With the calendar now flipped to November, the weather getting colder, and the time change meaning it's dark way earlier than it's supposed to be, that means it's about time for me to get back to one of my favorite times of year: basketball season!
The season officially tips off this weekend; the women get things started before the men do, so I'll do my first of two season previews and take a look at what the North Central College women's basketball team has on tap for the next few months!
North Central Cardinals
2018-19: 7-18, 5-11 CCIW (7th), missed CCIW Tournament
2018-19 Recap
Last season was a rebuilding campaign for the Cardinals, as they did improve over a bad 2017-18 campaign by a couple wins. Some of the problems from that season remained though, as the team lost most of its games by fairly small margins. In theory, this should have maybe been a ten-win team, but they played well against some tough opposition; they only lost two games by more than 20 and only a handful more by double digits. The main highlight for the Cardinals was winning at Carthage for the first time in over a decade, hopefully a sign of things to come.
Key Returners
One of the stud freshmen from last year's team, Tyonne Howard, departed after the season, but there is still some good young talent on the roster. Before going down with a knee injury late in the year, leading scorer
Alanna Newsome (14.3 PPG, 37/37/65) showed some good signs as a major piece on the perimeter. With the injuries,
Allison Pearson (6.6, 30/31/83) stepped up to fill in, and will likely start out on the perimeter as well. The Cardinals also return arguably their best player in senior
Lyndsay Brennan (8.1 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 48/40/60) to presumably help run the offense and play solid perimeter defense.
Haydn Braun (4.3 PPG),
Page Desenberg (5.3 PPG, 42/42/74), and
Bekah Foley (2.3 PPG in just 14 games) should also factor in in the backcourt. The frontcourt has some excellent senior leadership in
Maya Walls (5.8 PPG, 5.0 RPG) and especially
Natali Dimitrova (8.3 PPG, 5.2 RPG) leading the way, with senior
Hannah Vitkus (2.9 PPG, 3.7 RPG) and sophomore
Mitrese Smith (2.7, 3.6) backing them up. It's a senior-heavier team than in recent years, but a good senior class.
New Faces
Following a high-caliber recruiting class, Maggie McCloskey-Bax went to work again this past offseason and landed some good pieces. Chief among them might be twin guards
Jessica and
Stephanie Kowalczyk out of Arlington Heights. Stephanie factors in as more of a driver, while Stephanie is a spot-up shooter. I'd assume we'll see both on the floor at the same time more often than separated. They'll be joined by
Natalie Stavropoulos out of Orland Park,
Teagan Prusinski out of Appleton, Wisconsin, and
Abe Jashari out of Seneca. There's also some forward depth in
Sophie Summers from Ohio and
Sydney Erwin from Rockford, who may project as a swing guard, maybe in the Lyndsay Brennan mold based on her height (5'11").
Non-Conference Schedule
A year after a pretty barren non-conference home schedule, Maggie McCloskey-Bax was able to pull some better strings with the schedule and get a more-than-full home slate of 13 games, including five outside the CCIW, most of them returning the favor on home-and-homes. The Cardinals return the favor from last year and travel to Galesburg to face Knox to open the season on Saturday, then trek to Indiana to play St. Mary's before opening the home slate on Saturday the 16th with Dubuque. That kicks off a long home stand including Concordia-Wisconsin, who played an exhibition here a couple years ago, UW-Stevens Point coming back out this way, and the series with Benedictine getting a Naperville venue this year. Preseason #18 Chicago also returns a home-and-home favor by coming to the western suburbs a week before Christmas. There's no tournament this year; the Cardinals instead kill time between Christmas and New Year's with a flight to Southern California to play CalTech and Whittier.
CCIW Outlook
We're onto the second year of a six-team CCIW Tournament, which means more meaningful basketball for more teams for longer. The Cardinals actually found themselves going into the finale last year with a shot at the tournament, but couldn't pull off the deal. The 2019 preseason coaches' poll is fairly similar to other years' polls. For the second straight year, Wheaton is the unanimous pick to win the league, which given that they return the defending Lori Kerans Most Outstanding Player and a preseason First Team All-American in Hannah Frazier, they should be the favorites. Paired with senior Jill Berg and boasting an All-CCIW guard in Jordan Myroth, they'll continue to be a problem for much of the rest of the league. Right up there with them is Illinois Wesleyan; the Titans won the conference tournament last year at King Arena but lose a fair amount from last year. Sydney Shanks and Riley Brovelli figure to lead a tough frontcourt, with Sam Munroe and Kendall Sosa handling things on the perimeter.
There's a small dropoff from there to Carthage. The Lady Reds of this year are pretty young, but bring back some good pieces in Maggie Berigan inside and good guards in Taylor Jozefowicz, Autumn Kalis, and Sammie Woodward. From there we have a major dropoff, but all six teams should compete for those final three tournament spots. North Park is an on-the-rise pick following their 5-over-4 upset of Augustana in last year's tournament. Based on insider reports, they'll need a next-step season from last year's Newcomer of the Year in Jayla Johnson, plus continued development from Sinead Molloy and Josie Summerville, as well as getting some size with a healthy Alisha Panthier, this team could take a step forward. Tethnie Carillo has a big roster at Elmhurst, with some decent pieces in senior Becca Gerke and junior Marissa Urso, but it'll be interesting to see if they can replicate their sixth place finish from last year. Augustana's an interesting pick: they're slated fifth, but they lost a ton of talent from last year. They return first team All-CCIW guard Alexis Jones and boast some other good talent in Mia Lambert and Justice Edell, but there's a lot of youth here, and Maddy Murillo will probably need to have a big year in the post for the Vikings to be successful.
I'm surprised Millikin is picked as low as they are; they were a scrappy team last year that beat North Central twice, but they're also extremely young and will need big years from veterans Briana Anthony and Jordan Hildebrand to be really in the thick of things. Carroll might have been a team to watch, but they'll need a huge year from Sierra Grubor and Emily Majerus as the rest of the team is young and the Pioneers lost their top two rebounders in Katie Rossetti and Celina Schwantes.
Final Thoughts
This should be an interesting year. There's a lot of youth in the CCIW, and while the top of the conference seems pretty set, the conference tournament is wide open. We'll have to see how the new Cardinals gel with the existing group and whether this team can start to win games that they've had trouble closing out in the past couple years. But this is an interesting group, and while I don't know that .500 is a certainty, they'll be improved over last year and I think will contend for a CCIW Tournament spot.
Prediction: 11-14, 7-9 CCIW (5th)
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