MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Bengalsrule]

No problem Bopol. Its all good!

Take care buddy. Maybe we will meet in Salem!

Well, if B-State can hold up their end of the bargain, I'm sure we will.

Well I won't say that Buff State will "sure" ly be there.  But we are gonna try our hardest. Heck if we do meet it might be the first time that 2 midseason "OK" teams meet in the Final Four!

[iwu70]

Wheaton @Wash U January 2nd, a key game upcoming for both teams, both programs.


IWU70

[iwu70]

And, NCC gets a shot at #1 WI-SP on New Year's eve.  Another important game, for regional issues, perhaps being on the bubble, down the road.  Point still undefeated.  Go get'em Cardinals.  Will be interesting to see how NC matches up with the current, supposed top team in the country.  Sure Glad Landon Gamble is back from France in time.

Titans resting and getting fully healthy -- next up Franklin @The Shirk, January 2nd.  Rest that ankle, Nick Anderson.  Let's hope Zimmer is doing Yoga or Tai-chi or Pilates or something -- to get that back to behave.  Good to have another game, a warm-up game on the 2nd, before the CCIW campaign starts @EC on the 4th.

IWU'70

[Pat Coleman]

From Thursday's Kenosha News ...



Kelly glad to be back with Red Men

BY ANDREW HORSCHAK
ahorschak@kenoshanews.com

KENOSHA — Boarding an airplane bound for sunny Florida would make anyone smile at this time of the year.
Happy faces — many of them members of the Orlando-bound Carthage men's basketball program — filled Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport on Wednesday morning, but the biggest smile most likely belonged to Malcom Kelly.
Then again, the Carthage senior guard probably would have been beaming from ear to ear had he been boarding a flight to Vostok Station, Antarctica.
...

Kovacevic -- I'm a little slow catching up to this on the board after covering the Stagg Bowl for D3football.com last week but I ask that you please just provide a couple of paragraphs and a link out to the story rather than copy and paste the entire thing here. We like when people respect the paper's copyright. (Even if they put the entire story behind a pay wall, which happens more and more these days.)

[veterancciwfan]

Random thoughts after returning from Holland: Holland's downtown is simply fantastic-a high class city. Hope has to be the best 3-5 D3 team in the country. They start 2 outstanding soph. guards and a 6'6" freshman forward. They will improve and could be a tough team to contend with if they win the MIAA's automatic bid. For the 1st time this year (I'm assuming-didn't look at the 9 previous boxes), IWU's bench was outscored, 32-26. Bryce Dolan played what was maybe the most efficient 18 minutes of any IWU guard in recent memory. 17 points including 5/7 on 3s. He kept IWU in the game in the 1st half by making all 4 3s and adding 2 FTs. IWU used its 3-point shooting to seal the game. It's nearly impossible for any team to win when it is outscored by 27 on 3s (12 3s v. 3 Hope 3s). After 10 games, IWU is outscoring opponents by an average of 16.5 ppg solely on 3s. 2 other factors which have resulted in huge improvement this year compared to last year: IWU is averaging 11.6 TOs and is shooting a solid .722 from the line. Those were IWU's bugaboos last year.

[John Gleich]

Hope has to be the best 3-5 D3 team in the country.

Massey agrees (though I'm not sure that I put that much stock in Massey this year... there have been lots of score inconsistencies, though Amherst's loss to Emerson finally showed up today. Wooster's loss to Arizona Christian - and their win against Westmont - aren't listed) though it does include the result against Grand Valley State as an actual game.

I wonder if that was one of those "exhibition for us but not for you" games... because it's not listed on Hope's schedule, but it IS listed on Grand Valley's...


Anyway, Massey says that Hope has played the toughest schedule in the country up to this point. They're slotted in at #77 (though 3-6... the Grand Valley result (6 pt loss) may be skewing this pretty severely) and the next 3-5 team is Heidelberg (#111), who has played the 9th toughest schedule (and one of those losses is to Miami of Ohio).

Arcadia is next at #141 (11th toughest schedule), Albright (#175, 71st toughest schedule)...


Interestingly, there are only two 4-4 teams ahead of Hope. Randolph Macon is #47 (26th toughest schedule) and Louisiana College (3rd toughest schedule, according to Massey, though they're really 4-2, with two exhibition losses to Louisiana Lafayette and McNeese State, completely negating their schedule ranking, I would think).

So, not only is Hope the best 3-5 team, they're the SECOND BEST 4-4 team, and the second best 4-4 team who isn't 4-4 after Louisiana College (though this is hard to argue... One could make the argument that UWSP, Wooster, or IWU are the best 4-4 teams who aren't 4-4....)

[Mr. Ypsi]

Even aside from Massey's errors, it is still too early in the season to give it much credence.  By February his model works pretty darned well - just not yet!

[iwu70]

Warm congrats to IWU's Zman on CCIW Player of the week.  Glad to see it.  Two double/doubles, and good overall play by Andrew over the weekend in Holland.  Katy Seibring was honored on the women's side, too, so an IWU sweep of CCIW kudos this week.  A good way to go into the Christmas holiday, feeling confident.  IWU women have two games now down in San Antonio, Texas to finish up their gauntlet of tough games.  IWU men have Franklin, @The Shirk, January 2nd.

Let the CCIW race begin!

Merry Christmas to all!

IWU'70

[veterancciwfan]

Interesting stat from the NCC/Buffalo State game: NCC was only 5/21 on 3s. What a schedule for #1 USP. They play two 8 pm games on Dec. 28 and 29 in Las Vegas and have to be at NCC on New Year's eve for a 4 pm game at Merner. That's a demanding schedule to say the least. Seeing Stephen F. Austin appear on this board brings back the NAIA days when the Lumberjacks and Midwestern (Wichita Falls, TX) were always seeded and hard to beat in Kansas City. Strangely, the NAIA seeded only the top 16 teams and then randomly picked the unseeded 16 remaining opponents in the 32-team tournament. That's how the 1970 IWU team got to play #1 Kentucky State with Elmore Smith and Travis Grant- strictly luck or lack thereof. Old new dept: Wash. U. beat Coe by 62-59 and got outrebounded 48-41 in St. Louis on Dec. 15. Coe is an average team or a little above. Don't see them winning the Iowa conference's automatic bid. I think Wheaton has a decent chance to win on Jan. 2 on the road if there 3s are falling. A big if. Neither Wash. U. or Wheaton are very deep IMHO.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Interesting stat from the NCC/Buffalo State game: NCC was only 5/21 on 3s. What a schedule for #1 USP. They play two 8 pm games on Dec. 28 and 29 in Las Vegas and have to be at NCC on New Year's eve for a 4 pm game at Merner. That's a demanding schedule to say the least. Seeing Stephen F. Austin appear on this board brings back the NAIA days when the Lumberjacks and Midwestern (Wichita Falls, TX) were always seeded and hard to beat in Kansas City. Strangely, the NAIA seeded only the top 16 teams and then randomly picked the unseeded 16 remaining opponents in the 32-team tournament. That's how the 1970 IWU team got to play #1 Kentucky State with Elmore Smith and Travis Grant- strictly luck or lack thereof. Old new dept: Wash. U. beat Coe by 62-59 and got outrebounded 48-41 in St. Louis on Dec. 15. Coe is an average team or a little above. Don't see them winning the Iowa conference's automatic bid. I think Wheaton has a decent chance to win on Jan. 2 on the road if there 3s are falling. A big if. Neither Wash. U. or Wheaton are very deep IMHO.

I always wondered about that!  I think IWU was a top 4 team that year.  And (comparatively, we shut down Smith and Grant), and got beat by Bill Grant!

Kentucky State went on to win the next two tourneys after that one.  As I recall it, Sheldon Thompson (6'4"?) out-rebounded 7'1" Elmore Smith, and Travis Grant was held to his lowest point total of the season.  And a guy I had never heard of goes off and beats us!

Smith had a brief career in the NBA; Grant was a brief star in the ABA, but they quickly caught one to his one-trick pony.

[iwu70]

Ahh, those were the days -- long trips to KC to watch the Titans.  That loss to Kentucky State by the Titans must be one of the best games, even as a loss, in Titan history.   We had some great times over there, with 8-10 fans in each hotel/motel room, plenty of Coors in the truck coming back to campus.  Let's say we were rather "un-reconstructed" in those days.  Fred Evans and Sheldon Thompson could rebound the ball.  And, Tommy Gramkow could shoot it. 

Is that the last year that a Titan team was undefeated in the CCIW? 

IWU70

[Mr. Ypsi]

Ahh, those were the days -- long trips to KC to watch the Titans.  That loss to Kentucky State by the Titans must be one of the best games, even as a loss, in Titan history.   We had some great times over there, with 8-10 fans in each hotel/motel room, plenty of Coors in the truck coming back to campus.  Let's say we were rather "un-reconstructed" in those days.  Fred Evans and Sheldon Thompson could rebound the ball.  And, Tommy Gramkow could shoot it. 

Is that the last year that a Titan team was undefeated in the CCIW? 

IWU70

Yes.  The last time ANY CCIW team was undefeated was Augie in 1973.

We've now gone 40 straight years without an undefeated team - will this year be the one?

[AppletonRocks]

Even aside from Massey's errors, it is still too early in the season to give it much credence.  By February his model works pretty darned well - just not yet!

What is their Dunkel rating?   

[kiko]

Ahh, those were the days -- long trips to KC to watch the Titans.  That loss to Kentucky State by the Titans must be one of the best games, even as a loss, in Titan history.   We had some great times over there, with 8-10 fans in each hotel/motel room, plenty of Coors in the truck coming back to campus.  Let's say we were rather "un-reconstructed" in those days.  Fred Evans and Sheldon Thompson could rebound the ball.  And, Tommy Gramkow could shoot it. 

Is that the last year that a Titan team was undefeated in the CCIW? 

IWU70

Yes.  The last time ANY CCIW team was undefeated was Augie in 1973.

We've now gone 40 straight years without an undefeated team - will this year be the one?

No.

[veterancciwfan]

From the looking way ahead dept.: Suppose that on Sunday, Mar. 2, 2014, WSP and IWU are the 2 best teams in D3. Is it possible that the D3 Tournament Committee would give each a bye and put them in opposite brackets? I'm guessing no due to geography and travel costs. But last year, the committee arranged the brackets so that 3 teams from the NESCAC made it to the
quarterfinals (elite 8), so the committee can do anything it wants. I'm guessing that travel costs were a positive factor in the 3 out of 8 NESCAC result in 2013.