WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

In the Midwest Challenge Championship game:

IWU 87, Wash U 80 in OT

A very tight, competitive game.

For Wash U:

McBeth 20
Harris 19
Goodwin 11

Wash U shooting 52%, 24% from three, 84 % FT

For IWU:

Bardic 27
Powers -- a breakout game for her -- 20 and 12, with key FTs in the OT
Huber 16 and 8
Palmer 10

IWU winning the steals line 9-5 and the TO line 26-16.  IWU shooting 42%, 29% from three, and 53% FTs.

Again, rather poor FT shooting at 53%, saved with good FT shooting late in the game by Powers and Bardic, when it counted most.

IWU winning the OT period 11-4.

Good wins for the Titans.   Bardic named tournament MVP and Powers on the All-tournament team.  You know you've had a good weekend when Huber plays her normal solid game with scoring and rebounding and she's not named to the All-tournament team.  Just say'n.

IWU now 5-2, heading into CCIW play this Wednesday hosting Elmhurst at The Shirk.

Way to go TITANS!  Congratulations on the tournament Championship. 

IWU'70

[RogK]

Congrats to the new CCIW Player of the Week, Olivia Rangel !
https://cciw.org/news/2023/11/27/womens-basketball-cciw-selects-rangel-as-womens-hoops-student-athlete-of-the-week.aspx
= =

[iwu70]

Congrats to Ms. Rangel.  Great week for her. 

First D3 poll out with games from this year.

Millikin at #16.  Wheaton and IWU in ORV -- WC at #26, IWU about #29 or so.  Maybe Carroll the sleeper. 

Looks like a strong year for CCIW women's hoops, a strong conference race.

IWU'70

[GoPerry]

Congrats to Ms. Rangel.  Great week for her. 

First D3 poll out with games from this year.

Millikin at #16.  Wheaton and IWU in ORV -- WC at #26, IWU about #29 or so.  Maybe Carroll the sleeper. 

Looks like a strong year for CCIW women's hoops, a strong conference race.

IWU'70

It's hard to say whether Wheaton deserves votes or not.  It's fairly typical for them to be 5-0 or 6-1 in November. So we won't get over-excited about a 5-0 start against teams with a collective 6 wins.  The Thunder are clearly better than last year but so is the league.  Getting some early confidence can only help.  They'll be tested tonight at Tarble for the first time this season.

[iwu70]

GoPerry, agree with you on early WC games, poor SOS etc., but I think Wheaton is pretty good this year.   Maybe being at #26th at this point is about right.   Everyone will be chasing Millikin.   They have so much back . . . and always Ms. Knudsen.   

IWU should win easily tonight vs. Elmhurst -- then an important, difficult test vs. Carroll where the Titans have really struggled in recent years.

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

It's hard to say whether Wheaton deserves votes or not.  It's fairly typical for them to be 5-0 or 6-1 in November. So we won't get over-excited about a 5-0 start against teams with a collective 6 wins.  The Thunder are clearly better than last year but so is the league.  Getting some early confidence can only help.  They'll be tested tonight at Tarble for the first time this season.

This early in the season, I think that the only thing that D3hoops.com poll votes matter more than is Massey ... which isn't saying much.

[iwu70]

Well, the way Wheaton played tonight, they don't deserve the ORV votes.

Seems IWU still does.  Big win over Elmhurst tonight 101-71.  It was a run-up-and-down, track meet kind of game, with IWU often beating the EU pressure, with good decision-making, over the top passes and many easy layups.

For EU:

Bukata 19
Makuie 11

EU at 36%, 14% from three, 56% FTs  to go with 22 TOs and only 8 assists

For IWU:

Knutson 16 and 10
Huber 15 and 7
Powers 13 and 8
White 11
Sarah Balli with a breakout game, more minutes, the new Titan tonight in this role -- 18 points.

Bardic only 7 points in 9 minutes, as she was clobbered in the lane by a driving EU player about halfway through the first Q, went down badly in what looks to be a strained knee.  Let's really hope nothing worse.  She did not return and was on one crutch sitting on the bench the rest of the game.   If she is out for extended time, this would be a tremendously bad blow for the Titans.  She's been playing super well and is the leading IWU scorer so far through 8 games. 

The Titans only had 15 TOs, also 11 steals and a robust 25 assists.  Very good team play, ball movement to beat EU's pressure, often throwing it over the top for easy baskets.  The Titans basically matched Elmhurst's up tempo play and beat them at their own game. 

Rebounds tied at 48-48.

EU had a new five in about every 4-5 minutes.  So, if you want to play this up-and-down style vs. the Titans, you will probably lose bigtime.   Mallory Powers at full strength makes a tremendous difference to the IWU line-up.   Knutson with another strong game tonight.  Sawyer White did an excellent job at PG after Bardic went out with the injury.

Titans now at 6-2, 1-0.

IWU'70

[lmitzel]

I was fairly pleased at halftime of the men's game at the hangar to see the Cardinals were only down 35-32 at halftime up in Waukesha... then the second half happened.

Carroll 92
NCC 62

Jocelyn Trotter: 13 pts, 6 reb
Grace Keiffer: 9 pts
Megan Duffy: 9 pts, 4 ast
Lexie Hernandez: 9 pts
Megan McClure: 6 pts, 5 reb, 6 stl

Natalie Gricius: 18 pts
Emilie Wizner: 15 pts
Olivia Rangel: 14 pts, 6 reb, 4 ast
Lauren Soyke: 7 pts, 6 reb, 5 ast

The Pioneers finished the night with shooting splits of 58/70/100; the Cardinals for their part had 38/33/83. 46-22 advantage in the paint for Carroll, and 17-4 on second chances.

The Cardinals will try to rebound at Wheaton on Saturday.

[Gregory Sager]

And I was fairly pleased at the midway point of the first half of the men's game at the crackerbox to see the Vikings up 21-20 at the end of the first quarter down yonder at Ratner. Then the rest of the game happened.

Chicago 90
North Park 57

Moral of the story: Chicago is undefeated and #12 in the nation for a reason.

Victoria Perry had 25 points on 8-13 FG shooting, 4-7 from long distance, and 5-7 from the line, as well as 6 rebounds.

The rest of her team had 32 points on 10-44 FG shooting, 5-17 from long distance, and ... well, at least 7-8 from the line is a good percentage, if not especially proficient in terms of volume. Oh, and the rest of the team had 22 boards between them. The Maroons had 41 by comparison.

[GoPerry]

I was not at all pleased to see this final from Tarble . . .

Carthage 77 
Wheaton 37

I didn't see the game and I'm not finding the live stream recording today.  In any case, I had to do a double take at this beat down of a 40 point margin.  Looking at the stats, it's obvious that the Thunder had a horrid shooting night – 12/54 from the field for 22.2%.  They did attempt 21 threes (made 5) which isn't an extraordinary amount.  What was truly shocking was being outrebounded 55-20 and -10 on the offensive glass.  It's the sort of stat line that might make more sense if a team were missing 3 starters due to illness or something.  But not the case here which is why I'd like to watch the game. 

If there were no extraordinary circumstances and the team was on a 5-0 sugar high and just wasn't ready to play, then that is embarrassing and something they need to rectify right quick.  Getting utterly destroyed might give Coach Madsen some ammo to introduce some reality.  As I said before, their 5 wins were certainly not against world beaters.  But Wheaton is not this bad even against a very good team like Carthage whose only 2 losses came to undefeated teams (#12 Chicago and Aurora).

By the way, I loved the post-game comments by Firebird coach Megan Jones (which did get uploaded to YouTube).  I think Carthage has a good one there.

[iwu70]

GoPerry, it is a shocking beat down -- I still think WC is a pretty good team when they play their game and focus on what is at hand.   

IWU had a good start against EU, which is not that good a team, but with some nice pace and speed.  IWU just has as much, if not more.  Sarah Balli had a breakout game for the Titans, scoring 18 off of all the running up and down.   

We'll know more soon about Ava Bardic's injury.   She's being evaluated today.   It would be a huge loss for the TITANS should she be out for an extended period.   Let's hope it is not too serious.

IWU has a big game hosting Carroll this Saturday. 

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

I was not at all pleased to see this final from Tarble . . .

Carthage 77 
Wheaton 37

I didn't see the game and I'm not finding the live stream recording today.  In any case, I had to do a double take at this beat down of a 40 point margin.  Looking at the stats, it's obvious that the Thunder had a horrid shooting night – 12/54 from the field for 22.2%.  They did attempt 21 threes (made 5) which isn't an extraordinary amount.  What was truly shocking was being outrebounded 55-20 and -10 on the offensive glass.  It's the sort of stat line that might make more sense if a team were missing 3 starters due to illness or something.  But not the case here which is why I'd like to watch the game. 

If there were no extraordinary circumstances and the team was on a 5-0 sugar high and just wasn't ready to play, then that is embarrassing and something they need to rectify right quick.  Getting utterly destroyed might give Coach Madsen some ammo to introduce some reality.  As I said before, their 5 wins were certainly not against world beaters.  But Wheaton is not this bad even against a very good team like Carthage whose only 2 losses came to undefeated teams (#12 Chicago and Aurora).

Yeah, that result is an absolute head-scratcher. Carthage shot well, but hardly out-of-this-world well, and the Firebirds turned it over more than did Wheaton (18-13). The mystifying stuff is what happened close to the basket -- the bizarrely lopsided rebounding totals you cited and the 44-14 advantage in points in the paint for the hosts. Granting that there's no real size advantage for either team, the only explanation for the rebounding totals is that the Firebirds must've put a lot more effort into the boards than did WC. But I can't come up with any explanation at all as to how a team that has both Caroline Sikkink and Annie Tate in the starting lineup only scores 14 points in the paint while giving up 44.

According to the CCIW WBB Notebook, it was Carthage's largest margin of victory ever in the CC vs. WC series, a span of 90 games since 1984.

In the Wednesday game that didn't get mentioned yet, #16 Millikin rolled past Augustana, 85-48, at the Griz to stay undefeated. Elyce Knudsen continued to make her case for D3hoops.com Player of the Year with an absurdly efficient 36 points on 14-18 shooting from the field, including 6-9 from beyond the arc, while hitting both of her FT attempts. As if that wasn't enough, she also had 8 rebounds and 3 steals, along with 5 assists (the latter nullified to a degree by her 4 turnovers, the only chink in her armor for the night). Bailey Coffman continues to perfect the 20-foot layup, going 4-6 from downtown en route to 14 points, and Sophie Darden had a 13 and 10 double-double. Also of note is Rachel Holthaus producing 4 steals off the bench. Augie was paced by Macy Beinborn's 11 and 10, and Corey Whitlock grabbed 6 rebounds. Kadence Tatum pilfered the ball to the tune of 4 steals, but her much-ballyhooed floor play was not in evidence; she did have 4 assists, but it was more than erased by 7 turnovers, as Augie as a whole coughed up the rock 30 times (18 of them courtesy of Big Blue steals).

[Gregory Sager]

Elmhurst 75
North Park 60

Victoria Perry: 17 pts, 8 rebs
Kathryn Keehn: 13 pts
Caroline Long: 10 pts, 6 rebs
Hailey Lyczak: 5 stls

Utah Makuei: 20 pts, 6 rebs
Kristin Bukata: 17 pts (7-9 FG)
Anna Kleszynski: 15 pts
Nariya Smith: 12 pts

The Bluejays clobbered the Vikings on the boards, and that was really the key to this game. I'm impressed by what Jason Pruitt has done thus far in his first season at the helm for EU. He's brought in a ton of productive newbies, he's getting the most out of the returnees, and his running, halfcourt-trap style is speeding up teams like NPU that don't play well speeded up. He still needs to upgrade his talent a bit, but he's on the road to making Elmhurst a contender in the CCIW.

[GoPerry]

Wheaton 70
North Central 63

Caroline Sikkink  25pts, 10 rebs , 8 TOs
Annie Tate    20 pts, 14 reb

Megan Duffy 19 pts
Grace Kieffer 17 pts
Jocelyn Trotter  15 pts

Despite doing everything possible to lose this game, including 8 ugly turnovers in the 4th Q (and 23 for the game), Wheaton pulled it out in the end.   The Thunder had a comfortable lead thru 32 mins but some very poor play allowed the Cardinals back in where they cut the lead to 1 with a minute left.   Credit to NCC for fighting to the end.

[RogK]

Augustana topped Carthage 72-51, thanks to a 46-24 2nd half.
Cali Papez (10 rebs) and Corey Whitlock each tallied 15 for Augie. Macy Beinborn had 3 steals, 6 assists, 9 rebs and 13 pts.
Grace Cord led Carthage with 17 pts and 7 rebs.
Incidentally, Papez is now at .676 2FG shooting for the season and has an impressive 48 rebounds in 131 minutes.