WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[gordonmann]

Denison's center, Jordan Holmes (14.6 ppg, 17.6 rpg, 6.3 bpg) is pretty darned amazing. She's one of the best players I've seen over the past few seasons. She dropped a triple-double on Elmhurst in NPU's tournament.

Hey, speaking of Jordan Holmes, check out this week's Around the Nation column

Not sure what you're saying here about 0-2 record against regionally ranked opponents(St. Thomas and Loras)  Wheaton's 3 losses were against Hope, Wartburg, and Augustana.  Unless the "they" is Loras and St. Thomas?

No, what I meant is that Wheaton will be 0-2 against regionally ranked opponents unless Loras and St. Thomas play well enough to become regionally ranked. Wheaton lost to Wartburg and Hope and they will be in the regional rankings. So that's an 0-2 record for Wheaton already. If the Duhawks and Tommies play well enough to get ranked, then the Thunder will be 2-2.


Greg Sager: Check your personal messages. I wanted to get your expert opinion on something privately.

[Gregory Sager]

Tough loss for the Vikings last night, but the road game at Wheaton is one of those contests that you sort of write off at the beginning of the season as a probable 'L', anyway. Would've been nice to have stolen one at King, but the key for the Vikes will be to get the split when Wheaton comes to the crackerbox on February 3.

It was great to see that Nikki Przybyslawski made her varsity debut for 2015-16 last night. (She played in a JV game in the crackerbox on Tuesday.) She's recovering from a torn knee ligament suffered last spring, and the initial thought was that she'd have to miss this season entirely. She's worked hard to get back, and, while she might not have her full explosiveness until next season, her experience, savvy, ballhandling, and shooting ability will be a boost for NPU once she's fully back into the swing of things.

The immediate concern for NPU is to take care of business on Saturday at the Griz. I don't care that Millikin is 0-4 in the league, the Big Blue always make me nervous, especially in their own den. The Park never does well down there, and I'd like to see that trend change.

[wheels81]

No, what I meant is that Wheaton will be 0-2 against regionally ranked opponents unless Loras and St. Thomas play well enough to become regionally ranked. Wheaton lost to Wartburg and Hope and they will be in the regional rankings. So that's an 0-2 record for Wheaton already. If the Duhawks and Tommies play well enough to get ranked, then the Thunder will be 2-2.


Not sure where you see regional rankings I thought those didn't matter till later in season.  (Couldn't find them on NCAA site). but Wartburg, Hope, Loras, and St. Thomas are not in Central Reigon.  I thought out of region losses are less influential vs. in regional losses.   St. Thomas was #10 in national poll at the time they played Wheaton.  That's the only ranking I knew about.  Either way their loss to Hope I felt was much more damaging as it was a home loss and by a very large margin.  The other loss that was next damaging was to Augustana on the road who are now 6-9.

Seems like a lot of convaluting going on here :-)

[gordonmann]

Not sure where you see regional rankings I thought those didn't matter till later in season.  (Couldn't find them on NCAA site)...

Right, I'm projecting who's likely to be ranked. They don't come out for a while.

...but Wartburg, Hope, Loras, and St. Thomas are not in Central Reigon.  I thought out of region losses are less influential vs. in regional losses. 

Results against the regionally ranked opponents (RROs) in the same region certainly impact how teams within the same region are ordered. So Wheaton's head-to-head win against North Park would help the Thunder be ranked higher, all else being equal. But the selection of at-large NCAA tournament teams is done on a national level, across all the regions at the same time. One of the committee's criteria for selecting at-large teams for the NCAA tournament is record against regionally ranked opponents and that applies to RROs in any region. So Wheaton's results against regionally ranked opponents from all regions are relevant by that criteria. 

Not too long ago the NCAA was more focused on results from 'in-region' games and had a multi-pronged test for determining which games were regional and which weren't. Now virtually every game between Division III teams is regional, even if one team is from Maine and the other from California.

And while the Top 25 rankings are fun and an interesting measure of how teams line up nationally, they have no bearing on the at-large candidate selection. If St. Thomas is ranked in the West Region when the season ends, that'll help Wheaton, even though the Tommies aren't in the same region and even if they don't appear in the Top 25 poll.

[iwu70]

IWU over NC and "the system" 78-66, a good win for the Titans, now 4-1 in conference play.


McGraw 21
Ehresman 16

Seems the Titans are getting in a better groove now.

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 63
Millikin 47

Liz Rehberger: 14 pts, 3 stls
Amani Davis: 13 pts, 4:2 a:to
Shaylee Sloan: 10 pts, 7 rebs

In spite of the fact that the Vikings were without the services of Rachel Torres and Hannah Rehfeldt tonight, they ended up having a rather easy time of it in the Griz, something I often wondered if I would ever get the chance to say. The Vikings blew open what had been a relatively close game at the half with a 23-6 third quarter that featured a lot of steals and easy layups, and they basically breezed home the rest of the way.

With Wheaton losing tonight, NPU is now tied for first with only one team, Illinois Wesleyan, at 4-1 -- and with a 13-3 overall record, the Vikes continue to be legitimate candidates for a Pool C berth if one becomes necessary. The problem is that seven of the eight CCIW teams are now within two games of first place, so winning this thing isn't going to be easy for the Vikes.

[markerickson]

Congratulations, Vikings, on your recent success!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Not sure where you see regional rankings I thought those didn't matter till later in season.  (Couldn't find them on NCAA site)...

Right, I'm projecting who's likely to be ranked. They don't come out for a while.

Correct... we won't see the first regional rankings until Feb. 10. We still have seven weeks of basketball before we are talking about selecting at-large teams.

...but Wartburg, Hope, Loras, and St. Thomas are not in Central Reigon.  I thought out of region losses are less influential vs. in regional losses. 

A loss is a loss if they are both considered "regional" games. The only way a loss (or for that matter a win) isn't considering in the primary criteria by either the regional committee or the national committee... is if it doesn't count as a region game or a Division III opponent. That game would get delegated to the secondary criteria and even then may never come up in consideration (due different to circumstances).

But just because you lost a game against a different regional team versus an in-regional team doesn't hold any more or less weight.

As Gordon points out, there is a head-to-head factor thus giving an in-region, or in-conference, game a little more "weight" per se because another part of the primary criteria is being used to consider it. However, committees tend to then unofficially adjust the vRRO so they don't accidentally count (or compare) the same game twice, per se.

But if head-to-head isn't a factor... then a loss (or win) against an actual in-region opponent will have the same weight as a loss (or win) against an out-of-region opponent ... since both games (assuming they meet the 70% in-region scheduling criteria - they most likely do, so don't worry about) are considered "regional" games anyway.

[GoPerry]

After a 60-50 loss @ Elmhurst on Saturday, it's pretty evident that the Thunder are closer to a pretty ordinary team right now, with potential to be better than average.  They are prone to very inconsistent offensive performance, especially in their 3 pt shooting, and this is more than just a little surprising.  If he hasn't already, Coach Madsen needs to engage his team in a reality check and try to steady the ship a little.  They should still be able to make the conf tourney, but it looks increasingly important to host which means they are going to have to win some tough games away from King(they've lost their last 3 road games).

[Mr. Ypsi]

I fear the CCIW has fallen back to the days of no national relevance.  Wheaton has now fallen to #24; no one else (except for NCC in the preseason 'guesstimate' poll) has ever even received a single vote.  We have two national title winners (three if you count NCC before the CCIW sponsored women's basketball), but just can't seem to gain the sort of foothold for the conference that the men perennially receive.

If anyone did a national ranking of conferences in basketball, like this site does for football, the men would virtually always be top 3 (and some years #1), the women I fear would be barely above average.  Come on, let's step it up!  We're the CCIW; we're better than 'barely above average'.  I hope.

[Gregory Sager]

After a 60-50 loss @ Elmhurst on Saturday, it's pretty evident that the Thunder are closer to a pretty ordinary team right now, with potential to be better than average.

Why couldn't your team have been "pretty ordinary" last Wednesday night at King?

I fear the CCIW has fallen back to the days of no national relevance.  Wheaton has now fallen to #24; no one else (except for NCC in the preseason 'guesstimate' poll) has ever even received a single vote.  We have two national title winners (three if you count NCC before the CCIW sponsored women's basketball), but just can't seem to gain the sort of foothold for the conference that the men perennially receive.

If anyone did a national ranking of conferences in basketball, like this site does for football, the men would virtually always be top 3 (and some years #1), the women I fear would be barely above average.  Come on, let's step it up!  We're the CCIW; we're better than 'barely above average'.  I hope.

That's significantly overblown, Chuck.

First of all, you're comparing apples to oranges when you compare CCIW men's basketball to CCIW women's basketball. Men's and women's sports in general really don't translate well for purposes of comparison. If you're going to compare CCIW women's basketball to anything, either compare it to other D3 leagues in this sport, or compare it to other CCIW women's sports.

In terms of the former, the CCIW is better than you think it is. Massey currently has the CCIW sixth out of the 48 D3 leagues, which is nothing to sneeze at. As far as the latter is concerned, the CCIW is hard-put to achieve the same level of success in this sport as it has in soccer or volleyball or softball, which are three of the best sports that this league has, women or men, in terms of national competitiveness. But that tends to be cyclical; there have been years in which the CCIW has been better overall in this sport than it has in the other three women's ball sports.

It is true that the league is down somewhat in 2015-16 from recent seasons when compared to itself. This season the CCIW is 50-37 (.575) in non-conference play, which will undoubtedly improve to 51-37 (.579) when Wheaton closes out the CCIW's regular season non-con slate with a walkover win over IIT (0-15) in late February. Here's how that mark compares to recent seasons (non-con records include postseason play, of course):

2014-15	64-26 (.711)
2013-14	59-32 (.648)
2012-13	58-32 (.644)
2011-12	68-28 (.708)
2010-11	55-38 (.591)
2009-10	56-38 (.595)

... but, going back further, when you look at the overall arc of CCIW women's basketball history it could be argued that the last four seasons were more of an aberration than this season's turning out to be. A lot of it has to do with postseason runs altering the league's record as a whole (and, yes, I realize that if the CCIW only gets one team into the tourney, then the chances of this year's non-con record being significantly altered are lessened).

However, note that the CCIW achieved a tremendous mark in non-con play last year in spite of the fact that both of the league's D3 tourney entries (Wheaton and North Central) bowed out on the first night of the tournament. The league was really strong from top to bottom in 2014-15; six of the eight teams finished with winning records, with only one team (Augustana) failing to reach double-digit wins -- and Augie's 9-16 record was very good by eighth-place standards. National success in March does not necessarily make or break the league's overall success.

In short, Chuck, don't put too much stock in the poll -- or in what the league has done over the past four years. If you're going to make sweeping statements about the league's competence in a sport, you have to take the long view.

[iwu70]

IWU over Augie 37-29 at the half, in Rock Island.  McGraw with 14 first half points.  Titans looking to go to 5-1 in CCIW play.

IWU'70

[iwu70]

In a hard-fought game in RI, IWU over Augie, 73-70.  McGraw 23, Holness 12, Ehresman 9.  The Titans now 5-1 in league play are slowly turning themselves into a contender for the CCIW championship.  Run and jump doing its dirt again, with 26 Augie TOs.  Should be a very good game next IWU vs. NPU, for the league lead.

IWU'70

[iwu70]

With North Park's loss tonight, IWU in sole 1st place in league play.  Amazing and surprising. 

IWU'70

[GoPerry]

Grateful for the 61-57 WC win over MU.  Still not coming easy but right now a road win is a road win for the Thunder.

We've got quite a race at the top of the conference this year.  No team really taking control yet- very unpredictable.  Titans have the best opportunity if they can win the next 2(@Park, vs WC).