WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[RogK]

Christopher Newport U (current #2 in D3Hoops poll) will play at Wheaton 2pm on Sat Feb 5.
Thanks to CNU85 for mentioning that on another portion of d3boards.
I apologize to GoPerry who may have already told us here.

[Gregory Sager]

It's because the Coast to Coast Conference, of which Christopher Newport is a member, has set up a single round-robin for the league this season. The Captains were supposed to come out and play their two C2C opponents that weekend in February, but one of them -- Mount Mary -- had to cancel. So CNU has replaced the Blue Angels with Wheaton.

The day after playing Wheaton, CNU will play at Finlandia, the other midwestern C2C member in women's basketball. Think about that for a moment -- you fly into O'Hare from Norfolk on Friday evening, play Wheaton at King Arena on Saturday afternoon, then, presumably, you ride the bus for seven hours Saturday evening up to Hancock, MI, almost certainly arriving sometime around 1 am or 2 am Sunday morning. Then you check into a hotel in Hancock, play a game at Finlandia on Sunday afternoon, get back on the bus, ride six hours back to Chicagoland on Sunday evening, and either take the red-eye back to Norfolk or encamp in a hotel near O'Hare and then fly back to Norfolk early enough on Monday morning so that (again, presumably) nobody misses class.

Now, that's a road trip.

[Gregory Sager]

Jayla Johnson is continuing to rewrite the North Park record book. She is currently fifth all-time in career scoring; third all-time in career points per game; fifth all-time in career field goals; third all-time in career field goal percentage (Nicole Kruckman, Soly Roman, and Jayla are the only three Vikings in NPU women's basketball history to shoot better than .500 over the course of their careers); and eighth in career free throws; and within the next few games she will break into the top ten in both career steals and career blocks.

And the remarkable thing is that she's climbing the leaderboards in all of those counting-stats categories in spite of the fact that she was robbed of half of her junior season by the Covid pandemic.

[GoPerry]

Christopher Newport U (current #2 in D3Hoops poll) will play at Wheaton 2pm on Sat Feb 5.
Thanks to CNU85 for mentioning that on another portion of d3boards.
I apologize to GoPerry who may have already told us here.

It's because the Coast to Coast Conference, of which Christopher Newport is a member, has set up a single round-robin for the league this season. The Captains were supposed to come out and play their two C2C opponents that weekend in February, but one of them -- Mount Mary -- had to cancel. So CNU has replaced the Blue Angels with Wheaton.

The day after playing Wheaton, CNU will play at Finlandia, the other midwestern C2C member in women's basketball. Think about that for a moment -- you fly into O'Hare from Norfolk on Friday evening, play Wheaton at King Arena on Saturday afternoon, then, presumably, you ride the bus for seven hours Saturday evening up to Hancock, MI, almost certainly arriving sometime around 1 am or 2 am Sunday morning. Then you check into a hotel in Hancock, play a game at Finlandia on Sunday afternoon, get back on the bus, ride six hours back to Chicagoland on Sunday evening, and either take the red-eye back to Norfolk or encamp in a hotel near O'Hare and then fly back to Norfolk early enough on Monday morning so that (again, presumably) nobody misses class.

Now, that's a road trip.

No apologies necessary RogK, even if I knew about it already.  This looks like it just got added today.

This is a nice game to pick up for both teams.  For the Thunder, it's a terrific non-con replacement for the Univ of Chicago game that got cancelled.  It's a home game against a really good team and something different to look forward to in the middle of the league schedule.

For the Captains, if you're going to be making the trip anyway like Gregory notes, I'm sure they'd rather play a 13-5 Wheaton than an 0-16 Mt Mary squad.

The result for CNU might be the same as this will obviously be challenging for the Wheaton ladies and their recent form. 

[RogK]

There appear to be two daily flights from O'Hare to Hancock :
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ua5128
--
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ua5140
(if CNU wants to spend $ for it; bus would presumably be cheaper)

[gordonmann]

On top of that rigorous schedule, CNU's defensive style of play is channeled chaos. They will sleep well on that bus ride to Hancock.

[Gregory Sager]

There appear to be two daily flights from O'Hare to Hancock :
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ua5128
--
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ua5140
(if CNU wants to spend $ for it; bus would presumably be cheaper)

I can't imagine that CNU was planning to spend the extra money to fly the team to Hancock rather than bus there.

In thinking about it for a bit, it occurred to me that they may be flying Norfolk to Milwaukee to Norfolk, since their original itinerary involved the Captains playing Mount Mary rather than Wheaton. That presents a different, but still thorny, set of travel options if they're still using Mitchell Field rather than O'Hare as their fly-in/fly-out point.

[Pat Coleman]

Read on another board that this trip is centered on Green Bay.

[RogK]

Thanks for that info, Pat.
A Packer fan must have organized the trip. Maybe they're going to the team museum.

[iwu70]

The IWU women enjoying a weekend off, their bye date . . . and a good time to rest a bit, put your feet up and get ready for the homestretch of games, esp. on Wednesday the big return game with Millikin at the Griz.  The way they play, exhaustion and fatigue can factor in during the final weeks of the season.  On the flip side, IWU is probably one of the most fit squads in the CCIW women's game. 

Now 12-7, 9-1, heading into the last six games.   

IWU has home games upcoming with NPU and Wheaton . . .  so, a pretty good schedule, all things considered.

'70

[RogK]

Greg, are you enjoying the replay snippets of IWU v EU men overlaying live action on the Elmhurst WBB webcast?
Elmhurst still has the idiotic habit of showing replays while live action is going.

[iwu70]

Millikin 55 Carthage 46 in Kenosha.  MU goes to 9-1 in conference play as well, so the big game is set for Wednesday, the two CCIW leading teams at 9-1 square off in Decatur. 

'70

[RogK]

I went back and forth between the two early game webcasts.
Neither Carthage nor Millikin played anywhere near their best, from what I saw.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 65
Elmhurst 58

Jayla Johnson: 19 pts, 12 rebs
Chantel Hairston: 15 pts
Esther Miller: 13 pts, 8 rebs

Taylor Harazin: 20 pts, 17 rebs
Kate Matthews: 12 pts, 10 rebs
Ella Riley: 12 pts

This game really had me nervous. The Vikings led wire-to-wire (aside from ties at 7-7 and 20-20), and had a 13-point bulge late in the third quarter, but they couldn't put away the pesky Bluejays at Faganel Hall. EU got the game within three points going into the final minute, but Chantel Hairston rose to the occasion with a layup, offensive rebound, and made free throw, and Jayla Johnson tossed in a couple of throws in the waning seconds to seal the deal.

Great to see Josie Summerville back in action today. This was her first playing time since December 8 against Carthage.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, are you enjoying the replay snippets of IWU v EU men overlaying live action on the Elmhurst WBB webcast?
Elmhurst still has the idiotic habit of showing replays while live action is going.

I didn't see that. The replays were working fine in the second half, except that EU, as is typical of them, used it incessantly, to the point where some of the live action stuff got missed.

I couldn't watch it closely once the men's volleyball match between NPU and Carthage started here in the crackerbox, but I did manage to keep my eye on it a bit. It's easier to sneak a peek at other stuff on your computer when you're calling a volleyball match than when you're calling a basketball game.