WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Are there still leagues hiring their own refs? I know, on the east coast, there are general assigners that provide crews for all games across divisions in a geographic area. Around here there's nothing that could be called a conference crew.

[Roundball999]

DePauw won the tournament, beating Rose by about 10 in the championship game this afternoon.  They look like a legit top 25 team, with good depth, some talented bigs and shot-blockers, and some great trey shooters. 

I like the sound of that, since NPU beat Rose-Hulman by ten last weekend, too. Should've beaten the Engineers by even more, except that it was an uncharacteristically clank-filled afternoon that day for the Vikings from the free-throw line. They shot .462 (12-26) from the stripe, in marked contrast to the combined .659 (58-88) they've shot in their other four games.


(No, I don't really think that the Vikings are a top 25 team ... although they're certainly not bad at all.)

It was interesting to see that 100% of IWU's and DePauw's starters were Illinois kids - with DePauw's starters all coming from Chicago's NW suburbs - while RHIT literally has to scour the planet for kids that can get admitted, survive academically, afford the tuition (Jester, what's it costing you to send your daughter there? A lot more than her other options I'll bet), and finally, actually be able to compete against kids at schools with larger endowments and much better financial aid - I'll bet there isn't a kid on RHIT's team paying less than $35-$40,000 AFTER financial aid. It's kind of crazy seeing Illinois listed 10 times this weekend for RHIT's opponents starters while the Engineers are rolling out California (twice), Minnesota, Kansas, and Virginia. Instead of questioning whether RHIT should be included in the event, we should be asking how in the world they could possibly be as competitive as they are?

I'd just point out that this can work both ways.  Look at Amherst for example.  Admission selectivity is off the charts, costs are as high as anywhere, they do only need-based aid, and yet they have players from many different states and even overseas.  On the one hand makes it hard to find admittable ballplayers locally but on the other hand their academic reputation allows them to draw from a much larger geographic pool.  They also seem to draw from Ivy League recruits that may decide they don't want the D1 schedule and commitment especially when there is no athletic scholarship on the table.  I'm not sure of RHIT's admissions demographics but I know you have a very strong reputation for engineering which may help expand the geography of the pool.   In any case, nothing but accolades to any young women and men that can manage college athletics and such rigorous academics.

[Jester1390]

I believe every student athlete should be applauded. Of course some majors will demand more time then others and in Rose and other like schools that demand is at the highest but each player has to learn to balance their time. Not all students are as smart as the kid at Rose im certainly not but that doesnt mean a communications major isnt working just as hard.   Ill only speak for myself and my daughters experience about money. My kid was offered 2  D-2 full ride but both wanting her to red-shirt. She is the youngest in her class every year. She had numerous NAIA full ride offers and almost any D-3 program that saw her she did real well at a Brown camp and Yale camp and the Carnegie Mellon's and Vassar's and schools of that like on the east coast started recruiting her. Her test scores were not high enough to qualify for Carnagie if they saw her transcript now they would know they made a mistake.  The issue with her offers were that the only thing the majority of the schools were offering that was of a interest was nursing. She finally had decided on accepting a full ride to Simpson College A naia  school in California or if she stayed home  playing and attending at Gustavus

She had a teacher talk to her about how strong she was in stem and rose-hulman and ohio Wesleyan had been recruiting her late but she was burnt out and said she would visit rose but that was it.  So Rose was the last school out of 20 plus we visited and i had always told her when your at the right spot you will know.  For her this was the spot.   

But its not that easy for all families: Coach Prevo did a great job explaining to her that all her hard work and her families hard work had given her options to make a choice that was best for her.  That there are many players because of financial who have to go to a school and or take a major they are not 100 percent on. In our case as great as a full ride is we are in position we could pay and in the end i knew my daughter would be leaving the school with making six figures.    Engine the financial aid for grades a little better then you think and once you get them off campus even more affordable we pay about 28k a year,  Even though its a expensive school they do get the benefit of recruiting higher d-1 talent then a lot of schools  if that player wants to be a engineer that is how they got Baum.  They got Hein because the new coach said she had to miss class for practice we pay you to play not miss due to class and she was the only engineer and i can tell you my daughter would have never made it through without other engineers around her.,  In my time the last 3 years they have now gotten 4 d-1 players but 2 of them quit as the rigors of class they couldn't adjust to do both. If Nosa and Shomba were still on the team conference title guaranteed but there not so you move on.

[Gregory Sager]

So let me see rose stays with north park except a stretch in the 3rd when 3 starters are on the bench due to foul trouble and the foul calls heavily in npu favor

Sigh. Here we go ...

Most of Rose-Hulman's players spent the entire game against NPU playing defense with their hands. The Vikings are a quicker team, and the Engineers lacked sufficient mobility to stay with, or in front of, the Vikings. The ones who were mobile enough -- Peyton Miller being the outstanding example -- were victims of their own inexperience. Thus, the foul disparity.

Few things in the world of basketball irritate me more than a fan complaining about foul disparities. Officials are not paid to balance out foul calls, because there's no rule that says that parity has to be maintained in that phase of the game. With very few exceptions, the foul disparity in a game reflects which team was struggling the most to defend its opponent. This was certainly true in RHIT @ NPU a week ago.

and oh hey wait well if rose made more shots guess what they win.

That's a silly comeback. The entire reason why I brought up free-throw shooting in particular is that it's the only aspect of a basketball game that only involves one team. There's no defense. There's only offense. Therefore, it's an isolated statistic.

The Engineers couldn't do a darned thing to stop North Park from shooting better at the line. The only thing that could -- and did -- stop the Vikings from performing better in that important aspect of the game (remember, NPU shot 26 free throws in that contest) were the Vikings themselves.

This works both ways, of course. What the Engineers did at the charity stripe was 100% about them and zero about North Park. RHIT shot 10-13 (.769) from the line against NPU, a very nice performance that reflects almost exactly one of the strengths of the Engineers, as they're 56-74 (.757) for the season. Incidentally, that makes the Engineers the 27th-best free-throw shooting team in all of D3 right now, and the 16th-best if you only count teams that have played at least five games. So I think it's safe to say that the Engineers wouldn't have tightened up the final score in the one aspect of the game that was squarely in their own hands.

North park played well their defense is good but to imply that rose had no business on the floor with them.

I implied no such thing. You know what bothers me even more than fans complaining about foul disparities? People putting words in my mouth, that's what.

North Park is a better team than Rose-Hulman, and if the Vikings had shot free throws closer to their season average they would have won by 14-to-16 points rather than ten. Beating a team by 14 or 15 points does not imply that the losing team "had no business on the floor with them." Not in my book, at least. My benchmark for a blowout, which I think is a fairly common one among college basketball fans, is a 20-point margin -- and even that can be a distortion, if a team that's down by 12 or so goes into foul mode in the final two or three minutes of a game and is unproductive at it.

You must not have been watching the game you were calling.

Hmm. The game was called by the same guy of whom you said at the end of the weekend:

Greg does terrific job on the north park games

... or was it? Is this the college basketball play-by-play broadcaster equivalent of the famous Beatles "Paul is dead" hoax?

I will rip rose more then anyone when it's deserved and my kid is on the team.  They have plAyed thier asses of the last 2 weekends and pushed DePauw today. To belittle Them is in poor taste.

"Belittle them"? I belittled nobody. If you "rip Rose more than anyone when it's deserved," then you've done far more to rip the Englneers than I ever did. They're not a bad team at all, and I never said otherwise. Heck, I'd give my eyeteeth to have Jordan Barlow on the North Park roster. She's a very good D3 center.

I said that NPU should've won that game by more than ten points. Nothing more, nothing less.

The only other thing I'll add is that I'll be rooting for the Engineers for the rest of the season, for obvious reasons, and I'll be quite happy if they win the HCAC.

[RogK]

Congrats to the new CCIW Player of the Week, Lauren Huber.

[Gregory Sager]

Rose-Hulman did not play well-enough to win vs. North Park, period. Having said that, it was easily one of the more one-sided officiating efforts I've seen in a while.

You need to watch more games, then. There was one bad call that went against RHIT but should not have and a 50/50 charge-vs.-blocking call at the edge of the charge circle that could've gone either way and ended up going in NPU's favor. That hardly constitutes "one-sided officiating" in my book. The officiating made no appreciable difference in the outcome of the game.

Unfortunately, you have to expect that - on the road and with an officiating crew from the CCIW or any other league - that's basketball and playing games on the road and teams across all divisions have to deal with it - that crew aren't going to see RHIT for the rest of the year and will all likely see NPU multiple times this season each.

Funny that you should bring that up, because I didn't recognize any of the three officials who called the game and I made a point of asking NPU's acting head coach Annie Shain about them. She replied that she knows that one of them has officiated a North Park game before, recognized the name of another but couldn't recall that person ever working a Vikings contest, and didn't know the third ref from Adam. Since there is annual turnover in the officiating pool that the CCIW uses -- and the societal shift of COVID-19 has probably increased that pool's turnover, not to mention the fact that NPU only played half of its schedule last season due to the pandemic, further reducing the opportunities for officials to work NPU games -- the fact that I didn't recognize any of the three officials from previous Vikings games and Annie only recognized one is not that hard to explain. If you're implying that familiarity with the North Park coaches and/or team thus worked in NPU's favor that day, you've misled yourself.

The other factor usually cited in an accusation of homer reffing is crowd influence. The game was attended by about fifty people, a large percentage of whom were parents or grandparents rather than students. It was what I call a "sneaker squeak game," a game played in an environment quiet enough to hear ambient noise such as the squeak of sneakers, the slap of flesh on a foul, or the hollow thwok of a basketball passing through twine. I can say with confidence that there wasn't enough influence in that handful of attendees to sway a four-year-old's decision-making, much less that of a certified college basketball official.

Not having Hein at full-strength was a big factor as well - anyone that saw her play this weekend would agree she didn't even look like the same player - in fact had she been healthy from the beginning I think RHIT would be 4-1 right now. Jester, wasn't she injured for a while? Once she figures out RHIT's system she's going to be a real D-III talent - she was the state of California's 2018 player of the year in her (Sophomore) class and an EYBL/ Adidas All-American so it's no surprise she can play a little bit. I don't think there's any way the RHIT team that played in the Midwest Classic this weekend loses to NPU again.

Says you. Look, we're fans. We all say stuff like this to one degree or another. It's opinion. The only thing that matters, though, is the facts. I think that North Park should've beaten Otterbein at Wheaton's Beth Baker Classic three weekends ago, and I think that the Vikings would win if they got another shot at the Cardinals. It's unlikely to happen, though, and the most important thing is that I can't prove it. It's just my opinion. Otterbein beat North Park, and that's what counts.

It was interesting to see that 100% of IWU's and DePauw's starters were Illinois kids

That's not interesting at all, actually, from an Illinois Wesleyan point of view. (Well, everything about IWU, including the flavor of gum stuck to the sidewalk in front of the school library, interests iwu70, but that's another matter. ) Illinois Wesleyan, more than any other school in the CCIW, annually has the most Illinois-centric rosters in its various sports (outside of lacrosse, of course, due to the fact that the sport is still relatively new in Illinois and remains as of now undersponsored by the state's high schools). Other schools in the league are highly Illinois-centric as well -- North Central, Millikin, and Elmhurst, especially -- but IWU's typically the most monolithically Illinoisian.

DePauw's another matter, of course.

- with DePauw's starters all coming from Chicago's NW suburbs - while RHIT literally has to scour the planet for kids that can get admitted, survive academically, afford the tuition (Jester, what's it costing you to send your daughter there? A lot more than her other options I'll bet), and finally, actually be able to compete against kids at schools with larger endowments and much better financial aid - I'll bet there isn't a kid on RHIT's team paying less than $35-$40,000 AFTER financial aid. It's kind of crazy seeing Illinois listed 10 times this weekend for RHIT's opponents starters while the Engineers are rolling out California (twice), Minnesota, Kansas, and Virginia. Instead of questioning whether RHIT should be included in the event, we should be asking how in the world they could possibly be as competitive as they are?

You seem to be looking for this reaction, so I'll give it to you:



Look, every school has its own issues when it comes to recruiting. We get it -- RHIT has to go far and wide scouring the country for women's basketball players. I'd argue that that has more to do with the fact that girls are less inclined to pursue a STEM-oriented education; Rose-Hulman's 24/76 f:m ratio is typical of a STEM school and thus closely aligns with local D3 STEM rivals Illinois Tech and MSOE, whereas the liberal arts schools such as Illinois Wesleyan and DePauw to whom you're comparing RHIT are, like almost all liberal arts schools, majority female. Your point about tuition cost is not germane, since DePauw and IWU both cost a king's ransom to attend -- and, by the way, Rose-Hulman's endowment is larger than Illinois Wesleyan's, which means that it's larger than the endowment of every CCIW school except Wheaton.

As for NPU vs. IWU, at this point in the season I think NPU might be able to squeak past the Titans, who as someone just pointed out are still trying to sort out whom they are right now. However, IWU is a bit more talented athletically and would appear to have an advantage in that they have a deeper bench.

I don't think there's any question that this is NPU's best team in a while - with some luck and continued getting to the FT line as much as they have up to this point, I could see them finishing 4th in the league, maybe 3rd(admittedly I don't know a great deal about the CCIW) - with at least one game where they beat someone they probably shouldn't like Millikin or Wheaton - especially at home. They're a good team and should be dangerous in March.

IWU takes a lot of quick, bad shots in transition that they've always been able to just shrug-off because they knew they'd turn the other team over so many times that the extra possessions would make up for it - but thus far they haven't been able to knock down enough perimeter shots to balance things out. If they'll be more judicious about their shot-selection and try not to be as frantic offensively as they try to make other teams defensively, I think they have a chance to beat some teams in the CCIW this year. I say they split with NPU and likely have at least one semi-upset over a Wheaton or Millikin and they'll be right there at the end - a team that nobody wants to have to prepare for in the CCIW Tournament.

No offense, Enginerd, but for someone who parenthetically admits in the midst of this CCIW assessment that you don't know a great deal about the league, you sure do make a lot of declarative statements about it. I'm pretty sure that I follow CCIW women's basketball as a whole more closely than does anyone else who posts here, with the possible exception of Rog, and there's no way that I would ever make the sweeping judgments you've just made this early in the season. And one of them is just plain flat-out wrong, by the way; there is very much a question as to whether or not this is NPU's best team in awhile.

[Gregory Sager]

It wasn't Greg who did any belittling of RHIT. All he did was note a failing on his own team's part, the missing a lot of free throws.
Had NPU made 2/3rds of their FTs (such as 17/26 or 18/26), they would have won by 15 or 16 instead of ten.

Thank you, Rog. I was in the midst of typing my lengthy rebuttal to Jester1390 when you posted this, so I didn't see it until now.

[Jester1390]

I dont think he was rebutting me but engine.   Rog Huber was really talented she was the best player i saw the last 2 weekends.  she did have her left hand taped against washington so hopefully shes not to banged up

[Gregory Sager]

Are there still leagues hiring their own refs? I know, on the east coast, there are general assigners that provide crews for all games across divisions in a geographic area. Around here there's nothing that could be called a conference crew.

The CCIW does not assign its own refs for women's basketball. It is part of a consortium that, as you mentioned, uses a general assigner to provide crews for NCAA D1, D2, D3, and NAIA leagues in this part of the midwest. Thanks for bringing this up, as I should've mentioned this in my rebuttal to Enginerd regarding the objectivity of the officiating of the RHIT @ NPU game; it helps to explain why the officiating crew was totally unfamiliar to me and mostly unfamiliar to NPU's coach. (It's not a universal thing, though, as there is a handful of officials -- Jennifer Washo, Cody Frerking, Ashley Logan, LaRhonda Conner, and Britt White all come to mind -- whom we do see with some regularity at the crackerbox and in other CCIW gyms, and I'm assuming that locality has something to do with that.)

[Jester1390]

damn i had a nice long reply with brilliant points but the connection went dead and im not retyping all that . Ill just say this im not saying they lost because of refs but maybe i am lol  .   North park had 14 fouls called and i think 3 of them in the last 2 minutes when the game is decided.  They must have the best damn hands and feet in America never to be on a hip or back to always be perfect to contest a shot. You are a good announcer you do a good job of not being to bandwagon but of course your enthusiasm should be for your home team I just think you want your team to be Amherst and or hope level and i believe if NP played Rose at home it would be quiet on this page  just like it was for a day after they beat IWU

Of course the retort is well go to your own conference page but god that is death valley with only 4 of us. lol

[Gregory Sager]

I dont think he was rebutting me but engine. 

No, I was rebutting you. You're the one who used the term "belittled" (to which Rog referred), and the matter of free throws was something that I expounded upon in my previous reply to you.

[Jester1390]

oh ok i have been rebutted damn spent the whole day on here i need to go make money to pay for my kids school.  The hope and amherst fan is sitting here and saying what are you guys going on and on about we will destroy all of you.

[Gregory Sager]

damn i had a nice long reply with brilliant points but the connection went dead and im not retyping all that .

Yeah, I've been getting that problem all day, too. Not blaming Pat, of course, but it just sucks that the technical-difficulties-please-stand-by stuff always seems to happen when I'm in the midst of a posting joust.

Ill just say this im not saying they lost because of refs but maybe i am lol  .

Dude, as the kids say these days, "Pick a lane!"

North park had 14 fouls called and i think 3 of them in the last 2 minutes when the game is decided.  They must have the best damn hands and feet in America never to be on a hip or back to always be perfect to contest a shot.

That remark just begs for a full three of these giffinatin' bad boys:

You are a good announcer you do a good job of not being to bandwagon but of course your enthusiasm should be for your home team I just think you want your team to be Amherst and or hope level

Oh, please. We all want our team to be "Amherst and/or Hope level." That's the whole point of fandom, isn't it? Don't act like you're tarring me with some tainted brush for wanting the same exact thing that you and Enginerd want for RHIT, that iwu70 and Ypsi want for Illinois Wesleyan, that GoPerry wants for Wheaton, etc.

One thing about me, though: As I've made abundantly clear throughout this conversation, I don't hold to some distorted view of reality in which NPU is on the same level as Amherst or Hope in women's basketball. I said this at the outset of this discussion:

(No, I don't really think that the Vikings are a top 25 team ... although they're certainly not bad at all.)

I said that yesterday, I'll say it again today, and I'll keep saying it until proven otherwise, one way or the other.

and i believe if NP played Rose at home it would be quiet on this page  just like it was for a day after they beat IWU

Believe in that all you like. Believe in Santa Claus if you like, too. It isn't going to change reality one way or the other.

(See how I'm keeping it seasonal?  )

And, by the way, as far as the "it would be quiet on this page" crack is concerned, I post after every North Park loss as well as after every North Park win. If people don't know anything else about me on d3boards.com, they know that. I'm not sure why you don't, since you do seem to spend a lot of time on this board. Which segues nicely into your last comment:

Of course the retort is well go to your own conference page but god that is death valley with only 4 of us. lol

I never told you to go back to the HCAC board, and I never will. It's not my place to do so. The board doesn't belong to me, it belongs to Pat Coleman. As far as he's concerned, and therefore as far as I am, too, this board is open to anybody who doesn't violate the terms of service. I mean, I don't entirely get why you're here to post about a team that isn't in the league and is in the CCIW's rear-view mirror now that it's played the three CCIW teams it was scheduled to play, but hey -- if you just want to post stuff about your daughter's team and you can hear the crickets chirping in the HCAC women's basketball board, and you're looking to get some eyes on your posts, we're not here to stop you. Knock yourself out.

[Roundball999]

oh ok i have been rebutted damn spent the whole day on here i need to go make money to pay for my kids school.  The hope and amherst fan is sitting here and saying what are you guys going on and on about we will destroy all of you.

Yikes, this Hope (and Amherst) fan learned the hard way not to assume any win will come easy especially with this crowd.  Last games against RHIT were nail biters down to the wire; IWU nearly gave me a heart attack last time we played; CCIW has always been tough including a number of Wheaton games and even remembering back maybe 7-8 years when Carthage knocked Hope out of the NCAA tournament.

[Gregory Sager]

oh ok i have been rebutted damn spent the whole day on here i need to go make money to pay for my kids school.  The hope and amherst fan is sitting here and saying what are you guys going on and on about we will destroy all of you.

I'd prefer to think that Amherst and Hope fans are more productive with their workdays than are the likes of you and me.

I also tend to doubt that Amherst and Hope fans are absorbed by this particular ping-pong match. My guess is that the number of Hope women's basketball fans who read this particular board with even a vague sort of regularity (let alone have ever posted here) can be counted on your hands, with fingers left over. And if any Amherst women's basketball fan has ever found his or her way over here to the CCIW board, then I'd like them to post here so that I can applaud them for being the d3boards.com equivalent of Ferdinand Magellan.