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Messages - Gregory Sager

#1
Illinois Wesleyan mounted a spirited late comeback, but fell at Wartburg to the host Knights, 62-59.

And Millikin was never really in it up north of the Cheddar Curtain, as UW-Whitewater dominated its home floor en route to an 89-65 win over the Big Blue. And thus ends the career of the greatest player in CCIW women's basketball history, as Elyce Knudsen went down fighting, scoring 30 in the losing cause. Unless she comes back as an MU grad student, she ends her career with 2,280 points -- which is crazy when you consider that her freshman season was the truncated COVID year of 2020-21 in which she only got to play 13 games.

And so the CCIW, although enjoying a breakthrough year in which the league got more that two teams into the D3 tourney for the first time in 28 years, once again sees its season end in the first weekend of the tourney as per usual.
#2
On opening night of the tourney the two road teams, Illinois Wesleyan and Millikin, advance (over Concordia-Moorhead and Willamette, respectively), while the home team, Carroll, drops out with a nine-point loss to Puget Sound.
#3
This is only the sixth time since the first D3 tourney back in 1975 that the CCIW departs from the field without picking up a win (not counting the old regional consolation games played back in the '70s and '80s). The last time the CCIW was a one-and-done was back in 2007 when Augie was beaten in the first round by, ironically, Carroll. Of course, Carroll was a member of the MWC back then.

This also finalizes the CCIW's non-conference record at 40-42 for the season. It's the first time since 1973-74 that the CCIW has finished underwater.

It's been a forgettable season for this league in terms of men's basketball.
#4
The CCIW bowed out with a one-and-done tonight, as Elmhurst fell to Calvin, 93-78, at John Carroll's gym in suburban Cleveland. Calvin worked its inside-outside game to perfection, taking advantage of EU's double-teaming of 6'10" Jalen Overway (the MIAA Player of the Year who averages 19 and 10) to kick out to, and then knock down, open looks. Calvin shot 58% from the field and 57% from downtown, while defending hard enough to hold the 'jays to only 37% from the field and 36% from beyond the arc.

John Ittounas ended his fantastic two-year career as a Bluejay with a 21-point night and a flawless 6:0 floor game, while Quinn Pemberton (13 pts) and Ocean Johnson (11 pts) likewise both made their last college basketball game a double-digit scoring performance. The other two EU starters, Jonathan Zapinski and Tagen Pearson, had fairly rough and undistinguished final performances.

The 'jays didn't go down without a fight, but Calvin is clearly the better team.

John Baines has a lot of very good players that he'll have to replace in the off-season.
#5
Quote from: GoPerry on March 01, 2024, 05:14:33 PM
Quote from: Gregory Sager on February 29, 2024, 05:07:40 PM
Quote from: USee on February 29, 2024, 10:14:38 AM
Quote from: Gregory Sager on February 29, 2024, 10:07:45 AMYes, I was constantly bumping into the term "QOWI" during my 2006-07 re-read on Monday.

It felt a little like trying to decipher Middle English when I read The Canterbury Tales in college.

Is Middle English what they speak in Middle Earth? You read the Canterbury Tales at NPU? Isn't that about a golf trip to England?

You're thinking of The Cadbury Tales, where the winner of the tournament gets a box of chocolates at the 18th hole.

Maybe next season, call an entire game using iambic pentameter ...?

I would definitely need to get paid more for that.
#6
Quote from: USee on February 29, 2024, 10:14:38 AM
Quote from: Gregory Sager on February 29, 2024, 10:07:45 AMYes, I was constantly bumping into the term "QOWI" during my 2006-07 re-read on Monday.

It felt a little like trying to decipher Middle English when I read The Canterbury Tales in college.

Is Middle English what they speak in Middle Earth? You read the Canterbury Tales at NPU? Isn't that about a golf trip to England?

You're thinking of The Cadbury Tales, where the winner of the tournament gets a box of chocolates at the 18th hole.
#7
Yes, I was constantly bumping into the term "QOWI" during my 2006-07 re-read on Monday.

It felt a little like trying to decipher Middle English when I read The Canterbury Tales in college.
#8
Quote from: Pat Coleman on February 27, 2024, 08:40:25 AMThe size of the tournament changed a bit in the interim as well, right?

Yes, but I didn't want to be presumptuous and state that Elmhurst would've made it in if there had been five more Pool C berths available. I just don't remember the national 2007 scenario well enough to make that claim in 2024. And the research required to investigate and then draw that conclusion was daunting; it ate up the better part of an afternoon for me just to look up and re-read the CCIW posts from the 2006-07 season. ;)
#9
Congrats to the three CCIW entrants into the D3 tourney for turning things around for the league and providing the CCIW with the most representation in the dance it's had in almost three decades!

Congrats especially to Carroll, which will get to host a pod in Van Male for, IIRC, the first time ever.
#10
The last time that the CCIW only got one team into the dance was 2007, when Augustana, which won both the CCIW and the CCIW tourney, was the league's sole rep in the D3 tourney. Interestingly, the WIAC only got in one team that year as well.

I re-read the late February 2007 posts here this afternoon, and gave myself a headache trying to remember what QOWI* stood for.

The difference between this season and 2006-07 is that the league performed in the opposite manner back then than it did this season. This season the CCIW was underwater at 40-41 in non-conference play; in 2006-07 it went a whopping 66-22 in non-conference play. The problem was that the league absolutely cannibalized itself in 2006-07; everybody except for Augie and Elmhurst failed to reach double-figure CCIW wins and took at least five CCIW losses, leaving only Elmhurst as a viable Pool C possibility. And the Bluejays played a poor non-conference schedule (which Elmhurst head coach Mark Scherer later publicly blamed upon too many local teams refusing to play his team) that badly hurt the 'jays in the end, despite the fact that they finished the season 21-6.

* Quality Of Wins Index
#11
The only time in CCIW history that three or more teams from the league went dancing was 1996, when the CCIW had four D3 tourney participants: Carthage, Illinois Wesleyan, Millikin, and Wheaton.

The interesting thing from that tourney was that only one of the four made it out of the first weekend. That was Millikin; the Big Blue bowed out in the Sweet Sixteen.

It was also the D3 tourney debut for the Carthage and Wheaton programs.
#12
I took an interest in this story, so I've been tracking it online.

The choice of "Wynbridge" really puzzles me. On Feb. 13 it was picked from among three choices -- Wynbridge, Wynbright, and Welbright -- after "Mississippi Brightwell University" fell flat on its face. As well it should've, since the school's branding centers around its nickname, "the 'W'", and there's no capital 'W' in "Mississippi Brightwell University".

None of the three post-Brightwell choices, including Wynbridge, seem to have any sort of historical or geographical relevance at all to the school or to Columbus, MS in general. I did read one article in which some school official made a stab at "bridge" having a metaphorical meaning for an institution of higher learning, which really seems like a reach. This same source said that wyn is the Old English word for "bridge" ... which it isn't. The Old English word for "bridge" is brycg (verb form brycgian) from which our Modern English word is derived. The prefix "Wyn-" means either "pure, fair" in Welsh or "joy" in Old English.

Since it's obvious that the school's alumni are going to insist upon a new name for the school that wholly or in part contains a word that starts with 'W', so as to keep the school's traditional nickname (and, thus, its branding) intact, best find an appropriate word, and soon. It would be perfect if the school could've been renamed Welty University, after famous novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Eudora Welty (who attended the school for a couple of years about a century ago), but Welty's heirs do not want the school to be named after her.

So that leaves ... what?

Well, there's a Washington Avenue just to the east of campus, but if there's one thing that this country doesn't need it's another college or university that has "Washington" in its name -- especially another one that isn't located in the District of Columbia or the state of Washington. (We've already got four of those in D3.) A few blocks to the south of the W is a garbage collection company called Waste Pro USA, but something tells me that "Waste Pro University" would be about as welcome as a landfill dump on the campus quad.

Here's my suggestion: About three-quarters of a mile west of campus is the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a canal built in the '70s and '80s that bypasses the Mississippi River. The canal is now a major feature of Columbus. Why not call the school "Waterway University" or "Waterway State University"?
#13
For the first time in program history, North Park football now has a full-time strength & conditioning coach:

https://athletics.northpark.edu/news/2024/2/12/brad-guell-promoted-to-north-park-football-strength-and-conditioning-coordinator.aspx

I'd be interested in hearing from veterans and/or insiders of other, more successful programs as to whether or not a full-time S&D coach is a difference-maker in a D3 football program's fortunes.
#14
Quote from: lmitzel on February 20, 2024, 11:02:40 PM
Quote from: Gregory Sager on February 20, 2024, 09:56:08 PMAnother tight one pulled out by the home team, as North Central prevailed over Carroll, 58-54.

The final minute down on Carroll's side... FIVE missed layups is wild to me.

Par for the course, considering how the game started. It was like someone had shrunk the diameter of the rims in the hangar by a couple of inches.
#15
Another tight one pulled out by the home team, as North Central prevailed over Carroll, 58-54.