WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Interesting note for the CCIW: UW-Whitewater (27-4) is in the Final Four, and the only non-WIAC team that has defeated UWW this season was Carroll. The Pioneers took down the Warhawks at Van Male back on New Year's Day, 71-62.

[iwu70]

Hope marches on, winning another easily.

'70

[RogK]

Good point about Carroll, Greg.
I wonder if Katie Rohner will return next season. She apparently was injured in late December, but was the Pios' leading scorer at that point, shooting very well at 3s, 2s and FTs.

[RogK]

Congrats for these D3hoops All-Region 8 honors :
Player of the Year: Elyce Knudsen, G, Millikin
Coach of the Year: Juli Fulks, Transylvania
Rookie of the Year: Anaya Davis, F, Rockford

First team       
   Lexi Dellinger   Anderson   Sr.   
   Madison Kellione  Transylvania   Jr.   
   Elyce Knudsen   Millikin   So.   
   Addison Beussink   Webster   Sr.   
   Jayla Johnson   North Park   Sr.   
Second team           
   Brooke Lansford     Illinois Wesleyan   Sr.    
   Jenna Mace   Wisconsin Lutheran   Sr.   
   Alex Fanning   Benedictine   Sr.   
   Sam Leisemann   Wisconsin Lutheran   So.   
   Klaire Steffens   U of Chicago   Sr.   
Third team           
   Lauren Huber   Illinois Wesleyan   Fr.   
   Rylee Stafford   Fontbonne      Sr.   
   Maya Arnott   Washington U.   Jr.   
   Anaya Davis   Rockford   Fr.   
   Jordan Hildebrand   Millikin   Sr
--
All Anaya Davis did was average 18.3 pts and 13.8 rebs over 25 games, shot a good pct, had 54 steals and 24 blocks; 54 TOs not bad either. Sounds good enough for 2nd team at least; may have been punished for being a freshman.

[Jester1390]

Jamie Baum being left off the regional list is a mistake. she would start and play 25 minutes plus for any team in the region. she destroyed lansford in her matchup held her scoreless while scoring 14    averaged 13 pts and 7 rebounds as a guard while always having best defender on her 

[gordonmann]

I don't vote on these panels usually, and didn't for Region 8 this year. It's a panel of Sports Information Directors and then I reorder so we don't have five PGs or Centers on a team. Sometimes that's hard to avoid, like in Region 9 where they have so many forwards. Our team does select the POY, ROY and COY, though it's usually just the person who received the most votes for the two player awards. That was the case here. Knudsen and Davis had the most votes.

I think Davis was probably dinged by voters for Rockford's lack of success. Think of it this way -- Rockford finished in seventh in the NACC and yet Davis was still recognized by the voters, over players from second place St. Norbert and an Aurora team that beat the Regents by a combined 37 points in two games. The only other NACC players selected were the POY (Fanning) and two players from the Wisconsin Lutheran team ranked in the Top 25 throughout the season.

Baum was on the ballot, but I don't have any insight on why she didn't get votes. No school in this region had more than two representatives and most had none, so a lot of quality starters and very good players aren't recognized.

[Pat Coleman]

Jamie Baum being left off the regional list is a mistake. she would start and play 25 minutes plus for any team in the region. she destroyed lansford in her matchup held her scoreless while scoring 14    averaged 13 pts and 7 rebounds as a guard while always having best defender on her

Not making first team all-conference makes it very difficult to be named all-region.

[Jester1390]

that was even more of a  joke  she also shoudl have been freshman of the year also watch any games especially the non conference special player. she gets double doubles on bad days

[Pat Coleman]

that was a joke also watch any games especially the non confrence special player. she gets double doubles on bad days

Who watches more HCAC games than the HCAC coaches? Certainly not us and certainly not you.

[Jester1390]

lol thats funny coaches watch all the games  i know thats not true. n   if it looks like a frog and jumps like a frog its a frog.   anyone watching Jamie baum would know what i speak

[Baldini]

that was even more of a  joke  she also shoudl have been freshman of the year also watch any games especially the non conference special player. she gets double doubles on bad days

Jamie Baum is a very good player and probably going to get even better with time, but this just feels like we needed a RHIT hill to die on. She had 2 double-doubles on the year according to the RHIT website, am I understanding correct that you are saying that those were her bad days?

From her bio.

Rose-Hulman Highlights:
* 2nd-team all-HCAC selection as a freshman in 2021-22
* HCAC All-Freshman Team selection in 2021-22
* Led the team in scoring (12.7 ppg) and rebounding (6.9 rpg) in 2021-22
* Ranked 2nd on the team in assists (51) and steals (22) in 2021-22
* Scored a career-high 24 points in the HCAC Tournament at Transylvania
* Had career-highs of 13 rebounds at Earlham and 6 assists at Transylvania
* Reached double figures in scoring 16 times in her career
* Has 2 career double-doubles

[iwu70]

Congrats to all the CCIW players named to All-Region . . . and especially to Millikin's Elyce Knudsen as the regional player of the year.

Congrats to Brooke and Lauren from IWU on their All-Region honors.  With those three good freshmen, and other upper-class returnees, IWU's program looks in good shape for the next few years.

IWU'70

[Pat Coleman]

lol thats funny coaches watch all the games  i know thats not true.

I never said coaches watch all the games, so I'm not sure why you tried to put those words into my mouth. I just said they watch more HCAC games than you or I do.

[Enginerd]

lol thats funny coaches watch all the games  i know thats not true.

I never said coaches watch all the games, so I'm not sure why you tried to put those words into my mouth. I just said they watch more HCAC games than you or I do.

Fair or unfair stats DO have an outsized role in these end-of-year honors. I watched about 90% of RHIT's games and there is no doubt that Baum is a really good player with a lot of upside and she should be well on her way to garnering many more over the next three years.

I think, Jester, that there are a couple reasons for Baum being left off the list.
#1 - Stats
#2 - Her status as a Freshman and her game
#3 - RHIT's season

Stats - She had a really nice year for a freshman, and is one of the better rebounding guards under 6'0 in all of Division III - But stats, especially points-per-game, plays a larger role than I think folks probably realize. This isn't the Big 10 or SEC, where teams are constantly on TV and covered by every form of media imaginable. The SID's are basically bean-counters anyway, and besides not many of them are taking time out of their insanely busy jobs to watch much film on kids from other schools. They rely a great deal on stats - and I suspect that the coaches do as well when deciding all-league honors each year. 12+ points per game just isn't good enough outside the league when considering all region or all-district nods unless there's something else really eye-popping to go along with it, such as a couple or three triple-doubles, an average close to ten assists per game, or double digit rebounds per game.

#2 - You'd better have some serious stats as a Freshman to even be considered for this list, like the gal from Rockford. Huber had better stats than Baum as well. Baum needs to become more dynamic offensively and get to the rim more often. She scored 90% of her points via jump-shots or uncontested lay-ups. I don't know if she avoids contact or the offense precludes it, but she shot an astonishing low number of FT's this year - 36. Compare that to Huber, who shot almost the equivalent (17) of 50% of Baum's total FT's for the SEASON just in the single game vs. RHIT! For a player of Baum's talent to only get to the FT line 36 times in 21 games is not good.

#3 - RHIT finished above .500 this year and really looked like they were going to be a tough team to beat, especially after beating IWU (at IWU-which is rare because they are very good at home traditionally - ask Millikin) and playing DePauw very tough in the Midwest Classic, then playing Transy closer than anyone else all year other than Trine, but somehow RHIT slipped into a nosedive they were never able to pull out of. Maybe it was the two-week break from Covid, but 12 points a game on a barely-above .500 team just won't influence a lot of voters who aren't intimately familiar with her team or her game.

Baum IS really good and she has a chance to become a really special player over her last three years at RHIT. I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do.

[Gregory Sager]

All good points, Enginerd, but you also have to include what Pat mentioned:

Not making first team all-conference makes it very difficult to be named all-region.

As Gordon said, the All-Region team is compiled by SIDs from around the region and then refined by Gordon himself in order to make each of the three All-Region teams conform to a standard basketball lineup, as is long-standing d3hoops.com practice. There are five different leagues represented in Region 8, so there are plenty of high-quality players whom each SID will not have had a chance to watch. It therefore stands to reason that they will use a resource produced by people in the know regarding leagues other than the league in which a particular SID works. And the most obvious resource is an All-Conference team selected by the coaches.

This is how d3hoops.com works when it comes to awarding honors: each level builds upon the level below it, because the selectors at each level have less direct observational knowledge of the players named to the lower levels. Thus, the All-Region selectors rely upon All-Conference teams for insight, and the All-American selectors rely upon the All-Region teams for insight. It's the most logical way to deal with the perplexing problem of winnowing out so few players from a division of 430 schools (or, in this case, from within the ten regions into which the division is further divided).