With North Central College’s 97-68 win over Carthage College, the 25th-ranked Cardinals (12-5, 5-1 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) notched a season high in scoring for the second straight game and gave head coach Todd Raridon his 200th win on the North Central sideline. Raridon is the second coach to win 200 games with the Cardinals, joining Bill Warden ’55, who compiled 204 wins from 1981-97.
In his tenure, the Cardinals have set a record for most wins in a season, won two College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Championships and three CCIW Tournaments and made three trips to the NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championship.
The Cardinals posted an overall record of 28-4 in 2012-13, establishing the current school record for wins in a season. North Central opened the season with a record 13 straight wins and achieved the program’s first-ever No. 1 national ranking in January. The Cardinals went on to win the CCIW Tournament for the second straight year and advance to the Final Four of the NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championship for the first time. North Central established school records for free throws made (539) and attempted (814) in a single season.
In the 2011-12 season, North Central posted an overall record of 22-8, including a 12-2 record in CCIW play to win the third outright conference title in the program’s history. The Cardinals also won the CCIW Tournament, played at North Central’s Gregory Arena, to win both the CCIW regular-season and tournament titles in the same season for the first time. North Central set single-season school records for free throws made (476) and three-pointers made (191).
Following the 2011-2012 campaign, Raridon was named the CCIW Coach of the Year for the second straight season and was also selected as the Midwest Region Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC).
In the 2010-2011 season, the North Central won the CCIW Co-Championship with an in-conference record of 11-3 and hosted the CCIW Tournament for the first time since the event’s inception.
Raridon took the Cardinals to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 2005-06, when his team posted the best non-conference regular-season record in school history (11-0). North Central earned a bid to the NCAA III Tournament (the fifth in school history) and were ranked as high as 10th in the D3hoops.com Top 25, the highest ranking ever for the program.
While at North Central, Raridon has coached 15 All-CCIW players: Mike Wilson ’06, Adam Teising ’06, Dan Walton ’07, Anthony Simmons ’07, Chris Drennan ’09, Matt Rogers ’09, David Twyman ’10, Brian Evans ’11, Derek Raridon ’13, Aaron Tiknis ’13, CJ Goldthree ’14, Landon Gamble ’14, Vince Kmiec ’14, Jack Burchett ’15 and Charles Rosenberg ’15. Derek Raridon became the second North Central player ever to earn four straight All-CCIW selections in 2013, when he was also became the Cardinals’ third CCIW Player of the Year Award, and he was also named the Midwest Region Player of the Year and a First Team All-American by the NABC in 2013.
Prior to his arrival at North Central, Todd Raridon spent 15 years as head basketball coach at Nebraska Wesleyan University and never experienced a losing season, despite being the only school not giving athletic scholarships in an NAIA conference. He took Nebraska Wesleyan to the NCAA Division III tournament seven times and won six conference titles. His career mark at Nebraska Wesleyan was 269-125 over 15 years.
Photo Courtesy North Central Athletics
