From "Bubble-Out" to Dancing at Merner Fieldhouse

This has been a crazy year.

If you go back to December, with the Cardinals losing both Aiden Chang and Jack Bronec for the season, you would be forgiven to have doubts about the Cardinals' postseason hopes, even with an enlarged CCIW Tournament field. But the Cardinals clearly didn't romping through much of CCIW play, including a big win over Augustana at home. But after a couple tough home losses the week after that big win, the Cardinals were suddenly proclaimed "bubble-out" by some of the experts, something backed up by the numbers.

But then something amazing happened. Illinois Wesleyan entered the regional rankings to give North Central a couple more regionally ranked opponent results, and they took care of business on the road to lock up the #2 seed in the CCIW Tournament, earn a bye, and jump a spot in the Central Region. Even then, North Central was still on the bubble and was projected to need to make the conference title game. They knocked off Wheaton in the semis, forcing a rubber game with Augie. And to quote a wise man, "We're in, so we might as well win the whole thing."

Meet your CCIW CHAMPS @NCCMBB!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/SydPgWV5m4

— Haley Chang (@h_chang22) February 24, 2019

Photo by Steve Woltmann

Saturday was North Central's fifth CCIW Tournament championship, putting them just one behind Augustana for the all time lead. In the 14 years the tournament has been held, the host team has won it nine times. Of the remaining five tournaments won by someone other than the top seed, North Central has won four of them, including Saturday in Rock Island. This gives the Cardinals their fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament berth, sixth in eight years, and eleventh in program history.

It was nice to not have drama like in past years where I'm anxiously awaiting with bated breath to see if North Central received an at large bid. That drama also wasn't reserved for Augustana, who was probably the first team taken in Pool C as they earn yet another NCAA Tournament berth and try to make it five straight years in the Elite Eight and keep up their odd year dominance of making the title game. Wheaton, however, had plenty of it as they were towards the end of the bubble and needed some mercy from the entire committee except for the Central Region rep... as that was Thunder coach Mike Schauer and he had to recuse himself for that part of the conversation. Augie getting in made it 12 years in a row that the CCIW has gotten a team in via Pool C, and with Wheaton getting the nod, it's the seventh time in eight years the conference has gotten three teams into the Tournament.

I'd be lying, though, if I said there wasn't drama on this Selection Monday for me. And I get rewarded with an item from my bucket list.

2019 CCIW Men's Basketball Tournament Preview

To be honest, this year's preview is coming a little late. Last year I did it on a Friday and things were fine, but last year the CCIW Tournament was only four teams. This year it's six, and quarterfinal games were played on Tuesday night.

On Tuesday, the home teams advanced to this weekend's festivities. That meant eliminations for fifth-seeded Carroll, who finally got to the CCIW Tournament after falling just short in prior years, and sixth-seeded Elmhurst, who couldn't live up to preseason expectations.

With the North Central women already eliminated, I'm not touching on the women's tournament, which is too bad, because Wheaton College is on my way home from work and I'd totally go see them play the Thunder in the late semi. But enough about that; let's get to the men's tourney.

North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 3 Edition

We're just five days away from Selection Monday, and I'm excited. That means the results of this week's regional rankings are of paramount importance.

In the first week's set of rankings, I explained how this system works. Last week with the second set results against regionally ranked opponents came into play. So now at this point, the rankings from Week 1 don't matter, and the record against regionally ranked foes comes from the Week 2 rankings.

This is the last set that will be publicly released ahead of the Selection Show, so this is the time to determine in how good of shape North Central is. The standings pictured after the jump do not take yesterday's CCIW Tournament games into account, but if you're on the full website, those games are a part of the standings.

2019 NCC Women's Basketball Recap

I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to write this today. But alas, North Central lost a win-or-go-home game on Saturday, and no amount of help could get them into the six team CCIW Tournament.

And thus ends another season in the history of North Central women's basketball, but before I fill out my tax paperwork and rest my voice for the spring/summer, let's look back on the season that was.

One More to Go: A CCIW Update

Part of my annual series on North Central basketball includes a final look at the conference tournament picture. So with one more day of games on the docket, let's get to work on this.

I need to give a ton of thanks and credit to Greg Sager, play by play guy for North Park athletics and frequent contributor to D3Boards, who did pretty much all of the legwork on the various scenarios.

We've had years on opposite ends of the spectrum in the past when I've run this feature. Some years it's a simple "Win and you're in" prospect. Other years, you have teams with absolutely zero control over their own postseason fate because of the weirdness of tiebreakers. This year, with the expansion of the conference tournament from four to six, it made more games meaningful but also opened up a whole new world of clinching scenario possibilities.

Details come after the jump, but suffice it to say that the men's clinching scenarios are a lot simpler than the women's. If you're curious, you can view the CCIW tiebreakers here.

Game Notes: (WBK): Illinois Wesleyan University @ North Central College (2/13/19)

Final Score
IWU 78, NCC 68

Game Summary
This game got off to an interesting start as the Cardinals (7-17, 5-10) and Titans (20-4, 13-2) traded leads in the early going, with North Central taking an 18-13 edge late in the frame with some solid three point shooting before the Titans bounced back with some three point shooting of their own, but the Cardinals boasted a 20-19 lead after one. The second quarter saw more of the same as the two teams stayed even, going into the locker room tied at 31. But once again it was the third quarter that proved the difference, as the Titans scored six points in the opening minute-plus, forcing a North Central timeout to try and stop the bleeding, but while the Cardinals were able to cut the lead back to four a couple times, the Titans embarked on the decisive 11-0 run midway through the frame and led by as many as 18 before going into the final frame up 55-39. The deficit was too much for the Cardinals, though they did cut it to single digits a couple times before reaching the final ten point margin.

Key Players

• Maddie Merritt (IWU): 8-14 FG (1-3 3PT), 9-10 FT; 26 pts, 12 reb (7 off), 2 ast, 2 stl, 3 blk. It was another night of filling the stat sheet for Merritt, but she was once again brilliant at the line. In the Titans' two games against North Central, Merritt went 24-26 from the stripe, but she also made a ton of trouble on the glass for the Cardinals.
• Ashley Schneider (IWU): 7-13 FG (1-1 3PT), 3-6 FT; 18 pts, 6 reb (3 off), 2 ast, 1 stl, 2 blk. I'm trying to remember whether it was Merritt or Schneider, but one of the two of them prompted a comment from our official scorer about how nice her touch on her jumpers was. Given they had similar lines, I honestly can't remember, but Schneider was a nice complementary piece in this one.
• Allison Pearson (NCC): 7-14 FG (4-8 3PT), 4-4 FT; 22 pts, 6 reb (4 off), 2 ast. I think Pearson is one of the freshmen on this squad that is least talked about relative to her importance. She put up a career high in this one with an excellent shooting night, and is one of the best free throw shooters on the team. She should be another fun player to watch develop over the next couple years.

Key Stats

• NCC: 8 pts in 3rd quarter. Just days after managing only four points in the third quarter against Wheaton, this frame did the Cardinals in once again as the offense went cold, going just 4-17 (23.5%) for the quarter. That's not going to get it done against the cream of the CCIW. For the season now, the Cardinals have a -79 point differential in the third quarter, their worst quarter of the year.
• IWU: 16-31 FG in 2nd half (51.6%). I mentioned North Central going cold in the third quarter, but there's two sides, and the Titans took advantage of some size, scoring 14 of their 24 points in the frame in the paint and notching 30 in the paint for the game. Capitalizing on layups is key... and it's something North Central can struggle with sometimes.

CCIW Scoreboard Watch

• @ NPU 62 (9-15, 5-10), ELM 58 (9-15, 5-10)
• CAR 65 (16-8, 10-5), @ CRL 59 (9-15, 4-11)
• Carroll is eliminated from the CCIW Tournament
• WHE (20-4, 14-1) @ MIL (8-15, 4-10) POSTPONED
• Rescheduled for Thursday 2/14 at 7pm
• Bye: AUG (13-11, 7-8)
• With NCC's loss, Augustana clinches the #4 seed in the CCIW Tournament
• MBK: NCC 85 (19-5, 11-4), @ CAR 54 (8-16, 3-12)
• NCC clinches the #2 seed in the CCIW Tournament

Final Thoughts

I talked to head coach Maggie McCloskey-Bax briefly after the game, and I guess Titan coach Mia Smith told her postgame that she thinks the Cardinals are the most improved team in the CCIW. I have to agree, and I'm sure Maggie agrees as well, but we both wish that it had resulted in more than just five conference wins. Despite the loss though, the Cardinals are still in the thick of the hunt for a CCIW Tournament berth. I'll touch on the scenarios tomorrow with the Wheaton-Millikin game in the books as that will help narrow down the possibilities.

North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 2 Edition

We're down to the final week of the regular season now, with the second to last round of games in the CCIW taking place tonight. It's also the second Wednesday in February, which means the NCAA's new set of regional rankings just dropped.

I gave a primer on how this works last week prior to looking at how North Central was ranked on both the men's and women's sides. This week's rankings have one major difference from the first set: from this point forward record against regionally ranked opponents is now taken into account. This is an additional criteria that the selection committees use to help determine not only the rankings, but the tournament field as well. We'll touch on how this impacts things below.

Included below with the regional rankings will be updated CCIW standings taken from the sidebar of Confessions of a Sportscaster. The numbers in parentheses indicate last week's Central Region ranking for those teams.