WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Pat Coleman]

Feature on the front page of interest to Final Four participants and fans here.

Faces of a champion

[RogK]

For those who don't know, Audrey Minott (mentioned in the above feature) was Millikin's senior point guard three years ago when they won the whole thali.

[RogK]

Hoosier Titan and anyone else,
If it's not too soon after the abrupt end of IWU's '07-'08 season, can you look ahead to '08-'09? What do you foresee?

[Hoosier Titan]

Rog,

Will do.  It will be a while coming from me.  We are on spring break here this week, and my teaching schedule is such that my times to work out don't overlap with many of the basketball people.  But there's only a few weeks left in the semester, so perhaps in a few weeks' time I'll know a bit more.  And perhaps others more in the know than I will post sooner.

It was some small comfort to see UWW continue their winning ways--I wish them success this weekend!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Congratulations to Lindsay Ippel, the Central Region Player of the Year!

However, no other CCIW player made first, second, or third team.  I have to assume the IWU SID never got around to making nominations, and I wonder how few conference SIDs voted.

[Pat Coleman]

Actually, the CCIW voted well, as did the WIAC. Each had two schools that didn't cast ballots. Heydorn got a fair number of votes but I think the strength of the WIAC was evident to the voters this year.

Evidently the voters thought averaging 13.1 points and 2.9 assists, shooting 39% from the floor and 38% from downtown against IWU's slate was not as impressive as averaging 11.7 points and 2.7 assists, 53 from the floor and 48 from downtown against UWW's slate. Tough call.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Fair enough - I'll stop assuming the SID was to blame!

It seemed odd that a team which finished the regular season 25-2 and ranked 7th in the country would have no one place even on the third team.  I guess when all 5 starters average between 9.8 and 13.8 ppg, the balance precludes individual awards!

[But it's great for the win column! ]

[RogK]

I wonder if Christina Solari may belong on the all-region team. Some of her stats : 11 pts avg, .624 FG%, 9.8 rebs (an excellent 40 per 100 minutes ratio), 60 steals (.085 per min, which is very good), 87/71 assist/turnover ratio. She's not a shot blocker, which can go against her as a center. But, sometimes a steal is better than a block.

On a different topic, here are some CCIW conference-only numbers that may interest three or four people.
These are 'FTs allowed' as a pct of 'total points allowed', which might tell us something about coaches' defensive philosophies.
Carthage  .282  (234/830)
Wheaton  .233  (200/857)
Elmhurst   .222  (219/986)
IWU          .221  (181/818)
NC            .217  (197/909)
NP            .203  (208/1027)
Millikin      .189  (156/827)
Augie       .126  (128/1012)

I conclude that C's Tim Bernero doesn't object to fouling someone rather than allowing an easy basket. At the other end, A's Bobbi Endress seems averse to sending the other team to the line a lot. The other six coaches don't vary a great deal on this particular issue, it appears. Now, it could be that some coaches discouraged fouling because of limited bench depth.
(adding a little more on this) --- decided to look at Carthage's data more closely --- taking out two games vs North Central (who scored 58 of 119 pts as FTs), Carthage's numbers for the other 12 games are 176/711 (.247) and would still lead the league. But there was not a consistent pattern. It matters how aggressive the opponent's offense was, too.

[Hoosier Titan]

About the all-region selections--I'm assuming the stats Pat quoted were those of Heydorn v. UWW's point guard.  It seems a little unfair to compare them head-to-head and discount one when other players from teams IWU and UWW could both have beaten (and did, in some cases) were selected.

That said, Mallory Heydorn didn't end the season on a high note.  The Achilles tendon bothered her for a long time, and then there was a sprained thumb.  She had a really off game against UWW, so her case wasn't strengthened by strong performances down the stretch.  Although I have confidence that Mallory is one of the best point guards around, I can see why she might have lost a few votes.

The two Titans who played strongest in the conference tourney were the two left off the all-conference team, Claire Sheehan and Christina Solari.  And the only one who played anywhere near her usual level against UWW in the final game was Christina Solari (7 for 9, 16 points, 8 rebs, 4 assists, 2 turnovers, 1 block, 1 steal).  So I agree with Rog.  And Solari's omission from the all-conference team seems like even more of an oversight now.   Christina's achievements this year are even more impressive when one remembers that she was, effectively, playing her first year of college basketball.

[jshoops]

Just looking at the 2007-08 minutes/points indicates IWU has a terrific core of 3 players to build around and mentally anchor this team next season.   

Claire and Mallory are seasoned vets and should be able to pick up the scroing slack brought on the the graduation of Bull and Dye.  Christina should also look to score a bit more and teach those sophmores how to rebound like her.  Collen will need to step up her game because there appears to be a number of sophmores who will be pushing her for some minutes.   This team is full of promise, there are 8 players 5-10 and better, a couple in the guard positions too!  That will create some matchup problems that IWU can use to their advantage.

NO. NAME POS. HT. YR.
10 Claire Sheehan G 5-7 Jr. 13.8 pts/ 27.5 mpg
11 Mallory Heydorn # G 5-7 Jr. 13 pts/ 27.1 mpg
53 Christina Solari C 6-0 So. 11 pts/ 24.5 mpg
33 Colleen Caplice C 5-11 Jr. 4 pts/ 12.4 mpg

32 Hope Schulte G 5-10 Fr. 4.4 pts/ 10.3 mpg
21 Nikki Preston G 5-10 Fr. 4.1 pts/ 9.1 mpg
34 Sarah Cotner C 6-1 Fr. 3.3 pts/ 5.9 mpg
52 Stacey Arlis F 5-11 Fr. 2.1 pts/ 5.3 mpg
42 Lia Anderson F 5-11 Fr. 1.7 pts/ 4.6 mpg
20 Holly Harvey G 5-8 Fr. 1.6 pts/ 7.3 mpg
40 Jessica Hinterlong F 5-10 Fr.  0.3 pts/ 4.3 mpg

I think we're all Christina fans here and I've been saying all year, what a come back year she had!  Threee new IWU season records in rebounds, steals, FG%, and led the team in assists, while playing the 5 position.  Wow.

[RogK]

jshoops, your mention of Solari's rebounding led me to check all of the CCIW full-season stats to see how other players did.
I arbitrarily decided to look only for players who averaged at least 30 rebounds per 100 minutes played. I only excluded players who played less than 5 minutes. Surprisingly, only six players made the list :

C Solari (IWU)            284/710  40 (per 100 min.)
L Anderson (IWU)       26/65     40
Kelly Brooks (Whe)     40/117   34
Michelle Gilliard (EC)   37/114   32
Maegan Skahill (Aug) 146/483  30
Kate Schmidt (NC)      45/149   30

An obvious caveat is that it is unknown if the players with fewer minutes than Solari and Skahill could sustain that level of rebounding over a higher amount of playing time. But it's an interesting list anyway.
I hadn't noticed how well Wheaton's Brooks was rebounding during her brief appearances.

 

[Pat Coleman]

About the all-region selections--I'm assuming the stats Pat quoted were those of Heydorn v. UWW's point guard.  It seems a little unfair to compare them head-to-head and discount one when other players from teams IWU and UWW could both have beaten (and did, in some cases) were selected.

I compare them head to head not because they played each other but because the UWW player was the last guard on the list.

[Hoosier Titan]

I compare them head to head not because they played each other but because the UWW player was the last guard on the list.

Oh, right.  That makes sense.

[RogK]

Congratulations to Lindsay Ippel, 1st team All-American.
She will have to rent a 9' x 14' storage unit to hold all her awards!

[Hoosier Titan]

I have some news on IWU's pre-conference schedule for next year.  They will go to Puget Sound (#23 in the final d3hoops poll) to play in PS's tournament.  Chicago (#19 in the final poll) and NAIA Missouri Baptist have also been added to the schedule.