MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[iwu70]

Well, get to 78 and win the game, but tonight it was Carthage that got there.  The Firebirds over IWU 80-65.  Carthage playing well, shooting it much better than the Titans.  IWU had good defense but a poor night offensively. 

For CC:
R. Johnson 26 and 12
Daun 19
AJ Johnson 18
Schlesinger 11

CC at 41%/48 from three/77 from the line

For IWU:
Colak 21
Cleveland 14 and 9
Lawrence 11
Funk 11 rebounds and 6 blocks, with IWU with 11 total blocks

IWU at 38%/only 21% from three/ 63% from the line.

IWU had trouble with FT shooting and with fouling tonight. 

The CCIW race is tied at the top with six games to go.  IWU to 15-4, 7-3. 

'70

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 84
Carroll 82

Mike Vuckovic: 20 pts (6-8 FG, 6-7 FT), 12:4 a:to
William Bates: 13 pts (6-8 FG)
Julian Campbell: 10 pts (5-7 FG)
Lazario Cornish: 3 blks

Michael McNabb: 26 pts (4-9 trey)
Lamar Smith: 21 pts (9-14 FG), 6 rebs
Peyton McKenna: 11 pts

The big sticking point for North Park throughout this losing streak has been the first half. To put it bluntly, the Vikings have stunk on ice in the opening 20 minutes of each of those losses. Tonight, they came close to having it happen again, as Carroll roared out to an early 16-5 lead and Kolden Vanlandingham had to sit with two quick fouls in the game's first two and a half minutes, just like on Saturday at Wheaton.

This time it didn't happen.

North Park went on a big run, took the lead, kept it for about three minutes ... and then Carroll exploded again, stretching out to a completely new double-digit lead at 40-30. Again, NPU took the haymaker and counterpunched, climbing back into a 41-41 tie at the half.

NPU pushed out to a 14-point lead in the second stanza, only to see the Pios refuse to fold in turn. However, some key defensive stops and good FT shooting (the Vikings had a phenomenal .638/.545/.857 line as a team) allowed the Vikings to prevail, with Kolden Vanlandingham -- four fouls and all -- making a key defensive play to prevent Lamar Smith from getting off a decent attempt to tie it at the final buzzer,

TL;DR: Phew!

[GoPerry]

Augustana 65
Wheaton 71

Kyan VanderWoude  22 pts, 10 rebs
Soren Richardson  21 pts 5 rebs, 3 stls
Carson Grier  12 pts 8 rebs

Andre Klaver  14 pts, 7 rebs
Cam Atkinson  13 pts

The Thunder just had to gut this one out as they really played poorly at times and shot the ball pretty terribly.  The Vikings led for most of the game but never by more than 5-7 pts.  Richardson and Grier were in foul trouble quite a bit. But Kyan VanderWoude really picked up the slack early in the 2nd half to keep his team in it.  One of his better games among lots of good ones that he is beginning to put together.  A few late and untimely turnovers by Augie opened the door just enough for Wheaton to finally get a lead late in the game and extend.

The Thunder needed this one to not give up the tie-breaker with the Vikes.

[Gregory Sager]

Millikin won the other game tonight, 64-55, in the airplane hangar. North Central led for the entire first half, briefly by as many as 10, but the Big Blue stayed close for most of the half. They got their first lead a couple of minutes into the second half, and then the game seesawed back and forth for a full ten minutes. At that point, with the Cardinals up one and about eight minutes and change remaining, MU went on an 8-0 run over a four-minute span that proved decisive.

Lane Thomann had a quiet night, scoring-wise (eight points on 4-9 shooting), but his 17 rebounds is now the new CCIW season high, both in league play and overall. NCC also defended Millikin's other weapon very well, as Nate Straughter scored only nine points on 4-11 from the field, but Chris Ketchum (16) and Kobe Anderson (14) came through for the Big Blue. Tre Davis led the way for North Central with 15, while Sean Molloy and James Bullock each scored 11 for the Cardinals, Bullock also grabbing eight boards.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park's three-headed monster at center scored 28 points tonight on 11-14 shooting from the field, including 3-6 from beyond the arc, plus they grabbed nine rebounds and blocked five shots in their combined 38 minutes on the floor. If the Vikings can get production like that from their bigs on a regular basis, they can turn this thing around.

NPU's .638 shooting percentage from the field tonight is the CCIW's high mark in league games thus far. In fact, it's the highest shooting percentage a CCIW team has managed in over four years:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUFZfIADVPt/

It's also the seventh-highest shooting percentage a Vikings team has ever registered. Funny thing is, it's not even the highest FG shooting percentage North Park has achieved this season; the Park shot .647 against Greenville back in December, proof again (as if any was needed) that taking on a System team will play havoc with your statistics.

[lmitzel]

Millikin won the other game tonight, 64-55, in the airplane hangar. North Central led for the entire first half, briefly by as many as 10, but the Big Blue stayed close for most of the half. They got their first lead a couple of minutes into the second half, and then the game seesawed back and forth for a full ten minutes. At that point, with the Cardinals up one and about eight minutes and change remaining, MU went on an 8-0 run over a four-minute span that proved decisive.

Lane Thomann had a quiet night, scoring-wise (eight points on 4-9 shooting), but his 17 rebounds is now the new CCIW season high, both in league play and overall. NCC also defended Millikin's other weapon very well, as Nate Straughter scored only nine points on 4-11 from the field, but Chris Ketchum (16) and Kobe Anderson (14) came through for the Big Blue. Tre Davis led the way for North Central with 15, while Sean Molloy and James Bullock each scored 11 for the Cardinals, Bullock also grabbing eight boards.

Yeah, NCC went up 27-17 late in the first half, which really should have been the moment that spelled doom. Millikin outscored NCC 11-2 the rest of the half, then the Big Blue made up for a 1-5 first half at the charity stripe by getting trips to the line on four straight possessions early in the second half, making seven of their eight attempts.

Congratulations to Nate Straughter, by the way. He missed a bunny with just under six minutes left that was immediately cleaned up by Tionne Spates; I saw him laughing as he headed to the bench following a Vince Kmiec timeout. That miss kept him at 998 points for his career. He only had to wait a few more minutes, as his jumper with under two minutes to go got him to the 1000 point mark; he is the 36th Millikin player to reach that milestone.

[mwunder]

As mentioned above, CC over IWU by 15.

Some quick thoughts:
--Ryan Johnson played his best overall game of the year and was the best player on the floor for this game.
--AJ starting to find his range and isn't afraid to shoot the 15' instead of the 3 ball.
--Daun was the x-factor in this game, providing a third scoring option
--IWU gets after it on defense, seemingly getting a hand on the basketball on every possession
--Refs let them play in this game.  Lot's of banging inside.
--Carthage won the rebound battle by 16.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

As mentioned above, CC over IWU by 15.

Some quick thoughts:
--Ryan Johnson played his best overall game of the year and was the best player on the floor for this game.
--AJ starting to find his range and isn't afraid to shoot the 15' instead of the 3 ball.
--Daun was the x-factor in this game, providing a third scoring option
--IWU gets after it on defense, seemingly getting a hand on the basketball on every possession
--Refs let them play in this game.  Lot's of banging inside.
--Carthage won the rebound battle by 16.

The big takeaway for me was how Carthage marginalized Noah Cleveland - they weren't really able to slow him down on either end when he was involved in the play, but they were pretty successful keeping him out of the play a lot more than other teams have been able to do.

I'm curious is smarter basketball minds than me can learn something from the video of that game.

[Gregory Sager]

Tomorrow is going to be a very, very big day on the North Park campus. It's Hall of Fame Day, and this year, instead of inducting five individuals into the Viking Hall of Fame, the Park's five D3 men's basketball national championship teams -- 1978, 1979, 1980, 1985, and 1987 -- will each be inducted. The induction ceremony is at 10 am in Anderson Chapel (yours truly has the honor and pleasure of emceeing the ceremony), and the five teams will be honored at halftime of the MBB game, which tips off at 4:15 pm.

Of course, it's not an accident that the induction ceremony is taking place on the day that Carthage visits the crackerbox to take on the Vikings, since the individual who is the common link among those five national championship teams also happens to be the father of Carthage's head coach. (Bosko Djurickovic was the primary assistant coach for the threepeat teams and the head coach of the '85 and '87 teams.) Speaking on behalf of the threepeat teams will be their former head coach, Dan McCarrell, and their power forward, Jim Clausen, and the speakers for the '85 and '87 teams will be Bosko and, on behalf of the players, Michael "Sonny" Parker, who was the backup point guard of the '85 team and the starting point guard of the '87 team.

It should be a packed house on Saturday afternoon, with quite a bit of Jostens jewelry sitting in the bleachers. Those five national championships carry a considerable amount of weight in North Park University's identity and lore, even to this day, and having the chance to see and to celebrate the men who made those five natties happen will draw a lot of people.

As for the current Vikings, they are spending a huge chunk of their college lives practicing and playing in a gym where there are five large blue banners hanging from the ceiling that commemorate the five teams being honored tomorrow. Even at this far remove timewise, the championship legacy is as inescapable for them as it has been for all of the teams the Park has put on the floor since 1987. I doubt that the Vikings will have any trouble getting up for this game, even aside from the fact that they're playing a team that's tied for first in the CCIW standings while they themselves are in a dogfight just to secure a CCIW tournament berth.

[GusD]

No matter what happens the rest of the way, North Central is assured ofleading the conference in at least one category. The Cardinals are the only team in the CCIW to have 4 conference road games (their next four games) in a row this season. How fortunate for them! Perhaps whoever does the conference scheduling became confused during what must be an arduous process. Certainly they didn't mean to intentionally provide NCC with such a competitive advantage 😏.

[iwu70]

GusD, IWU had six road games in a row earlier in the season, mainly due I assume to IWU hosting the national D3 Volleyball tournament at Shirk in December.  IWU wraps up the season with three straight road games.  It could factor in to how well the Titans do in winning the regular season crown.  I think Carthage is obviously playing better at present.  Rebounding and poor FT shooting did them in against Carthage last Wednesday.  Ryan Johnson did play his best game of the year.

IWU'70

[iwu70]

Wash U takes down #1 Emory.

'70

[GusD]

GusD, IWU had six road games in a row earlier in the season, mainly due I assume to IWU hosting the national D3 Volleyball tournament at Shirk in December.  IWU wraps up the season with three straight road games.  It could factor in to how well the Titans do in winning the regular season crown.  I think Carthage is obviously playing better at present.  Rebounding and poor FT shooting did them in against Carthage last Wednesday.  Ryan Johnson did play his best game of the year.

IWU'70

Yes, but I'm talking specifically about consecutive CCIW games. North Central is the only conference team that is lucky enough to have 4 conference road games in a row this season. They're undoubtedly the favorite team of the conference office staff 😏. 
You're right about the difficulty of playing the final 3 conference games on the road. And, concerning IWU's FT shooting, hasn't that historically been a point of concern for the team?

[GusD]

Can't make a layup 😉?
Talk about a specialist———Casen Lawrence of IWU has taken 147 shots so far this season. Of those 147 shots, 135 or 91.84% have come from three! Never heard of anything like that. Game planning vs the Green Team should include smearing some glue on the jersey of the guy assigned to guard him. That way, when he leaks to the corner, his defender (who should never leave him), will automatically go with him.