It's weird following a playoff that doesn't have my Packers in them, something that hasn't happened since I was a sophomore in college. I'm old.
But even with them not in, we've still got 11 exciting games on tap, and I want to make sure I get a look at them all. I'll go a little more in depth than we did for the Pigskin Pick 'Em contest, but come the Super Bowl I'm hoping Adam and I will have our usual prop bets thing again.
In the meantime, here's a look at the four games coming up this weekend.
Game Summary
The Cardinals (8-4, 2-2) took early command in this one as they scored the game's first 11 points. It took the Red Men (7-5, 2-2) five and a half minutes to get on the board, but the Cardinals remained in total control, not letting the lead dip back down into double digits in the first half and leading by as many as 18, but the Red Men closed the half on a 7-2 run to make it 40-27 at the intermission. Carthage came out of the locker room stronger and used an 8-0 run fairly early in the half to make it 51-46, but the Cardinals responded with an 11-0 run to regain command. The Red Men didn't give up, cutting the lead back down to six with about five minutes to play and again a minute later, but the Cardinals put the game away with a 9-0 run over the next two minutes to win their fifth straight and even up their CCIW record.
Key Stats
Alex Sorenson (NCC): 13-21 FG (0-2 3PT), 2-2 FT; 28 pts, 7 reb (2 off), 4 ast. As far as encores go, this was pretty good. Alex fell in love with his midrange jumpers a little bit too much, but still dominated in the post as he's been doing. Carthage doubled a lot more than Robert Morris did, but Sorenson was still able to find his looks while also dishing out to open teammates for baskets. Sorenson also did quite a bit of damage against Carthage's backup big men.
Erwin Henry (NCC): 8-14 FG (2-4 3PT), 1-1 FT; 19 pts, 6 reb (1 off), 2 ast, 2 stl. The last few games, Connor Raridon and/or Sorenson have done the heavy lifting and Henry has kind of faded into the background, but he broke through in a pretty big way tonight, hitting a couple threes at critical moments to help the Cardinals take command of this one. He also did a great job on defense with his two thefts and did an excellent job helping the Cardinals control the glass.
Brad Kruse (CAR): 4-6 FG (1-2 3PT), 5-5 FT; 14 pts, 6 reb, 3 ast, 1 blk, 4 stl. There were a few options I could go with for the Red Men, but I think Kruse had the best overall game, leading the team in rebounding and wreaking a little havoc on the defensive end. Late in the game as Carthage was pressing to try and force mistakes, he intercepted a bad crosscourt pass in the backcourt and took it home with a dunk for emphasis.
CCIW Scoreboard Watch
@ IWU 72 (10-3, 3-1), Augustana 53 (10-2, 2-1)
@ North Park 70 (4-7, 1-2), Millikin 69 (8-5, 1-3)
@ Wheaton 97 (9-3, 3-1), Carroll 92 (4-8, 0-3)
@ Elmhurst 87 (9-3, 2-1), Edgewood 60
WBK: NCC Bye (3-9, 1-2)
Final Thoughts
Photo from NCC Athletic Department
I think we all knew that this one was going to be a tougher contest than what the Robert Morris game ended up being, and a lot of people were expecting this to be a really good one. The Cardinals surprised with how strong they came out on both ends of the floor. Carthage really struggled early, taking some ill-advised shots, but they really did a great job in their comeback effort. The Cardinals just had an answer for every run, and despite a subpar free throw shooting night, took home a solid win.
This now creates a nice little log jam in the CCIW standings, as the Cardinals are just a game out of first place and half a game out of a CCIW Tournament berth. Obviously it's still very early in the race and a lot can happen, but this Cardinal team is clicking right now. Their next two are on the road, but they're both winnable games against Carroll on Saturday and Millikin on Wednesday, before they return home to take on a resurgent Wheaton team on the 13th.
Game Summary
This one was close in the early going as the Eagles (5-10) were able to score on three of their first four possessions, but they struggled to contain the Cardinals (7-4), who matched them basket for basket, and took the lead for good about two and a half minutes in with a 9-0 run. The Eagles shot okay from deep to keep the game reasonably close, but the Cardinals got the lead to double digits about eight minutes in, and after having the lead hover between eight and ten, used a 10-0 run to take total control. North Central would lead by as many as 26 before a Marquel Murphy buzzer beater on the baseline made it 61-37 at the break. Alex Sorenson singlehandedly kept North Central firmly in front as he scored the first 19 Cardinal points of the second half, then sat down for a couple minutes while the lead eclipsed 30. He came back in for all of a minute before Todd Raridon called off the dogs for the second straight game.
Key Stats
Alex Sorenson (NCC): 25-29 FG (1-2 3PT), 3-4 FT; 54 pts, 14 reb (5 ofF), 1 ast. I don't know what more needs to be said, other than bask in the glory of that stat line. Coming into yesterday, Sorenson's career high was 32 points, set against Benedictine last season. He had 31 at halftime on 15-18 shooting. An overwhelming majority of his workload came against a completely overmatched interior Robert Morris defense, but he was automatic from the baseline as well. It continued in the second half, as it took until Alex was in the 40's for the Eagles to start double teaming him, and he still scored on them. He was lifted after a pair of free throws put him at 50. I turned to North Central SID Clark Teuscher and asked if the coaches knew he was two points shy of Bill Warden's all time record. He told the bench, and they made sure Clark told the Robert Morris bench that Alex would return solely to get the record. He returned with 9:30 to go, and immediately tied the record on a baseline jumper. On the next possession, Mike Pollack missed a layup, but Alex was right there to tip it home, and he was lifted at the next dead ball to an ovation and the announcement of his breaking the scoring record. His 25 made field goals is also a school, breaking the previous mark of 19 also held by Warden.
Connor Raridon (NCC): 5-9 FG (0-1 3PT); 10 pts, 8 reb (1 off), 12 ast, 1 blk. Connor joked on his way out of the locker room yesterday that he didn't score 54, but after his monster outing against Albion in the previous game, he was just as vital in this one. He helped North Central dominate the paint early, but then took on more of a facilitator role, grabbing plenty of rebounds and taking a huge chunk out of Adam Teising's lead in career assists (Connor is now 56 off the record). Even the last couple of years Connor has contributed beyond just being a go-to scorer, and the scary part continues to be that Connor still has two years of eligibility left, so he hasn't even peaked yet.
NCC: 36 assists on 47 field goals. I could have gone a number of directions with this last one. North Central shot 62.7 percent from the floor and 44 percent from three, while outrebounding Robert Morris 59-22. Any one of these stats would paint the picture that the Cardinals totally dominated this one, but the assist number is mind-boggling. This shows that overall, North Central's ball movement and finding the open guy/force feeding Alex Sorenson in the post was clicking. Said 36 assists are a school record for a single game.
Final Thoughts
The aforementioned 59 rebounds by the Cardinals in this one were also a single game record, so a ton of old marks fell yesterday. You really need to watch the tape, because it tells a lot. Robert Morris took a ton of bad shots (33 of their 77 attempts were from beyond the arc), but beyond that, on a majority of their three attempts, no one crashed the boards, so there were three or four white jerseys all in the paint to collect the rebound. A few of them were even able to be corralled on a bounce because no Eagles were even close. Really, it was about as close to a perfect all around performance as you can find.
Today’s game was a bit of a blur. We broke the school for assists too so I was getting the ball in some great spots #GoCardshttps://t.co/f0gMKmIQiO
As far as implications about this game go, it was great to get the win in a game that I thought would be much closer than it was, but as far as how it impacts the Cardinals' resume, it doesn't a ton. Robert Morris is an NAIA school, so by and large this game won't show up as a factor when regional rankings come into play. But it's a great way to close out the calendar year and extends the Cardinals' win streak to four with CCIW play resuming on Wednesday.
I've announced close to 100 women's basketball games at North Central, plus a few dozen men's games, and then factor in the dozens of high school games I announced back in my Aurora Christian days. Some day I'll do a list (probably when I work my 100th women's game), but of all of the games I've ever announced, I think this one had to immediately catapult into the top five. There's a few that involved buzzer beaters, and I've now announced the single game scoring record games for both the men's and women's teams. But this one was something special, and makes it two games in a row where history has been made.
We'll be hard pressed to make it three with Carthage coming to town on Wednesday. They're a good team near the top of the CCIW standings, though the last time these two teams met, this happened. Hopefully it's an omen of good things to come!
Last week I took four of the six games Adam and I disputed, which has pushed me to within one game of him. Like last year, I'm not necessarily aiming to win the whole group; as long as I can overcome Adam here at the end, I'm good. That said, like I mentioned last week, I'm not going to cheat. Adam sends me his picks for me to post on here, but I don't look at them until after I've already made mine. I'm not going contrarian in all 16 games in a desperate attempt to beat him; it wouldn't be fair play.
In the season finale, Adam and I disagree on a whopping nine games. Since it's an odd number, this means a tie is in play. Best of luck to you, sir! Let's get to it!
We're down to the penultimate week of the coalition picking games against the spread, and the margin is still pretty narrow.
We all had at least .500 weeks, but the gap at the top is almost as small as you can get. Adam took three of five disputed games last week to open his lead up to three games with 32 to play. He's led wire to wire this season, at least on me, though he's only up two points on Geoffrey Clark for first overall, regardless of what ESPN says. The correct standings (with my and Adam's picks being based on what happens here, adjusting for mistakes on ESPN made by both of us), as well as a breakdown of all our picks in relation to each other, can be found here.
I think it's important to note, in the interest of full disclosure, that Adam and I do not compare picks before entering them in. We each come up with our picks independently, with me making sure to at least get my picks in, though not necessarily my rationales, ahead of Adam. When he sends them to me, I want to make sure I'm not making picks based on what he's doing, or going insane over the final two weeks by looking at his picks, then going contrarian in a desperate effort to supplant him. I know my dad has said he also does his picks first before reading this weekly post so his aren't colored by the same biases. I assume the same is true of Geoff.
With the disclaimer out of the way, let's get to the picks. Adam and I disagree on six games out of 16 this week.
Game Summary
In Todd Raridon's first crack at 500 career wins, it was the Britons (1-7) who came out of the gate strong, scoring on five of their first six possessions and building an early 9-2 advantage. But the Cardinals (6-4) wouldn't go quietly into the night, fighting back and staying in the contest. Albion led 17-9 at one point, but the Cardinals scored seven straight to pull back within one, and had an answer when the Britons pushed the lead back to six. The Cardinals fought back, grabbing their first lead of the game at 25-24 with 6:51 left in the first half, and from there the game turned into somewhat of a back and forth, with each team grabbing small leads before going into the locker room knotted up at 40. Whatever Todd Raridon said in the locker room worked; the Cardinals grabbed the lead nine seconds into the second half on an old fashioned three point play and never looked back. Six minutes later the lead was ten, and a three on the Cardinals next possession signified that the game was all but in hand. North Central would lead by as many as 23, and with 2:21 to play Raridon called off the dogs, with the end of Albion's bench making the final margin closer than the second half of this game made it seem, and at double-zeros he became the 13th active coach in Division III to reach 500 wins.
Key Stats
NCC: 19-28 FG in 2nd half (73.1%). For reference, it's not like the Cardinals had a bad shooting night in the first half (10-21). They were just absolutely locked in in the second half, and it's not like this was a complete dominance in the post (32 points in the paint), though the Cardinals did dominate the paint. They were hitting jumpers left and right as well, finishing 6-13 from three for the night, including 3-6 in that second half.
Connor Raridon (NCC): 12-15 FG (0-1 3PT), 12-13 FT; 36 pts, 4 reb (2 off), 8 ast, 2 stl. On a night where the officials were calling everything, Connor adjusted and made the Britons pay at the free throw line, but he was hitting literally everything. Despite missing his one three attempt, he also took a number of midrange jumpers, and they pretty much all fell. By my count in the official play by play, he went 6-7 on jumpers not counting that three, and factoring in that a pair of those were in the paint. His 36 points are a career high, and with his eight assists he moves into North Central's top ten all time in assists with 205, and he's 68 away from Adam Teising's all time mark. That record could fall by season's end.
Alex Sorenson (NCC): 9-15 FG (1-3 3PT), 5-9 FT; 24 pts, 7 reb, 3 ast, 1 stl. Even though this was Connor's (and his dad's) night, Sorenson helped make sure the Cardinals weren't going to squander this one. He was nigh unguardable; Albion's Ryan Lowe started the game on him defensively, and he's a big dude (listed as 6'11", but he's more like 6'9" and stocky), but Sorenson loves eating those guys up. He used his speed and low post skills to dominate him and other defenders who had to challenge him due to the sheer number of fouls being called. His seven boards were also a game high.
Final Thoughts
The one major downfall to last night's game came in the first half: Blaise Meredith was fouled with just under seven minutes to play in the first half, and hurt his knee on the play. He stayed in long enough to nail a pair of free throws and was immediately lifted for Raridon. He looked to be in serious pain after the fact and did not return to the game. He's played fairly well through the first ten games of the season, but I don't know the exact nature of his injury and whether or not this is something that will keep him out for an extended period of time. We'll have to see.
I touched on it a little bit above, but this was a foul-happy game. It was physical, to be sure, but no more so than any usual game you'd see; the officials just kept whistling contact. There were a combined 48 fouls and 63 free throws, which slowed the game down a ton, yet amazingly we only had one player foul out, though both teams had to go pretty deep in their rotations in the first half due to the sheer number of players picking up a pair of fouls. I'm not a huge fan of games like that, and I'm sure if you talked to both coaches, they would have said the same.
With the Cardinals' win tonight, North Central head men's basketball coach Todd Raridon becomes one of 13 active @NCAADIII coaches with at least 500 career victories! #WeAreNC#d3hpic.twitter.com/15gctbOVzE
But this was a night about Todd Raridon and his reaching the 500 win plateau, even if he may downplay the significance of the achievement. He was already on his way off the floor as I was making the announcement about him winning number 500, but he got an ovation anyway. I congratulated him after the game, and his response was that he was disappointed so few people were in attendance (180 was the official total), though given that it's the week before Christmas and North Central's campus is pretty much deserted, it makes sense. Either way, it was a nice win for this program that got off to a slow start this season, but seems to be making some strides as we near the end of December.
The Cardinals have a nice long week and a half break to enjoy the holidays and spend time with family, returning to action on Saturday, December 30th when we welcome Robert Morris- Chicago back to Gregory Arena for the second straight year. While this game will have basically no impact on North Central's postseason outlook, it's still going to be a tough game and an important tuneup before CCIW play resumes two weeks from tonight.
Game Summary
The Cardinals (2-7) got off to a good start, scoring the game's first eight points to take control, though the Spartans (2-8) answered with a couple quick baskets to get on the board. A little scoring lull followed, though the Cardinals got hot and were able to push the lead to ten before Dubuque cut it to six at 19-13 after one. North Central caught fire in the second quarter, hitting a number of threes to push the advantage as high as 19 before taking a 42-26 lead into the locker room. Whatever was said in the Spartans' room at halftime must have had an impact, because Dubuque opened the third quarter on a 16-1 run to steal the momentum and make this a contest again, but the Cardinals hit threes on three straight possessions to push the lead to eight. The Cardinals would lead by as many as 13 in the frame before settling into a nine point advantage going into the final ten minutes. The Spartans would pull within four with just under four minutes to play, but another three and a short jumper effectively put the game on ice, and the Cardinals hit enough shots the rest of the way to end the home stand on a high note.
Key Stats
Siarra O'Neill (NCC): 7-16 FG (6-13 3PT), 0-3 FT; 20 pts, 2 reb. The Cardinals needed someone to step up from beyond the arc yesterday, and Siarra did that part perfectly. She hit three in the first half, then added a couple in that key third quarter wakeup call, and added her sixth in the fourth quarter to help put the game away. Unfortunately, she didn't shrug. Either way, she became the thirteenth Cardinal in program history to hit six threes in a game, and is one off the single game record shared by Miranda Grizaffi and Kelsey Cooling.
Hannah Vitkus (NCC): 0-2 FG (both 3PT), 1-4 FT; 1 pt, 12 reb (4 off), 1 stl. I joked with the assistant SID during the game that Hannah had pulled off a Dennis Rodman line, and that's really what this is. She played a very short stretch in the first quarter but pulled down six rebounds in that time, which prompted me to look up the single game record for NCC (22, set back in the eighties). She had limited action in the second quarter to pad that total, but still had seven boards in just four first half minutes. This was an impressive total, either way.
Cece Pope (DUB): 3-12 FG (0-2 3PT), 9-15 FT; 15 pts, 12 reb (3 off), 1 blk. The local product (Naperville North) had a great homecoming. While she struggled from the field, she made up for it with repeated trips to the free throw line, which she did a decent job of taking advantage of. You do have to credit the Cardinal defense for making her earn it, which she did, but 3-12 is not an ideal shooting night.
North Central "System" Watch
Dubuque Turnovers: 18. Anything in the upper teens at this point I'll take as a win since the pressure defense isn't constant this year. The Cardinals were able to force a few good defensive stops in key moments and logged 11 steals, with four players logging two apiece. North Central turned it over 19 times though, for what it's worth.
NCC 3PT: 14-49 (28.6%). This is about the season average for the team, but after Monday night's debacle, this was a welcome sight. They got a couple to go in early to set the tone, hit several in the second quarter to pull away, then hit three in a row in the third to stop the bleeding of that 16-1 Dubuque run.
NCC FT: 13-25 (52.0%). This... still needs to be better, but it's about what they've been averaging this season. Many of their trips end up being splitting a pair, which isn't ideal, though a couple players took advantage of their opportunities. The one that bugs me was Siarra O'Neill getting fouled on a three and missing all three shots.
Final Thoughts
I looked at records coming in, and figured that the Cardinals had to have a good chance at getting back in the win column. You have to beat the bad teams, and the Cardinals definitely came out last night ready to play and ready to win, and it resulted in a victory. That second half scared me a little bit, but the Cardinals were able to stem the tide and regain control before it was too late. It's a big win that you hope, again, will spark a little momentum for the Cardinals, but they've got a tough slate ahead. They head into the city tomorrow to take on the University of Chicago in what will be a very tough road game, then they head down to Texas for a tournament between Christmas and New Year's. Hopefully the Cardinals will get a win or two mixed in that trip and carry some momentum into CCIW play.
