WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

I think Mount is clearly better than either Heydorn or Sheehan. Together, though, it's no contest -- the Illinois Wesleyan duo is by far the best backcourt in the league.

Greg, I'm not sure on what objective criteria you've based your judgment that Mount is "clearly better" than Heydorn, in particular.

Personal observation of the two of them going head-to-head. The coaches don't vote for MOP based upon statistics, although Mount matches up very well across the board against Heydorn, as you demonstrated yourself.

Laura Mount is a very fine player, no question.  But there is no way she is "clearly better" than Mallory Heydorn.

I emphatically disagree. In fact, Heydorn's playing alongside two backcourt mates as solid as Bull and Sheehan further militates in Mount's favor. This is not a knock at NPU's other perimeter players, but they are not nearly up to par with Bull and Sheehan. Every time the ball is in Laura Mount's hands, the other team keys on her. Every time that she makes a move towards the basket with the ball, the entire defense collapses upon her. You'll see as many as three or four opponents surround her, because NPU simply lacks the outside shooters who can make an opposing team pay with a kickout trey. And yet she's still scoring points by the bushel.

Here's the top ten scorers in the CCIW, with the percentage of their team's points that they have scored:

1. Lindsay Ippel, MU	35.9%
2. Laura Mount, NPU	36.9%
3. Danielle Tinkoff, NCC	30.9%
4. Brianne Parra, NCC	28.2%
5. Mallory Heydorn, IWU	23.0%
6. Sarah Bull, IWU	17.1%
7. Jill Trenz, WC	22.9%
8. Lyndsie Long, EC	23.0%
9. Brittany Bobruk, EC	22.7%
10. Katie Jarger, CC	21.0%

Given that Lindsay Ippel has already won four POTW awards, my guess is that she has the inside track on MOP. But I'd like to see Laura Mount get her due consideration.

[Hoosier Titan]

.... Mount matches up very well across the board against Heydorn, as you demonstrated yourself....

That was my point.  In most statistical categories, they are very close.  No way either one is "clearly better" from looking at the stats.

I emphatically disagree. In fact, Heydorn's playing alongside two backcourt mates as solid as Bull and Sheehan further militates in Mount's favor. This is not a knock at NPU's other perimeter players, but they are not nearly up to par with Bull and Sheehan. Every time the ball is in Laura Mount's hands, the other team keys on her. Every time that she makes a move towards the basket with the ball, the entire defense collapses upon her. You'll see as many as three or four opponents surround her, because NPU simply lacks the outside shooters who can make an opposing team pay with a kickout trey. And yet she's still scoring points by the bushel.

So it sounds as though you're saying Heydorn is a lesser player because she plays with stronger teammates.  Any contending team needs a point guard, and Heydorn fills that role superbly as well as being a clutch scorer herself. 

Here's the top ten scorers in the CCIW, with the percentage of their team's points that they have scored:

1. Lindsay Ippel, MU	35.9%
2. Laura Mount, NPU	36.9%
3. Danielle Tinkoff, NCC	30.9%
4. Brianne Parra, NCC	28.2%
5. Mallory Heydorn, IWU	23.0%

I don't want to quibble, but given the numbers you quoted there, it looks as though Mount should be first, not second, in that category. Again, that speaks more to the quality of the supporting cast than to the relative merits of Heydorn and Mount.

Given that Lindsay Ippel has already won four POTW awards, my guess is that she has the inside track on MOP. But I'd like to see Laura Mount get her due consideration.

I agree totally that she deserves "due consideration," but that's a far cry from being "clearly better."  Laura Mount may well deserve to be named Most Outstanding Player.  In the meantime, this is a huge week for for IWU with games against Millkin and Wheaton, and I agree with Rog that it's premature to be making decisions about MOP.

[Hoosier Titan]

The IWU-Millikin game scheduled for 7:30 tonight at Shirk has been postponed until Thursday night at 7:30 due to the weather.

[Gregory Sager]

.... Mount matches up very well across the board against Heydorn, as you demonstrated yourself....

That was my point.  In most statistical categories, they are very close.  No way either one is "clearly better" from looking at the stats.

And my point was that stats do not decide the MOP award, nor do the basic stats always provide intrinsically perfect metrics for comparison. In this case, they contain a surprising disparity when looked at within the contexts of the two respective teams.

So it sounds as though you're saying Heydorn is a lesser player because she plays with stronger teammates.  Any contending team needs a point guard, and Heydorn fills that role superbly as well as being a clutch scorer herself. 

Heydorn's teammates definitely put her in a more favorable light. She's a terrific player in her own right, but they make it much easier for her to succeed. Mount, by contrast, has to do an awful lot of heavy lifting by herself, particularly because her primary offensive strength is as a penetrator. In other words, it's not a matter of her teammates setting her up as a shooter -- it's frequently a matter of, "Give Laura the ball, and then step aside and watch her drive to the basket with most of the opposition draped all over her." And Mount is NPU's point guard, too -- she brings the ball up the floor as much, if not more, than does Anna Mueller, and the ball is in her hands at least half the time on NPU's possessions.

This makes it sound as though her teammates are useless appendages, and I don't mean for it to sound that way at all. Evie Peterson, Anna Mueller, Alex Coleman, and Stylianee Damianides are all decent CCIW players, and I think that Peterson and Damianides will be able to improve their games and shoulder increased scoring responsibilities next season after Mount has graduated. But Mount's relative ability at this level of basketball, and the combination of her particular skill set and the specific weaknesses of her teammates (i.e., poor perimeter shooting and a lack of height in the post), does make it seem as though the Vikings are frequently a one-woman team on offense. She's led North Park in scoring in 16 of their 21 games and has taken an outsized proportion of NPU's field goal and free throw attempts. The only players in the league who are comparable to Mount in terms of shot attempts both from the field and from the line are Lindsay Ippel and Danielle Tinkoff.

I don't want to quibble, but given the numbers you quoted there, it looks as though Mount should be first, not second, in that category. Again, that speaks more to the quality of the supporting cast than to the relative merits of Heydorn and Mount.

Mount is first in that category. Look at the numbers again. She's a full percentage point ahead of Ippel, and six percentage points ahead of #3 Danielle Tinkoff. As for this statistic saying more about the supporting casts than the relative talents of Mount and Heydorn, I disagree. The statistical disparity between the two is much too great for that. Mount scores half again as many of her team's points as does Heydorn. Opposing coaches have to contend with three different perimeter threats when they game-plan for Illinois Wesleyan, which works to Heydorn's advantage. The game plan for stopping NPU can be basically condensed into three words: Stop Laura Mount.

I agree totally that she deserves "due consideration," but that's a far cry from being "clearly better."  Laura Mount may well deserve to be named Most Outstanding Player.  In the meantime, this is a huge week for for IWU with games against Millkin and Wheaton, and I agree with Rog that it's premature to be making decisions about MOP.

Given that Lindsay Ippel has already won four POTW awards, my concern is that the decision for MOP has already been made.

[Gregory Sager]

NPU's outside chance at a CCIW tourney berth stayed alive tonight as the Vikings took down North Central, 73-64, in the airplane hangar in Naperville. Laura Mount led the Vikings with 17 in only 25 minutes of action (I'm not sure why she spent so much time on the bench, as she ended the game without commiting a foul; I hope she didn't get hurt). Cassie Christensen came off of the bench to add 12 points for the Park, which I'm pretty sure is a career high for her, and Anna Mueller and Evie Peterson chipped in 11 points apiece. Peterson notched a double-double, as she also garnered ten boards. NCC was led by Danielle Tinkoff with a game-high 29 points, while Kate Schmidt added 10 for the Cards before fouling out. NPU outrebounded NCC, 36-30, and the Vikings only turned the ball over a season-low seven times.

NPU, which is in close to a must-win situation from here on out, will return to the western suburbs on Saturday afternoon to face Elmhurst.

[Fawkes316]

It's good to see so much talking on this board recently.

Sager- I am not sure how much you have seen of Jill Trenz this year, but I find it ironic that the game you refer to is one where she scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. She also happened to pass the 1,000 point and 650 rebound milestone. I defer to your basketball genius, but those seem like pretty impressive stats given that no one has reached those kind of numbers this quickly at Wheaton at least since Stephanie Clark and Nicole Merchant in the early to mid 90s.

Is Trenz ever going to put up 35 points a game like Ippel? I doubt it, but that isn't the way Wheaton plays. No one has scored more than 26 points in a game since Sarah Harris put up 38 and 34 points in back-to-back games before hurting her back in 2003.

However Trenz will get you about 13 or 14 points, 9 or 10 rebounds and 6 blocked shots a game. She is a force on the defensive end of the floor and is playing with a young group of guards. Wheaton is almost never going to produce someone like Ippel or Mount who can dominate the stat sheet the way they do. However, they have won the last two conference championships playing more balanced basketball.

Laura Mount is a great player, and I won't take any shots at her. She has helped North Park grow quite a bit these last few years, but generally I don't care who the "game's dominant player" is. Winning means more to me.

[Fawkes316]

And by the way, the award is the Most Outstanding Player, and Ippel is probably the best player in the country, so there really shouldn't be any debate, at least for the top award. I think that the Heydorn-Mount debate is interesting.

[Chicago_BBall_97]

Illinihoops4 -  You seem to know a lot about Augustana's team this year.  One question, for a coach who prides herself on defense, what's the reasoning for Augustana being second to last in Scoring Defense in the CCIW?

[RogK]

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[RogK]

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[Illinihoops4]

RogK thanks for rundown on the Wheaton-Augie game.  The boxscore had some icy shooting percentages. Augie shot 29.8 percent while Wheaton was at 29.7 percent. Doesn't sound like a pretty game.

Chicago- one question for you- what do you know about the Augustana program? I'm not going to make excuses for them and I know their coach is fully aware of where they stand defensively as well as every other category in the conference. Fact of the matter is, they are missing a lot of pieces. Many problems early on were a result of turnovers. Fast break points, etc. Augie has cut their turnovers down since Christmas (much of that coming with the play of Rachwalski as RogK mentioned above). Then it was ball pressure and not contesting the 3pt. shot. When you don't face that in practice (because it's not one of their strengths), it's hard to adjust to because- while Augie has a couple athletes- they don't have basketball players. They've defended the 3 pt. shot much better as of late and their ball pressure has improved. The biggest problem however has been their lack of size and strength in the post. They do not have a player that stands a true 6 ft. You can't coach size. In fact, while Skahill is their leading scorer, she lacks the defensive skills. Sarah Miers, Rachel Newtoff, and Cindy Kastning have become the most effective post defenders, none of which are taller than 5'9. Even with outstretched hands it's not too difficult to shoot over them. Teams that have 2,3,4 strong post players cause problems for them because they don't have the personnel. From there it's helpside and to be honest, they've improved quite a bit  in that area in the last few game and they are beginning to understand the game and play team defense. The players have to have some basketball knowledge to compete consistently at this level. Fill in the missing pieces and add experience and I'll think they'll be better in the future. I know Coach likes to switch up her defenses and press, but they don't have the athletes to do that in this conference. So, you do the best you can with what you've got.
Just my 2 cents.

There is a major drop off after 7 players or so and I would also like to see them bring in at least 6 players. A pure shooter, 3-4 post true posts are necessities. Buzz is that more recruiting is being done this year than in the past 5-6 years. We'll see what happens.

[Gregory Sager]

It's good to see so much talking on this board recently.

Sager- I am not sure how much you have seen of Jill Trenz this year, but I find it ironic that the game you refer to is one where she scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. She also happened to pass the 1,000 point and 650 rebound milestone. I defer to your basketball genius, but those seem like pretty impressive stats given that no one has reached those kind of numbers this quickly at Wheaton at least since Stephanie Clark and Nicole Merchant in the early to mid 90s.

Is Trenz ever going to put up 35 points a game like Ippel? I doubt it, but that isn't the way Wheaton plays. No one has scored more than 26 points in a game since Sarah Harris put up 38 and 34 points in back-to-back games before hurting her back in 2003.

However Trenz will get you about 13 or 14 points, 9 or 10 rebounds and 6 blocked shots a game. She is a force on the defensive end of the floor and is playing with a young group of guards. Wheaton is almost never going to produce someone like Ippel or Mount who can dominate the stat sheet the way they do. However, they have won the last two conference championships playing more balanced basketball.

Laura Mount is a great player, and I won't take any shots at her. She has helped North Park grow quite a bit these last few years, but generally I don't care who the "game's dominant player" is. Winning means more to me.

Hey, don't get me wrong -- I think Trenz is a very strong player. But against a team as seriously lacking in size as NPU, she should've been more dominant. She seemed very tentative on offense for most of the game, and, as I said, it was Fox and Cooper who were Wheaton's sparks throughout the second half. But Trenz did respond with the big buckets in crunch time, as I said.

I like to see a team that goes ten or twelve deep, so in addition to Augie, other CCIW teams that have room for five or six good newcomers in '07-'08 : NC, NP, EC.
Think how much fun it would be to have all 8 schools in contention for the conference tournament.

Jack Surridge really needs to load up and have a strong recruiting year for NPU. He usually seems to bring in one good player per year; this year he needs to bring in at least three or four. And he needs height; NPU has suffered all season from the fact that Megan Slattery was not replaced after last season.

[RogK]

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[Mr. Ypsi]

After IWU got its first ever first place vote (in the season it cracked the top 25 for the first time), they fell (hard) tonight to Millikin (at the Shirk!), 67-49.  I couldn't get a broadcast, so if anyone did, or was there, please fill in impressions.  From the box score:

MU had 43 rebounds (Ippel and Schwartz combined for 20) to the Titans' 28.

MU shot 50% overall (54% from 3), plus 90% from the line; the Titans shot under 25% overall (21% from 3), and only 67% from the line.

Ippel and Schwartz combined for 33 of the 67 points.  Heydorn led all scorers with 19, but it took her 7-21 (2-8 from 3) and 3 of 5 from the line to get there.

Sounds like the only thing keeping the game from a total rout was turnovers: IWU had only 12, the Blue had 25.

With Wheaton up in less than two days, better get back on track VERY quickly!

Earlier today I was recalling two years ago when one lonely voter gave Millikin first place votes several weeks in a row, when they were otherwise in the lower reaches of the top 10 - you recall, I'm sure, how that season ended!  Now I curse this year's lonely voter who jinxed our women!   Oh, well, the season is certainly not 'down-the-tubes' with tonight's fiasco!

[Titan Q]

Very disappointing performance tonight by the Titans.  IWU is a perimeter-oriented team, so they're vulnerable to nights when the jump shots aren't falling, but I never thought I'd see anything like this.  The Titans were 15-61 (24.6% from the field), including 5-24 (20.8%) from 3!  IWU shot the ball 19 more times from the field than Millikin and lost by 18 points...think about that for a second.  I'm not sure I've ever seen so many missed layups and other easy shots.

IWU won its last two games without leading scorer Sarah Bull (ankle sprain).  Bull did not start again tonight but played 14 minutes off the bench, and never looked right. 

The CCIW race changed a lot tonight.  9-1 IWU travels to 9-1 Wheaton Saturday...doesn't get much bigger than that.