2019-20 NCC Men's Basketball Preview

Friday we checked in on the women. Today, we flip on over to North Central's men's team. They get a little bit later of a start to their season, and were extremely late in posting the official team roster, so I partially wanted to hold off for that.

But the anticipation for this group is really high, as are the expectations. Let's see what the outlook for the season is.


North Central Cardinals
2018-19: 23-6, 12-4 CCIW (2nd); lost in NCAA Tournament Second Round

2018-19 Recap
Last year was quite the roller coaster ride. The team had fairly high expectations going into the campaign, saw them diminish when a pair of senior starters were lost for the season to injury, then watched the team win some fun games, another conference tournament, and get to host the NCAA Tournament. They actually just exceeded my prediction for the year in terms of the regular season, and for the season only lost one more game in the extended time than I figured they would just in the regular season. But with that comes added expectations for the following year.

Key Returners

Part of the reason this team has such high expectations is because they bring back basically the entire core from last year's group. Connor Raridon was a unanimous First Team All-CCIW selection, First Team All-Central Region and Second Team All-American last year, and follows that by being named a First Team All-American by D3Hoops going into this season. You almost wouldn't know that Connor led the team in scoring and was a key rebounder (18.0 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 47/30/86) because he's so unselfish; with a full season to go Connor is already the program's all-time assist leader. Forward Matt Cappelletti also received First Team All-CCIW honors last year (15.1 PPG, league-leading 8.0 RPG, 46/39/65), while guard Blaise Meredith (10.4, 4.8, 48/37/72) garnered a Second Team nod. Aaron Jones (7.7, 37/37/68) was a key part of the offense all year, but especially the last two-thirds of the year and figures to be a major part of it again, while the bench features a couple major figures in clutch sharpshooter Mike Pollack (6.7 PPG, 41% from three) and Swiss army knife Will Clausel (6.4, 2.6, 56/34/72). Clausel should be due for a breakout year after he was called upon for much of last year to guard guys significantly bigger than him... and more than holding his own.

But despite all the big names returning, one stands out even above having who experts consider to be one of the five best players in the country... and that man is Aiden Chang. When I wrote my recap back in March, it was written with Chang's status up in the air. He played in nine games last season, where in the ninth at Wheaton he suffered a catastrophic leg injury, but through it all kept a positive attitude, and this spring was granted a medical hardship waiver by the NCAA because he played in, rounded up, only a third of his team's regular season games (that ninth game was the last one). Chang factors in more than just statistically (5.8 PPG, 40/27/67 before the injury); he is arguably the best perimeter defender in the CCIW. If he's even 80 percent of what he was pre-injury, opposing guards are going to have fits.

New Faces
This was the hardest section to write, because North Central was so late in posting their roster, but I was able to piece together some of the new faces. They get reinforcements at the point in Shea Cupples out of Normal West, an IBCA Class 4A Special Mention player, good outside shooter, and outstanding free throw shooter; Brian Johnson, a highly sought after five-position guy, but probable forward out of Glenbrook North; and Maliq Anderson, a 6'5" point guard/forward out of Elmhurst who was an IBCA Class 3A Special Mention last year. It's a lot of size, something the Cardinals desperately needed with the departure of Jack Bronec. While they survived playing somewhat small last year, it's hard to say whether they'll be able to do so again. Also on the Opening Night roster are freshman TJ Fullilove out of Kenosha and junior juco transfer Matthew Helwig.

Non-Conference Schedule

The Cardinals' out of conference slate left a little to be desired in the grand scheme of things last year, but really through no fault of their own as good matchups on paper turned into duds as we were looking at tournament chances with the season winding down. That shouldn't be a problem this year, as the Cardinals have a healthy four non-conference home games this year, including some doozies. They open with an extremely stern test: defending national champion Wisconsin-Oshkosh, then follow that up with what will be a really fun game against Greenville, a team out of the SLIAC that runs the Grinnell System and just a year ago won a game 200-146. They close out this non-conference home stand with Rose-Hulman and the Battle of Chicago-Maple Avenue against Benedictine on back to back days just before Thanksgiving. That weekend they travel to Kalamazoo to play in their Thanksgiving Tournament. They play their one true non-conference road game in the midst of the first batch of conference play by making a trip to Aurora University, and between Christmas and New Years head out to Austin to play Concordia-Texas and Sul Ross State.

CCIW Outlook
For years I've described the CCIW as The Gauntlet, and there's no reason why that won't be the case again this year. But for the first time in a few years, the Cardinals find themselves the widely considered best team in the CCIW, garnering seven of nine first place votes. There's no reason why the team can't pull that out, but they'll face a tough challenge to get a weekend of CCIW teams coming to Naperville.

Augustana received the other first place votes and plugs in in second despite losing an All-American in Nolan Ebel and All-CCIW guard in Chrishawn Orange, but still have one of the best power forwards in the league in Pierson Wofford and also recruited point guard Jack McDonald out of Geneva, who's projecting to be an All-CCIW-type player down the line. They also hoard bigs, and with Micah Martin and Donovan Ferguson back, the Vikings will be tough to play against inside. I refuse to write Augustana off, because three years ago when I predicted they'd take a step back after losing their entire starting five that had been to back to back Elite Eight's and made a national title game two years before, they took a step back... to coming within a blocked layup of winning the national championship.

Illinois Wesleyan in third also makes sense. They got a big recruiting draw in guard Luke Yoder, but he'll have big shoes to fill with Brady Rose, Colin Bonnett, and Jason Gregoire all departing. They also got a big transfer from D2 in Keondre Schumacher, who figures to be a major factor for this team. There are a bunch of pretty good ancillary pieces in guys like Charlie Bair, Doug Wallen, and Alex O'Neill, to name a few, but we'll see if they can hang with the big dogs.

Carthage in fourth is something of a surprise after a 3-13 campaign last year, but they return a guy in Kienan Baltimore who should have made the All CCIW team last year, and they have a pair of towering bigs in junior Sean Johnson and senior Brad Perry, who missed all of last year due to injury. If their backcourt can match up with their interior presence, that prediction could be on the money. Elmhurst is an interesting team kind of inverse of Carthage. They have a good backcourt, especially in Second Team All-American Jake Rhode, but he's got backup in guys like Nick Perry, Ryan Patton, and Colin Bomstad. They'll need guys like Lavon Thomas to step up with the graduation of Jeremy Ireland, but if their post play can catch up they'll be pretty good.

Wheaton is the interesting team. They bring back a few key pieces from last year's Final Four team in Anajuwon Spencer and Nyameye Adom, and there's a lot of youth on this team that could develop into something, but they'll be without Spencer Peterson, who is out for the year due to a football injury, and they'll have to figure out how to play without a once-in-a-generation talent. I double checked the roster... thank God Aston Francis is not on there.

There's quite a dropoff from there to the duo of Millikin and Carroll. The Big Blue are an interesting team that finished two games out of the conference tournament last year, but they were young and bring back most of their core. They have a couple good bigs in Jordan Cunningham and Korbin Farmer, and a good guard duo in Calvin and Zach Fisher. If this team continues to develop, they'll threaten for a tournament spot. Since returning to the conference three years ago, Carroll has been right in the thick of the CCIW race, and have a bunch of pieces from last year that should keep them in it again with Kale Maupin, Charlie Soule, and Nick Penny. North Park, meanwhile, is extremely young with just a single senior on its roster, but just went 2-14 a year ago in conference and will need major leaps from guys like Toby Marek, Matt Szuba, and Matt Mohr.

Final Thoughts
In the past I've lamented this program a little bit: they've made four straight NCAA Tournaments, something that a lot of programs nationwide would envy, but have just two wins in that stretch and haven't made the second weekend since the Final Four run back in 2013. Injuries have hurt prior iterations, but those injuries made this particular team able to come together. On paper, this group should win the CCIW and hopefully make a deep postseason run.

Prediction: 20-5, 13-3 CCIW (1st)