mentioning.

The panic attack, I can somewhat understand. IWU has overwhelmed people in the past by scoring in bunches off of that press, and they'll do so again in the future -- especially to young teams and/or teams that are missing a reliable rotation ballhandler or two.  But one thing that you feel that you can always count upon with a young team is energy, and I just didn't sense that NPU had any at all on Saturday afternoon. I sure hope that they find it on Wednesday night at Faganel Hall, because Elmhurst is a foe not to be trifled with, especially on its own floor.