WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[RogK]

on to a much more pleasant topic ...
congrats to new CCIW Player of the Week, Hannah Frazier, getting her 3rd honor this season.

[GoPerry]

Greg, I guess we can start to say more conclusively that NPU and MU have risen into the top tier of CCIW women's basketball.  At least it looks reasonably evident from the standings posted by Mssr. RogerK. 
IWU'70

NPU yes.  Millikin, a little premature to claim that I would say.  Good home win vs WC, bad home loss vs EC. Of course the Big Blue are not the pushover this year that has marked their recent seasons and Wheaton needs to remember that on Wed at King.

Speaking of NPU, they can gain a stranglehold on 1st place with a good performance on the road Wed at Shirk.  No doubt their stiffest test yet.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, I guess we can start to say more conclusively that NPU and MU have risen into the top tier of CCIW women's basketball.  At least it looks reasonably evident from the standings posted by Mssr. RogerK. 
IWU'70

NPU yes.  Millikin, a little premature to claim that I would say.  Good home win vs WC, bad home loss vs EC. Of course the Big Blue are not the pushover this year that has marked their recent seasons and Wheaton needs to remember that on Wed at King.

Speaking of NPU, they can gain a stranglehold on 1st place with a good performance on the road Wed at Shirk.  No doubt their stiffest test yet.

The game Wednesday is in Chicago.  But IWU won by 31 in the Shirk - surely home court is not THAT big a factor!   (If home court really IS that big a factor, we may as well just skip the February trip to Wheaton. )

(NOT that I am taking a win on Wednesday for granted.)

[Gregory Sager]

No doubt their stiffest test yet.

Disagree. Hope is 16-0 and ranked #3. Loras is 16-2 (and would be undefeated if the Duhawks weren't for some strange reason allergic to 9-7 Luther) and ranked #8. Don't get me wrong; Wesleyan is a very good team. But those two December non-conference games were much stiffer tests for NPU in terms of opponent strength than Wednesday will be.

Wednesday is less about the stiffness, more about the stakes.

Greg, I guess we can start to say more conclusively that NPU and MU have risen into the top tier of CCIW women's basketball.  At least it looks reasonably evident from the standings posted by Mssr. RogerK. 
IWU'70

NPU yes.  Millikin, a little premature to claim that I would say.  Good home win vs WC, bad home loss vs EC. Of course the Big Blue are not the pushover this year that has marked their recent seasons and Wheaton needs to remember that on Wed at King.

Speaking of NPU, they can gain a stranglehold on 1st place with a good performance on the road Wed at Shirk.  No doubt their stiffest test yet.

The game Wednesday is in Chicago.  But IWU won by 31 in the Shirk - surely home court is not THAT big a factor!

Noted about home court. But, since you're citing the margin of that game from three weeks ago, it needs to be added that IWU also:

* lost by 6 to Augustana, whom NPU beat by 8; and
* lost by 3 to Wheaton, whom NPU beat by 13.

The point being that one bad night in conference play does not define a team. North Park isn't 31 points worse than Illinois Wesleyan any more than Wheaton is 9 points worse than Carroll. Having said that, however, I'm perfectly fine with the idea that NPU will be the underdog in the crackerbox on Wednesday night. (Massey agrees with that assessment, as Ken's computer sets the Titans as a four-point favorite.) The Vikings have only beaten three teams this season that currently have winning records -- Coe, Wheaton, and Millikin -- and of the four games that they've played against teams that have winning percentages over .700, three of them resulted in very poor performances by the Vikings. Granted, Hope and Loras are two of the best teams in D3; but still, the evidence is clear that NPU needs to prove itself all over again versus a strong team. That whipping of Wheaton at King was five and a half weeks ago. It's put-up-or-shut-up time for the Vikings again.

[RogK]

All nine CCIW teams are tied as "Teams Not Receiving Votes" in this week's D3hoops poll.

[Baldini]

Is it safe to say that the CCIW is probably a one bid league this season?

[Mr. Ypsi]

All nine CCIW teams are tied as "Teams Not Receiving Votes" in this week's D3hoops poll.

Disappointing.  I thought IWU would retain at least a point or two, and that Wheaton might get one or two.  Hopefully the winner of IWU @ NPU will pull AT LEAST one vote!

For IWU to fall completely off the map by losing (even at home) by three points to Wheaton is showing TOTAL disrespect not only to IWU but even more to Wheaton - hey voters, the Thunder AIN'T chopped liver!

Is it safe to say that the CCIW is probably a one bid league this season?

Well, probably - but not necessarily.  I know that IWU has a very high SoS (and assume that Wheaton and NPU are not THAT far behind - can't find the SoS numbers).  Barring a complete meltdown, all should have decent W% and SoS, and should probably be at least 'bubble teams'.

[RogK]

One of the Wheaton Hannahs made D3hoops's national WBB team of the week. More congrats to Ms Frazier!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Your SOS numbers, though understand there could be some slight miscalculations. I have found a few non-regional marks the last few weeks (though, I then lose track of them to fix): https://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/women/2019-20/schedule?tmpl=sos-template

[Mr. Ypsi]

Your SOS numbers, though understand there could be some slight miscalculations. I have found a few non-regional marks the last few weeks (though, I then lose track of them to fix): https://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/women/2019-20/schedule?tmpl=sos-template

Thanks, Dave.

So IWU c. 11, Wheaton c.66, NPU farther down than I expected, but c. 205.

[Gregory Sager]

Your SOS numbers, though understand there could be some slight miscalculations. I have found a few non-regional marks the last few weeks (though, I then lose track of them to fix): https://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/women/2019-20/schedule?tmpl=sos-template

The d3hoops.com pollsters don't have to be wedded to the NCAA's numbers. They're free agents as far as filling out their ballots are concerned, and thus they're welcome to use whatever resources they have at hand to aid them in their ballotmaking -- and some of those resources (up to and including eye test and/or outside opinions, for example) don't necessarily agree with the NCAA SoS. Here, for example is how the NCAA's SoS calculations compare to Massey's:

team	overall W-L	CCIW W-L	NCAA SoS	Massey SoS
North Park	15-3	8-1	205	66
Illinois Wesleyan	12-5	6-2	11	8
Wheaton	13-5	6-3	66	50
Millikin	12-6	5-4	212	88
Augustana	9-9	4-5	26	16
North Central	8-10	4-5	92	56
Carthage	8-10	3-6	61	51
Elmhurst	7-11	2-7	94	61
Carroll	6-11	2-7	51	26

There's some dramatic SoS disparity there involving two of the top four teams in the league.

Is it safe to say that the CCIW is probably a one bid league this season?

Nope, not at this point. Still too much ball to be played. Let's wait until the first Central Region ranking comes out a week from Wednesday before we start making any declarations of that sort.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Your SOS numbers, though understand there could be some slight miscalculations. I have found a few non-regional marks the last few weeks (though, I then lose track of them to fix): https://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/women/2019-20/schedule?tmpl=sos-template

Thanks, Dave.

So IWU c. 11, Wheaton c.66, NPU farther down than I expected, but c. 205.

Ignore the "ranking" as it only is there to be there ... the SOS number is the more important aspect. There are a lot of schools that won't be in the ranking or at-large selections who are mixed in there because they have very strong schedules. So the number listed along side (11 for IWU, 66 for Wheaton, etc.) is not only a misnomer, but could cause confusion.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Nope, not at this point. Still too much ball to be played. Let's wait until the first Central Region ranking comes out a week from Wednesday before we start making any declarations of that sort.

Nope... two weeks away, still. February 12 is the first regional rankings. It is later this year because it is a quirky calendar - see the shortest time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is part of that.

Final games of the regular season are played on March 1 this year ... we just back up 3 1/2 weeks from there for rankings.

[Gregory Sager]

Nope, not at this point. Still too much ball to be played. Let's wait until the first Central Region ranking comes out a week from Wednesday before we start making any declarations of that sort.

Nope... two weeks away, still. February 12 is the first regional rankings. It is later this year because it is a quirky calendar - see the shortest time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is part of that.

Ah, OK. I was basing it off of last year's ranking calendar, which had the first ranking on February 6. Thanks for the 411.

[GoPerry]

The game Wednesday is in Chicago.

I stand corrected.  Thanks.

Disagree. Hope is 16-0 and ranked #3. Loras is 16-2 (and would be undefeated if the Duhawks weren't for some strange reason allergic to 9-7 Luther) and ranked #8. Don't get me wrong; Wesleyan is a very good team. But those two December non-conference games were much stiffer tests for NPU in terms of opponent strength than Wednesday will be.

Wednesday is less about the stiffness, more about the stakes.

Yes - wasn't referring solely to the opponent.  I meant combo of opponent, the gravity (playing the 2nd pl team) and the possible ramifications ( 2 game lead in the CCIW) of the game.  As you said, what's at stake.  The fact that it's a home game, not on the road like I originally thought, might make it even more pressured in some ways.