WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Mr. Ypsi]

At the half, IWU 41, Wheaton 38.

Also at the half, Carthage 35, Millikin 26.

[iwu70]

IWU up over WC by 3 at the half.  Lots and lots of fouls, mostly on the Titans.  Serious foul trouble for most of the Titan starters.  McDaniels for WC with 20 first half points.

'70

[Mr. Ypsi]

Final: IWU 88, Wheaton 84.  But all for naught as Carthage easily handles Millikin.  We were the secondseed before the game, we are second seed now.  Still, a warning shot to Wheaton who we will face again in the first game of the conference tourney.  Should be yet another down-to-the wire game.

[iwu70]

Good win for the Titans, probably putting them ahead of WC in the final regional rankings.  A key point out of tonight's game.

Baltes 21
McMahon 15
Seibring 13
T. Reaber 10

An ugly foul-filled affair.  Choppy, ugly game with likely over 50 fouls called. 

The WC freshman McDaniels is going to be a force for sure, a monster game tonight with 29.

Congrats to the Titans on a great CCIW season 12-2, one game behind Carthage at 13-1.  Congrats to them on the outright CCIW championship.

IWU70

[iwu70]

WC has many good young players.  A force to be reckoned with in the next 2-3 years.

DePauw women lost tonight, first time in almost two years. 

Sure hope IWU slips above WC now in the regional rankings with a 2-0 head to head against the Thunder.

IWU70

[iwu70]

One more go 'round with regional rankings this week, right?  Is it correct to say that IWU should now be ahead of WC in regional rankings this week given the 2-0 record head-to-head?

Great game at King.  Lexi Baltes is one tough competitor.  Jackson fouls out with almost 10 minutes to go and the Titans still bring home the win, largely due to Baltes, McMahon and Seibring.  Taylor Reaber also had an excellent game.

IWU70

[iwu70]

Pretty amazing that IWU averaged 89+ point per game throughout the CCIW season.  Amazing offensive performance.  Guess they have a "system" of their own, even outscoring the trey-bombing "system" of NCC this year.  Looks very likely that Colleen McMahon will win the scoring title with one game vs. NPU on Tuesday evening to go -- the weather/snow make-up game cancelled earlier.

Freshman Gabrielle Holness also had a good game, good contributions in the win over WC @King.  She has a very bright future with the Titans. 

IWU70

[RogK]

Elmhurst won the final CCIW playoff spot. Fiona McMahon had 29 pts (12/19, 5/7 FT), 12 rebs and 4 blocks in their 95-85 win over North Central. Karen Senette scored 24 (6/9 FG incl 3 threes, 9/9 FT) and had 7 assists. Katie Swanson led with 11 assists. EC won the rebounding 54-37.
Tess Godhardt did not do so good in the return to her former home gym, making just 2 of 15 FG att; no doubt her ex-teammates had resolved to pay extra attention to her.
Maryssa Cladis scored 18 for NC (6/9 FG incl 1 three, 5/7 FT) and added 3 assists.
NC made 5/28 3FGs.

[RogK]

I saw North Park top Augie 76-62. On her Senior Day, Dominikque Williams led NP with 12 pts. Amani Davis was next with 11. Soly Roman grabbed 13 rebounds. Rachel Torres led with 5 assists and 3 steals.
NP needed NC to beat EC, which didn't happen. NP could still tie Elmhurst at 6-8 but the Bluejays own the tie-breaker.
Augie's four seniors all made good contributions in their final game : Jessica Baids scored 18, Molly Etheridge 13, Chaney Tambling led with 7 rebs and Amy Hicks led with 4 assists. Those four played 2382 of the Vikings' 5025 total minutes in '13-'14, so there will plenty of opportunity for others to shine next season. Augie was a reasonably good team this year, but managed to get conference wins only by splitting with North Central and Millikin. One thing next year's squad will have to work on is long-distance shooting; among the potential returners who took more than one attempt, the highest 3FG accuracy is 25 pct.
Greg, what can you add about the game?

[RogK]

Congratulations to Carthage for winning the regular season with an outstanding 13-1 record. Also, hats off to Stephanie Kuzmanic for her 3rd CCIW player of the week award.
In their Saturday 77-64 win over Millikin, Stephanie had 21 pts and 10 assists. Michelle Wenzel (7/10, 5/6 FT) had 19, plus 13 rebs. The Big Blue were led by Holly Haskins's 13 pts, 4 assists and 3 steals. A dozen points each were scored by Yip Ypya and Alyssa Saklak.

[RogK]

Once tomorrow's NP/IWU game is completed, there will have been 56 wins in CCIW play. Since we have 15 positions on the all-conference team (not counting Newcomer, which can/will be a duplicate), we could say that one win earns 15/56ths of an all-conf spot. I offer this as a general guideline, not necessarily to be exactly followed (can't be, anyway).
Carthage 13 wins : 3.48 all-conf players
IWU 12 wins : 3.21
IWU 11 wins : 2.95
Wheaton 9 wins : 2.41
Elmhurst 6 wins : 1.61
North Park 6 wins : 1.61
North Park 5 wins : 1.34
Millikin 5 wins : 1.34
North Central 4 wins : 1.07
Augustana 2 wins : 0.54
Incidentally, a 14-0 record would yield 3.75, while 7-7 yields 1.88.
Now, to immediately violate the above. I think Wheaton should get three (exceeding their 2.4 allotment)  players on all-CCIW : Hovee, McDaniels and Zeller. And, in fact, I have no problem with any one or two of those three making 1st team.
Can Carthage get four on all-CCIW? Kuzmanic and Wenzel are certainly 1st team, I'd say. And it's hard to argue against Stercic and Schmidt also being all-conf. Might be difficult to get all four, especially if Augie gets a representative.
Baltes and McMahon of IWU are worthy of 1st team, as is McMahon of Elmhurst. Seems I have more than five 1st teamers! Shelby Jackson should be among the 15 honorees.
I think Czaplicki of Millikin and Cladis of North Central belong on all-conference.
North Park gets one, Elmhurst could easily get a 2nd player.

[iwu70]

RogK, thanks for all the updates, All-Conference recommendations.  One more game now -- NPU at IWU Tuesday night.  McMahon needs 5 points to win the scoring title. 

On All-Conference, you forgot Seibring, another good candidate.

Titans have another tough game left, NPU at home.  Hope they get to 12-2.  We'll still rue the loss at home to NCC.  Could have shared the CCIW crown and hosted the tournament.  Titans likely need to win the AQ to keep playing after March 1st.  A tough road @Kenosha.  WC may be in the dance going 1-1 in the tournament.  Don't think 19-8 does it for IWU this year, given how many other teams nationally have records with many fewer losses. 

A good weekend of basketball @ IWU and @ Carthage this weekend.  Top four teams going at it a few more times for the AQ. 

IWU70

[iwu70]

Congrats to Carthage on their outright championship, at 13-1.  A great season.  And, congrats to Stephanie Kuzmanic, again the CCIW Player of the Week.

Good luck, safe travels to all the teams for this weekend's tournament, for the long ride back up to Kenosha.

IWU70

[RogK]

iwu70, I definitely did not forget about Katy Seibring. I'm thinking Shelby Jackson is slightly ahead of her for all-CCIW and that if any team gets 4 players, it's Carthage (they may also have to settle for 3?).
Katy is another one of the CCIW's very good athletes who are also very good academically. Her bio mentions that she'll be heading east to earn her master's in math education at The College of New Jersey.
Here's more about TCNJ :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_New_Jersey
While she'd surely like to be honored as all-conference again, she may get more satisfaction knowing that a civic group in Texas is doing things on her behalf :
http://cityofkaty.com/our-community/keep-katy-beautiful-2/

[RogK]

We've had 27 different players score in the 20s or 30s this season (NP/IWU will play tonight). The best game is listed for those players who have reached 20 multiple times.
Augustana : M Pezzopane 20, C Tambling 21, M Etheridge 32;
Carthage : T Boardman 20, K Schmidt 25, M Wenzel 28, S Kuzmanic 34;
Elmhurst : K Senette 24, M Schwerdtmann 27, F McMahon 29;
Illinois Wesleyan : L Baltes 21, G Holness 21, S Jackson 24, K Seibring 26, C McMahon 29;
Millikin : B Williams 21, Y Ypya 21, K Going 22, A Saklak 24, B Czaplicki 25;
North Central : L Shumaker 25, K Cooling 28;
North Park : R Torres 20, B Pittas 21, L Rehberger 23;
Wheaton : K McDaniels 29, E Zeller 32.
While assembling this list, I noticed that Yip Ypya scored 142 pts in her last 11 games (12.9 avg).