2020 CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament Preview

I'm trying to get these out a little earlier this year. For one thing, North Central is playing Tuesday, so I need to preview that. For another... the fact that this is now a six team tournament means I want to get with the program a little quicker.

This is actually the second year that the CCIW has used the expanded tournament; in prior years this was a four-team affair, but the six team group gives more teams a chance not only for an automatic bid, but also to bolster their resumes for at large selection into the NCAA Tournament.

So below I'm going to preview the entire CCIW Tournament field. I'm only putting the weekend site on here; the weekend part of the tournament hasn't changed in that the conference champion hosts the semifinals and finals, but the past couple years the Tuesday play-in games have had higher seeds host.

One More to Go: A CCIW Update

The regular season concludes tomorrow for the CCIW... which means we have to look at how the CCIW Tournament races are shaping up.

This is an annual feature for me where I look at all the different clinching scenarios. Earlier this week I had thought about trying to crunch numbers with two games to go for odds of each team getting certain tournament seeds. The math proved to be a little too much for me, but I will include the numbers here now that there's just one game to go and the math becomes much more simple.

As usual, a lot of the tournament spots have been claimed already, but seeding is all still well up for grabs. I consider it the advantage in Year Two of having a six team tournament instead of only four. Let's have a look.

Game Notes: (MBK) Carthage College @ North Central College (2/19/20)

Final Score
NCC 70, Carthage 69

Game Summary
After surrendering a basket on the opening possession, the Belt^TM-wielding Cardinals (20-4, 13-2) scored the next eight, including two threes in four seconds thanks to a dumb turnover. But the Red Men (15-9, 7-8) got right back into it and turned this into a back and forth affair. Carthage would lead by as many as five before taking a 35-33 advantage with a minute to go in the half, and carried that into intermission. After trading a couple baskets to open the second half, the Red Men began to assert control, scoring six straight to open up a 45-37 advantage and forcing a Cardinal timeout. North Central tried to cut into the deficit, but Carthage pushed it as high as 11, going up 55-44 with about nine and a half to play. An 8-0 Cardinal run made it a game again, but Carthage scored seven of the next nine to push the lead back to eight. Seemingly, the Red Men had an answer for every late Cardinal push, as they led by six with just 25 seconds to play. But a three pointer cut the deficit in half with 14 seconds to go, the Red Men split a pair of free throws with 11 ticks left, then committed a foul on another three with just 4.3 seconds left. The Cardinals hit all three to pull within one, intentionally fouled with 3.7 left, and Carthage missed the front end of the one-and-one, allowing the Cardinals to call timeout with three ticks left. Out of the timeout, a baseball pass across halfcourt was intercepted by two Carthage guys, but a travel with 1.6 left gave the Cardinals new life. They opted for a lob play... but drew a foul with 0.9 left, and hit both free throws to steal victory from the jaws of defeat, successfully defend The Belt^TM, and clinch the outright CCIW title.

Key Players

• Aiden Chang (NCC): 4-5 FG (3-4 3PT), 5-5 FT; 16 pts, 2 reb (1 off), 3 ast. As far as offense is concerned, Aiden is a complementary piece, but he really stepped up last night, especially late. He scored 14 of his 16 in the second half, and saved some heroics for the very end. He hit the three with 14 seconds left to make it a 68-65 game, then was fouled on the three attempt with 4.3 seconds left, calmly draining all three to make it a one point game and set up that ridiculous ending.
• Matt Cappelletti (NCC): 5-11 FG (1-4 3PT), 3-4 FT; 14 pts, 8 reb (2 off), 2 ast. It wasn't necessarily the greatest shooting night for Cap, who seemingly adjusted his shooting stroke for a much higher arcing shot. He was able to help keep the Cardinals in the game though with decent rebounding and hit some key baskets, but none bigger than on North Central's final possession. After his baseball pass was picked off and the Carthage travel gave them another chance, the Cardinals dialed up a lob to Cap, who caught it on the far elbow and tried to turn and go up with it... but was bumped, putting the Cardinals into the double bonus. Cap proceeded to calmly hit both free throws to turn a one point deficit into a one point lead, winning the game.
• Fillip Bulatovic (CAR): 7-12 FG (1-4 3PT), 0-2 FT; 15 pts, 5 reb, 1 ast, 1 stl. I found myself cursing Bulatovic as the game was winding down. Coming off the bench, he had seven in the first half, including his lone three, while all four of his field goals in the second half came at clutch moments in the final seven minutes. His last two especially seemed like daggers; he found himself open under the hoop and converted to push the Red Men lead to six on both. But at the end, he ended up wearing goat horns, committing the foul on Cappelletti (his fifth of the game) to put him at the line for the game-winning free throws.

Key Stats

• NCC: 14-17 FT (82.4%). North Central shot pretty well for the game (47.1% from the field, 34.8% from deep), but weren't on track at the line early, missing both of their first half attempts. But they were money in the second half. Connor Raridon went a perfect six-for-six, Aiden Chang hit all five of his, including the three crucial ones with 4.3 seconds left, and despite having the one miss earlier in the second half, Cap had ice in his veins as he hit the two that stole the game with 0.9 to play.
• CAR: 16 second chance points. The Red Men have a bunch of freaking giants; 6'11 centers Sean Johnson and Brad Perry combined for 11 rebounds in this one, including five on the offensive glass. Carthage had an 11-2 advantage in second chance points at the intermission, and as time was winding down I knew I was going to highlight this as a key stat. But for the game, Carthage only outrebounded the Cardinals by one (despite having 11 total offensive boards), and their 11 point advantage on second chance opportunities went to waste.

CCIW Scoreboard Watch

• IWU 94 (16-8, 10-5), @ NPU 92 (4-20, 2-13) (OT)
• @ ELM 62 (20-5, 11-5), CRL 59 (11-13, 4-11)
• Elmhurst clinches a home game in the CCIW Quarterfinals
• @ WHE 68 (15-9, 9-6), MIL 53 (4-20, 1-14)
• BYE- AUG (17-7, 11-4)
• WBK: @ IWU 90 (16-8, 10-5), NCC 63 (11-13, 7-8)
• Illinois Wesleyan clinches a home game in the CCIW Quarterfinals
• WBK: ELM 75 (10-15, 5-11), @ CAR 73 (11-13, 6-9)
• WBK: @ MIL 82 (16-8, 9-6), NPU 68 (17-7, 10-5)
• Millikin clinches a home game in the CCIW Quarterfinals
• WBK: WHE 71 (18-6, 11-4), @ CRL 54 (8-16, 3-12)
• Wheaton clinches hosting the CCIW Tournament
• WBK: Bye- AUG (12-12, 7-8)

Final Thoughts

I mentioned last year that North Central's win over then-#1 Augustana was the biggest win I've ever seen in person. I think that title is safe, but in terms of the drama... this one is probably going to be pretty high on the list. We called this The Miracle on Brainard Street in the immediate aftermath of the game last night, because, let's be honest: North Central had no business winning this game. Down six with 25 seconds to go, and down four with four seconds to go, your win expectancy has to be less than one percent. But the Cardinals got the breaks they needed and took advantage of them to steal a huge win. The only CCIW prize they were playing for was the outright title, which I'm glad we got to celebrate in front of a home crowd. Otherwise, it's trying to keep yourself in a good position in a chaotic Central Region to try and stay in solid position just in case you need a Pool C bid for the NCAA Tournament. I think the Cardinals are pretty safe, but pulling out this win gives you a little insurance.

The Cardinals close out the regular season on Saturday at Wheaton, who will be trying to get a home game on Tuesday. I'll go over full clinching scenarios later today or tomorrow for both the men's and women's CCIW Tournaments, because there's still a lot up for grabs with one to go.

North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 2 Edition

It's a Wednesday in February, which means it's time to take a look at the NCAA regional rankings once again!

This will be the second set of rankings for this season; last weeks rankings, plus a primer on how this all works, is here. The biggest difference between last week's rankings and this week's is that we finally bring in the results against regionally ranked opponents criterion. It's an extra data point, and a fairly critical one that can make a huge difference compared to where we were last week.

So now that the regional advisory committees have spoken, let's take a look at the Central region on both the men's and women's sides and see where North Central stacks up.

North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 1 Edition

It's a little hard to pinpoint exactly what part of basketball season is my favorite. There's something to be said about the anticipation of a new season in November, but I think a good argument can be made for February. You have a lot of conference races heating up, and at the Division III level, the regional rankings start coming out.

I know I've touched on how these rankings work in years past, now that I fully understand them, but before I delve into them now that the first batch of the year is out, I want to go in depth on how they work so that we fully understand what we're looking at. Every February, the NCAA starts releasing these on a weekly basis on three consecutive Wednesdays leading up to Selection Monday. A fourth and final set gets released after the bracket is out.

First off, throw out the Top 25 poll, because it means nothing when it comes to these rankings. For all intents and purposes, throw out the conference standings as well. The committees that set up these rankings don't use them, so you may see a second place team from a conference top a leader in these. It's perfectly normal.

Instead, each of the country's eight regions as broken up by the NCAA has an advisory committee, with representatives from every conference. These eight committees each have a chair who sits on the national selection committee. Interestingly enough, right now the Central region men's committee, which includes North Central, is chaired by Wheaton head coach Mike Schauer. Basically, what this means is if Wheaton is in consideration for either regional rankings or national tournament selection, he cannot be part of the conversation for obvious reasons. Todd Raridon sits on the Central region advisory committee, so obviously he won't be part of the discussion when NCC gets talked about, but he will help craft what the Central region looks like.

So when the committees go to rank teams, they do it based on a set of criteria:

• Win percentage. This is a given. Officially though, it's win percentage against Division III teams. In the past North Central has played NAIA Robert Morris of Chicago, and that game doesn't count for this metric. Generally, getting to your conference tournament with a 17-8 record (a .680 win percentage) will at least get you in the conversation.
• Strength of schedule. It's good to win a ton of games, but just how good are you? At the D-III level, the NCAA takes your opponents' winning percentage and your opponents' opponents' winning percentage, factors in a multiplier for home and road games, then combines them (two-thirds OWP, one-third OOWP). This number will be rounded to three decimal places, and, except in cases of outliers, will range probably between about 0.480 and 0.620. The "Mendoza Line" for this would probably be around 0.530. Teams with a higher winning percentage can generally get away with a lower strength of schedule, while more losses to a higher strength of schedule can be forgiven.
• Head to head results/results versus common opponents. Officially, this is part of the criteria. Unofficially, it's hard to quantify this because of different conferences. A head to head victory over a team doesn't necessarily mean you will be ranked ahead of them if the other metrics favor the team you beat.
• Results versus regionally ranked opponents. This is the fun one, but one that doesn't apply for this week. Here, the committee takes the rankings from the previous week and current week, and factors your record against teams that are ranked into play. This means both wins and losses, but losses aren't a death knell. A team that went 1-3 against regionally ranked opponents may be ranked higher than one who went 0-1.

All of these factors get mixed together to come up with the rankings, the first set of which came out Wednesday afternoon. Let's take a look.

Game Notes: (MBK) Elmhurst College @ North Central College (2/8/20)

Final Score
NCC 56, Elmhurst 45

Game Summary
Celebrating one of the best senior classes I can remember, the Cardinals (17-4, 10-2) took the early lead in this one, but for the first few minutes couldn't grab firm control as the Blue Jays (18-4, 9-4) were able to play decent defense and keep it close. The Blue Jays split a pair of free throws with 11:15 to go in the half to cut their deficit to one... and then the bottom fell out. The Blue Jays went ice cold and the Cardinals embarked on a nine minute 20-0 run capped by an alley oop and a three that rolled around the rim three or four times before finally falling, forcing Elmhurst's John Baines to burn three timeouts over the span in an effort to stop the bleeding. But the Cardinals even got revenge for last year, hitting a 30 foot runner at the halftime buzzer to take a commanding 34-15 advantage into the break. The Cardinals would lead by as many as 21, but the Blue Jays began to battle back in the second half, trimming the deficit to single digits with about eight minutes to play. But they would get no closer than eight as the Cardinals completed the season sweep.

Key Players

• Matt Cappelletti (NCC): 5-13 FG (3-7 3PT), 3-4 FT; 16 pts, 11 reb (2 off), 1 ast. Senior Night was Cap's night to shine. He's struggled from deep for a chunk of this year, and did for a bit early in this one, but eventually the lid came off the bucket and he started to take over, hitting two of his threes during that decisive run, including the rollaround one that capped the proceedings. His assist came on a beautiful alley oop to Blaise Meredith that brought down the house.
  

  An alley-oop from Blaise Meredith highlighted a huge first half for @NCCMBB as they lead #8 Elmhurst 34-15 at the half! #WeAreNC pic.twitter.com/PDF0SoaXDm

  — NCC Cardinals (@NCC_Athletics) February 9, 2020

• Jake Rhode (ELM): 4-15 FG (3-7 3PT), 4-4 FT; 15 pts, 7 reb (1 off), 3 ast. Normally after a win I'd highlight more North Central guys, but by picking a couple Elmhurst players, I am. Rhode was a preseason All-American and will almost certainly be a unanimous First Team All-CCIW guy. But Saturday was not his Magnum Opus. With Aiden Chang or Blaise Meredith firmly in his face most of the night, Rhode was held below his season average of 21 points a game on a very inefficient shooting night. 10 of his 15 points came after halftime when the Blue Jays made some adjustments, but shooting 27 percent from the floor isn't going to get it done. But if you think his night was bad...
• Derek Dotlich (ELM): 0-6 FG (0-4 3PT); 0 pts, 2 reb, 1 stl. ...consider what happened to Dotlich on Saturday. He also had to deal with a healthy dose of Blaise Meredith and Aiden Chang... and was completely shut down. He came into Saturday's game averaging 17.5 a night, so that was a big reason why the Cardinals were able to dominate so thoroughly. It probably won't happen again should these two teams meet in the CCIW Tournament, but it's got to be a confidence booster for the Cardinals.

Key Stats

• NCC: Outscored ELM in the paint 24-12. I had a bit of a hard time picking here, but you do the math. Lavon Thomas had a decent game for the Blue Jays, but Elmhurst also gave up too many easy looks inside at times, which the Cardinals took advantage of.
• ELM: 4-23 FG 1st half (17.4%). When you have a nine minute scoring drought, your shooting numbers aren't going to look particularly good, but holy hell. Elmhurst is averaging 85 points a game factoring this one in, shooting 47 percent from the floor as a team. The Cardinals just held them to around half of their season scoring output on much worse shooting than average. The second half brought progression to the mean, but this half was a big reason why the Blue Jays lost.

CCIW Scoreboard/The Belt^TM Watch

• AUG 78 (16-6, 10-3), @ IWU 64 (14-7, 8-4)
• Augustana gains possession of The Belt^TM
• WHE 88 (13-8, 7-5), @ NPU 69 (4-18, 2-11)
• North Park eliminated from CCIW Tournament
• CAR 68 (14-7, 6-6), @ MIL 63 (4-18, 1-12)
• Millikin eliminated from CCIW Tournament
• BYE- CRL (10-11, 3-9)
• WBK: ELM 65 (8-14, 3-10), @ NCC 56 (9-12, 5-7)
• WBK: WHE 58 (16-6, 9-4), @ NPU 54 (17-5, 10-3)
• North Park clinches a CCIW Quarterfinal home game with AUG, NCC losses
• WBK: @ IWU 83 (15-6, 9-3), AUG 57 (11-11, 6-7)
• WBK: CAR 58 (10-11, 5-7), @ MIL 49 (13-8, 6-6)
• WBK: CRL 70 (8-13, 3-9) @ Marian 30

Final Thoughts

This was a huge win for the Cardinals, not only because it was Senior Night, but also because of how it happened. I've never seen a more dominant half than the first half of this game, other than maybe the day Alex Sorenson destroyed Robert Morris. This win also gave them the season sweep of the Blue Jays, which means North Central owns the tiebreaker over not only them, but likely all other contenders for the CCIW crown. They may end up needing it.

North Central travels to Rock Island on Wednesday for a battle for The Belt^TM and first place in the CCIW... in a game that may decide where the conference tournament is being held. A Cardinal win puts them at least two up in the loss column on everyone with three to play, all but guaranteeing that there will be basketball in Gregory Arena the final weekend of February. A Vikings win would put Augustana in first place by half a game, with a one game lead in the win column, but the Cardinals would have a game in hand. That said, the Vikings' remaining schedule (vs Carthage, bye, vs North Park) seems easier than North Central's (at Carroll, vs Carthage, at Wheaton), so this makes the rematch a critical one.

This is all without getting into the fun side of Division III basketball... the regional rankings. The first set come out on Wednesday, February 12th, and I'll go in depth on what they are, what they mean, and what the postseason picture looks like for the Cardinals.

Game Notes: (MBK) North Park University @ North Central College (2/1/20)

Final Score
NCC 90, NPU 66

Game Summary
After losing The Belt^TM on Wednesday night, the Cardinals (16--4, 9-2) opened with a dunk on a wide open drive to the hoop, sparking a 9-0 run to open the game. The Vikings (4-16, 2-9) finally got on the board just over three minutes into the contest, but it was pretty much over shortly after that as the Cardinals got out to a 20-4 lead not even six minutes in. North Park tried to make it interesting, pulling back within single digits about halfway through the first half, but the Cardinals pushed the lead back out, never leading by less than 11, and hit a three at the buzzer to take a 51-30 lead into the locker room. In the second half, the Vikings never managed to get closer than within 16, while the Cardinals pushed the lead past 30 with about ten and a half minutes to play, and for the second straight home game, Todd Raridon was able to call off the dogs in the final few minutes. With the win, the Cardinals clinch a berth in the CCIW Tournament.

Key Players

• Matt Cappelletti (NCC): 10-14 FG (1-3 3PT); 21 pts, 2 reb, 3 ast, 1 blk, 1 stl. This was Cap's second-best scoring output of the season (the Greenville game was his top outing), and the first play was a microcosm of the game. Cap went to the point to catch a pass and managed to avoid North Park's Matt Szuba, who gambled for a steal and overpursued. That left the lane completely wide open, as all of Szuba's teammates were paying attention to their assignments, leaving Cap no opposition for that dunk to open the festivities. He got a ton of layups in this one, and while he's struggled from three this season (only 27.5%), he's still averaging double figures as a key piece for this team.
• Connor Raridon (NCC): 6-8 FG (0-1 3PT), 2-2 FT; 16 pts, 10 reb (4 off), 7 ast, 1 stl. Another day at the office, but with a double-double. Amazingly, this is only Connor's second of the season, but it's the 24th of his career. He's been scoring when he's needed to, but for the most part has been the facilitator. For the season, he's put up a 15.3/7.4/5.6 line on 53/36/84 splits, which are really good (6th in scoring, 5th in rebounding, tops in assists, tops in field goal percentage, would be in the top 20 in three point percentage if he qualified, and fourth in free throw percentage in the CCIW). It's a two-man race for the Fred Young Most Outstanding Player award in the CCIW: Raridon, and Elmhurst's Jake Rhode.
• Izaiah Sanders (NPU): 5-10 FG (2-2 3PT), 3-3 FT; 15 pts, 6 reb (1 off), 2 ast, 2 stl. The Vikings have been pretty bad the past couple years, but they have some intriguing pieces going forward, and the junior guard is one of them. This is a pretty good line, and appears to be Sanders' best game of this campaign so far. If the Vikings can get some good complementary pieces this offseason, they can get out of the CCIW basement.

Key Stats

• NCC: 21-30 FG in 1st half (70.0%). I don't think I've ever seen a more efficient half of basketball than the first half of this one against an overmatched Vikings squad. This included a 6-10 clip from beyond the arc (60%). Breaking down some of these 51 points, 24 came in the paint, 14 came off ten Viking turnovers, seven came off second chances, and five came on the fast break. That's a good half. They came back down to earth in the second (13-27 for a 48.2% clip), but that's to be expected, and is still a great shooting day.
• NPU: 16 turnovers. It was kind of hard to pinpoint one thing. The Vikings shot pretty well (50% from the field, 33% from deep, but only 59% from the line), but they pretty much shot themselves in the foot early on. As mentioned above, ten of those 16 turnovers came in that decisive first half, and the Cardinals scored 21 points off those opportunities. North Park, for its part, did force 11 turnovers, including seven steals, to help mitigate this, but surrendering a shooting day like they did while not taking care of the ball doesn't help.

CCIW Scoreboard/The Belt^TM Watch
With Illinois Wesleyan taking possession of The Belt^TM on Wednesday down in Bloomington, this added feature returns to this section until we have another game at Merner for It^TM.

• @ ELM 80 (18-2, 9-2), WHE 69 (12-7, 6-4)
• Elmhurst clinches a CCIW Tournament berth
• @ IWU 88 (13-6, 7-3), CRL 44 (9-11, 2-9)
• Illinois Wesleyan retains possession of The Belt^TM
• @ AUG 76 (14-6, 8-3), MIL 55 (4-16, 1-10)
• Augustana clinches a CCIW Tournament berth
• Bye- CAR (12-7, 4-6)
• WBK: @ NCC 63 (9-10, 5-5), NPU 59 (16-4, 9-2)
• WBK: @ IWU 73 (13-6, 7-3), CRL 57 (7-12, 3-8)
• WBK: WHE 63 (15-5, 8-3), @ ELM 60 (7-13, 2-9)
• WBK: MIL 66 (13-7, 6-5), @ AUG 60 (10-10, 5-6) (OT)
• WBK: Bye- CAR (8-11, 3-7)

Final Thoughts

I think pretty much everyone had the expectation that this was going to be an easy win for the Cardinals... but not even I expected it would have started like this. Cap's game-opening dunk really set the tone, and with the Cardinals jumping out to an 18-2 lead, there was little drama on Saturday. It was nice once again to see the end of bench guys get in, and part of me now wants Barak Diehl to get a little more regular playing time, because dude can shoot. I know it won't happen, but it's fun.

With Elmhurst winning to keep pace, we continue with that two-way tie atop the CCIW. It will be broken one way or another this week, as the Cardinals have their second bye on Wednesday (Elmhurst hosts Carthage), and then this coming Saturday we have arguably the biggest game of the season as the Blue Jays come to Gregory Arena. This game won't decide the fate of the conference, but I think whoever wins will likely get one of the two byes. And for the Cardinals, if they win that game against Elmhurst, it will guarantee North Central the tiebreaker due to a head-to-head sweep thanks to their come-from-behind victory at Faganel Hall way back in December, which will probably put the Cardinals in the driver's seat for the conference title.

Saturday we also celebrate Senior Night, as we send off one of the most successful senior classes in program history. Four straight NCAA Tournament appearances (at least for two of the seniors involved as they're fifth-year seniors), two CCIW Tournament championships, and a ton of fun memories highlight their careers, and it'll be a bittersweet celebration of the four guys we'll honor.