WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[gordonmann]

What do folks think about NCC?

I thought about voting them in the Top 25 and found other teams I thought would be better.

[GoPerry]

Congratulations to Hannah Considine and Katie McDaniels on their D3 hoops pre-season All American nod.  Well deserved.  Those 2 along with senior Ellie Zeller(D3Hoops pre-season AA last year) will be the back bone of this extremely well-balanced team.  Thunder fans have every reason to expect big things from the ladies this year, but I would suspect no higher than what Kent Madsen and the players expect of themselves this season after a very disappointing home early exit last year in the NCAA tourney.  Given that they only graduated one senior and they return pretty much everyone who played significant minutes last season, their pre-season top 10 ranking is certainly justified.   Despite their heady 24-3 record entering post season play last year, one could argue that they were still young and perhaps not quite seasoned to make a deep run.  This year however, they will be senior-led by Considine and Zeller and McDaniels is as good a guard as you'll see who can either score, dish, or otherwise run the team making everyone else better.  Chantal Meacham, their 4th All-Conf player back, is dangerous from the arc.  If they can stay healthy, I'm not sure they will be very challenged for the CCIW title.  They have to believe that this is their year to really contend and compete well into the 2nd NCAA weekend.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Three CCIW teams have won the women's national bball title - NCC, Millikin, and IWU.  Obviously I'd love for IWU to win it again, but if Wheaton can pull it off, we'd welcome them to the club!  (Though if Sidney Moss stays healthy, it is doubtful anyone can knock off Thomas More.)

[Gregory Sager]

What do folks think about NCC?

I thought about voting them in the Top 25 and found other teams I thought would be better.

Well, the Cards lost three good players in Tess Godhardt, Maryssa Cladis, and Bobbi Johns to graduation. But Michelle Roof has the Grinnell system down to a T at this point. In fact, right now she's arguably running it better than the guy who invented it, Grinnell men's head coach David Arseneault. And the beauty of the Grinnell system is that, if you're doing it right, you're less dependent upon superstars than are other teams. if you have enough competent players, you will win more by the style of play than by individual execution. Plus, it's so darned hard to prepare for NCC, because nobody else runs the Grinnell system in this neck of the woods on the women's side, and that's always a big advantage for the Cards. Finally, she's got a (presumably) healthy Lauren Hernandez back after missing a year to injury.

If Carthage has indeed lost the services of Alexis Hahn and Taylor Boardman, then North Central is easily the top challenger remaining to give Wheaton a run this coming season.

Three CCIW teams have won the women's national bball title - NCC, Millikin, and IWU.

Incorrect, Chuck. North Central won the national title as a member of the Chicago Metro Conference, prior to the CCIW's sponsorship of women's sports. I think we've been over this ground before.

It's an important distinction, because the CCIW can't legitimately claim bragging rights for North Central's triumph.

[Gregory Sager]

I will probably have something concrete to say about the 2015-16 NPU edition on Friday.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Three CCIW teams have won the women's national bball title - NCC, Millikin, and IWU.

Incorrect, Chuck. North Central won the national title as a member of the Chicago Metro Conference, prior to the CCIW's sponsorship of women's sports. I think we've been over this ground before.

It's an important distinction, because the CCIW can't legitimately claim bragging rights for North Central's triumph.

You're quite right, of course, and the CCIW can't take credit.  (And shame, shame for being SO delayed on sponsoring women's sports!)  But as a fan, I can count them as a team who presumably would still have won a banner for the conference if the conference was not so chauvinistic!

[Gregory Sager]

Chuck, I wouldn't go that far. By 1982-83 the CMC had degenerated to only playing an end-of-season eight-team-tourney as its conference schedule, leaving everybody in the conference to essentially schedule the bulk of the season as they saw fit. NCC apparently scheduled in a manner designed to help it get into the NCAA tourney as an at-large, and the Cards were good enough to take it from there.

I know I've said this a million times before on d3boards.com, but there's no substitute for a full double round-robin. That's the proving ground where, nine times out of ten, you really separate out the contenders from the wannabes. I'm not saying that the Cards weren't special in 1982-83 -- with four members of the Thousand Points Club on that roster, they clearly were -- but I really don't think you can assume anything about how that team would've done if it had gone through a 16-game CCIW season, as opposed to a hand-picked slate of 24 non-con games before the CMC tourney. F'rinstance, one of the six teams that beat NCC that season was Augustana. Augie went 17-10 that season while playing a schedule that included the likes of two D1s (Notre Dame and Bradley), two D2s (Florida International and Southeast Missouri), and seven games against NAIA opponents in an era when, as you and Bob are always so fond of pointing out, NAIA membership really meant something. In the D3 tourney Augie lost by seven in the Naperville regional semi to Central, which then lost the next night to host NCC by three.

Picture a scenario in which the CCIW sponsored women's basketball in 1982-83, the CCIW played its usual double round-robin (16 games back then, since Carroll was still in the league), and only one CCIW team got into the D3 tourney. It wasn't terribly unusual for D3 to take only one D3 men's basketball team back then; since this league has never been as strong on the women's side as it's been on the men's side, it's even more plausible to contemplate D3 only taking one CCIW team back then. What if that team was Augustana?

I just don't think that you can automatically assume that things would've turned out the same if the CCIW had had women's basketball back then. Sure, there's a good chance that NCC would've won the national title, but there are enough variables at play in that counterfactual to keep it from being a slam-dunk assumption.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, I'm gonna assume everything you said is true (I've caught you in errors maybe twice in all these years, but have learned that fact-checking you is generally a waste of time and brain cells - you are FAR more reliable than wikipedia! ), but I'm gonna keep thinking of NCC as a CCIW title the same way (Pat Coleman, cover your eyes ) that I'll keep thinking of Jack Sikma as a D3 NBA star (as long as Pat doesn't catch me saying it! ).  They're our conference rivals now, and would've been then if the CCIW hadn't been so slow to sponsor women's sports.

But I can't blame just 'the CCIW'.  IWU did not even have a women's basketball team until 1971-72, and for the first seven(?) years played 10 or fewer games a year.  The nadir came just before the CCIW started sponsorship, when they went 0-20!  IWU NEVER had a real program until the arrival of Mia Smith.  I just hope she can resurrect the program quickly after the worst season she has had since the very early days of a never-before-was program.

[shepherd]

Three CCIW teams have won the women's national bball title - NCC, Millikin, and IWU.  Obviously I'd love for IWU to win it again, but if Wheaton can pull it off, we'd welcome them to the club!  (Though if Sidney Moss stays healthy, it is doubtful anyone can knock off Thomas More.)

No doubt Moss is the best.
But I really hope to see  Katie McDaniels vs Abby Owings from Thomas More going head to head.  Two exceptional point guards that have almost exact same skill sets that are exciting to watch.  From the no look passes, ball handling and creating scoring opportunities. 

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, I'm gonna assume everything you said is true (I've caught you in errors maybe twice in all these years, but have learned that fact-checking you is generally a waste of time and brain cells - you are FAR more reliable than wikipedia! )

That's a bit of a left-handed compliment, but thanks, anyway.

, but I'm gonna keep thinking of NCC as a CCIW title the same way (Pat Coleman, cover your eyes ) that I'll keep thinking of Jack Sikma as a D3 NBA star (as long as Pat doesn't catch me saying it! ).

Three eye-rolls for that, Chuck ... one for each NCAA division: 

  They're our conference rivals now, and would've been then if the CCIW hadn't been so slow to sponsor women's sports.

One of these days I'm going to ask one of the CCIW old-timers (Dennis Prikkel, perhaps, or Dave Wrath) why the CCIW was so tardy in sponsoring women's sports. It's not as though all nine CCIW schools back then lacked women's sports; they all fielded a full slate of women's teams by that point, since Title IX was passed all the way back in 1972. (D3's first women's basketball tourney was held in 1981-82, so that NCC team we're discussing was the second D3 outfit to take home a Walnut & Bronze in this sport.)

I have a pretty strong suspicion that the cause of the CCIW's tardiness was simply the intransigence of the league's old-boy's-club leadership, but I'd rather hear it from somebody who was a league insider during that era.

But I can't blame just 'the CCIW'.  IWU did not even have a women's basketball team until 1971-72, and for the first seven(?) years played 10 or fewer games a year.  The nadir came just before the CCIW started sponsorship, when they went 0-20!  IWU NEVER had a real program until the arrival of Mia Smith.

That last statement is simply not accurate, Chuck. Mandy Neal's 1993-94 Titans went 20-5 and tied for second in the CCIW at 11-3, only one game behind Millikin. The following season her team went 20-6, 10-4 (good for third place in the CCIW) and made the D3 tourney, losing in the first round to Wash U, 75-69. And in 1995-96 her Titans went 18-8, finished fourth in the CCIW at 9-5, and were one of four CCIW teams to go dancing (that's still the high-water mark for the CCIW in terms of D3 tourney participation). They lost in the first round, again to Wash U, by a score of 68-63.

It's not fair to Mandy Neal or to her former players to gloss over that three-year period as though it never happened. I think that they would strongly disagree that theirs wasn't "a real program."

[Mr. Ypsi]

My apologies to Mandy Neal and her players for my earlier mis-statement - I somehow simply didn't see those results as I scanned the historical record.

I'll re-phrase to "IWU never had a dominant program until Mia Smith". 

I'm hoping that last season was just a one-year hiccup, though it will probably take longer to get back to the very top.

[Pat Coleman]

I'm just going to say one thing, and I don't know how well it relates to this situation or not, Gregory. You talk about the double round-robin and the perils of that, but I have to say, in the 1980s there was a very wide variance in how seriously each school and athletic department took women's basketball. (Even today there are lots of schools who don't treat women's basketball seriously in terms of staffing, recruitment and the like.) Just having two games against teams isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all.

[Gregory Sager]

Quite true, Pat, and it was certainly true of the CCIW in the early years of the league's sponsorship of women's basketball ... and it's still true today, to a significantly lesser degree.

All I'm saying, though, is that the double round-robin established a more coherent baseline for comparison, especially when you consider the alternative at the time (the eight-team CMC tourney at the end of the season). And my overall point, which is that Chuck's assertion was hardly a given as far as counterfactuals go, really isn't dependent upon the overall depth of what would've been the CCIW at that point.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, as to the 'left-handed compliment', shame on you for the slur on lefties!   (Actually, I'm right-handed, but after congratulating you on you generally fine accuracy, I thought I should stick up for my left-handed friends! )  I may have retired at just the right time - I was only getting wikipedia footnotes the last couple of years.  I made it clear that they were NOT acceptable - either cite the source they footnoted, or, if not footnoted, find another source.  (I got a lot of 'blowback' from students, but was solidly backed on this issue by my DH and other administrators.)  I kind of wonder if the problem has gotten worse (as students rely ever more on wiki) or better (as students get more sophisticated about 'the internet is not gospel')?  Glad it is no longer my problem!

My dad felt the same way about computers in engineering.  He spent nearly his whole career pre-computer, and felt he could not possibly keep up with what was going on.

[joehakes]

If being the North Park women's coach at the time of NCC's title qualifies me to chime in on the early CCIW schools and women's sports, I'll try.  The job was handed to me as a way to get a "full time" salary. I was the head men's soccer coach, head women's basketball coach and head men's tennis coach and I was general manager of Tam Tennis Club in Niles which was owned by NP.  That job scope might indicate something about the view of all those jobs.

There's no doubt that the women's programs were looked at as the junior junior varsity. Practice times were set around the men's schedule and the games in the Crackerbox were played with only half the bleachers pulled out. When we played a doubleheader at NCC they actually were putting together the floor level seating during the women's game. We at least had decent uniforms and a future NBA ref (Ron Olesiak) calling games. I know that the other coaches were happy when we won but rarely came to our games.  I was used to that from coaching soccer.

The NCAA was slow to embrace women's sports and the CCIW leadership was pretty much in line with that. We really didn't feel that bad about it at the time because at least the women got to play and the games were pretty intense. Looking back we should have been more demanding I suppose but we didn't know it at the time. I really enjoyed the experience and hopefully the players got something out of it. Glad to have been a pioneer with both soccer and women's basketball. Each had a ton more fans than tennis so it's al relative.

NCC was good in that era but didn't seem like they were unbeatable. The tournament was so low key that I don't know that we knew that they had won the Nationals until some time after the fact. Pre-D3hoops. Actually pre-Internet.