Has UW-Oshkosh had any flooding damage this spring?  I recall they got hammered about 10 years ago when similar conditions as the current occurred.  Any Titans out there? 

Heather is ready for US Open qualifier but has been fighting a wrist injury. Hopefully not an issue in the 36 hole qualifier.

A clue on why my life is perfect......

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000706111

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on April 22, 2026, 06:49:56 PM

Quote from: PauldingLightUP on April 22, 2026, 01:01:39 PM

Quote from: tomt4525 on April 22, 2026, 11:11:16 AMUWSP assistant coach, Paul Combs, has announced his retirement.  It will be interesting to see what happens, if anything, with the assistants at UWSP.  I suppose they could just promote Dan Witter.

Very strange with his son still having two years left.

Maybe he finally just wanted to be a parent and watch his kid play and enjoy it, instead of coaching him.

With their burgeoning revenues, they probably get more assistants. Of course most of that goes to the players, not the staff. Amazing what they've done. 

Quote from: PauldingLightUP on April 18, 2026, 08:34:37 PMOshkosh reloaded with LaChapell

If she is healthy she will be dangerous.  She played with Beyer as well in high school, made the state final.

Sorry about the spelling error. Thanks for the replies

Quote from: north central on April 13, 2026, 09:42:08 AM

Quote from: Titan Q on April 12, 2026, 04:01:51 PMQ-cast with new Millikin Head MBB Coach Tom Noonan...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pau-0N2Hr7k

Titan Q As a Weslyan fan you had to be thrilled hearing his responses because you probably got the feeling " Millikin won't be good with this guy" It's crazy a guy with no college basketball playing experience is a head coach in the CCIW. Maybe the only coach in the league without college playing experience. Just all seems really weird that there weren't better options .

As an academic institution, what is Milliken's forte? Compare them to peers. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
 

Quote from: PauldingLightUP on April 11, 2026, 07:18:04 PM6'0 G Noah Maniscalco from De Pere has committed to UW-Eau Claire.

What is the Eau Claire/DePere connection?  There are 3 players I can think of in the past few years....Demovsky, Borowicz, Maniscalco. 

Why aren't they going to Point? 

Maybe the CCIW and the WIAC should lobby the NCAA that each of their top 4 teams must be in tournament. Act like Notre Dame. Start some additional cross league scheduling. with proper focus they can break off and generate their own revenue and penetrate the Milwaukee and Chicago markets. Eventually the stronger teams can go D-2. 

Quote from: PauldingLightUP on April 10, 2026, 11:08:27 AMUW-Oshkosh gets their men's basketball head coach position posted today. And meanwhile we are still waiting on an announcement from UW-Stout.

Who will handle the inbound transfer portal opportunities there? 

Not many needs but I would have thought a few WIAC players would have left Point, and Oshkosh would be a logical spot, especially since they've loaded up the NIL truck.

Any ideas on logical Oshkosh coaching hires, post them here.

 

Quote from: GusD on April 01, 2026, 10:33:21 PM

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on April 01, 2026, 04:00:11 PMMillikin would be dumb not to go after Lewis. Of course, Lewis has to be interested first.

But who wouldn't be interested in a job that not only includes a head coach position but also the opportunity to live in one of the garden spots of the Midwest? 

Talked to an Oshkosh alum today who said you were short-changing Lewis as he was the assistant to Jucken from Day 1 as they rebuilt the Oshkosh program.  It was apparently in shambles when this Coach Van Dellen left but I was early in high school then so I don't know about that.

All this was before the NCAA found Stevens Point to be a huge violator and things went off the rail for awhile.
Now all appears to be okay again.

I have moved to FL after the sale of the chicken farm so I suspect my attention to D3 will wane, but I can watch the WIAC Network still. 

Have a great summer, caddying for Heather in her qualifier in a few weeks.

Quote from: Gregory Sager on April 02, 2026, 03:54:36 PMLeaving aside the gibes at Decatur, the inescapable fact is that Millikin could be a very desirable job for someone like Matt Lewis. You'll probably retort with some remark about the ongoing futility of Millikin men's basketball, so I'll save you the trouble. Nobody's going to argue that point.

In fact, I'll preemptively back it up for you by bringing the reciepts. Let's look first at the D3 dance. The Big Blue haven't been to the D3 tourney since 1989. The next-longest current wait among CCIW programs, aside from prodigal son Carroll University -- which got there as recently as 2012 as a MWC member -- is Augustana, which last went dancing in 2019. That's 30 years more recent than MU's last participation in the D3 tourney. And the Big Blue haven't won a tourney game since the Joe Ramsey team of Barnes, Horst, Guin, Slapak, Bottorff, and that crew took down UW-Whitewater, 101-86, in the first round of the 1988 tourney. The next-longest dry spell in D3 tourney wins among CCIW programs is Carthage, which reached the Sweet Sixteen in 2010 when Steve D. was wearing a Carthage jersey rather than a Carthage polo. In other words, Steve hadn't even been born yet, and his father and mother were still coaching the North Park men's and women's basketball teams, respectively, when the Big Blue last saw the inside of a gym in March.

The Big Blue also haven't won a CCIW title since 1989, whereas all of the other non-Carroll teams in the league aside from Elmhurst have won one within the past ten years, and at least EU has won one in this century. And Millikin hasn't even finished within the top four of the CCIW standings since 2000.

Each of those four streaks of program futility -- longest period without a D3 tourney appearance, longest period without a D3 tourney win, longest period without a CCIW championship, longest period without a CCIW first-division finish -- is the longest of its kind in CCIW history.

Here's my point: A guy like Matt Lewis might decide to pursue the Millikin job precisely because the Big Blue have struggled so much for close to 40 years now. Look at it from his perspective. UW-Oshkosh is a great situation: big, well-resourced school that supports athletics very well -- the Titans are good in just about every sport -- and has a strong men's basketball tradition. Aside from a brief fallow period at the end of Ted Van Dellen's coaching tenure a decade and a half ago, the UWO MBB program had a lot of success over the past three and a half decades under Van Dellen, Pat Juckem, and then Lewis. It was Juckem who broke through and reached the season's final weekend (with Lewis as his second chair), losing the national championship game in 2018 and then decamping for Wash U, leaving Lewis to cut down the net and lug the Big Doorstop home to America's Dairyland the following March as the first interim head coach in D3 MBB history to win a national championship.

In other words, he's been to the mountaintop -- but he didn't have to set up base camp at the bottom first. He started off well up the mountain; Pat Juckem saw to that. That smacks to me of a guy who simultaneously has a national championship ring as a head coach yet still might have something to prove. Or maybe he feels that he doesn't have something to prove but still relishes the challenge of resurrecting a program that turned to dust back when George Bush -- the first George Bush -- was in the White House.

The great thing about the Millikin job is that it is a legitimate challenge, given the lamentable history of the Big Blue over the past two generations, but it's still a desirable position that draws quality applicants. Some guys are quite happy to try to build incrementally upon the success of their predecessors; others want to hack their way through the jungle and carve out a new path to success where it previously didn't exist. Either way, the bottom line is that it's a CCIW head men's basketball job, and the CCIW is a draw in the coaching world regardless of which school has the opening. The other desirability aspect is that winning at Millikin is not an impossible task. There are other coaches in other sports at MU who are having success; since we're in baseball season, look no further than what Brandon Townsend is currently doing with Big Blue baseball as an example of how the right coach can turn the Big Blue into a winner.

I don't know Matt Lewis, and I don't claim to know what makes the man tick. But I can make a reasonable inference as to why he might view Millikin as an attractive coaching position.

modified by GS for formatting

[/quote]

IWU thinks they have a very good chance of getting anyone they look at 😏.
Are you saying you think if Cleveland leaves, Johnson might transfer to IWU and take his place? If so, I think you're forgetting about the CCIW rule about not being able to play for a year if you transfer within the conference. If Johnson leaves Carthage it won't be for another D3.
[/quote]

I thought I saw some IWU coaches on TV at the McDonalds All Star Game on ESPN. 

Maybe Matt Lewis can straighten out the IWU program.  Rose couldn't get them to the Final 4.     

Quote from: Gregory Sager on March 25, 2026, 02:22:06 AM

Quote from: GusD on March 24, 2026, 07:02:23 PM

Quote from: Green Beer on March 24, 2026, 05:14:11 PM

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on March 24, 2026, 04:09:06 PMhttps://x.com/i/status/2036503295729000557

Noah Cleveland in the portal. His bro just earned CPOTY in the CUSA. Unfortunately, Zach is a senior, so he can't go play with him.

Just read that. What a back-breaker.

This really shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
There go 21.9% of IWU's points, and 25.1% of their rebounds 🤗.

"Shouldn't come as much of a surprise"? That's the understatement of the month, Mark. Heck, the only surprise is that he waited an entire day after Pat posted the All-American list.

This was well-nigh near inevitable. It's blindingly obvious that Cleveland's size and ability are suited for D1, and that D3 really offers no personal challenge for him. Watching him play D3 basketball this season was like watching the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer takes a karate class with nine-year-olds. Cleveland has siblings who went D1, so there's that motivation to portal as well. (I think I read somewhere that even his mom was a D1 athlete.) And it's my understanding that he's not a legacy, so it isn't as though there's some deep family tie binding him to Illinois Wesleyan.

After two or three games back in November we could've started a pool on this board to bet on how many days would pass between IWU's final game and Cleveland going portal.

It's 2026. This is the world we live in now as college sports fans. NIL money and the portal have changed everything.

UW Stevens Point has a lot of NIL in pocket.  Could be a move north.

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on March 31, 2026, 12:51:04 PM

Quote from: tomt4525 on March 31, 2026, 10:41:49 AMMatt Lewis steps down at Oshkosh due to a family move.  His wife got a new job.  Huge job opening that I'm sure will generate a ton of interest.  Great location for recruiting in the best D3 league in the country.

His wife has been VP of enrollment at Illinois Wesleyan all year.  I suspect the year went well enough they're willing to commit to the move.

I've been to Clinton, Illinois.  It's a nice little town.  Almost exactly halfway between IWU and Millikin.

I know nothing.  I'm just stating a fact.

Insiders like you know where he bought a house already?  Wow, that's impressive. 

I think Kent Dernbach lives in Almond. But I can't validate.

Quote from: WIACer on March 31, 2026, 10:57:01 AMUmmm! Yea. Not buying it. But, I get it. Better to move on.

Probably thought it through and succumbed to the Point NIL machine.