Quote from: Flying Dutch Fan on March 10, 2025, 03:45:00 PMThat was actually in the semi-final @ Trine in 2024 - part of a great weekend in Angola for Hope. 

FDF, thanks for the corrections, I must have blocked out the details of the bad memories. I just know the memory was triggered in a painful way this past weekend when Wisc Lutheran's big man hit four threes against us.

Thanks also for the list of recruits and your work to compile it. It seems a little shorter than usual. Are recruits still deciding up until the normal college decision day of May 1? Or is there just less info out there?

Fun season. 20 game win streak, 14-0 in MIAA, MIAA tourney champs, 3-0 sweep vs Hope, overall enjoyable team to root for. A too-soon exit from NCAA tourney but still a memorable season in many ways.

Regarding prior post about Quillan, terrific career. My (least) favorite memory is the 7 threes he hit in Grand Rapids in the 2024 MIAA tournament championship game.

Any news about 2025 incoming freshman, or transfers in/out?

Per Massey:
Calvin 56% probability to beat Wisconsin Lutheran in opening game. Most likely score 74-72.

Platteville pod probabilities:

UW-Platteville 61.6%
Calvin 19.5%
Wisconsin Lutheran 14.0%
Grinnell 4.9%

As of this afternoon, I believe Calvin has the nation's longest active winning streak

Quote from: Dark Knight on February 26, 2025, 07:40:18 AMHmmm. I hadn't really thought about the fact that that there is a tradeoff between going for steals and solid defense, that a high number of steals may also result in a higher opponent field goal percentage. Nice observation.

Maybe we need some combination stat that includes both factors. Or would that just be defensive efficiency? From D3Datacast, Calvin 86.3 (#4), Trine 89.7 (#15).

Calvin's opponents' points per game:
First 7 games: 78.0 ppg
Next 18 games: 57.9 ppg

It would be interesting to see how Calvin ranks nationally in defensive efficiency during the 18-game win streak.

Congrats to Calvin on being only the fourth team in MIAA men's basketball history to go 14-0 in conference play, joining 1959-60 Hope, 1999-2000 Calvin, and 2011-12 Hope.

A year ago yesterday Olivet beat eventual national champion Trine by double figures. Coach Hargraves brings his team ready to play every game. Kretschman seems to be emerging as one of the top freshman in the MIAA--I thought he was impressive in the game at Van Noord and he has had other great games recently (e.g. 17/17/9/5 steals vs Alma). Calvin is playing well lately but they can't take Olivet lightly tomorrow night. Hope's victory over Trine gave Calvin the gift of a 2 game lead in MIAA and it sure would be nice to maintain that.

Great to see James Felton and Daane Harvey back seeing game action after injuries. Hope to see Trevin Winkle return soon too. Any word on the severity of his ankle?

Also glad that Parker Swartz was not injured after the dirty foul by Adrian today. It was good that the ref issued some sort of technical/flagrant foul to signal that type of dangerous play is not acceptable.

A key moment from last night's Hope-Albion game. With about 2 min left, Hovey hit a three to give Hope their first lead since the first minute of the second half. Wourman immediately stole the inbounds pass and Mims smartly backed the ball out to kill clock, maintain momentum, and be patient for a good shot. But the shot clock was erroneously set to 20 seconds instead of giving Hope the full 30 on change of possession. No one seemed to notice this--Hope coaches, players, refs, announcers, anyone. As a result of the erroneous shot clock, Hope never got into their offense and Mims (a 26% three point shooter) had to force up a three as the shot clock ran down. He missed, Hope fouled on the rebound, and Albion tied the game from the line with 1:34 left. Hope did not score again and lost by two on Albion's buzzer beating putback. In any loss you can point to a million things, but in hindsight 10 more seconds of clock usage and one more potential quality shot attempt loomed pretty large.

Calvin and Hope have momentum going in different directions right now, but it's been a real fine line and Calvin would do well to not take Hope lightly on Saturday.

Roster posted
https://calvinknights.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster

It appears Jordan Scott is not on the roster. All other potential returnees with significant minutes are back.

Quote from: sac on May 24, 2023, 10:57:36 AM

Quote from: WUPHF on May 24, 2023, 10:46:49 AM
Cynically, I think the move to Division II is also often about a president or chancellor growing his or her list of accomplishments.

And survival for some.  D2 also, allegedly, brings in more donations to the endowments in some cases, which I am skeptical of, but can also believe.

I think you're much more likely to see a split of MIAA schools going D2 and NAIA.  But, just me.

Re: endowments, I took a quick look at the top at all endowments >$1B amongst US colleges and universities. My quick scan shows that that 100% of public institutions with endowments >$1B compete at D1 level, which feels intuitive. But amongst the 80 private institutions listed with endowments >$1B, 32 of them compete at D3 level, and zero of them compete at D2 level (My count might be off by a few since it was a quick scan). I don't see the case that moving from D3 to D2 increases giving to the endowment.

First, congrats to Hope on taking two tough games from us at Van Noord and not too much doubt in either one. Two weeks ago I thought Calvin had potential to make a deep run in the NCAA tourney but now we will watch from home.

Multiple comments on this board in the last 24 hours have questioned Calvin's guard play and pointed to that as an area for improvement. Yes, their stat line was ugly in the MIAA title game and Hope's guards definitely got the better of them that night. That is all very fresh in our minds. But, looking at their body of work this entire season, I compared Egekeze/Ressler vs Dykhouse/Wourman. (the most likely starting backcourts in 2023-24?)

Calvin's duo shot 50% from the field vs 39% for Hope's. Also 43% on 3PT vs 32%. FTs are a much different story--85% to 55% the other way. Total scoring was pretty much even but it took Hope's duo about 19% more shots to achieve that. Calvin's duo was significantly more efficient in their scoring.

On a per game basis, Calvin's duo had more rebounds, blocks, and steals. Hope's duo had more assists, but also higher turnovers.

These statistical advantages are even more impressive when you consider they did all this in ~8% fewer minutes per game.

One or two tough nights do not define a player. Looking at the big picture I'm 100% ready to go into 2023-24 with these two anchoring our backcourt.

Quote from: ziggy on February 16, 2023, 10:55:26 AM
Last night's attendance of 3,986 is larger than any home game for Western Michigan this season.

It was also the largest attendance for any game @Calvin in over five years, not to mention any home game @Hope ever.

Quote from: ziggy on January 18, 2023, 11:40:30 AM

Quote from: Dark Knight on January 18, 2023, 10:44:44 AM

Quote from: goodknight on January 17, 2023, 09:20:13 PM
Quincy Winkle of Potter's House has committed to Calvin University. He's the son of NCAA Division III 2000 Player of the Year Aaron Winkle. Never can have too many Winkles.

It seems that we keep getting more of them as we age.

Don't we already have a Winkle who can light up the board -- although he "is still learning to play defense," according to Sall? Is Trevin Winkle related to any of the other Winkles?

I believe the short answer is yes, though some more directly than others. Jeff Febus kind of went through the Winkle family tree during a recent broadcast and apparently Marcus Bult's mom is part of it too.

If I'm not mistaken Quincy and Trevin would be second cousins.

Quote from: ziggy on April 06, 2022, 09:27:04 AM

Quote from: oldknight on April 05, 2022, 10:47:00 PM
Ralph Honderd, top player on the 1960-61 Calvin Knights, the only undefeated men's team in Calvin hoops history, later head basketball coach that spanned the Mark Veenstra years, and father to All-American Steve Honderd, passed away Sunday. Ralph's hip-check during a pick-up basketball game--sending air-borne a smart-aleck high schooler who thought he was better player than he really was--a totally illegal maneuver for which a much younger oldknight never received an apology, will always be remembered by me with special fondness.

Thanks for passing along this sad news, OK. As noted in his obituary, Coach/Professor Honderd formed the "An Inside Look at the January Series" course, of which I was a student during my sophomore interim. Not much thought went into my selection other than "this looks kind of interesting" but it turned into one of the more memorable courses I took.

I too remember Ralph Honderd fondly as a professor from my first semester freshman year. I actually had the experience of taking courses from Honderd, Ed Douma, and Kevin VandeStreek during my time at Calvin. My guess is that is fairly uncommon, requiring a fairly narrow time window and specific course selection.