Heart breaking loss for the Dutchmen last night.  In contrast to what other posters have said, I believe Hope played some of its worst basketball in the second half of the season.  By simply watching them nearly get beaten by Albion and allowing Olivet to man handle them in the first half its obvious that they did not deserve to be number one.  Many people have pointed out that teams played well against Hope, but if Hope was that dominant then neither Olivet nor Albion would have been a challenge.  If the MIAA wasn't such a weak conference this season, then certainly Hope would have lost.  This was not the team of years past that had to struggle with a very tough conference schedule.  Lets face it no one else made the big dance or was even close to being considered.  In '96, '98 and '05 Hope had to battle tought opponents who made the post season tournament.  The OT victory over Adrian showed that Hope was a flawed team that could show signs of brilliance at times, but a majority of the time lacked a killer instinct to put teams away early.  Aside from a few games in the second half of the season, they had far too many close games against weak teams.  I'm sure the coaches of Westminister and IWU got the video footage of those games and learned to exploit Hope's weaknesses.  If it wasn't for Snuggerud's fantastic performance on Friday, this discussion would have happened on Friday night.  Please feel free to disagree, this is only my opinion.

Wow arena thanks for painting such broad strokes about all Hope fans.  Last I knew this board was an open forum and you're welcome to bring up any topic for discussion that you would like.  Or would you and sac like your own board to make sarcastic comments toward one another?  Can the game start any sooner so maybe we can actually discuss that rather than watch petty arguments between one another?

Does anyone actually believe that KVS is on the proverbial "hot seat"?  I know he seems to be losing to Hope quite often, but looking at his records the last few years, its not like he is phoning it in.  Every coach has an off year and things simply don't go as planned.  Look at MSU and Tom Izzo last year, the team wasn't living up to expectations, but they're back on top again this year.  I think it seems to be terribly reactive to consider letting KVS go for a .500 season.  Now if next season is more of the same or worse, then it might be time to consider looking for a new coach.  But KVS can continue losing to Hope all that he wants.

I doubt there is a real desire to have an eight team tournament, with fans, coaches or schools.  There was rarely a shocker team that went from a seven seed to winning the tournament.  With that said, I think Alma could have shocked a few teams this year had they made the tournament.  Thanks for the update.

Why did the MIAA go to fewer teams making the conference tournament?  What was their rationale?  I'm not sure if we ever had a team come out of the tournament with a losing record and said team get the automatic qualifier.

In the Holland Sentinel they state that Hope completed the second undefeated season in the MIAA, the first being Calvin in 2000.  Is this since Trine entered the league?  Because I recall Hope going undefeated in 94-95 and I'm sure Calvin has done the same a few times. 

In response to the many posts about enrollment and successful sports programs.  I don't think it has much to do with the basic undergrad or graduate population.  Take for example, Emory University in Atlanta, GA has a population of 13,000+, but they aren't a dynastic powerhouse when it comes to Division III sports.  I'm unsure of their athletic expenditures though.  Taking a quick look at the Top 25, one would find that many colleges aren't the size of Emory or Washington U, although both are ranked.  Sorry if my logic seems convoluted in my post, its been a long day!

Alma 78 Calvin 71 with 6:48 to play in 2nd half.

Getting the Livestats and it appears the Dutchmen came out of the locker room firing on all cylinders in the second half.  Baring a second half meltdown of Biblical proportions, looks like Hope has this one wrapped up.

I realize I'm a little late in responding to the conversation about diminishing attendance at VNA, but I'll add my two cents worth now.  At college we now have students that didn't get involved in attending high school sports and still feel that way about college sports.  The school I teach at not long ago had a Homecoming parade complete with floats from grades 7-12.  Now there are no floats and no parade, because it was such a headache to get students to build them.  These students are now at college and I recently returned to my reunion at Hope to see there was no parade or floats.  Why, because no one wanted to do them.  I also find that students are rather ambivalent about attending sporting events if they aren't part of the team.  A team with a lackluster record will keep, all but the die hard fans, at home.