A little birdy told me several Hamline Pipers are considering transferring.

Quote from: jimhoops1234 on March 18, 2011, 12:19:25 AM
A quick facebook search might answer some questions. I have also heard the Hamline rumors. Whitmore might have lost some guys but he kept the right one with the man in the middle. Hipp deserves all the post season accolades he's received.

Whitmore was lucky to retain Hipp at Hamline, but regardless of the coach Hipp would have been at Hamline for his basketball career given his family connections.

Quote from: hoopsup on March 17, 2011, 08:18:38 PM
Rumor mill has 2-3 players leaving Hamline this spring, kids who contributed this year.  What's going on over there? 

I would believe it. 

As to what's going on over there, I would say the same old. Is Whitmore known for his retention of players?

Exhibit 1: Carl Hipp was the lone senior from Whitmore's first freshman class which consisted of 8 freshman.

http://hamline.edu/hamline_info/athletics/mens_basketball/0708/2007-08_roster.html

Just as a MIAC (and Piper) plug, Carl Hipp has been nominated to be on the DIII NABC All-Star game. However, to get in for sure, he needs votes from the fans. If interested and want to support Hipp, go to www.d3hoops.com TODAY and vote for (Carl Hipp, Hamline) in the Reader's Poll in the middle of the page.  The top 2 fan picks qualify for the game.

IMO, it would be great to have a representative from the MIAC at the All-Star Game, so please give our big man a vote!

Very nice game between HU and UST tonight. Hipp was a dominant figure in the game with an MVP performance of 23 pts, 21 rebounds, and 3 blocks while clocking 29 minutes. However, I am still greatly troubled by our inability to get him the ball. I would bet that almost half of his shots came from his own offensive rebounds. (Notice he had some nice passes out of the post also!) The game was lost by our 3 point shooting. We failed to convert even one 3pt attempt in the second half and had too many turnovers. Pannell reared his ugly little head shooting 2-8 from outside the arch. Hamline could have easily rode the coattails of Hipp through the game, but decided to use other routes  The only credit I will give to Whitmore was letting Hipp play for more minutes than usual. 

Going on a tangent, I was/am embarrassed to be in the MIAC due to the inconsistency of our refs. I am sure some fans will disagree, but I felt there were several calls tonight that were blatantly incorrect. St. Thomas should be ashamed of itself for the level of flopping and acting they did in order to get calls, namely Teddy Archer. Please say someone else noticed he was trying to force more fouls than he was actually trying to play real basketball.

Quote from: Drake Palmer on February 25, 2011, 03:14:55 PM

Quote from: piperinsider on February 25, 2011, 03:01:45 PM
Former University of Minnesota hockey player Thomas Vanek:
"We're going to shock the world"

Well, Hamline, shock away!


It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!! I'm hoping to catch part of it on the webcast while also covering a basketball game out here.

My keys for Hamline:
1. Don't force outside shots. Use Hipp to get the ball into the paint, draw a second defender and find the open man
2. Win the first half. Get the Tommie crowd checking their phones to see whether the party is on Goodrich or Selby
3. Control the tempo - play "Piper" ball

PI- I love Carl Hipp. I think he's a terrific player, & should be a finalist for league MVP,  if not MVP, but...

When was the last time you saw him kick the ball out of the post?  Kick the ball out of the post, pass, or repost? Probably 6th or 7th grade travelling ball.    

I will actually challenge you on this. I agree he does not pass out very often, mostly due to the fact that he is strictly told to put the ball in the hoop if he touches it. I have been to nearly every Piper game this year and there have been glimpses of hope when Hipp did kick it back out with some regularity and success.

As UMacFan said, I see Fritz making Whitmore look like a fool, so it is going to be up to the players to win this game. When the Pipers won the first time, it was our hot shooting that won the game, not any strategic plan by Whitmore.

Quote from: AO on February 25, 2011, 12:35:00 PM

Quote from: TheSuperfan on February 25, 2011, 12:07:20 PM
If I have anything left to say, its that my Pipers are going to show up ready for tonights battle. They have a bad taste in their mouth from the last meeting and have the taste of blood from the first meeting at Hutton.

maybe the bad taste in their mouth is the blood? 

Well if that is the case, What would happen if the Piper squad had Kim's chicken for their pregame dinner?

If I have anything left to say, its that my Pipers are going to show up ready for tonights battle. They have a bad taste in their mouth from the last meeting and have the taste of blood from the first meeting at Hutton. The key for the Pipers will be ball control and limiting turnovers throughout the game. I expect Pannell to jack up a few threes regardless of who is guarding him (especially Nicolia with a height disadvantage), here is to hoping he is hot tonight. With that being said, if Taber and and Aguirre can help control the game with an occasional chip in from Hipp this game could be exciting. It is going to take a team effort to say the least from the Pipers to pull this one off...but these are not your ordinary Pipers.

I begin to stir the pot with MVP discussions providing a purely data based approach to start off.

The following chart provides the base stats for the 2 best players on each team in players IMHO, plus Burtzel as an add in. A little twist to bring in pure efficiency, the numbers reported are per minute of play time in conference only. The players are ranked in descending order of points per minute. I tried to make the margin look good...at least it looked alright on my computer. 

Player                   Team   Pts     Rbd    A       Blk     S       TO
Carl Hipp                HU     0.74   0.42   0.01   0.08   0.01   0.05
Darrin Olmscheid      CON   0.54   0.20   0.05   0.01   0.01   0.06
Mike Campbell          HU     0.52   0.22   0.11   0.01   0.06   0.08
Stu Neville             STO    0.51   0.25   0.06   0.04   0.02   0.05
Seth Jonker            CAR    0.50   0.20   0.07   0.01   0.02   0.08
Tyler Nicolai            UST    0.48   0.06   0.11   0.01   0.07   0.03
John Fraase            CON    0.47   0.30   0.10   0.01   0.03   0.08
Jeremy Sutherland    CAR    0.46   0.12   0.11   0.02   0.05   0.07
Bobby Fong             STO    0.43   0.16   0.05   0.01   0.02   0.05
Aaron Burtzel           SJU    0.43   0.27   0.10   0.02   0.04   0.04
Alex Healy              UST    0.40   0.07   0.09   0.01   0.03   0.06

Right away we see Hipp at the top with 0.2 more ppm (points per minute) than the next closest. He also leads the rebounds and blocks by a considerable amount. His steals and assists leave some to be desired, but he doesn't really strive for those either. Finally, his TO per minute number is also pretty low comparatively.

Hopefully this leads into some insightful discussion; however, I realize pure numbers do not constitute the honor of MVP.

Quote from: Drake Palmer on February 18, 2011, 11:50:59 PM
MIAC 2011 Playoffs 6th Seed Pickem

Contestant     Team Total Pts

MIACManiac     AUG   397
Papahoops      AUG  410
JQuentint        AUG   415   
Drake Palmer   AUG  420

VOJ                 GAC   410

AO                  SJU   395
The Superfan    SJU    492

Remember, we'll still take picks until tipoff on Saturday.

Looks like I am hoping for high scores...almost 100 more than most.  rookie mistake?

6th team

SJU
AUG
CORD

Total Pts scored

SJU/UST Pts =  172
CORD/HAM Pts = 177
GAC/SMU Pts =  143

Quote from: piperinsider on February 13, 2011, 11:04:38 PM

Quote from: TheSuperfan on February 13, 2011, 10:50:19 PM

Quote from: piperinsider on February 13, 2011, 08:57:30 PM

Quote from: Buddo on February 13, 2011, 07:13:30 PM
So is this Piper team better without R. Brown?

Yes and no.

Yes because they are much more balanced this year than they were last year. There's more shots to go around I think the one downfall of the Pipers last year was their outside shooting. They didn't have any dead eyes except for Dan Andersen and Brown. Only those two had more than 16 3-pointers. This year six players have 12 or more 3-pointers with at least four games remaining. And we all know how big the 3-ball can be in the game right now.

No because the Pipers don't have that one person to turn to when trailing by a basket in the end. Do they throw down low to Hipp? Let Campbell penetrate and try to create something. Have Pannell jack up a three? Or maybe Aguirre? Sure, Brown made horrible decisions in the final seconds in a couple of contests last season, but he also won them a few games because he wasn't afraid to take the big shot.

A couple of weeks ago, Levi Wenrich takes the final shot down three against Carleton. Weinrich is 0-for-6 on the season from behind the arc.

I know for sure that Weinrich was not supposed to take that final shot against Carleton just to clarify.

Obviously he wasn't. But he did. Is that because Carleton played great defense on the player that Hamline wanted to have the ball, or because they didn't have a player out there that wanted to shoot the final shot?

There was plenty of time left on the clock for a play to develop yet, I just think Weinrich just got an open look and didn't remember he isn't supposed to shoot  . IMO, it was a horrible mistake from a player that shouldn't even have been in that situation. However, after 4 years I still have not been able to figure out what Whitmore is thinking half the time.

Quote from: piperinsider on February 13, 2011, 08:57:30 PM

Quote from: Buddo on February 13, 2011, 07:13:30 PM
So is this Piper team better without R. Brown?

Yes and no.

Yes because they are much more balanced this year than they were last year. There's more shots to go around I think the one downfall of the Pipers last year was their outside shooting. They didn't have any dead eyes except for Dan Andersen and Brown. Only those two had more than 16 3-pointers. This year six players have 12 or more 3-pointers with at least four games remaining. And we all know how big the 3-ball can be in the game right now.

No because the Pipers don't have that one person to turn to when trailing by a basket in the end. Do they throw down low to Hipp? Let Campbell penetrate and try to create something. Have Pannell jack up a three? Or maybe Aguirre? Sure, Brown made horrible decisions in the final seconds in a couple of contests last season, but he also won them a few games because he wasn't afraid to take the big shot.

A couple of weeks ago, Levi Wenrich takes the final shot down three against Carleton. Weinrich is 0-for-6 on the season from behind the arc.

I know for sure that Weinrich was not supposed to take that final shot against Carleton just to clarify.

Just to throw this bit out there, no Piper played clocked more than 20 minutes in the overwhelming win over Macalester today. Is Whitmore resting his men for the tough upcoming week? Hipp was relatively ineffective mostly due to a constant double team moving into a triple if a fellow Piper even hinted at passing it into the big man.

Pipes shot very well especially from the 3pt line, nice to see several guys contributing on the 3's giving them many options come a little more competition.

Rest of the games around the conference appeared to be a little closer than the HU game, but still not nail-biters.

So what I am getting at is if a "national title run" is in the works, and the team loses to St. Olaf at home, they are perpetually cursed.

I sure hope St. Olaf doesn't use the newly found power bestowed upon them by TH4L for evil doings.

I can see the slogan now....

St. Olaf - we crush playoff hopes so you don't have to