WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 65, Illinois Wesleyan 63

Jayla Johnson: 21 pts, 9 rebs
Emily Czuhajewski: 14 pts
Josie Summerville: 12 pts, 8 rebs
Esther Miller: 8 rebs
Sinead Molloy: 11:4 a:to
Chantal Hairsteon: 3 stls

Kendall Sosa: 31 pts, 7 stls
Brooke Lansford: 16 pts, 5 stls
Riley Brovelli: 7 rebs, 3 blks

After a first half in both offenses were stuck in the mud by superior defenses -- NPU's D forcing tons of IWU misses, IWU's D taking the ball away practically at will off of ill-considered Vikings diagonal passes -- the two teams came out for the second half and showed why they're two of the premier teams in the region by playing twenty minutes of high-quality, high-excitement basketball. Neither team had a lead bigger than two possessions in the second half, and there were a bunch of ties and lead changes. Both offenses and both defenses were playing at top level, and neither team was giving an inch.

In a close, well-executed game like that, it usually comes down to free throws. And the Titans really cut their own throats there; Kendall Sosa, amazinglly, missed three of 'em down the stretch (including two on one trip to the line), and possibly the worst FT shooter on the team, Anna Lowis, found herself at the line in the final seconds with NPU up one. She missed the first and airballed the second, sparing the Vikings from the need to rebound the ball. Meanwhile, at the other end of the floor, senior Zakiya Newsome hit two very big free throws to give NPU the lead that would eventually stand up.

Great game. All kinds of fun to call. It was CCIW women's basketball at its best.

Sosa is a killer at the free throw line (near 90%) especially in those late game situations.  So I practically fell out of my chair at those two late misses.  But then she almost nonchalantly made the next basket to put her team up by one on the next possession.

Yeah, those misses threw me for a loop (I spent some time in the early part of the broadcast setting up how good a FT shooter she is, describing her FT attempts as "fifteen-foot layups"), so I had to think fast for suitable reactions. First time around I settled for, "Man bites dog! Alert CNN! Sosa misses the free throw!" Second time, when she missed both free throws in one trip, my partner Scot Gladstone said something to the effect of, "How the heck does Kendall Sosa miss two in a row?" I replied, "Maybe there's a sunspot occurrence that is messing with the Earth's magnetic field." We had a little fun with that one in the closing minutes. We needed something to relieve the tension.

Munroe being left off the score sheet is a head scratcher. 

The Vikings really defended her well. The only Titan whom I thought the Vikings didn't defend very well was Brooke Lansford, who really did a nice job of working off of screens. I have no complaints about the way that the Vikings defended Sosa. They had Zakiya Newsome on her for much of the night, and Sosa wisely posted up the much smaller Newsome and got most of her field goals -- and most of her free-throw chances as well -- in close that way. But you have to pick your poison against Illinois Wesleyan, and I think that Amanda Crockett was determined not to let Riley Brovelli beat the Vikings again. The Vikings were OK with Sosa getting her points, as long as one of her teammates didn't go off and carry IWU to the win. Lansford almost did that, but she cooled down in the second half.

After watching several games, I'm not sure what to make of this Titans team.  They have the best offensive player in the league by far.  And both Munroe and Lansford have proven they can score in support.  But it seems to me that the offensive production of Riley Brovelli has been surprising this season.  She was averaging almost 9 pts last season and you figured her to be in double figures.  But she's only averaging around 6.  Only a six game sample size but still.

As I mentioned, she was the deciding factor in the IWU win the first time these two teams met, notching a 15 and 13 night. This time around, the three players who took turns guarding her (Josie Summerville, Esther Miller, and Jayla Johnson) made a concerted effort to beat Brovelli down the floor and deny her her spot on every change of possession, and Brovelli's 3-11 shooting night was thus mostly reflective of the fact that she was shooting 16-foot jumpshots instead of layup attempts. She barely had half as many rebounds as she had in that first game as well, and that was simply hustle and effort on the part of Summerville, Miller, and Johnson to box her out and keep her off the glass. The Vikings ended up winning the battle of the boards tonight, and that was amazing in light of how badly they got eaten alive by Wesleyan's offensive rebounding in the first half.

[RogK]

From what I've seen on webcasts of CCIW WBB, the absence of fans has not diminished the motivation that players possess for giving proper effort in the games.
Players have self-motivation, probably the case being the better the player, the more self-motivation.
Coaches motivate them further, as needed.
Our players continue to strive for excellence and are admirably not dependent on hearing dimwits yell from the seats.

[Gregory Sager]

Dunno if it was an emotional hangover after the huge win two days ago or a fierce determination by Illinois Wesleyan not to drop two games in three days to the same team, but the Titans coasted to an easy 77-61 win over NPU at Shirk Center today. Jayla Johnson had a relatively quiet 15 and 6 and Emily Czuhajewski scored 15 as well, while Esther Miller pulled down nine boards. Kendall Sosa had a whale of a game from downtown (7-8 trey) en route to 34 points and 8 rebounds, while Riley Brovelli had a 16 and 8 day and Brooke Lansford added 10.

[iwu70]

Yes, Greg has summarized well.

A happy Senior Day game for the Titans, winning pretty handily, 77-61 -- taking the rubber match from a very talented NPU team.

As several have mentioned, if there is a better offensive player in D3 than Kendall Sosa, I'd like to see her.  Kendall had a terrific game for Senior Day, with more help this time from Munroe and a solid game, 16 and 8, from Brovelli. 

How about this line for a Senior Game performance:

Kendall Sosa:  34 points, 12-15 from the field, 7-8 from three, 3-3 FTs, 8 rebounds, 4 Assists, 3 steals, and 2 blocks.

Amen to that.  Remarkable productivity at both ends. 

Here comes the tournament.

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

Barring any Covid-19 positives or unexpected snowstorms, this is the tournament field:

Tuesday, March 2, 7 pm
#9 North Central @ #8 Carthage

Thursday, March 4, 7 pm
NCC/CC winner @ #1 Wheaton
#7 Elmhurst @ #2 Millikin
#6 Augustana @ #3 North Park
#5 Carroll @ #4 Illinois Wesleyan

[GoPerry]

Wheaton 73, NCC 58

Annie Tate had yet another big double-double performance with 33 pts, 14 rebs.  She was 10-17 from the field, 11-12 FT in 39 minutes of play.  Wheaton dressed 9 this afternoon.  On Senior day Bonnie Zeller had a nice game with  11 pts, 4 rebs. 

NCC didn't shoot the ball quite as well as Thursday.  It was pretty close for three quarters but Tate led the fourth with 7 straight points to give the Thunder a nine point lead.  They were able to extend from there.  Allison Pearson and Mitrese Smith led the Card's with 13 pts each.

Congratulations to seniors Bonnie Zeller and Hannah Williams for their wonderful Wheaton careers. 

Soph Zoe Nordling and Jr Hannah Swider missed their third consecutive game.  It's possible they might return for Thursday's tourney opener.

[RogK]

The Monday Millikin at Augie game that was on the Millikin schedule is no longer there.
Millikin will presumably reach eight off days before returning to action Thursday.
Will the 9 head coaches vote for the all-conference honors before Tuesday?

[RogK]

Since we are at the end of the regular season, here is my opinion on all-CCIW :
-
1st team : K Sosa IWU, A Tate WHE, J Johnson NPU, H Williams WHE, E Knudsen MIL, J Hildebrand MIL, R Brovelli IWU, E Behrndt CRL
-
2nd team : H Swider WHE, K Christian CRL, S Molloy NPU, M Fox MIL, L Hall AUG, B Barrett CTG, I Leeuwenburgh NCC, C O'Donnell ELM
-
Most Outstanding - K Sosa
Coach - K Madsen
Newcomer - E Knudsen
-
In this small-sample season, per game averages meant less to me than did how many good games a player had. This entailed looking at the game logs of individual players, best done via the roster listings on the ncaa site, such as :
http://stats.ncaa.org/team/496/roster/15500
I further had in mind intangible value not measured by traditional individual stats. Also, a team with a crummy record is not going to get multiple players, even as we admire all the effort put in by each team across the league.
The easiest way to jump to another team's pages is to go to Schedule/Results and click on that opponent.

[iwu70]

Looks good to me, RogK.

'70

[RogK]

Thanks, iwu70

[RogK]

North Park will host Augustana on Thursday at 8pm.*
These teams last met way back in February.
In that pair on contests, Augie's Macy Beinborn scored 0 and 1. But now, she is coming off an excellent 31 point game at Carroll, including 8-for-16 from three-land.
What do you make of that, Greg? She also had 3 steals and 8 rebs.
Had she been playing a home game for North Central, our steamed (esteemed) colleague lmitzel would be hoarse from yelling THREE so often.
Speaking of Augie 3FG shooters, Kylie Jozwik has made a superb 11 of 18; 33 pts from 18 FG att is rather good. I wonder if we'll see her shoot a lot more next season.
* no, due to amended plans on the men's side, this will be at 7pm

[lmitzel]

Augie's Macy Beinborn... is coming off an excellent 31 point game at Carroll, including 8-for-16 from three-land.
What do you make of that, Greg? She also had 3 steals and 8 rebs.
Had she been playing a home game for North Central, our steamed (esteemed) colleague lmitzel would be hoarse from yelling THREE so often.

On the one hand, I've done games where NCC hit 22 threes as a team; Augie finished with 11 for that game. On the other, 8 threes by one player would be the program record for a single game (currently it's 7, with a ton of ladies tied with 6.) And in that instance I'd probably put a little more oomph on numbers seven and eight. So... you're probably not wrong.

[Gregory Sager]

In that pair on contests, Augie's Macy Beinborn scored 0 and 1. But now, she is coming off an excellent 31 point game at Carroll, including 8-for-16 from three-land.
What do you make of that, Greg? She also had 3 steals and 8 rebs.

One game doesn't mean much in isolation, Rog. I look at trends. And Beinborn's definitely trended upward since NPU locked her down two weeks ago; she scored 14 on 5-11 shooting at Millikin last Tuesday, and 11 on 2-4 shooting (but with seven FT attempts) on Thursday at home against Carroll. And then came Saturday's big explosion.

Both Beinborns discussed what she did differently on Saturday in this article. But the unspoken aspect of what's occurred over that three-game stretch is that her dad is giving her a lot more tick; Macy was averaging less than 24 mpg through Augie's first six contests, but she played 30 minutes in both the Millikin game and the first Carroll game, and 36 on Saturday.

[iwu70]

Congrats to Kendall Sosa on her second CCIW Player of the Week award.   Another stellar week, set of games. 

'70

[GoPerry]

Since we are at the end of the regular season, here is my opinion on all-CCIW :
-
1st team : K Sosa IWU, A Tate WHE, J Johnson NPU, H Williams WHE, E Knudsen MIL, J Hildebrand MIL, R Brovelli IWU, E Behrndt CRL
-
2nd team : H Swider WHE, K Christian CRL, S Molloy NPU, M Fox MIL, L Hall AUG, B Barrett CTG, I Leeuwenburgh NCC, C O'Donnell ELM
-
Most Outstanding - K Sosa
Coach - K Madsen
Newcomer - E Knudsen
-
In this small-sample season, per game averages meant less to me than did how many good games a player had. This entailed looking at the game logs of individual players, best done via the roster listings on the ncaa site, such as :
http://stats.ncaa.org/team/496/roster/15500
I further had in mind intangible value not measured by traditional individual stats. Also, a team with a crummy record is not going to get multiple players, even as we admire all the effort put in by each team across the league.
The easiest way to jump to another team's pages is to go to Schedule/Results and click on that opponent.

Without very much analysis at all, I'm thinking that NCC's Allison Pearson will probably sneak onto the second team before Leeuwenburgh.  And I also think either Sam Munroe or Brooke Lansford will also get there.  I like Bailey Coffman's chances too ahead of Fox.