WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Pat Coleman]

And we can't deny that conference voters don't always get it right, but we have to have really good reason to look past that.

Some possible reasons:

• We generally have no idea if people are voting solely on conference games or on all games
• Voting takes place at a specific time -- is it before the conference tournament? Sometimes it is. Often there are games played after a vote, and usually those games are the most important of the season and might get more weight than the first 25 games.
• Voters are human and have their human biases and such. (For sure, our voters also do.)

[Gregory Sager]

I want to specifically congratulate Jayla Johnson upon being named first-team All-Region ... and I fervently hope that she gets named an All-American as well, not simply for North Park's sake but especially for Jayla's. She deserves it.

[iwu70]

Hope over Trine, Whitewater over Amherst.   I think Hope completes their long journey

'70

[Gregory Sager]

Jayla Johnson is an All-American! Congratulations to Jayla, who is the first All-American in North Park women's basketball history!

[GoPerry]

Elyce Knudsen, 1st Team D3Hoops All American.  Congratulations to her and the Millikin Big Blue.

I think this is well deserved although I will admit to not having seen many of the other candidates.  Also I wasn't sure if the voters would be hesitant to vote a sophomore so high.  I'm glad they did.

Congrats to NPU's Jayla Johnson on her third team selection.

[RogK]

Congrats to them!
Only 7 non-seniors among the 26 players honored.

[iwu70]

Congrats to HOPE on lifting the Walnut and Bronze, winning rather easily over Whitewater.  As expected. Great defense, too much depth for WW to overcome.

Congrats to all the AA honorees, esp. the two from the CCIW.

'70

[Enginerd]

Congrats to HOPE on lifting the Walnut and Bronze, winning rather easily over Whitewater.  As expected. Great defense, too much depth for WW to overcome.

Congrats to all the AA honorees, esp. the two from the CCIW.

'70

Hope had to play pretty well to get past Trine (who had one heck of a year and nothing to hang their heads over) but this result was a foregone conclusion and I stated as much in a post on January 1st "It's just boring to me when you begin the season knowing who's going to win the national championship barring some kind of lightning-strike loss in the NCAA's".
Hope would possibly have won the NAIA National Championship this year and I'll bet they could have made the Sweet 16, at a minimum, in the Division II tournament with the right draw in the bracket.
I watched Hope, Eastern Michigan, GVSU, and Ferris State all play in person this year and Hope is collectively longer than them all!
Hope loses the "super seniors" and Trine loses some key pieces - who's the way-too-early pick to win it all next year? Amherst? Hope again? Transylvania?

[gordonmann]

Good question!

Here are a couple teams I expect to be very good...

1) Transylvania brings back basically everyone. They need some front court depth but the Pios are not far away from being strong national title contenders
2) New York U brings back two first team all-region players including a national ROY Belle Pellecchia. I watched NYU a couple times and was impressed by lots of players on their team. The Violets are pretty loaded
3) UW-Whitewater brings back Grundahl and Carollo is just a freshman. They will be very good
4) Mary Hardin-Baylor was very young and very tall. They don't have the speed that Hope did but they have more depth in the post than any team I can remember.
5) UW-Eau Claire was very up and down. They were also very young. They'll have one of the best returning players in the country (Ruden) and lose just one starter to graduation (assuming she doesn't have another year of eligibility -- it's hard to tell nowadays)

Would IWU or Millikin be in the running? Maybe not at the level of those teams, but say, Top 15?

I don't expect big drop offs from Hope or Amherst. They have a way of reloading and winning. No one had heard of AnLing Vera 12 months ago and she was on the All-Tournament team. Ella McKinney was arguably Hope's best offensive player yesterday and she's a junior.

[RogK]

By the way, the NAIA WBB final four includes recent D3 powerhouse Thomas More.
They play Monday, winners to face each other on Tuesday.

[Roundball999]

Congrats to HOPE on lifting the Walnut and Bronze, winning rather easily over Whitewater.  As expected. Great defense, too much depth for WW to overcome.

Congrats to all the AA honorees, esp. the two from the CCIW.

'70

Hope had to play pretty well to get past Trine (who had one heck of a year and nothing to hang their heads over) but this result was a foregone conclusion and I stated as much in a post on January 1st "It's just boring to me when you begin the season knowing who's going to win the national championship barring some kind of lightning-strike loss in the NCAA's".
Hope would possibly have won the NAIA National Championship this year and I'll bet they could have made the Sweet 16, at a minimum, in the Division II tournament with the right draw in the bracket.
I watched Hope, Eastern Michigan, GVSU, and Ferris State all play in person this year and Hope is collectively longer than them all!
Hope loses the "super seniors" and Trine loses some key pieces - who's the way-too-early pick to win it all next year? Amherst? Hope again? Transylvania?

As a Hope fan, it sure didn't feel like a foregone conclusion.  Following the loss to Trine it seems the D3Hoops and WBCA voters both agreed, dropping Hope down to #3.  I think the voters didn't fully recognize just how good Trine is at that point.  All the Hope NCAA games were close and very competitive at least in the first half but ultimately it seems Hope's depth, enabled largely by the return of the 3 super seniors, won out.

No way Hope can be as strong/deep next year with the loss of 6 seniors that include two All Americans and the NCAA tournament MVP.  But I could see them being top 20, maybe even top 10 with a strong recruit or two.  A returning nucleus of Baguley, Championship game high scorer McKinney, Morehouse, and don't forget Savannah Feenstra who was playing at a very high level before her season ending injury, should keep Hope very competitive.

Have to agree with Gordon's top contenders. I might go with Millikin if Knudsen gets even better, a talent like that can just carry a team a long way at this level and it's not as if she doesn't have a supporting cast.  Maybe NYU next, or UWW.  Not that Transylvania is a dark horse either, the experience of their deep run this year will surely help all those returners counter a somewhat weaker SoS.  All top 5 in my book.

[scottiedawg]

I agree with the consensus, these are my top 3 teams heading into next year:
NYU
Transylvania
UW-Whitewater


and I expect most of these to be up there as well:
Carroll
Christopher Newport
DeSales
Gustavus Adolphus
Hope
Marietta
Millikin
Puget Sound
Trine
UW-Eau Claire
UW-LaCrosse
Wartburg

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Good discussion, and I agree.  Hope and Trine will both be good again I'm sure, but they do have significant losses:

Hope graduates (assuming no 4th years take a 5th year):

55% of minutes played
56% of points scored
59% of rebounds

Trine graduates (assuming no 4th years take a 5th year):

41% of minutes played
50% of points scored
38% of rebounds

Got to wondering if Trine might be a bit more likely to get a player or two to go for the 5th year, considering how close to the mountain top they were.  I know that a 5th year is no small undertaking, but who knows - it happened for Hope.

[scottiedawg]

I was surprised to see what Trine returns, percentage wise, knowing that Wildman, Stewart, Taylor, Bieniewicz are graduating, Figured they'd be among the lowest of returning Stats.

So far I've crunched 40 teams (the bulk of the top Massey teams), and there are 8 teams that return less than Trine.

FDF, I'm gonna check my numbers again; I've got slightly different percentages than you do.

[ronk]

 A number of us would be interested in seeing your numbers for those 40 teams; it would serve as a base before modification for grad/5th year students, transfers, and incoming frosh in judging next season's contenders.