Central played an incredible game tonight against Wash U. We were clearly the underdogs, but we gave them everything they could handle. With 30 seconds left it was a 3 point game. Josh Van Gorp had another monster game finishing with 39 points. He also managed to put 3 Washington U players in serious foul trouble while only committing 2 himself. I think Wash U underestimated us and was lucky to get the win.

Quote from: doolittledog on March 03, 2025, 09:22:49 AMUD announces their new D Line coach.  Jon Zohlmann, a 2022 Central grad and spent the last 2 seasons as the D Line coach at Nebraska Wesleyan.  Former UD defensive line coach Rob Huberty is now the Defensive Coordinator at St. Norbert. 

Do me a favor. Don't hire Blaine Hawkins as a QB Coach!🤣

Quote from: GusD on March 02, 2025, 05:01:59 PM

Quote from: Schipper Strong on March 01, 2025, 11:17:31 PMCongratulations to the Central Dutch on winning the ARC championship at Nebraska Wesleyan tonight! It was such a fun game to watch in person. The team was on a mission and they played very well.

Really disgusting to see what I believe was the NWU football team trolling Josh Van Gorp's sister as the team warmed up for the second half. Winning is pretty sweet revenge!

Keep it going in the NCAA playoffs Dutch.

If the trolling suspicion is true, the only thing a team that lost more than twice as many games as they won should be trolling is themselves!
And, it looks like the trolling jinxed their own team in the 2nd half more than it did the opposition. 😏

I don't know what they were trying to accomplish. Josh's sister played basketball for Central also and was at the game with her parents, grandparents, and other relatives. They held up signs that said something about her. Someone came and took them and tore them up, then they did it a second time and again they were taken away.

Here is a link to a story on Josh Van Gorp's from January.
https://athletics.central.edu/news/2025/1/2/mens-basketball-van-gorp-reaching-new-heights-for-central-mens-basketball.aspx

Congratulations to the Central Dutch on winning the ARC championship at Nebraska Wesleyan tonight! It was such a fun game to watch in person. The team was on a mission and they played very well.

Really disgusting to see what I believe was the NWU football team trolling Josh Van Gorp's sister as the team warmed up for the second half. Winning is pretty sweet revenge!

Keep it going in the NCAA playoffs Dutch.

Thanks for the schedule information Driftless Duhawk. I have been hard in Central for not scheduling tougher non conference opponents. Looks like they will be stepping things up this year. I know it means a possible hit to the win count, but you learn nothing from playing subpar teams. If we want to be a better team we have to step up.

Sparty Blue I am so glad your predictions for Central did not age well. I thought Central had a decent chance against Coe. The first time they played Van Gorp was coming off an injury and it showed. Had he been healthy I think we would have won our first matchup. The second time we really focused on getting the ball in to Van Gorp. Coe really struggled with stopping him which is why he set the school single game scoring record against Coe twice. The sole focus of gettin the ball inside nearly lost the game. It also ended up hurting the team as our three point shooting and scoring really took a hit after that leading to our four game skid.

I expected UD to win last night. UD got to rest Tuesday night, they were the home team and regular season winner. The way the game started I really struggled to keep watching, particularly with our women playing Coe at the same time. I stuck with it trying to watch both games at the same time. I was really disappointed that UD had no announcers for the game. Hard to really get into it that way. But the Dutch had a goal of getting into the NCAA tourney and this conference tourney was the last chance for Van Gorp and Brand, the only senior/5th year starters.

Those two guys are both very down to earth genuinely nice guys. They both have extremely strong ties to Pella. Josh graduated from Pella Christian and Kaleb's dad was a Pella High and Central grad, as is his mom a Central grad. Kaleb's grandmother taught at Central for decades. This team wants them to get that playoff experience. It may or may not happen, but they are giving it everything they have. It was enough to get the win last night.

Central hit a tough slide with 3 losses. Loras at Loras and UD are tough opponents. Frustrating though as Central leads in the second half and just can't score. I don't know if we aren't substituting enough in the first half so we run out of steam or what. Often times it is the three pointers that doom us. The other teams get hot and we just can't hit.

Congratulations to Josh Van Gorp on becoming Central's all time scoring leader in the game against UD. He is up for top small college player and has made the cut for top 50 out of 1100 some schools.

Central added two more wins again since my last post. They were easily in cruise control over Simpson going up by 30 points after the starters came out with 11 minutes left in the game. They were hammering Van Gorp on the inside often with 3 players on him. He only took 3 shots from the field and added five free throws for 11 points.

Today Coe decided to go one on one against Van Gorp and it was obvious the team wanted our best player ever to break his own scoring record in front of the home crowd. He set it last year with 48 against Coe. He could have set it out of sight if he had not missed 9 free throws. His grandma will say it keeps him humble.
He did break the record scoring 55 points.  Way to go and congratulations Josh! Proud of our hometown player. Dutch beat Coe 75-73 nearly exclusively on two point shooting, but we did need a last second shot by Brad Curren to do it.

Central gets two more wins since I last posted. Luther came in winless in the conference but played a gutsy game against the Dutch making us work for a 3 point win. Then Central goes on the road and beats Wartburg 77-63 today.

I have to give credit to Kaleb Brand for stepping up his offensive performance in the past three games. He had a fantastic game against Luther and is getting closer to last year's levels recently. Credit also to Karson Wehde leading the Dutch with 21 points today. Other players are stepping up taking pressure off Van Gorp to carry the scoring load. The Dutch have to keep improving to get where they want to be. I hate to see Van Gorp and Brand's careers down to half a season, but I am excited by what I see from the younger players.

Hey Doolittledog, good to see someone else on here. But if posting brings Central bad luck, go away! 🤣

I imagine there was a combination of Dubuque doing some things really well and Central being a bit worn down after Loras and NWU. Two shocks for me in this game. Brand leading all scorers was the first as he has not been scoring much this year which has been really strange as he was a strong scoring player last year. I am hoping that means he is stepping up and not that the rest were really off. He was our technical foul shooter last year and this year his free throw percentage is way down. Kind of like he didn't really want that Covid year back. The second is the low scoring by Van Gorp. I only caught a small portion of the game so I am not sure what was happening there.

On letting UD hold the ball the last 30 seconds, a part I did not see, but if they were already down by 7 a comeback in 30 seconds isn't likely. Steinkamp seems to realize when to accept that a win isn't going to happen. If it was 3 or 4 points I agree with fouling. Too often it just backfires with the other team getting two points and a hurried shot by the team behind.

Chatting with myself here. Central goes to NWU tonight and won 70-55. Josh Van Gorp had 31 points. I think UD is up next. Go Dutch!

Great game today between Central and Loras with the Dutch coming out on top 78-76. Very poor officiating. Van Gorp is getting over an injury and still scored 28 points.

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on November 21, 2024, 04:45:20 PMI was telling someone last night, there's not much more Van Gorp can do.  He's got to get a little help from the rest of the team at some point.  They're not playing terribly, but obviously not well enough to win.

Central found help for Van Gorp tonight in their win at Simpson 100-79. Two freshmen lead the scoring as Central shot 50% from 3 pt range. Owen Schipper had 29, Grant Uecker had 24 points in a reserve role, Van Gorp had 18 while being triple teamed much of the night and Kaleb Brand kicked it up a couple notches with 17. Great balanced scoring with the Storm concentrating heavily on stopping Van Gorp. Nice win for the Dutch to start out the conference play on the road.

Central beat Cornell today 102-61. It wasn't much of a contest. Van Gorp had 24 points in 24 minutes of play. Schipper was again the second punch with 22 points in 23 minutes. Hitting 6-9 from behind the arc. We still need more support from the other players, but we are playing a lot of young players, so they need to find the combination that works. Love having a freshman step up as second leading scorer.