WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

Hoosier Titan · February 21, 2008, 05:03:20 PM

"White on rice," Ypsi? I have never heard that before!

Rog, I think Ippel and Solari are locks. I know Long's numbers and I won't argue against her; she just hasn't had great games when I've seen Elmhurst. I have the same problem as you when I look at the numbers for Carthage. My memory says "Jarger," but looking at stats I see Janowiak, Buchholz, and Lieberman's names as well. I think North Central's Brianne Parra is the best power player in the league and I'd like to see her on one of the lists, although that may not fly as she's not starting at the moment. And I'll go with Sarah Bull, although Crystal Dye deserves recognition somewhere. So I have:

Ippel
Solari
Long
Bull
Jarger(?)

RogK · February 21, 2008, 07:20:47 PM

Mr Ypsi,
That kid in Kenosha sounds like a top athlete. If she was a secret before, she ain't now.
Hoosier Titan,
Parra is a very reliable low-post scorer and rebounder. My guess, though, is that Barb Williams would be the first choice from NC. Williams is shooting around 57% in CCIW play. Her 15.0 pts avg could have been higher had she better avoided foul trouble in several games.
Too bad there isn't a CCIW all star game. Then, more than 15 players could be honored.
Janowiak directs the Carthage offense very well. She could be their 1st team candidate. Buchholz plays as hard as anyone.
I agree with you about Dye. She'll be on the all-conference team somewhere. Sheehan and Heydorn are certainly among the conference's best, too.

RogK · February 22, 2008, 06:37:16 PM

To those who will play their final college game tomorrow, I hope your last shots all go in. Even your last four or five shots!

For anyone who needs a major basketball fix : next Friday and Saturday, not only is there the CCIW tournament at IWU in Bloomington, but the class 3A and 4A girls state finals will be going on a few miles away at ISU Redbird Arena. See ihsa.org

RogK · February 23, 2008, 08:42:17 PM

IWU 13-1 NP 1-13
Mill 11-3 Aug 3-11
Carth 10-4 Whe 4-10
EC 8-6 NC 6-8
(symmetry returns)
I attended NC's 53-48 win at Wheaton. Several players did well for North Central, but I thought Meghan McGuire in particular came through big when needed. W's Kathleen Fidelia led all with 25 pts.
IWU wrapped up an excellent regular season by topping Carthage 75-56.
Millikin had no difficulty at North Park, winning 77-38.
Elmhurst edged Augustana 78-74. Lyndsie Long scored 26. Augie's Becky Rehn had 18 pts and 8 steals. That should help her make the all-conference team, methinks.

RogK · February 27, 2008, 07:06:50 PM

Conference-games-only two-point FG shooting stats :
07-08 06-07
Millikin .548 (270/493) .482 (260/539)
IWU .540 (283/524) .429 (225/524)
Carthage .510 (295/578) .457 (257/562)
North C .458 (277/605) .457 (263/575)
Elmhurst .434 (288/664) .369 (240/651)
Augustana .389 (246/633) .398 (257/646)
Wheaton .386 (250/648) .439 (259/590)
North P .342 (193/564) .424 (230/542)

HCACBBALL · February 28, 2008, 07:09:57 PM

What is going to happen this weekend? Does IWU walk away with this or can someone challenge them?

RogK · February 28, 2008, 07:16:46 PM

More conference-games-only stats:
Offense distribution:
PTS via threes via 2 FG via FTs
IWU 1135 363 (32% of 1135) 566 (50%) 206 (18%)
EC 1008 243 (24%) 576 (57%) 189 (19%)
MIL 984 267 (27%) 540 (55%) 177 (18%)
CART 940 186 (20%) 590 (63%) 164 (17%)
NC 888 105 (12%) 554 (62%) 229 (26%)
WHE 805 126 (16%) 500 (62%) 179 (22%)
AUG 800 108 (13.5%) 492 (61.5%) 200 (25%)
NP 706 141 (20%) 386 (55%) 179 (25%)

RogK · February 29, 2008, 02:25:35 PM

HCACBBALL,
Since November 17, only Millikin has beaten Illinois Wesleyan.
But, Millikin first has to defeat Carthage, against whom they are 0-2 this season.
Elmhurst beat Carthage once, but is 0-2 vs IWU.
IWU should be favored to win and is playing on its home court.
Beyond that, who can say?

RogK · February 29, 2008, 06:05:16 PM

The CCIW all-conference team is in :
Player of the Year -- Lindsay Ippel.
Coach of the Year -- Mia Smith.
1st team - Ippel, Lyndsie Long, Carlie Janowiak, Mallory Heydorn, Barb Williams
2nd team - Crystal Dye, Sarah Bull, Brianne Parra, Kathleen Fidelia, Katie Jarger
3rd team - Becky Rehn, LaRae Kostreva, Erika Buchholz, Andrea Riebock, Brittany Bobruk
-
Congrats to each!
No Solari?

Mr. Ypsi · February 29, 2008, 07:52:58 PM

Elmhurst LEADS IWU by 1 at halftime. Super upset, or will the 'inevitable' happen in the second half?

iwumichigander · February 29, 2008, 09:27:50 PM

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on February 29, 2008, 07:52:58 PM
Elmhurst LEADS IWU by 1 at halftime. Super upset, or will the 'inevitable' happen in the second half?

Beep - Beep - Vroomm!! Titans turn on the after burners to pull away for a win 78-57 win. - "The Titans were led by the 27 point explosion from junior Claire Sheehan (shown), while sophomore Christina Solari had 12 points and 12 rebounds. Senior Crystal Dye added 12 points and senior Sarah Bull also scored 11 for the Titans, who trailed 35-34 at halftime. (Source: IWU Sports Information)" Very nice work ladies!!

Mr. Ypsi · February 29, 2008, 10:05:48 PM

That was my expectation of the second half, but thought it only fair to alert potential listeners to what would have been the game of the year!

So, about those omissions on the all-conference team: were Sheehan and Solari a bit ticked off?

Next year, leave off ALL the Titans - we'll take the Walnut-and-Bronze in a romp!

RogK · February 29, 2008, 10:53:05 PM

Congrats to IWU and Millikin for tonight's wins.
Indeed that was a splendid performance by Sheehan, but I doubt that exclusion from the all-conference team provided any motivation to her or Solari; I think they just like to excel at basketball.
Millikin topped Carthage in the nitecap, 49-48, thanks to a game-winning free throw by Lindsay Ippel.
We shall see who has enough energy left for tomorrow's championship game.

RogK · March 01, 2008, 05:51:35 PM

The Titans of IWU are the champs of the CCIW!
With leads of up to 28, they rolled past Millikin 75-64.
Both sides gave it all they had.
Christina Solari had a highly productive 24 minutes, including 22 pts and 15 rebs.
Mallory Heydorn fired in 19 pts. Of course, many others contributed greatly, particularly in IWU's press and half-court defense.
M's Lindsay Ippel had 25 pts and 8 rebs. If that was it for her career, it was stellar. We aren't likely to see a player like her very often.
Seniors Megan Mateer, Kelley Steers and Andrea Riebock may also have done their last work for the Big Blue. Hats off to them, too. As some post-game tears were flowing, I saw Wheaton coach Beth Baker go over and give a consoling hug to Riebock. Nice of Baker to show that players' efforts are appreciated even by a coach of a team that wasn't involved in the game.
Maybe the most impressive single play of the afternoon was when M's Kayla Pembrook made a diving deflection of a pass that was imminently going to produce an IWU fastbreak layup.
-
Best of luck to Illinois Wesleyan in their drive to a national title. Hopefully, more than one CCIW team will get into the D3 tourney. But, if not, IWU will represent us well.

Hoosier Titan · March 02, 2008, 11:30:53 AM

Congratulations to all the teams, who represented their schools well in the conference tourney.

Although Elmhurst loses senior point guard Candice Sutton, Brittany Bobruk and all-conference first team player Lyndsie Long will return, along with a good group of younger players. Claire Gentry especially impressed taking over the point position.

Carthage loses seniors Erika Buchholz, Carlie Janowiak, and Lisa Gartelos but will return Katie Jarger and Shana Lieberman. The Lady Reds battled hard with Millikin in the first game Friday night and could have won had a few balls bounced differently.

The title game was, predictably, a battle of wills between the two teams. Millikin wanted to play a half-court game and get the ball into Lindsay Ippel in the low post, where she is usually as unstoppable as any player, female or male, I've ever seen. IWU wanted to run and pressure, to keep the Big Blue from doing just that. For the most part, the Titans were successful, and they played at a high level of intensity for most of the game.

I'm going to paraphrase Titan Q (a major poster on the CCIW men's board, and the radio color commentator for IWU men's broadcasts) on the IWU men's handling of Wheaton's Kent Raymond Friday night. Q said that, strange as it might sound, IWU handled Raymond well, even though he scored 34 points. In the case of the IWU women, even though Lindsay Ippel scored 25 points, (7 baskets and 11 free throws), I think the Titans handled her well. Stats: Ippel scored the first two Millikin baskets, and then did not score another basket until about 7:30 remained in the game, with the Titans up by 28. She made free throws along the way--and the fouls leading to all those FTs caused a lot of substitutions caused a lot of shuffling of the Titan lineup, with Christina Solari and Crystal Dye eventually fouling out. But Ippel never really became an offensive force, even with 25 points.

In today's Pantagraph story both Mia Smith and Lori Kerans credit the Titan pressure with taking the Big Blue out of their offense. They rarely got the ball over half court with more than 15 seconds on the shot clock, and more often it was 12 or 13. As Kerans said, "...Although we knew what to do, doing it on paper and doing it...is two different things."

It's a credit to the Big Blue that, even under such pressure, they led the Titans in assists, with Ippel handing out 5, and Andrea Riebock and Kayla Pembrook each handing out 3.

Well done, all!