Wow!  Who would have thought my hat would be a hot topic on this board.

Personally I thought it was pretty funny.  The two Hope girls played me pretty well.  They came over and asked me for a favor, ignorantly I bent down with the big yellow hat in a very vulnerable position and they stanched it and ran (I had no time to react).  It was all in good fun though because the Calvin kid got it back (who would have thought all those laps around the Fieldhouse would pay off so soon, that kid is fast)

As for the other kid, it did get a little annoying when he came over at least 3 times and tried to jump on top of me.  But it was no big deal, lets remember he's a KID.

Have yet to decide to go with duck tape or just leave the rips as they are for tonight's big game.

Go Knights!

All this Final Four talk has got me thinking about Salem and the civic center (Salem).

Does anyone else think that Salem and its venue are not a very appealing place for the Final Four?

Personally the Stadium was not that large and was quite run down and outdated.  It reminded me of a 4 times larger civic center (Holland) with falling out ceiling panels and mediocre lighting.

Also while the city seemed to have lots of hotels, there wasn't much else to it and what I saw of it was pretty slumish (if that's a word).

I feel that the NCAA could do a whole lot better considering this is the Championship.

Why not some place a little further south so it will be nice and warm.  Or how about Grand Rapids and the Van Andel Arena?  I don't think it would be that more expensive than having it at Salem.

I know they have a contract with Salem but its time to move on to bigger and better.

P.S.  The drive through the mountains was fun though.

If both Hope and Calvin win their first round games will this be the first time they will have met in the NCAA tournament? (I've only been following for about 7 years and can't remember any)

Quote from: gohope on February 27, 2006, 02:45:34 PMquote author=gohope link=topic=4397.msg496430#msg496430 date=1141069534]

Big Yellow Hat (which I am going to assume has gone over one's eyes too)  - To my knowledge the NCAA mandates how tickets are given out.

Quote

I just thought it will be interesting to see where each school will be seated considering how the sections are laid out at Devos.

No, I honestly believe the Devoss Fieldhouse is outdated.

It will be interesting to see how Hope will divide up the tickets 50/50 considering that the Hope student section is way larger than any other section due to its non-fixed seating.

Does anyone know when the games are at on Friday or any ticket information?

WWKVS do?

1.) Beat UW-La Crosse, helping to show that the MIAA is better than the WIAC, meanwhile gaining a little more comfort and confidence in that horribly outdated gym in Holland.

2.) Give the Calvin fans the ability to correctly chant "seasons over"  while handing Hope its first loss in the stadium that wishes it were a little bigger come this time of the year.

As a diehard Knight Club member I must say I was rather disappointed with the student section tonight.  While the numbers were decent to good, if you look past the first three rows you will see that only about a third of those students are wearing knight club shirts and only about a 20th of them are actually cheering.  It was a disgrace to get out cheered by a smaller student section in the first half and the only time we ever got louder than them was once we gained the lead in the second half.  Speaking for the true Knight Club members we enjoyed the banter going back and forth with the Kzoo students in particular the "your still virgins: cheer reminiscent of a cheer by Rochester at the final 4 last year.

Not that it matters any more but on the play were Smith got pushed out it was originaly a no call and then changed to a foul and that is what pissed the Olivet coach off.  That is why Smith then went to the line and missed 2 shots.

I was at the Calvin game and I must say the officiating on both sides was pretty horrible.  The reason why Olivet had so many fouls in the last five minutes was because they were applying a press and would either cause a turnover or foul, rarely in the final 5 minutes did Calvin get in a set and take a field goal it seemed like every play was a turnover or a foul.

But in the words of Gerald Dozie the refs were racist and one was a skin head.  I wouldn't go that far but they were not good at all.

As for the Ts the Olivet coach was out of control the whole game (yelling at the refs, yelling into his jacket and punching his assistant coach-no joke)

Don't get me wrong I enjoy looking at the top 25 rankings and I am sure a decent amount of work goes into creating them, but how much weight do the D3hoops.com rankings really have?  They aren't part of the NCAA selection process.

Maybe some of the D3 hoops big dogs could comment on this topic.  Do you know if the selection committee personnel like to frequent D3hoops or is the website considered an organization with no authority and legitimacy in the eyes of the NCAA.

Ziggy you should show some love to Brokovich, you did only see him play in 1 game and I'm sure he did have a pretty good year (second team if you don't already have him there).

Ziggy my fine friend, I must say I am surprised that there was no mention of Snoeyink on your second team.  He started the season slow but the last 10 games or so have been very good for him.  I think all the voters need to show him some love (on the second team).

Now that was NOT a Calvin fan.

As a used to be architecture major and a big fan of stadium design I have looked over the proposed plans many times, so a couple of comments. 

The drawings in the field house are not the final plans but actually just sketches of the proposal/possibilities for the renovation and new wellness center.  While some of the features of the drawings will show up in the actual plans some will not, a.k.a. the water slide in the new pool seems highly unlikely on a tight budget.  Also I know at one point they were thinking of putting tennis courts on one of the levels of the wellness center instead of covering the current ones. 

As for the stadium part, the only additional fixed seating on the sketches is in the north section while this would reduce the seating in that area it doesn't seem by very much as the plans show for increased width to the north section making it close to a horseshoe type shape instead of a distinct section like it is now (this would add some seating). 

Overall it's important to understand that these are more like pr drawings inorder to provide interest and to get the ball rolling than actual fixed plans.  There was also considerable debate over how the new building would affect the wood lot around the field house and these drawing helped to ease the situation by showing the possibilities for conservation of the wood lot.

In the end I think a lot of it will come down to money as it seems the college is having a hard time raising funds.  While the drawings show many new and needed improvements for a school of Calvin's size, the real thing will probably end up being much less elaborate than the current plan (which would be a shame).