WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

NP's Lauryn Alba Garner has two lines in the stats on cciw.org.
It is probably very tedious to fix these, but it should be done, maybe at the end of the season.

Lauryn's stats are that way as well on the NPU website. NPU sports information director Tyler Woolbright is aware of it. He'll eventually fix it.

[RogK]

Now that half of the conference schedule is complete (each team having played the others once), it is a particularly good time to look at conference-games-only stats.
A favorite stat is "effective FG pct" or eFG% (the abbreviation used on basketball-reference.com). It adjusts overall FG pct to precisely account for 3FGs. For example, if a team makes 4 of 10 FG att and one of the made shots was a three, they scored 9 pts from those 10 shots. The traditional FG% is .400 but we wouldn't know if the team scored 8 points or 12 or anywhere in between.
eFG% reflects how many 2FGs would be needed to score the 9 pts from 10 FG att, so the answer is 4 and 1/2. The eFG% is .450.
So, let's look at team defensive eFG% through 8 conference games :
AUG .424
CRL .490
CTG .413
ELM .443
IWU .418
MIL .491
NCC .488
NPU .471
WHE .382
Caveats -- this is not a complete measure of a team's defense, as it does not include FTs allowed, turnovers induced, defensive rebounds.

[RogK]

team offense eFG%, 8 conference games :
AUG .438
CRL .405
CTG .473
ELM .454
IWU .534
MIL .432
NCC .398
NPU .403
WHE .482
A significant, but incomplete, measure of an offense -- does not include TOs committed, FTs made, offensive rebs. Nevertheless, far superior to FG%.

[RogK]

Congrats to Alexis Jones, new CCIW Player of the Week!

[Mr. Ypsi]

IWU continued their climb, though it slowed - from 18 to 17.  I was afraid they wouldn't rise at all, since the ONLY team above them to lose was UWW, who gave IWU one of their two losses.  Apparently enough voters did not consider a 2-point loss AT UWW to be disqualifying, and IWU was 17, UWW 18.

Still no one else receiving votes.  I would have hoped that 7 straight wins and a 13-4 record would get Wheaton at least ONE vote, but no dice.

[iwu70]

Congrats to Ms. Jones on an excellent week, now Player of the Week.

'70

[iwu70]

Ypsi, hard for the TITANS to rise much further, with so many undefeated teams above, . . . and with no further games against ranked teams . . . til the D3 tournament.  Best to just keep winning, roll up big margins, and let the starters get more rest for tougher battles to come in future.  It's sure been great experience for the Freshmen and the other pine-sitters.   Big game vs. WC on the 7th.

IWU'70

[Mr. Ypsi]

Ypsi, hard for the TITANS to rise much further, with so many undefeated teams above, . . . and with no further games against ranked teams . . . til the D3 tournament.  Best to just keep winning, roll up big margins, and let the starters get more rest for tougher battles to come in future.  It's sure been great experience for the Freshmen and the other pine-sitters.   Big game vs. WC on the 7th.

IWU'70

Understood.  The CCIW women's teams get no where near the respect of the men (and, to be honest, haven't yet earned it, despite national titles by Millikin and IWU), but I'll keep lobbying!

The rise in women's sports has been incredible over the last 30-40 years, but there is still not enough interest or athleticism among the women for parity in D3.  Late afternoon or early evening every Sunday "How They Fared" is posted on the Multi-region boards of both men and women.  The men typically looks downright bloody (red indicating losses); the women much less so.  The top women's teams rarely lose, and victory margins of 30-50 are not uncommon; that is much less common among the men.

It is therefore almost impossible to overcome a 2-2 start no matter who you played - fortunately, there is a tournament who (if you qualify) doesn't care what your record (or ranking) was!

Make IWU 2012 Again!

[iwu70]

Ypsi, I think this team is overall as good as the 2012 team, playing very well together.  They don't have the dominate player like Olivia Lett or the trey shooting of Melissa Gardner, but they do have depth, overall great defense, and one of the best PGs in D3, in Ehresman.  Very balanced, with lots of weapons.  Hope Molly McGraw has a big spurt of productivity here down the stretch.  This freshmen group has really been good . . . is going to be even better, in the next 2-3 years. 

I think 15-1 likely, even 16-0, then a good high seed in the Dance, come March.  That could help a lot in getting 2 easier games starting out . . . then, who knows where they will end up, how far they go?  25-2 going in would be nice.   

I'm hoping for the best.

'70

[lmitzel]

I know it's way too early to start talking regional rankings, but those matter a lot more than the Top 25. Your Titans will probably be pretty high in the Central in two weeks when the first set drops, barring them coming down to earth a little bit.

[iwumichigander]

I know it's way too early to start talking regional rankings, but those matter a lot more than the Top 25. Your Titans will probably be pretty high in the Central in two weeks when the first set drops, barring them coming down to earth a little bit.

lkely Titans will be high in regional rankings which is important even if they wn the AQ (in terms of hosting).
  '70 and Ypsi note the Top 25 but it is much more difficult to rise in the women's than men's.  You just do not see losses on the women's side compared to the men's .

[Mr. Ypsi]

I know it's way too early to start talking regional rankings, but those matter a lot more than the Top 25. Your Titans will probably be pretty high in the Central in two weeks when the first set drops, barring them coming down to earth a little bit.

lkely Titans will be high in regional rankings which is important even if they wn the AQ (in terms of hosting).
  '70 and Ypsi note the Top 25 but it is much more difficult to rise in the women's than men's.  You just do not see losses on the women's side compared to the men's .

I'm not sure that any men's team this year would win the national title in most past years (no truly dominant teams), yet there may be as many as 25-30 teams that if they get hot at the right time could make it to Salem.  There just isn't that quantity of talent in the women's game.  By the Elite Eight there may well still be 2-3 undefeated teams (in mid-January there are already only 2 undefeated men's teams).  Only a relative handful of women's teams (including, IMO, an under-ranked  Titan squad) have any realistic shot at the Final Four.

I dearly love women's basketball, but will love it even more when:
  a. a sufficient number of talented players bring more parity to D3, and
  b. the CCIW women start earning and getting the national respect that the CCIW men receive!

[RogK]

individual eFG% from conference action only -- narrowed to those who were at .500 or better and had scored at least 32 pts from made FGs (4 such pts per game for the team's 8) :
AUG none
CRL none
CTG Madie Kaelber .639, Sammie Woodward .561
ELM Mikaela Eppard .554, Jasmin Bailey .506
IWU Raven Hughes .740, Ashley Schneider .654, Nina Anderson .617, Kendall Sosa .609, Sydney Shanks .583
MIL Jordan Hildebrand .523
NCC Maya Walls .564, Michaela Reedy .542
NPU none
WHE Jennifer Berg .638, Hannah Frazier .567, Jordan Myroth .542, Devin Kyler .508, Maggie Dansdill .505
Roughly a half-dozen others just missed the cutoffs, but I decided to retain the original arbitrary qualifications.

[Gregory Sager]

I dearly love women's basketball, but will love it even more when:
  a. a sufficient number of talented players bring more parity to D3, and
  b. the CCIW women start earning and getting the national respect that the CCIW men receive!

Unfortunately, you won't live long enough to see either of those wishes come to fruition, Chuck.

I probably won't, either.

[iwu70]

Ypsi, I think Greg is right on this one.  Esp. a.  Let's hope our Titans go far in the D3 dance this year, helping a bit with b. 

Looking forward to the rest of the season -- esp. the big game at WC in two weeks.  Nice to have three games at home now, including the "Pink Zone" fundraising game.  Hope there's a big turnout, open wallets for that one -- a good cause, always.

IWU'70