Millikin traveled a day later than expected down to the Gateway City, as the CCIW vs. SLIAC portion of non-conference play began with the Big Blue taking on Webster. It turned out to be a relatively no-muss, no-fuss affair for MU, as the Big Blue led the entire way en route to an 85-77 victory over the previously-undefeated Gorloks. Nate Straughter led the way for the Decaturites with 20, with Lane Thomann chipping in his usual strong 15 and 9, Ian Winkler tossing in a dozen, and McGrady Noyes pulling down 11 boards.

Augustana hosted UW-Oshkosh, and the 17th-ranked Titans had Delp's boys on the back foot almost the entire afternoon. The Titans had the lead up to 20 with nine minutes to go, and although the visitors cooled off, Augie just couldn't generate points fast enough to fully climb out of that hole. Augustana did get the lead down to six on a couple of occasions late, but couldn't convert key opportunities (despite wretched endgame FT shooting by UWO) and wound up losing, 84-77. Marieon Anderson and Andre Klaver shared scoring honors for the Rock Islanders with 11 apiece, while Ray Maurchie had 10 and 8 and Dani Romero contributed 10 points as well.

CCIW overall: 33-16 (.673)
Home: 13-9
Away: 16-5
Neutral: 4-2

vs. ARC: 0-2
vs. C2C: 0-1
vs. CCS: 0-1
vs. HCAC: 2-0
vs. MIAA: 3-1
vs. MIAC: 4-0
vs. MWC: 8-0
vs. NACC: 9-1
vs. NCAC: 2-0
vs. SLIAC: 1-0
vs. UAA: 1-1
vs. UMAC: 1-0
vs. WIAC: 2-9

Tuesday's game:

Elmhurst (5-0) @ UW-Whitewater (4-1), 7 pm

Thanks, Gordo!

UW-Stout 66, Illinois Wesleyan 58
Millikin @ Webster, ppd.
North Central @ Hope, ppd.
North Park 115, UW-Stevens Point 114 (3 ot)

CCIW overall: 32-15 (.681)
Home: 13-8
Away: 15-5
Neutral: 4-2

vs. ARC: 0-2
vs. C2C: 0-1
vs. CCS: 0-1
vs. HCAC: 2-0
vs. MIAA: 3-1
vs. MIAC: 4-0
vs. MWC: 8-0
vs. NACC: 9-1
vs. NCAC: 2-0
vs. UAA: 1-1
vs. UMAC: 1-0
vs. WIAC: 2-8

Sunday's games:

Millikin (5-1) @ Webster (5-0), 2 pm
UW-Oshkosh (4-1) @ Augustana (3-2), 3 pm

Triple overtime final from the crackerbox:

North Park 115
UW-Stevens Point 114

Kolden Vanlandingham: 39 pts (14-23 FG, 5-10 trey), 10:5 a:to
William Bates: 19 pts
Jalen Houston: 15 pts
Julian Campbell: 15 pts
Lazario Cornish: 13 pts
Mike Vuckovic: 7 rebs, 6:4 a:to

I didn't think any game I would ever call would top the Ocean-Johnson-breaks-the-backboard game at Elmhurst a few seasons ago, but this one beat it easily. The Vikings just looked woebegone in the opening half: UWSP crushed them on the board by a 21-8 tally, and the Pointers ran a far more efficient offense while the Vikings just looked static on O. It was a 17-point lead for the Pointers at the half, and I honestly had my doubts that the Vikings could get back into the game against an opponent this good. But, boy, did the Vikings show a ton of moxie. They fought their way back into it, caught up at the end of regulation (both teams had a chance to win it from the line in the closing seconds but couldn't do it), hung tough with UWSP through the ups and downs of three overtimes, and then, down by 113-112 with three seconds left in the third overtime, they fouled UWSP's best free-throw shooter, Josiah Butler (averaging 91% from the stripe for the season). He missed the first, made the second, and then, after expending their final timeout, the Vikings threw two passes up the floor to freshman Marquis Vance -- who hit a 25-foot sideline trey an eyeblink ahead of the final buzzer, a shot eerily reminiscent of Dom Trelenberg's at Illinois College a few days ago (basically the exact same spot on the floor, with the same amount of time available) to give the Vikings the win.

Quite a game, to say the least.

Millikin @ Webster has been postponed until tomorrow, with tipoff time TBA.

As of the last email update I received, which was a half-hour ago, UWSP @ North Park is still on for this afternoon at 4 pm.

NPU's women's game at Lake Forest has been postponed until Wednesday.

The other scores from last night:

UW-Platteville 76, Augustana 74, in overtime up in Lead City
Carroll 93, MSOE 80, up in Brewtown
Elmhurst 75, DePauw 71, down yonder in Greendingle

Tonight Carthage motored northward to Ripon and rediscovered its mojo by pulping the RedHawks into red sauce, 84-56. Riley Brooks had 16, Antuan Nesbitt tossed in 15, Chris Schlesinger contributed 13 off the bench, AJ Johnson amassed 12, and Riley Johnson pulled down nine boards, as the Firebirds held a lead in the low 30s over Ripon for much of the second half and no Carthage starter played more than 24 minutes.

CCIW overall: 31-14
Home: 12-7
Away: 15-5
Neutral: 4-2

vs. ARC: 0-2
vs. C2C: 0-1
vs. CCS: 0-1
vs. HCAC: 2-0
vs. MIAA: 3-1
vs. MIAC: 4-0
vs. MWC: 8-0
vs. NACC: 9-1
vs. NCAC: 2-0
vs. UAA: 1-1
vs. UMAC: 1-0
vs. WIAC: 1-7

Saturday's games:

UW-Stout (2-3) @ Illinois Wesleyan (5-0), noon
North Central (1-3) @ Hope (2-2), 3 pm CDT
Millikin (5-1) @ Webster (5-0), 3 pm
UW-Stevens Point (5-0) @ North Park (3-1), 4 pm

Good grief, a 1999 college grad sending a kid off to college next year.

Tempus fugit.

Quote from: mwunder on November 24, 2025, 02:13:28 PMA quick side note...when did the entry pass go the way of the Dodo bird and become extinct?  Multiple times during the Maryville game, R Johnson was being fronted by a defender and the wing was unable to get the ball to Johnson over the top.  Seems like a lost skill.

Posting up in general has seen a long, slow decline at this level, as motion and its derivative offenses have long since taken over the copycat world of college basketball. It's not nearly as easy as it used to be to find a big man with good hands and quick feet who has been coached with patience and proper technique at the high-school level to refine his back-to-the-basket skills. And with the decline of the low-post game as a preferred offensive option goes the decline of entry-pass skills.

You're close on the abbreviation. It's the CUNYAC. And, yes, it's a bottom-tier league in D3, and it always has been. I don't think the CUNYAC has ever won a D3 tourney game, although I'm saying that without taking the time to double-check myself. The only program in that circuit that's ever really been semi-competitive within the D3 ranks was Staten Island, but the Dolphins moved to D2 during the Covid pandemic.

However, they're adding New Jersey City to the league (it'll be the first time that the league has had a member that isn't a branch of the City University of New York system -- CUNY is a municipally-owned and -operated university) in 2026-27, and NJCU is a serious athletic competitor with a long and storied D3 men's basketball history, so that may change.

CCIW overall: 26-13
Home: 12-7
Away: 10-4
Neutral: 4-2

vs. ARC: 0-2
vs. C2C: 0-1
vs. CCS: 0-1
vs. HCAC: 1-0
vs. MIAA: 3-1
vs. MIAC: 4-0
vs. MWC: 7-0
vs. NACC: 7-1
vs. NCAC: 1-0
vs. UAA: 1-1
vs. UMAC: 1-0
vs. WIAC: 1-6

Tuesday's games:

Augustana (3-1) @ UW-Platteville (3-2)
Carroll (2-3) @ MSOE (1-2)
Elmhurst (4-0) @ DePauw (4-1)
North Central (0-3) @ Benedictine (2-2)
Wheaton (4-2) @ Manchester (0-5)

Quote from: GoPerry on November 22, 2025, 10:22:01 PMDespite the loss, there is a lot that this young team can take from it.  After a nice 4-1 start (and a loss they gifted away) this should be a reality check.  Hopefully, they have a better sense of what it will take to compete with teams that are bigger, stronger, and much better defenders than the teams they've played and beaten so far.

Mike Schauer made that pretty plain in his postgame interview. He called out VanderWoude and Grier and said that they needed to invest some serious time in the weight room if Wheaton is to become a national power over the next couple of seasons. To be fair to VanderWoude and Grier, Mike also pointed out that they're still teenagers, whereas Paider, Grieger, Derousseau, and Butler are grown men with grown men's bodies. Anybody who follows a college sport that involves contact and strength knows that the difference between the body of an 18-year-old adolescent and that of a 21-year-old man is immense.

Quote from: GoPerry on November 22, 2025, 10:22:01 PMUWL is certainly good enough to go far.  But their lack of depth is a real weakness.  They basically play 5 guys and that's it.

I was struck by how little Gritzmacher went to his bench last night. The Wheaton game was definitely an outlier for him; he'd played his bench an average of 42 minutes per game in UWL's first four contests, but his reserves only saw the floor at King Arena for 28 minutes yesterday.

Regardless of whether or not Gritzmacher starts using his bench more consistently, it's only a weakness if there's an opponent capable of exposing it enough to beat them. So far the Eagles haven't played a team that has had that capability -- and it's not as though UWL has played any lightweights thus far. When I saw all five Eagles start walking up the floor at the beginning of their possessions in the latter part of the second half yesterday like they were strolling down the driveway to check the mailbox, I knew that they had the game won -- even though Wheaton did make an actual game of it in the waning moments (thanks in large part to senior Soren Richardson). I couldn't figure out why Mike Schauer wasn't pressing an opponent that was obviously trying to conserve its energy. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Wheaton, although deeper, was just as tired as UWL was, so the Orange and Blue probably didn't have an effective press in them by then. And that goes back to my earlier point about contact and strength. Physical contact, by its very nature, significantly saps a body's energy reserves, especially for the recipient of the contact as opposed to the one who is delivering the blows.

Seems backwards to think that a team that didn't go to its bench very often could wear down a deeper opponent, but I think that that's exactly what happened at King Arena last night. And it sounds like Mike agrees with me.

Dubuque outlasted Augustana in a close-run battle of unbeatens, 88-82, at Carver. The Spartans led most of the way, but Augie was in it until the last minute when Dubuque closed it out at the FT line. Augie was paced by Marieon Anderson's 22 points, and he was joined in double figures by Andre Klaver (15 and 7 with a 5:2 floor game), Cam Atkinson (12), Jake Willems (11), and Dom Rhoden (10), while Dani Romero contributed a 5:1 floor game.

I'll let GoPerry recap the Lee Pfund title game, but Wheaton's close loss to UW-La Crosse culminates a tough day for the CCIW. The league only went 3-6 today.

Elmhurst pulled off an electrifying 73-72 buzzer-beater win over Illinois College down in Jacksonville. In a back-and-forth contest in which neither team led by more than seven points, Dom Trelenberg hit two free throws with 25 seconds left to pull the 'jays into a 70-70 tie. But the 'jays fouled IC's best FT shooter, Ty Lenhardt, with only three seconds left on the clock and the Blueboys in the double bonus. Lenhardt drained them both to give IC the two-point lead, and with two passes up the right side of the court the 'jays got the ball to Trelenberg, who sent up a falling-backwards 25-footer from the sideline up in the air -- and it swished as the backboard lit up. Trelenberg (18 pts) was the hero, but Sebastian Blachut was the leading EU scorer with 19. Luke Smith (15 and 8) and Vinnie Adjahoungbeta (10 and 9) also made noteworthy contributions to the Elmhurst cause.

The endgame did not work out so well for the other DuPage County team active in the afternoon, as North Central dropped its third home game to start the season, 73-69, to Loras. Tyler Swierczek had a chance to tie the game in the last few seconds with a trey attempt from the right elbow at Merner Fieldhouse, but his shot was well off the mark. James Bullock had another big day in the losing cause for NCC with 23, with Alejandro Diaz posting a 14 and 7 effort. Good to hear my North Park football colorman Sam Corbett on the call for the NCC webcast today, doing his usual bang-up job.

Millikin led at UW-Stevens Point for most of the second half, but the Big Blue faded in the final five minutes and ended up dropping their first loss of the season to UWSP, 69-63. Lane Thomann posted his usual healthy numbers -- 21 and 7 on this particular occasion -- while Nate Straughter chipped in 15 and Ian Winkler added 11.

Carroll was game, but game wasn't enough to get the job done, as the Pioneers dropped their second in a row to a WIAC team. This time it was UW-Oshkosh that got the better of Jannsen's boys at Van Male, 85-76. Michael McNabb again led the way for CU with 23 points, while Jacob Naber turned in a 13 and 10 double-double performance, Peyton McKenna scored 13 as well, Lamar Smith was the lone scorer off the bench as he gave the Pios an 11 and 7 day, and Dennis Estepp had 11 as well.

This was a really tough weekend for Carthage, as the Firebirds return from the Appalachian foothills with two losses in their baggage. Today it was another ranked team, Mary Washington, that got the better of the Firebirds, as the Eagles broke a halftime tie with the first six points of the second half and never relinquished that lead. Riley Brooks, coming off of a really bad performance yesterday, put the 'birds on his back today with a 23 and 10 effort, but Riley Johnson (13 and 14) was the only other Firebird who supported Brooks effectively, as Carthage shot an anemic  .328/.179/.625 line.

North Park 76
Anderson 75

Mike Vuckovich: 18 pts (4-7 trey)
Julian Campbell: 18 pts (9-12 FG)
Jerome Smith: 11 pts, 5:0 a:to
Kolden Vanlandingham: 10 rebs

This was a toothache of a game to watch (and I watched it silently in the second half, as the Anderson student PBP broadcaster was unbearable), but the Vikings pulled it out after trailing most of the game. With 11 seconds left and the game tied at 75, Kolden Vanlandingham, who was invisible at the offensive end of the floor most of the day, drove to the basket and was fouled. He missed the first FT, made the second, and then the Vikings made a sturdy stand at the other end of the floor, forcing AU's Elijah Mattingly to settle for an off-balance fadeaway from the FT line at the buzzer that was well off target.

The Vikings had a really hard time negotiating Anderson's very active 2-3 zone, which their coach has gone back to using after a one-season hiatus. They were only 1-11 from downtown against the zone in the first half, and threw away a lot of passes trying to hit cutters along the baseline. The best efforts they had were when they put Tyvin Garrison at the high post to make it easier to dump down to Julian Campbell on the low block. Anderson, which ran hockey shifts to keep everybody fresh, did a great job of getting out in transition and punishing the Vikings with easy baskets, which is definitely something NPU will have to clean up.

Jerome Smith was the unsung hero for NPU today. He swished three treys in the first 30 minutes that kept the Ravens from running out to huge leads, did a great job of getting the ball into the low post or finding the baseline cutter, and just generally was a calming and steady influence for his teammates on the floor. Campbell was the main gun in the first half, and then Vuckovic took over in the second half.

Ugly win while it was happening, but in retrospect any road win looks pretty.

Quote from: GusD on November 22, 2025, 02:42:48 PM

Quote from: Gregory Sager on November 22, 2025, 12:17:58 PMToday's games:

Carthage (2-1) vs. Mary Washington (5-0) *, 2 pm
Illinois Wesleyan (4-0) vs. Kenyon (3-1) **, 2 pm
Elmhurst (3-0) @ Illinois College (2-3), 3 pm
UW-Oshkosh (2-1) @ Carroll (2-2), 4 pm
North Park (2-1) @ Anderson (1-3), 4 pm
Millikin (5-0) @ UW-Stevens Point (4-0), 5:15 pm
Loras (2-1) @ North Central (0-2), 7 pm
Dubuque (3-0) @ Augustana (3-0), 7 pm
UW-La Crosse (4-0) @ Wheaton (4-1), 7:15 pm

* at Washington, PA
** at Albion, MI

The Loras @ NCC game is at 4:15, NOT 7:00

One of these days I'll finally learn my lesson and I'll stop trusting the CCIW MBB page for accurate tipoff times.