MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Green Beer]

https://cciw.org/news/2026/10/15/bluejays-named-2026-27-cciw-mens-basketball-preseason-favorite.aspx

Blue Jay's number one in the preseason poll with Titans close behind. Just can't overlook the fact that Cleveland is gone, but Trelenberg is back as a grad.

[markerickson]

Happy that Vance and Vuckovic are back!  I know nothing about the other Serb. (Unknown to me) Mustaf Rexhepi from Niles North, coached by Glen Olson...his son set records at Niles North, which is a good program, and Reid plays for Wheaton.  I talked to Olson at the Wheaton game about some of his players I coached in baseball.

Sergio McLain Jr.     and whole lotta other transfers.

[Gregory Sager]

Happy that Vance and Vuckovic are back!  I know nothing about the other Serb. (Unknown to me) Mustaf Rexhepi from Niles North, coached by Glen Olson...his son set records at Niles North, which is a good program, and Reid plays for Wheaton.  I talked to Olson at the Wheaton game about some of his players I coached in baseball.

Sergio McLain Jr.    and whole lotta other transfers.

I don't think that Moose Rexhepi is a Serbian-American. Quite the contrary; "Rexhepi" is a 100% dyed-in-the-wool, no-doubt-about-it Albanian surname. That's reinforced by the fact that his given name is "Mustaf".

Call an Albanian a Serb, and you could wind up in a world of trouble. Same thing the other way around.

[Gregory Sager]

The Robbie Harman era unofficially begins this evening, as NPU will travel to the other side of the inland sea to face Robbie's alma mater Central Michigan in the first of two D1 exhibitions that the Vikings will play this season.

I have zero expectations for this contest, other than that the Vikings will undoubtedly get walloped tonight. The Chippewas trounced D2 Saginaw Valley State, 99-62, nine days ago in another exhibition, and there's no reason to believe that the Park is capable of putting up a better fight in Mount Pleasant than SVSU did. Doesn't matter, as the point of traveling all that way to face CMU is team formation, both by putting on the uni and playing together in a game situation for the first time and by the experience of that very long busride itself.

[Gregory Sager]

Central Michigan 88
North Park 44

Didn't think it'd be pretty, and it wasn't. The Vikings did have the lead eight minutes into the game before the inevitable kicked in, so I suppose that they could hang their hats on that. But it doesn't appear that Robbie Harman was trying to impress anybody at the school where he once starred, as he treated this game more as an opportunity for everybody on the team to taste the D1 experience than as a chance to quasi-impress people by working his rotation players heavily and only losing by 25-30 points. As it was, 17 Vikings saw the floor tonight, all but one of them for at least five minutes of tick, and only two Vikings, Jerome Smith (25 minutes) and Mike Vuckovic (23 minutes) were out there for more than half the game. Vuckovic led NPU in scoring with 13.

[GusD]

Happy that Vance and Vuckovic are back!  I know nothing about the other Serb. (Unknown to me) Mustaf Rexhepi from Niles North, coached by Glen Olson...his son set records at Niles North, which is a good program, and Reid plays for Wheaton.  I talked to Olson at the Wheaton game about some of his players I coached in baseball.

Sergio McLain Jr.    and whole lotta other transfers.

I don't think that Moose Rexhepi is a Serbian-American. Quite the contrary; "Rexhepi" is a 100% dyed-in-the-wool, no-doubt-about-it Albanian surname. That's reinforced by the fact that his given name is "Mustaf".

Call an Albanian a Serb, and you could wind up in a world of trouble. Same thing the other way around.

I can confirm with *100% certainty* that Rexhepi is indeed a no-doubt-about-it Albanian name. More specifically, it's a Kosovo Albanian name where the ethnic Albanian population native to Kosovo comprises 91.8% of the population.

**The 100% certainly stems from the fact that my source is Mustaf's sister Luiza from whom I recently leased a new car, and with whom discussed a wide variety of topics ranging from cars to ethnicity of names to basketball. 😊

[Gregory Sager]

Happy that Vance and Vuckovic are back!  I know nothing about the other Serb. (Unknown to me) Mustaf Rexhepi from Niles North, coached by Glen Olson...his son set records at Niles North, which is a good program, and Reid plays for Wheaton.  I talked to Olson at the Wheaton game about some of his players I coached in baseball.

Sergio McLain Jr.    and whole lotta other transfers.

I don't think that Moose Rexhepi is a Serbian-American. Quite the contrary; "Rexhepi" is a 100% dyed-in-the-wool, no-doubt-about-it Albanian surname. That's reinforced by the fact that his given name is "Mustaf".

Call an Albanian a Serb, and you could wind up in a world of trouble. Same thing the other way around.

I can confirm with *100% certainty* that Rexhepi is indeed a no-doubt-about-it Albanian name. More specifically, it's a Kosovo Albanian name where the ethnic Albanian population native to Kosovo comprises 91.8% of the population.

**The 100% certainly stems from the fact that my source is Mustaf's sister Luiza from whom I recently leased a new car, and with whom discussed a wide variety of topics ranging from cars to ethnicity of names to basketball. 😊

This is not a secret to a lot of non-Albanians. I've heard Robbie Harman yell at Moose in practice to "use that big Albanian voice of yours" to call out screens. And I'm pretty sure that Robbie isn't Albanian.

[markerickson]

Just prior to my departure to Lisbon and then Copenhagen, Greg wrote, "I don't think that Moose Rexhepi is a Serbian-American. Quite the contrary; "Rexhepi" is a 100% dyed-in-the-wool, no-doubt-about-it Albanian surname. That's reinforced by the fact that his given name is "Mustaf".

Greg simply did not do his homework before writing.  The second Serb is Marlo Arnatovic from Glenbrook South, certainly not Rexhapi.

[Gregory Sager]

Just prior to my departure to Lisbon and then Copenhagen, Greg wrote, "I don't think that Moose Rexhepi is a Serbian-American. Quite the contrary; "Rexhepi" is a 100% dyed-in-the-wool, no-doubt-about-it Albanian surname. That's reinforced by the fact that his given name is "Mustaf".

Greg simply did not do his homework before writing.  The second Serb is Marlo Arnatovic from Glenbrook South, certainly not Rexhapi.

Seriously, Mark? I "didn't do my homework" about the team whose games I call?

I could've told you everything you wanted to know about Marko (not Marlo) Arnautovic. In fact, I could've told you last year as well, because he was on the team in 2025-26. He did not get into a varsity game last season, and he's likely to be strictly JV again this season. His dad is former Vikings backup center and fan favorite Bojan "Cube" Arnautovic, who now has a very successful kitchen and bath company in the north suburbs called Custom Marble Design. Always love to see a former Viking doing well for himself!

[Gregory Sager]

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2026-27 season is upon us.

Friday
Millikin vs. Dubuque (@ Aurora), 6 pm
Lake Forest @ North Park, 7 pm

Saturday
Thiel @ Carthage, 1 pm
Elmhurst @ Ripon, 1 pm
Millikin @ Aurora, 2 pm
UW-Whitewater @ Carroll, 4 pm
Buena Vista @ Augustana, 5 pm
MSOE @ Wheaton, 7 pm

Interesting how the two CCIW programs with new head coaches are the two that are playing tomorrow on opening day.

[iwu70]

Good luck to all the CCIW teams this year.  Hoping for many wins and few injuries. 

IWU'70

[Gregory Sager]

Lake Forest 88
North Park 79

Mike Vuckovic: 21 pts, 8 rebs
Marquis Vance: 16 pts
Jerome Smith: 15 pts
Ty Wooton: 8 rebs

The Vikings gagged and spit out the bit this evening. Up by 14 in the second half, they eased up on the gas pedal -- and that's never a good idea on a night when your opponent is killing you on the boards but just can't make shots. Eventually they started falling for the Foresters, LFC coach Matt Griggs put his men in a 1-3-1 zone that NPU couldn't solve, and suddenly a game that looked like it was going to be a Vikings blowout went bad on them really fast.

No excuses for this one. First game or not, this was a bad loss to a team that had lost its two 20-point scorers from last season. North Park looked confused and undisciplined down the stretch, and the Vikings were just plain outworked. Robbie Harman will be cracking down on them pretty hard this coming week in practice, I'm sure.

[markerickson]

Me thinks you doth protest too much, Greg.

Thanks for impartially calling the #2 npu v #4 wheaton soccer game.  Vikings victorious in SO!

[GoPerry]

Wheaton 101
MSOE  71

Soren Richardson  30 pts, 7 rebs, 5 asst
Brady Wynja  12 pts, 12 rebs, 5 blks
Reid Olson  17 pts
Devin Martin 13 pts, 6 asst, 2 to

Isaac Wit  17 pts
Ethan Johnson 15 pts 8 rebs

Solid start to the season for the Thunder.  Interesting look deciding to bring Kyan VanderWoude off the bench to supply some second string scoring beside Olson.  It will be adjustment for KV, but could work well for Wheaton if he really embraces the role of not starting but still getting starters minutes.  Soren was typical Soren tonight to start his senior season.

A bit of the same story from last season – plenty of offense.  We'll see if they can stop teams defensively.