MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[oldknight]

True Basketball Fan:

Hope basketball fans rooting for Calvin? Only at gunpoint I think, and then with teeth gritted together and jaws firmly clenched.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

I would agree with oldknight - the biggest cheering sections for Carthage and Wheaton were the Hope/Calvin fans whose team wasn't the oppponent.  There are many of us who live by this motto:

"I'm for Hope, or whoever is playing Calvin"  and vice versa.

Sager - I knew all those biases existed when I posted it, but come on, you got let me enjoy it now (since I doubt the CCIW will be winless against the MIAA by the end of the week).  I would pick both Elmhurst and North Central to win those games.

[cardinalpride]

I would agree with oldknight - the biggest cheering sections for Carthage and Wheaton were the Hope/Calvin fans whose team wasn't the oppponent.  There are many of us who live by this motto:

"I'm for Hope, or whoever is playing Calvin"  and vice versa.

Sager - I knew all those biases existed when I posted it, but come on, you got let me enjoy it now (since I doubt the CCIW will be winless against the MIAA by the end of the week).  I would pick both Elmhurst and North Central to win those games.

FDF, I will agree with you that Elmhurst and NCC will win those contest!!   
Cardinal Pride starts with me!!
Go Cards!!

CP

[cardinalpride]

I only track Midwest Region games by league, FDF, although some of those games between your league and mine fall under the "200-mile" category. Nevertheless, I hasten to point out that the games against the MIAA are somewhat skewed by a minor detail, which is that all five to date have been played in DeVos Fieldhouse. 

I think that the CCIW was the underdog in four of those five games, and if you check the CCIW pick'em room you'll see that I'm not alone in that assessment. The only real surprise I've seen in those five games to date was Calvin's win over Carthage. Not that the pick'em room is any sort of proven barometer, but twelve of the sixteen participants picked the Red Men to win that game. In the other four games, the majority of the participants -- all but a couple of whom are CCIW fans -- picked the MIAA team to win.

There are two more CCIW vs. MIAA games coming up this week, and it's noteworthy that both of them will be on your side of the lake as well: Elmhurst @ Kalamazoo and North Central @ Adrian. My gut feeling is that these games will not be so readily picked to favor the home team in the CCIW pick'em room, though. The other two possible matchups between CCIW and MIAA teams are in tournaments; Elmhurst and Olivet could meet in the Elmhurst Bluejay Classic on Dec. 17 (Elmhurst plays Marian (WI) and Olivet plays Buena Vista in the opening round games), and Elmhurst could meet Albion in the Albion Holiday Inn Tournament on Dec. 29 (the Bluejays face Wisconsin-Superior in the first round, while the Britons square off against Concordia (MI)).

Let's see what happens next season when all of these home-and-away contracts, and the CCIW/MIAA Challenge as well, are played on the windward side of Lake Michigan. 

Frankly, I'm a lot more concerned about how the CCIW is faring against the NIIC than I am about the games against the MIAA.

Not to worry Greg!  By the end of the week, the CCIW should have a commanding lead in the series vs. the niic.  I'm predicting 7-4 in favor of the CCIW.  5-0 clean sweep this week for the CCIW!!

CP

[augiedad]

In that IWU/UC game it seems like Scott Trost's gameplan was to take away Chicago's inside game and force them to beat IWU from long range.  Looking at UC's stats, I now see why.  Coming into that game Chicago was shooting 30% from 3 as a team.  Meyer and Woodhead were 21-63 (33%) on the year with the duo just coming off a 2-11 3 point shooting performance at Wheaton.

In the IWU game, those two were 9-17 from 3.  They made IWU come out and guard them which the Titans did to start the second half and throughout the half really.  The 3's Chicago threw in in the final 3 minutes (after IWU got up 11 and it looked like it was over) were closely guarded, tough, long 3's.

The scary thing about IWU is their post defense.  They can absolutely shut down the inside game with that rotation of Freeman, Jones, Jones, etc.  That is the most athletic post rotation I've seen in the CCIW in a long time.  Per the stats, Chicago only made 13 non 3 pointer field goals in the entire game.  Of those 13, 9 were listed as "layups" - 3 in the first half and 6 in the second.  So you can see that IWU was taking away the inside, but then in the second as they had to extend, Chicago was able to go back inside a little more.

Good gameplan by Trost, good execution by McGrath's team,  good adjustments by Trost, good counter adjustments by McGrath.  Gotta love it.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Nice analysis Augiedad

[sac]

Actually I think the CCIW  challenge games involving Calvin were mostly played in front of 1500 people, 1200 of them indifferent to the outcome.

Few Calvin folks stuck around to watch the nightcap games and there were no more than a van full of Wheaton and Carthage supporters.

.....and Greg, you've got to let us enjoy a 5--0 record vs the CCIW because we all know how rare that is.

[Gregory Sager]

Congratulations to Bjorn Berg of NPU, who was named today along with Rick Harrigan of Augie as CCIW Player of the Week! Well deserved, Bjorn!

[Titan Q]

Final from Kenosha...

Carroll 82
Carthage 74


Listened to most of the 2nd half on WRJN.  Carthage spent most of the 2nd down 8-10 points and I think was behind as much as 16.  The Red Men came all the way back to tie it up twice in the final 5:00, but couldn't stop Carroll from scoring.

The only Carthage lead in the game was 2-0.  The way it sounded on the radio, Carthage was terrible defensively tonight vs Carroll.  Carthage has some talent, but the Red Men are a pretty shaky team right now.

[Gregory Sager]

Carroll's a good team (they're picked second in the MWC preseason poll behind Larry U, IIRC), but the Red Men are going to have to figure out how to beat good teams. They're not getting it done right now. Still, Bosko's probably a lot better off scheduling as tough as he has for this November and December than in putting a lot of useless cupcakes on the sked.

[augie_superfan]

Augustana   76
Rockford       69


Augie led 41-17 in the first half, shooting 60%
Rockford came back and shot 60% in the 2nd half to make it a game

Rick Harrigan:  25 pts; 8-13 shooting; 2-4 from 3pt.; 7-8 FT
McAdams-Thornton:  15 pts., 11 rebs

I didn't see or hear the game but Augie shot only 39% in the second half but were probably able to hang on to this game by great 2nd half free throw shooting, 17-20.

Joe Caricato started tonight for the injured Dain Swetalla.

Shaun Rose had a nice game off the bench with 10 pts in 18 minutes.

Also of note...9 assists to 22 TO, but Augie did have 12 steals tonight (5 by Wessels and 4 by Harrigan)

Good road win for Augie tonight

[pcarr]

I'll try to veer the discussion toward soccer again...

FYI, Wheaton's Coach Joe Bean has announced he'll retire after the 2006 season, per Wheaton's website.  It's been a great run.

http://www.wheaton.edu/Athletics/msoccer/news.html#retire


That's quite a couple weeks for us Kansas-bred Wheaties (Bryan and myself).  First Bill Snyder, then Joe Bean.  Well done to them both.

[Gregory Sager]

New poll is out; Augie moves up to #17, and Elmhurst climbs to #20, in spite of the fact that they lost a game last week.

Lawrence, which will make the drive down to K-town to face Carthage on Sunday, climbed from #15 to #9.

[True Basketball Fan]

Carthage HAS played a tough schedule early on, but it doesn't surprise me to see them flutter around at the beginning.  They have a lot of strange pieces on their team.  I know Bosko is known for being able to put that all together, but I think we'll see the same problems from the last couple of years.  And unfortunately for Carthage, with Augie, Elmhurst, IWU, being as good as they are this year (even NC), I WOULD be surprised if they jumped over any of those teams.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

One of the guys in the NESCAC board is still hoping that they'll have an outside chance at getting four teams in the tournament now that its expanded.

I assume that's an impossibility, but with the way the CCIW is performing early, do you think that its even a possibility here in d3 heaven?