The Division III football playoffs near this weekend, but another season is about to get underway. Today marks the official start of basketball season for the division, and that means I need to prepare my vocal cords for a seventh year of their gradual destruction.
I used this feature last year, and I'm bringing it back again for use on the main site (there's no way to make it available on mobile, so if you read this on your phone you'll need to enable the full site). On the right sidebar with my post archives you'll find near the top I'm going to have standings for the CCIW all season long, with plans to update every day, or close to it. It will be easier once conference play starts, but overall it should be a good tool to keep tabs on the action.
Every year I've done a preview of North Central basketball, but it's only been the last couple years where I've split the women's and men's previews into their own posts. We'll start on the side I've been with for longer and take a look at the women's team first.
North Central Cardinals
2016-17: 14-11, 8-8 CCIW (T-5th), missed CCIW Tournament
2016-17 Recap
You can read a full recap from right after the season here, so I won't go into full detail. Last year's team had some injury woes, with Mayson Whipple missing the entire 2017 portion of the schedule, Diamond Calicott missing several games, and Jamie Cuny being in and out with a shoulder injury. It hurt the team a little bit as they were knocked out of tournament contention with three games to go, but they won their final three games, including the last two on the road against conference tournament teams, to salvage a .500 record in conference. It marks three straight winning seasons for the Cardinals, a feat not accomplished by the program since 1990. There are some fairly significant losses as mentioned in the aformentioned recap, but some good pieces are still in place for the upcoming campaign.
Key Returners
The biggest returner is one I already mentioned:
Mayson Whipple was averaging 12.3 points and 4.5 assists per game before she went down last season, and from what I've seen in the preseason, there's no reason to think she can't pick up where she left off. She's going to get some relief and assistance at that spot from sophomores
Jessica Dahle (6.2 points per game last year) and
Lyndsay Brennan (3.2 points, but the team leader in assists with 71). There are some good sharpshooters in place from last year as well with senior
Michaela Reedy (5.1 points per game) and junior
Siarra O'Neill (7.4 points and a team leading 37.7 percent clip from beyond the arc).
Jordan Bradley (0.9 points and 0.5 rebounds) and Maddie McHugh (1.5 points and 0.7 rebounds) also figure to get more time and should be improved. In the frontcourt, with the departures of Jamie Cuny and Anita Sterling, someone will need to step up at the 5.
Maya Walls looks to do just that, building off a freshman season where she averaged just 2.9 points per game but also pulled down 3.2 rebounds per game, a number that will almost certainly go up. The 4 spot looks good this year with
Diamond Calicott, who missed the final five games but still averaged 4.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game as a freshman, returning to be a key figure, along with
Natali Dimitrova (6.0 points and 3.3 rebounds per game) as a key figure. Expect to also see some significant time for sophomore
Hannah Vitkus (1.7 points and 1.7 rebounds) and junior
Selena Juarez (1.8 points and 1.2 rebounds) as well.
New Faces
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| Photo by Mark Ukena (Chicago Tribune) |
The most significant new faces here are actually on the bench. Top assistant for the last five years, Doug Porter is out, replaced by
Mark Youngs, who spent the last few years at Monmouth in D-I. He has experience with up tempo offenses, so a lot of things from prior years probably won't change too much.
Eric Gruber, who's done some color commentary for WONC and NCTV, takes over the GA chair. In addition to these coaching changes, there are a few new faces in uniform as well. The most major of these is
Bekah Foley, a 5'10" guard out of Waukegan who can really shoot the ball and looked good in the limited action I've seen her in. She'll probably factor prominently in the rotation alongside guards
Haydn Braun and
Page Desenberg. The team also adds a couple forwards to help replenish those ranks in
Rachel Dawson and
Frankie Pettit.
Non-Conference Schedule
Last year's out of CCIW slate was not fun; I only got to work one game before the start of CCIW play as the team played almost its entire non-conference slate away from Gregory Arena. Michelle Roof made agreements for a few home-and-homes last year with the concession being the opponents got the home game first. Those rewards get reaped this year with Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Dubuque coming to Naperville, as well as the Battle of Chicago-Maple Avenue taking place off of Maple this year. The Cardinals also get Colorado College, who they played in the Tigers' tournament a couple years back, at home before they return home from a local tournament this weekend. North Central only has one true road non-conference game this year with a trip to face the University of Chicago in December. They play in two tournaments this year, beginning the season just up the road at Wheaton College's Beth Baker Classic, where they'll take on Louisiana College and Lake Forest College this weekend, and head down to Texas for UT-Dallas' New Years tournament with matchups against Trinity-Texas and Kean.
CCIW Outlook
I'd established a pecking order in my head before the coaches' poll dropped, and it mostly agreed with what my sense was. There are four tiers in the CCIW: the elite, a team a step below elite, the teams that won't necessarily challenge for the top spot, but are contending for a conference tournament berth, and the also-rans. This is also Year Two of playing three conference games in December with the return of Carroll, and last year's experiment with the schedule was fine. An adjustment, to be sure, but nothing terrible.
Starting at the top, Wheaton and Illinois Wesleyan are 1-2 in some order. The Thunder lost their best player in Katie McDaniels, but still have a couple elite players in Kelly Lawson and Devin Kyler, while adding some siblings of past and present players, which probably means they're bound to turn into All-CCIW caliber players because that's what Kent Madsen does. They'll probably be contending for the crown with a strong Illinois Wesleyan squad that boasts an All-American in Molly McGraw, and All-CCIW point guard in Rebekah Ehresman, and a bunch of good young pieces like Sydney Shanks. Obviously, the coaches were pretty split in their opinion, and to me it's a coin flip for the top spot; if you made me pick I'd go with the Titans, but it's close.
The second tier for sure includes Elmhurst, but I was intrigued with how high a lot of the coaches had Carthage. Tim Bernero is an excellent coach, Tarble Arena is a tough place to play, and the Lady Reds didn't lose any key pieces from last year. Morgan Harris made the All-CCIW First Team last year and highlights a pretty ridiculous backcourt, and one that I probably underestimated before really looking at things. Their frontcourt, led by Morgan Vukovick and Amber Roberts, are pretty tough to deal with as well, so their placing is well warranted. I expected to put Elmhurst in this group though, despite them getting slightly underestimated last year. They boast arguably the best player in the conference in Mikaela Eppard and have a good backcourt led by Jasmin Bailey, along with some good youth pieces.
North Central fits into the third tier, I would argue, given the losses sustained and some of the unproven nature of what's on the roster, but they can still contend for a spot. They'll be battling with teams like Augustana, who moved to an up-tempo style of play last year and stole the fourth conference tournament bid last season. They lose their 6'5" center Kaycee Kallenberger, but still have a lethal backcourt with Izzy Anderson and Victoria Allen. They'll need Sadie Roberts and Carly McCameron to step up if they want to make it back. The coaches are low on them, but I'd put North Park in this tier as well. They have some good pieces like Gabby Sandoval and Brie Lippert, though they're going to miss Liz Rehberger in the backcourt.
That leaves our bottom tier. Even though points-wise they nearly equaled North Central, I'd put Millikin in this group. The Big Blue finished tied for seventh last year and have some good senior pieces in Emily Schultz and Devin Curry, but this team just doesn't strike fear into my heart. Lori Kerans is a good coach and will get the most out of this team, but they don't strike me as a team that would challenge for a tournament spot, though they could surprise me. The entire conference agreed, however, that Carroll is the worst team in the league. They're coming off a one-win season, so they have nowhere to go but up, but even in Year Two of their return to the CCIW, they're kind of behind the eight ball. They're probably going to be bad, but not 1-15 in the conference bad.
Final Thoughts
Admittedly, I'm biased. You know this if you know me and know Confessions of a Sportscaster. I look at this roster, I look at the schedule to start the year, and I like what this team looks like on paper. They're pretty young and they need a lot of their younger players to step up in more major roles. But getting Whipple back is huge, and the coaching change may make things interesting in Naperville. This is a team that will be in the mix for a CCIW title. I could see them going 10-6 in conference, but honestly I could also see them going 6-10. Given the look at the early schedule, this North Central team could go into the CCIW opener with North Park at 4-0, a ton of momentum, and carry it into a pretty tough opening CCIW slate at North Park, then home for Carthage and Illinois Wesleyan before returning to the non-conference slate. Overall, I'm pretty optimistic, and I think the Cardinals will surprise some people en route to their fourth conference tournament appearance in six years.
Prediction: 15-10, 9-7; 4th in CCIW
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