MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Congrats to Mike Vuckovic upon being named CCIW POW for the second time this season.

[Green Beer]

IWU played poorly, stupidly at Elmhurst.

IWU'70

After that final sequence, my wife is like "why didn't they just lob it in to Noah?" I can only shrug on that one. There's a reason I'm not a coach (several reasons), but gosh (using nice language) I would've drawn up a play to get it into Noah's hands.

...and that total rookie technical...

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ Then, 24 hours later, Greenville plays at Elmhurst. Maybe not as much fun to watch, though.

48 hours?

Oh, right. My bad.

[Greek Tragedy]

IWU played poorly, stupidly at Elmhurst.

IWU'70

After that final sequence, my wife is like "why didn't they just lob it in to Noah?" I can only shrug on that one. There's a reason I'm not a coach (several reasons), but gosh (using nice language) I would've drawn up a play to get it into Noah's hands.

...and that total rookie technical...

I don't know what the play was, but Noah was just 4-10 from the line.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 138
Greenville 117

Marquis Vance: 32 pts (15-17 FG), 3 stls
Mike Vuckovic: 27 pts (11-18 FG), 3 stls
Jerome Smith: 18 pts, 6 rebs, 9 asts, 3 stls
Kolden Vanlandingham: 17 pts (7-8 FG, 3-4 trey), 8 rebs, 4 asts
Tyvin Garrison: 11 pts, 7 rebs
William Bates: 11 pts (5-7 FG), 4 asts

With the Vikings banged up (three rotation players out with injuries), I was a little worried that the Park might get worn down by the frenetic pace of a System game. Not to worry. The Vikings broke the school records for most points (previous high 126 vs. Bishop in 1986-87), most made FGs (55, breaking the old record of 51 set against Greenville in 2021), and most assists (39, previous high 35 vs. Rust in 1989-90).

It wasn't the typical game against the System. The Vikings didn't pass up trey attempts, which System opponents often do so that they can maximize their layups and avoid empty possessions. And this Panthers team doesn't hesistate to drive to the basket with a lot of frequency, contrary to System tradition. But the Vikings did well enough from downtown (9-25, .360) to make it worth their while to take those shots -- and they still shot .647 from the field as a whole, the sixth-best overall FG percentage in program history, so they weren't seriously damaged by all of those trey attempts. I'm particularly happy that the Vikings were essentially a wash with Greenville in the steals and turnover departments; NPU's a:to ratio was 1.63, which is outstanding against a System team.

Marquis Vance became the third Viking in program history, alongside Roshawn Russell (2008-09) and Juwan Henry (2013-14), to score 30+ in a game as a freshman. He and his fellow Killer V's Mike Vuckovic and Kolden Vanlandingham are only the second trio of Vikings to each score 30+ in a game in the same season; North Park All-Americans Michael Harper, Modzel Greer, and Michael Thomas did it in the second year of the threepeat (1978-79), and that's pretty darned good company to be in.

Best of all (aside from the win, of course) was the fact that Vance was the only Vikings starter to play more than 19 minutes today. And he only played 23. I don't think that Ed McGhee was looking for his team to break any school records; he just wanted to keep his starters healthy and give some newbies a chance to see the floor for the first time. In fact, Trey Vanlandingham got more minutes for the Vikings today than his big brother Kolden did. And Trey, along with fellow frosh Harrison Long, scored his first career points. I was especially happy to see junior guard Caleb Newman splash a trey in the final minute for his first varsity points after toiling in anonymity on the North Park JV team for two seasons.

John Baines and the entire Elmhurst team were in the gym today (I gave them a shoutout on the air, since they constituted over half of the attendees in the sparsely-populated crackerbox; nobody's going to set attendance records on a super-cold day when the game is scheduled for a weekday afternoon tipoff and the home team's school is on Christmas break.) I'll be curious to see how the Bluejays fare against Greenville on Wednesday, and how Millikin deals with the Panthers on Friday. This is definitely a busy and challenging week for George Barber and his team.

I felt that my voice held up pretty well. Now I'm gonna watch the game on CCIW Network and count up all of my on-air mistakes.

[iwu70]

No CCIW team in the top 25, new poll.  IWU dropping out, now ORVs.  Can we say the CCIW is "down" this year?   

Yes, IWU should have gotten off a shot with 11 seconds remaining, either getting it in the paint to Cleveland, or putting the ball in Funk's hands to make a play.  Poor shooting all game, and truly stupid play at the end.  Yes, Cleveland's poor FT shooting can also be a problem.  So many things for the Titans to clean up if they want to be a top 25 team this season.

A very tough challenge on Thursday at #5 Wash U in St. Louis.

IWU'70