WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[RogK]

Wow, that was a dazzling start of the playoffs for the Titans. Keep ripping along, I say.
So, Sheehan and Solari might be good enough for 4th team all-CCIW. Sorry, I still don't like how they missed out. I know, it's a dead horse by now.
Good luck to IWU vs a very good opponent tonight!

[Titan Q]

A nice feature on Claire Sheehan from the local news from Thursday...

http://centralillinoisproud.com/media_player.php?media_id=7557


And then the recap of last night's game...

http://centralillinoisproud.com/media_player.php?media_id=7569

[buf]

Whats going on at the Shirk?  UWW 73 IWU 40, 9min

[Mr. Ypsi]

Titans were down 80-42; suddenly it was 80-54.  But with under 5 left: too little, too late.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Titans cut the final margin from 38 to 24 (63-87); they did not quit!

But 6 of 28 from downtown (22 of 66 overall, or 15 of 59 if you leave out Solari's 7 of 9) just ain't gonna do it.   Since I was only listening, I couldn't tell how much was credit to UWW defense, and how much was just going cold - undoubtedly some of each.

Great season - and with the talent returning, maybe next year can be even better!

[Hoosier Titan]

Just back from Shirk.  Ugh--it was a very bad night for the Titans.  Part of the credit for that has to go to Whitewater--they are big and physical and they came out aggressive.  But everyone except Solari was very, very tight.  Shots that are usually high-percentage weren't going, and there were a lot of unforced turnovers.  Those who attended the tournament saw the Titans' best and worst games of the year this weekend.

It was, overall, a great season indeed.  Hopefully there will be a few regular season games against some Whitewater-like opponents in preparation for a deeper run into the tournament next year!  Thanks to Mia and all the players.

[Titan Q]

Need to play a stronger non-conference schedule moving forward.  All of those 40-point blowouts were a waste of everyone's time.  It's hard to be ready to play a great team when you play so many poor teams.

Congratulations to the Titans on a terrific season.  The program is in great shape for the future.

[jshoops]

Hi all, first time poster.  I've been reading the blog for about 3 months.  Great commentary and links here!

I'm up in Park Ridge and we're family friends of the Solari's.  I've been following C. Solari for about 5-6 years, she's a terrific person.  Our 7th grade sons are the same age too. 

Tough night for IWU.  I was listening to online radio, it seemed IWU was in a groove early but lost the momenteum with too many missed 3's.   Since they took a ton of 3's, it did not seem that the Titans had much of an inside game.  Was the inside defense of UWW keeping IWU out of the paint?  After Christina's 3rd foul UWW grabbed the game and ran away with the 1st half and  to the eventual win.  It also sounded like we lacked some patience on the offensive sets.

I made it to 3 Chicagoland games and watched/listened online to a couple more of them too.  I have to agree they need to play a few more non-conf./tougher teams.   

I'm a 1982 ISU grad., still hooping it up 2-3 days a week and can still dunk at 48 @ 6'2".  I played for Steve Fisher for a couple of years in Park Forest/ Rich East, where Craig Hodges was a teammate.

Later!  Jim

[Hoosier Titan]

Welcome, Jim!  It's good to have more people in the conversation.

The Titans have shot a lot of 3's all year; they are one of the leaders in made 3's in all of Division III.  (I just tried to check the stats on the NCAA site and found it temporarily down).  Christina (and Thea Rogers, before her career-ending ACL injury) bring a nice added dimension to the game.  Christina is a great team player, willing to kick the ball back out to a teammate for an open 3; in fact, she's been coached to look for her shot more lately, and she's responded.  And she rebounds ferociously!

So, to your questions--the Titans were in the game for a time, but the shots were never falling the way they did the night before against Maryville.  The Warhawks are big, solid, and quick, and attempts to get the ball inside too often resulted in turnovers of one kind or another (stray passes, getting stripped, etc.)  Solari's 7 of 9 was the biggest bright spot.  I think the quick 3's that you mentioned were an attempt to shoot themselves back into the game, if you will, but nerves were clearly an issue and a nervous shooter often misses.  They just could not get anything going at either end.

Have fun with the hoops!

[Hoosier Titan]

Although I don't think the players visit these boards, I would like to thank IWU seniors Sarah Bull, Crystal Dye, Tasha Gaston-Bell (who served as a student coach this season), Thea Rogers, and Elyse Sanchez for giving us their all during their college years.  They've had a great season and hopefully this will lead to more success for IWU and the entire CCIW in years to come.

[RogK]

Congratulations to Mia Smith and her talented bunch of basketballistas for a very fine season. Sadly it ends with a loss.
Of the 8 CCIW teams, only North Central ended with a win.

[iwufanjb]

This is also my first time posting, however I've been keeping up with the posts for about two years. You all have great insight on the CCIW and I always look forward to people's reactions to the contests. I'm not going to give too much personal information, but you could say I have close ties to the IWU women's team. I have 11 years of playing experience under my belt and 1 year of reffing high school girls.

My decision to finally speak up was mainly to make a correction about a very important senior on IWU that I'm sure was mistakenly left out, Kerri Gravlin. Congrats to all the seniors on the team; they have all had outstanding careers. The Titans may be alright talent-wise next year, but they sure are losing a great group of women with amazing character.

I agree with most of you in that IWU does not have a strong enough pre-conference season. The Titans are an amazing team and I do not want to take anything away from them, but they were not prepared for the NCAA Tourney as well as they should have been. They need to improve their schedule next year so they can work on winning close games. I was at both games this weekend, and you could see how scared they were against Whitewater when they were down by just 11 in the first half. That should not happen. Coach needs to get the girls more experience with tougher competition early in the season. Hopefully the girls come back next season hungry for more, which I'm sure will happen.

Congrats Titans on an outstanding season! You should all be very proud.

And you'd be surprised how many players read these boards.

[Hoosier Titan]

iwufanjb,

Thanks so much for correcting my error in leaving out Kerri Gravlin!  She has been a steady contributor in every category during her entire time at IWU.  Many thanks  and heartfelt apologies to Kerri.

[RogK]

My welcome to the CCIW page also, jshoops and iwufanjb. I hope you each have a lot to say. And if you know anybody who follows Augie, Carthage, Millikin or North Central, we need posts from those perspectives!

A few more tidbits about IWU : I wonder if they'll look a little different next season without Sarah Bull. She scored 400 pts in 669 minutes, the best ratio on the team and near the top in the league. "Instant offense" and "confounder of defenses" describe her ability pretty well.
Without knowing of any newcomers, I think her minutes will go to players  who score more in the lane, which might cause defenses to collapse more.
Obviously the superb Mallory Heydorn has to be guarded at the 3-pt line, as does Claire Sheehan. But, things might get a bit more clogged near the basket. On the other hand, other players may work on their 3-pt accuracy during the summer.
The second highest Titan pts/min ratio, by the way, was Sarah Cotner's 50/89. Interesting.
Another eyebrow-raising stat is Nikki Preston's .639 on 2FG attempts, 23/36. Not bad.

[RogK]

The Carthage website has a preview for '08-'09. It contains good news for the Lady Reds : both Carlie Janowiak and Lisa Gartelos have a year of eligibility remaining and are expected back.
I will amend one of my earlier posts, which was based on erroneous assumptions on my part. Oops.