Wednesday, February 27, 2013

NCAA Tournament Preview: Centre College @ North Central College

Monday morning saw the reveal of the 62 team men's Division III basketball tournament. While I still don't know why they won't add two more at-large bids just to make it even, the field nonetheless remains a very good one. As a testament to the strength of the CCIW again this year, 2 other teams made it along with North Central in Illinois Wesleyan and Wheaton, neither of which surprises me. To paraphrase Wheaton coach Mike Schauer, if you can get through the CCIW at 13-1 you deserve to be in the tournament, and Wheaton is always a tough out.

One of the things I like about the tournament besides everyone theoretically having a shot at a national title is that at least at the D-III level, the NCAA cares about travel costs and as such, wants to keep travel for games to within 500 miles so they don't have to worry about flight costs. As such the brackets are set up more regionally than at the highest level. So in the grand scheme of things, my initial feeling of being "shafted" by the NCAA make a little more sense now. But let's take a look specifically at the 3 rounds NCC would have to survive on the road to Salem.
Even the folks at D3Hoops called this the "Bracket of Death". Wisconsin-Whitewater is the defending national champion and they loom in Round 2 should the Cardinals make it. Washington-St. Louis was a second round foe of North Central in last year's tournament, and Illinois Wesleyan is still there, staring us in the face. And if any of the road teams can pull upsets, you know they have to be talented. But tournaments aren't won on paper, and you actually have to play the games. As such, here's what we're looking at on Saturday.

Centre College at North Central College
Gregory Arena- Sat. March 2, 2013- 7pm

About Centre College
From Danville, KY
21-5, SAA Champions

At a glance, I think the only tournament team Centre faced was Transylvania, but they did win that contest, so that legitimizes the Praying Colonels to an extent, plus 21-5 is 21-5. Looking at numbers, this team reminds me a lot of North Central in terms of the depth and balance, except North Central has a lot more experience.

Looking at the roster, the guy who scares me most is Josh Karsner, a sophomore forward who's only 6'4" but has a good inside-out game and shoots a team-leading 45% from outside. Their freshman center Blake Scinta leads the team in scoring at 6'8" but can also shoot a little bit from outside (32%). Their backcourt holds most of their experience though, with Bryon Ellis and Donovan Whiteside proving to be additional scoring threats. This team also plays good defense, allowing under 58 points a game (slightly better than North Central) and is also significantly better at closing out games at the free throw line (74% on the year, with 3 major players over 80%).

This is going to be a physical game, but I like North Central here. They know how to play this style and have ground out multiple wins against physical CCIW foes. They've been to the Dance before and know what it takes to win. But what gives North Central the edge is the way the seniors stepped up down in Bloomington, as well as the resurgence of Jack Burchett off the bench for the Cardinals. He played huge roles in the wins over Wheaton and Augustana this past weekend, and with the depth North Central has, I think they'll just be a little too much for the Colonels. Underrated part of this as well: Merner has a tendency to get really loud for games like this. It's going to be awesome.

Friday, February 22, 2013

CCIW Championship Preview

I've been involved in North Central Basketball for 6 years now. Of these 6 years, North Central has been in a total of 6 conference tournaments out of a possible 12, and this is the first time since 2009 that both the men and women made the cut to play for a conference title and a shot at the CCIW crown. So with the tournaments starting up today in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Bloomington, Illinois, I wanted to preview both tournaments.

Women's Basketball
Predicted: 11-14, 5th in CCIW
Actual: 13-12, 4th in CCIW
CCIW Tournament Program

I knew the potential was there for this team but I wasn't sure honestly if they were going to be able to sneak their way into the tournament, but here they are. The conference wasn't too deep overall this year, since North Central got in with a 6-8 CCIW mark. They beat the bad teams (Augustana and Millikin), split with the rivals for this final spot (North Park and Elmhurst), and got swept by the other teams in the tournament.

Due largely to sheer shot volume, this team led the conference (and I think also the nation) in scoring, but also gave up more than their fair share of points. Going up against tough opponents like they will tonight (and tomorrow if they pull an upset) tended to lead to numerous easy layups for the opposition. But of the 6 games against tournament foes this season, the home date with Carthage was the closest game and it showed the Lady Reds were vulnerable, but they played an awful game that night and it showed when Carthage blew them out up in Kenosha.

Either way, given the change in system this year with a lot of youth on this team, to have snuck into the tournament the way they did is a good sign for the future, even if tonight doesn't go as planned. They still have a lot of key players with a year or 2 left, so this team probably isn't going anywhere, especially if recruiting stays in good shape.

Lucas' Prediction: First round exit, but a bright future ahead for this team.

Men's Basketball
Predicted: 20-5, 1st in CCIW
Actual: 22-3, 2nd in CCIW
CCIW Tournament Program

I guess I went a little conservative with both of these teams, underestimating each by a couple wins, but what I really didn't expect was the kind of run that Illinois Wesleyan went on in conference play, running the table up until Tuesday when North Central took care of them in overtime. I only got to see a half of play from this team, but North Central can ball.

Looking at the numbers though, this team doesn't seem like quite the same squad as last year, though I think they are a little deeper. CJ Goldthree's transfer and Kevin Gillespie's graduation took away some key guys, but the return of Jack Burchett and the quick development of guys like Brandon Williams and Jack Merrithey made up for those losses. The scary thing looking across the past two seasons is the drop in shooting percentages outside of Landon Gamble continuing to be the best offensive big man in the conference. 3 point percentage dropped as a whole from last year to only 34%, with Aaron Tiknis regressing to the mean (he shot over 50 percent last year from outside and is down to 35 this year) and Vince Kmiec not shooting quite as well (down to 31%). The more concerning number is free throw percentage though, as the team is shooting just 66.5% from the line. Landon Gamble has improved from there but Derek Raridon is shooting and uncharacteristic 77% on freebies (he's been automatic in the past).

This team is still tops defensively in the CCIW and their 3 losses on the year all came on the road in conference play. Wheaton won at their place but needed overtime, Wesleyan won at the Shirk Center already, and the Cardinals had an uncharacteristic loss to Carthage up in Kenosha, albeit with some injuries. This is going to be a very competitive tournament, and really any of these teams have a shot at winning.

Given the Cardinals' national ranking over the course of the season being no lower than 11th (they are 5th right now) and their 4th place ranking in the region (never mind that we learned again this year that regional rankings are total crap), they should make the Dance again regardless of what happens in Bloomington. Wesleyan and probably Wheaton both will likely see play beyond this weekend as well, and I wouldn't be too surprised if Augustana sneaks in as well, but it's always nice to secure an automatic bid. I talked to Clark Teuscher of North Central and he told me he did put in a proposal to be a host site for the NCAA Tournament, but we won't find out if they will host anything until Monday, so I may have more basketball writings coming up.

Lucas' Prediction: Winners of CCIW Tournament, Host at least one round of NCAA Tournament games, Elite 8.

If you can't make it out to Bloomington or Kenosha (and trust me, I was tempted to make the drive up to Kenosha tonight), my old friends at WONC Sports will be calling both of North Central's games tonight. The men take on Wheaton at 5:00, while the women battle Carthage at 7:00. The guys they have out calling these games are all well-trained and definitely know what they're doing (let's just say I chose the leadership of that department before I graduated well) and should bring a great picture of the game and hopefully 4 wins this weekend.

Good luck to Coach Raridon, Coach Roof, and all the players taking part this weekend. Go Cardinals!

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Game Notes: North Park University at North Central College (2/16/13)

Final Score
NPU 91, NCC 89

Game Summary
In what was, objectively, a great game, the Cardinals (12-12, 5-8) got the first points on the board before the Vikings (14-10, 5-8) came back to take the lead and would be up by as many as 7 in the half. The Cardinals kept it close, only trailing by 2 going into the break after a Callie Rezin layup. The second half was a complete back-and-forth contest where neither team led by more than a couple possessions. In a game with 9 ties and 13 lead changes it seemed destined to come down to the last possession... which it did (see below).

Key Stats
  • Kamauria Acree (NPU): 9-15 FG (1-1 3PT), 1-1 FT, 20 pts, 6 reb (3 ofr), 6 ast, 2 stl. North Central had just tied the game with 9 seconds left and North Park had possession before calling timeout with 5.8 seconds left. Then, in a sequence that will probably haunt my nightmares for a while, Acree ended up with the ball, drove down the left side and got an uncontested layup with a tenth of a second left to win the game. A phenomenal second half where she got to the basket at will certainly set it up, as did overaggressive defense by the Cardinals, though she took advantage and earned that basket.
  • Sarah Peterson (NPU): 12-20 FG (2-3 3pt), 5-5 FT, 31 pts, 11 reb (2 ofr), 8 ast, 5 blk, 5 stl. Peterson played really well, but I didn't realize she finished with a quintuple-nickel until looking at the box score. Her three's were wide open and came at critical times, and she was lethal down low. A great game for her.
  • NCC Free Throws: 10-20 (50%). In this tight a game, free throws are huge, so to only hit half of them is not a good sign. Put the Cardinals at their season average of just over 65 percent, that's an extra 3 points, which would have been enough to win. Alas.
North Central System Watch
  • Line Changes: At least 40. I lost count again given the ending, but it was the pace we were on. Coach Roof really had to shuffle the lines tonight with only 13 players playing due to injuries.
  • NCC 3pt: 15-35 (42.9%). I'm pretty sure that's the best line all year. This was a good shooting night from deep for this team, and most nights this would win you the ball game were it not for missing a lot of layups and free throws.
  • NPU Turnovers: 28. A good number once again for this team, with 11 coming off Cardinal steals and it led to 23 Cardinal points. NCC did turn it over 22 times themselves though, which didn't help.

Final Thoughts
From an objective standpoint, this was a fantastic game. From a North Central standpoint, I felt like I got punched in the stomach. This was a painful way to end the home slate. I felt bad for all the seniors tonight, especially Jenny Swanson seeing her reaction after the game. Of all the games in any sport I've ever attended, this was probably the worst loss I've ever suffered as a fan.

On the whole though, it's been an honor to get such a good seat to see this team this year. I've been skeptical of a lot of things with this squad and the over reliance on the press and the three this year, but this has truly been a fun team to announce for, especially when the shots are falling. They went 6-6 at home this year, 5-5 with me behind the mic (I was sick for one game and out of town for another), and this team isn't going away with as much youth still remains.

Tonight was Senior Night and I did want to take a moment to honor the 3 seniors going out tonight. Emily Murphy was an excellent presence down low and has been a good leader for this team while bringing consistency every night (she finished with 6 points and 3 boards). Jenny Swanson is one of the best shooters I've ever seen, and it was an honor to get to rebound for her warming up even if her numbers this year don't reflect that (they did tonight, with 9 points on 3 treys and 3 boards). And Sophie Newson is one of those players that does all the little things and is thee master of the charge (she drew at least a couple and should have had more, also finishing with a team high 14 points and 7 boards). Drawing charges is a dying art and something I hope other players pick up on next year.

To Coach Roof, her assistants and players, and to NCC's SID Clark Teuscher and AD Jim Miller, thanks for letting me make a fool of myself for another season doing something I love, and I hope to be back again next year!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Feeding the Paterno Trolls

I'm breaking one of the most important laws of the Internet, but I can't resist. It's a topic I've touched on on more than one occasion, and one to revisit again today.

This morning the Paterno family released a report to counter the finding Louis Freeh made last year. In what came as a total shocker, the report pretty much absolved Joe Paterno of any and all responsibilities for the heinous crimes of Jerry Sandusky. It's entirely possible they also made some other wild claims, though those are disputed (note: this link is satire, and is not meant to be taken with any degree of seriousness).

While I admittedly did not read through the entirety of the Paternos' report, I did read most of the first 40 or so pages. Honestly, to completely dismiss this report as biased garbage would not be smart, as one could argue the Freeh report was much the same since it was commissioned by the Penn State Board of Trustees. The attorneys who contributed to this most recent report did have some good claims.

The main argument that seems to be used here is that Joe Paterno was duped into believing that Jerry Sandusky was actually a good man who cared about kids.
"The entire Penn State community, including Joe Paterno, was fooled by Jerry Sandusky. Joe Paterno missed the red flags of child molestation, and he never believed Sandusky was a child molester due to the proven behavioral and psychological dynamics and blind spots created by 'nice-guy' acquaintance child sex offenders. This case, if analyzed correctly through the lens of criminal and psychological research, can serve as a model for the public to learn how to identify and prevent child sexual victimization...
"Expert analysis, not surprisingly, shows that such a profile is not unique to Sandusky. It is common in many other case studies of prominent child molesters who hide in plain sight by cultivating and leveraging community trust to escape detection, even in the face of key signs that, in hindsight, indicated child abuse. That fact — the cognitive disconnect between what the community believes it knows about one of its well-regarded members and its inability to reconcile and accept what it later learns about signposts of child abuse — is a behavioral, medical, and psychological reality that repeatedly allows pedophiles to explain away complaints of inappropriate activity. Often, recognition of child molesters is even more difficult for those colleagues or friends who work or socialize most frequently with the child molester, as their own personal experiences and belief that they know the person well in some capacity allows them to accept alternative explanations in the absence of training on how to identify a sophisticated and manipulative child molester." -pages 9-10
To an extent, I can buy this explanation. Sandusky would have done everything in his power to paint himself as the character he did to keep his access to children. But that argument can only hold water for so long in the context of the situation.

These attorneys also attack the core of Freeh's evidence in the emails that were sent, in particular attacking their specificity. It's a good move as well; Freeh does make assumptions about the emails referring to Joe Paterno, though this is where the attorneys' case falls apart in my view.

This is the issue I can't get past. In 1998, Sandusky is investigated by the authorities for reported child sexual abuse. Ultimately nothing comes of it since the authorities supposedly don't have enough to go off of here. Emails are sent about about the incident saying "I have touched base with the coach" and "Coach is anxious to know where it stands." While these are most definitely vague and don't necessarily refer to Joe Paterno, to assume he didn't know about this incident is asinine. Sandusky was still on the football staff at this time. Paterno would surely have known his defensive coordinator was being investigated, either from other Penn State staff or from being contacted by the authorities. On the off chance he didn't know, the administration is not doing a good job keeping the inside of their house in order and we still have a lack of institutional control.

Fast forward to 2001 and the Mike McQueary incident. The attorneys claim that Paterno's elevation of McQueary's story to his bosses is enough, but they claim Paterno "promptly" told his superiors. While he claimed he didn't remember exactly when he told his superiors, Paterno explicitly said during his grand jury testimony, "I ordinarily would have called people right away, but it was a Saturday morning and I didn’t want to interfere with their weekends." This at best shows the misunderstanding the attorneys argue for with the "acquaintance child sex offender" point, but I think there's more to it than that.

Let's say the attorneys are correct with their following conclusion:
"(1) Joe Paterno never asked or told anyone not to discuss or to hide in any way the information reported by Mike McQueary; (2) Joe Paterno never asked or told anyone to limit the investigation of Mike McQueary’s report in any way, and (3) Joe Paterno never asked or told anyone, including Tim Curley, Gary Schultz and Graham Spanier, not to report Mike McQueary’s story as deemed appropriate."-page 26
The following fact still remains true, and this is ultimately what convinces me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Paterno, Curley, Schulz and Spanier (and even Mike McQueary) are all guilty. These men (other than McQueary with the possible exception of Paterno if you want to give this new report the benefit of the doubt) all knew about the 1998 incident. To hear about another incident in 2001 from a completely different source would lend credence to the first report, even if law enforcement dropped their investigation, and would have given not only Paterno, but all those men the responsibility to get police involved again. They didn't, and a pedophile was allowed to roam free for another decade.

The Paterno family has the right to point the finger elsewhere, as there are other responsible parties that still have to answer for what they did and what they failed to do. But they also need to look deep inside themselves and realize their dear patriarch, for all his "I didn’t come to work every day for sixty-one years. I was sick a couple days, and there were other things, like when David [Paterno’s son] got hurt. I don’t know if I’d say that’s completely honest," moments of integrity, this black spot still remains on his legacy. As John Kincade said before we really realized just how deep this went, we need to take everything about Joe Paterno with regards to his legacy: both the men he shaped and the young lives he allowed to be destroyed.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Game Notes: Illinois Wesleyan University @ North Central College(2/6/13)

Final Score
Illinois Wesleyan 102, NCC 69


Game Summary
In my first game back from sick leave, the Cardinals (11-11, 4-7) started out pretty well despite being shorthanded (Michelle Todd and Tonisha Ellington were out due to injury), standing up to the small ball lineup of the Titans (15-7, 8-3) to have a couple small leads early before Wesleyan took over with a big run to go up 27-11. Then the Cardinals caught fire and went on an 11-0 run and used that momentum to pull within 1 at 31-30. The Titans went on a big 17-4 run to end the half up by 14. They came put of halftime on fire and the game was never in doubt the rest of the way.

Key Stats
  • Illinois Wesleyan: 6 players in double figures, 3 players with double digit rebounds. Led by Katy Seibring (25-11) and Taylor Reaber (17-15), the Titans were dominant offensively. They were constantly able to break North Central's press to the point where Coach Roof finally called it off with a good chunk of time left. Even then the Titans showed excellent ball movement. The Achilles heel though was their long range shooting (0-10 from deep).
  • Illinois Wesleyan: outscored NCC in the paint 84-32. And now we get to the main reason why the above happened. The player that impressed me the most on Wesleyan with this last night was Colleen McMahon (16 pts on 8-11 shooting). I can't tell you how many of her shots were pull up jumpers from about 6-8 feet, which was brilliant against a charge artist like Sophie Newson. It also underscored North Central's unfortunate flaw in its system in allowing tons of easy baskets. They add up.
  • Emily Murphy (NCC): 4-8 FG, 2-3 FT, 10 pts, 5 reb (3 ofr), 1 blk. Emily had probably the best stat line last night, but it was a real struggle offensively against a really good zone defense for the Titans but was able to get a few good buckets towards the end.
North Central System Watch
  • Line Changes: At least 40
  • NCC 3PT: 9-39 (23.1%). This is about par for the course for this team, but they used a few of these threes in their run to pull within one. Unfortunately the rest of the night most of these weren't falling.
  • IWU Turnovers: 25. For a team of this caliber, 25 isn't bad. A good chunk of these were traveling calls, which were liberally whistled both ways in the first half. NCC by comparison had 26.
Final Thoughts
At one point in the first half I was bold enough to think we had a shot of winning. Wesleyan was struggling on layups and free throws and we were getting hot. Then Coach Mia Smith called a timeout to stop the bleeding and it effectively stopped. But credit this Cardinal team for not giving up despite the overwhelming odds.

NCC has one home date left, and that's against North Park on the 16th. That's probably the toughest game left on the slate. Carthage had already locked up a tournament berth and just needs a win and Wheaton loss to ensure Tarble Arena steals the CCIW Tournament from the Shirk Center in Bloomington. Wheaton and Wesleyan both locked up berths with their wins last night and that last spot can easily be NCC's. If the Cardinals win out, it's theirs.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Looking Ahead: 2013 NFL QB Power Rankings

I spent most of my weekend at home sick and missed out on getting to North Central for basketball, but I was feeling better on Sunday in time to watch what really turned out to be a fun Super Bowl. I'm happy for Ray Lewis getting to go out with a ring, and given the whining out of San Francisco and 49er fans around the country. Short, simple note: given A), the way the officials called the whole game; and B), the fact that there was definitely some mutual contact on that 4th and goal play, it was a good no call. The players were allowed to play (maybe to a fault, given some of the fighting that occurred) and in a mutual contact situation, don't throw a flag. Simple as that. Baltimore clearly outplayed San Francisco for most of the game and made the critical last stand at the end.

So with the NFL season now complete and I look for other stuff to write about, I was finally coaxed into a thought I had been having when I saw ESPN's SportsNation having fans rank the 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL (I'm assuming as of Week 17 for the non-playoff teams). SportsNation collectively showed a pretty good knowledge of the quarterbacks, and you can see their picks compared to mine here. I will go through my list below. I place a pretty high priority on postseason success, some of which relies on more than the quarterback, but at the same time quarterback play is a major indicator of how good a team is.

Ironically, Nathaniel had the same idea for today. It's like we're best friends or something.

Like Bill Simmons did with his QB rankings, I will put them in tiers, only I'm basing mine on quarterbacks from my Madden Franchise Mode that I am now a full 7 seasons through. The stats I include below (coming soon) for each tier are based on actual quarterback play over the course of these players' time in this virtual NFL.