Perfect regular season

The Illinois Wesleyan women's basketball team is now 25-0, completing an undefeated regular season with an 81-75 victory at Elmhurst Tuesday night. The Titans faced their biggest scare all year, as they trailed by 20 with 15:26 to go, but outscored the Bluejays 49-23 the rest of the way. According to IWU's Web site, the Titans are the first CCIW champion since 1998 to go undeafeated.
IWU will host the CCIW tournament this Friday and Saturday, playing North Central (12-12 overall, 7-7 conference) at 8pm Friday. Wheaton faces Carthage in the other game at 6pm. The championship game will be held at 2pm Saturday.

After that, it's on to the national tournament, and one could argue that with all the blowouts this season, having a tough battle and being forced to fight from behind for a change is not the worst thing that could have happened, especially considering they still escaped with an unblemished record. The Titans faced a serious challenge but still came out on top, and that's a good sign.

A Tale of Two Titans

Both Titan squads hosted Wheaton on Valentine's Day. The women showed no love for the Thunder, beating down yet another opponent with a 101-57 victory. They are now 22-0 overall and 12-0 in conference play. The win clinches the CCIW regular season title, meaning the Titans will host the CCIW tournament on Friday-Saturday, Feb. 27-28. Congratulations, Titans!
The men, on the other hand, continued to struggle, losing 86-60 and falling to 5-7 in the CCIW. Kent Raymond filled it up with 28 points on 10-17 shooting, including 5-10 from three. Fellow observer Chris Kawakita noted Raymond's impeccable shooting stroke, especially from the free throw line. Raymond is an 89 percent free throw shooter on the season, good for 11th in Division III. Raymond is also 11th in the nation in points per game, averaging 23.5.

The Titans committed 19 turnovers, a category in which they unfortunately lead the conference (14.3 average). The loss leaves them in 6th place.