Quote from: Knight2Day on November 29, 2010, 12:12:04 AM
Not to push any buttons (which I'm sure I will), but I'm not necessarily impressed by Hope's win over AQ. AQ is severely down and after watching the Calvin v AQ game, Calvin probably should have beat the team by 30.  

But Calvin didn't win by 30 vs AQ, and in my opinion looked pretty ragged on Friday night, especially on the offensive end.  I think that the Knights' wonderful showing on Saturday night obscures that in our minds.  As high as we Calvin fans are riding right now, the fact is that we are 3-2 on the year and have plenty of room to improve to be consistent.  This is still a young team.  Hope did look impressive against AQ (so I hear, as I only attended the Calvin games), so at this point I still peg Hope to be the MIAA favorite, even without Bunn.  It seems that Hope, Calvin, and Olivet are clearly the class of the MIAA this year, and I can see any of them winning the league title.  Unless he gets hurt, I think you can write in McClary's name for MVP in ink. 

Quote from: Happy Calvin Guy on November 29, 2010, 09:08:35 AM

Quote from: Knight2Day on November 29, 2010, 12:12:04 AM
Not to push any buttons (which I'm sure I will), but I'm not necessarily impressed by Hope's win over AQ. AQ is severely down and after watching the Calvin v AQ game, Calvin probably should have beat the team by 30.   

But Calvin didn't win by 30 vs AQ, and in my opinion looked pretty ragged on Friday night, especially on the offensive end.  I think that the Knights' wonderful showing on Saturday night obscures that in our minds.  As high as we Calvin fans are riding right now, the fact is that we are 3-2 on the year and have plenty of room to improve to be consistent.  This is still a young team.  Hope did look impressive against AQ (so I hear, as I only attended the Calvin games), so at this point I still peg Hope to be the MIAA favorite, even without Bunn.  It seems that Hope, Calvin, and Olivet are clearly the class of the MIAA this year, and I can see any of them winning the league title.  Unless he gets hurt, I think you can write in McClary's name for MVP in ink. 

You are right to temper our enthusiasm for an incredibly young Calvin team. A look at the stats shows that 558 of the 1000 team minutes played to date have been provided by freshmen or sophomores. If you add in junior Brian Haverdink's minutes (he played only 84 minutes last year), fully two-thirds of all court time played in the Knights' first five games have been by first or second year varsity players. We should expect some uneven performances from a team so young but the long-term prospects are high.

Quote from: oldknight on November 29, 2010, 09:33:35 AM

Quote from: Happy Calvin Guy on November 29, 2010, 09:08:35 AM

Quote from: Knight2Day on November 29, 2010, 12:12:04 AM
Not to push any buttons (which I'm sure I will), but I'm not necessarily impressed by Hope's win over AQ. AQ is severely down and after watching the Calvin v AQ game, Calvin probably should have beat the team by 30.   

But Calvin didn't win by 30 vs AQ, and in my opinion looked pretty ragged on Friday night, especially on the offensive end.  I think that the Knights' wonderful showing on Saturday night obscures that in our minds.  As high as we Calvin fans are riding right now, the fact is that we are 3-2 on the year and have plenty of room to improve to be consistent.  This is still a young team.  Hope did look impressive against AQ (so I hear, as I only attended the Calvin games), so at this point I still peg Hope to be the MIAA favorite, even without Bunn.  It seems that Hope, Calvin, and Olivet are clearly the class of the MIAA this year, and I can see any of them winning the league title.  Unless he gets hurt, I think you can write in McClary's name for MVP in ink. 

You are right to temper our enthusiasm for an incredibly young Calvin team. A look at the stats shows that 558 of the 1000 team minutes played to date have been provided by freshmen or sophomores. If you add in junior Brian Haverdink's minutes (he played only 84 minutes last year), fully two-thirds of all court time played in the Knights' first five games have been by first or second year varsity players. We should expect some uneven performances from a team so young but the long-term prospects are high.

An appropriate cautionary note, oldknight.  We are, after all, only five games into the games that count -- and Saturday's victory over Cornerstone was the first time the young Knights performed well down the homestretch in a close game.  Even at that, there were some unhappily scary moments in the last minute of play. 

The encouraging development is that the Knights are steadily improving with each game -- and KVS is working his freshmen into the rotation at a pace that gives them meaningful opportunities without overextending them.  It's been exciting to watch Jordan Brink and Tyler Kruis in these early games, and I'm eager for more of Mitch Vallie as the season unfolds. 

It will be interesting to see how KVS works his two true point guards, Trent Salo and David Rietema, into the rotations when they become available toward the latter part of next month.  Notwithstanding the generally excellent backcourt play of Brink and Powell, finding minutes for Salo and Rietema will be a good problem to have in the conference games.

Quote from: goodknight on November 29, 2010, 10:34:14 AM
It will be interesting to see how KVS works his two true point guards, Trent Salo and David Rietema, into the rotations when they become available toward the latter part of next month.  Notwithstanding the generally excellent backcourt play of Brink and Powell, finding minutes for Salo and Rietema will be a good problem to have in the conference games.

A good problem that should help their biggest problem: turnovers.

If Hope would have kept their starters in longer, they could have beaten AQ by 40, they were that poor.  And if Hope would have kept their AQ's 2 guards out of the paint, it would have been 50, and if they had Bunn it could have been 60.........

AQ was bad, and I also believe that at this moment Calvin is better than Hope.  That being said, I am impressed not only by their progression in 3 games, I am really pleased that the new coach is allowing his players TO PLAY and play through some mistakes.  On Saturday, it was the first time, in some time, that the Hope players were playing for their team and not playing for playing time, looking over their shoulder to see if they were coming out.  Hopefully that makes sense but they are playing loose, not timid, not shutting down when errors occur or shots are missed, not "pissy" when they come off the floor.

I could be wrong but 3 "high" scorers in 3 games.  It's nice to see everyone involved, not waiting for Jesse or Peter to bail them out.  Not to sound negative but Peter being out is REALLY good for this team right now and in the long run.

It was also wonderful to see Coach Neil "riding the hot hand" of his son.  I have brought this up before.  Why would you not catch lightning in a bottle when it occurs.  A role player/non starter in a Hope uniform has not been afforded this luxury in some time.... Next time it will be Williams, or Ray or....

Let me make a slight correction on my screening assessment from the other day.  Our screeners are doing a poor job, hence the 7 or 8 illegal screen calls over the weekend, but the guards/wings need to do a better job of setting their defender up and using the screens.  They go to the screener, not the screener comes to them= illegal.  Best screen of the weekend- Tanis on Pasiack from Cornerstone.

Bowser played really well on saturday on both ends, and is making his FT's again!!!!!

If Snuggs can display that type of range offensively and play under control, watch out.  I hope we saw his coming out party yesterday.

Fun to see all the soph's on the floor together in the 2nd half, gaining valuable experience.

The question of the day for me.... Will they continue to sub freely in "bigger" games this weekend, or will we see the recently traditional short bench with starters playing 32-38 minutes.

I will also say that Calvin looks REALLY good, for this early with such a young team.  They seem really focused on being great and KVS seems to be a bit more intense and vocal.  Could be incorrect because I usually don't focus much attention on him but he's on top of things thus far.

Quote from: hoopdreams on November 29, 2010, 11:26:19 AM
...It was also wonderful to see Coach Neil "riding the hot hand" of his son.  I have brought this up before.  Why would you not catch lightning in a bottle when it occurs.  A role player/non starter in a Hope uniform has not been afforded this luxury in some time.... Next time it will be Williams, or Ray or....

You just had to bring up and rehash the "hot hand" debate again, didn't you?   

After this weekend I think we pretty much agree that CU is the real deal, while AQ not so much.
I agree it is good to temper the enthusiasm.  However, to get some idea where Calvin is at this point I tried matching how Hope performed defensively against CU's starters, and how Calvin performed against the same 5.  I won't even need radio commentary to do this.
CU starters played 140 minutes against Hope, and 132 minutes against Calvin.
CU starters had 25 rebounds against Hope, and 13 against Calvin
CU starters scored 69 points against Hope, and 43 against Calvin.
As someone else posted earlier I think CU was caught off guard by how Calvin played this game.  In fairness Hope held CU's bench to 16 points, while CU's bench had 33 against Calvin.  I could be wrong, but it appears KVS really wanted to shut down CU's starters.  Calvin did great against the 3 forwards, and held the guards to about what they did against Hope.  
I still think 5' 9" Salo is going to have a tough time getting serious playing time.  Not sure about Rietema, but his fight for p.t looks larger than Salo's does.   Part of Calvin's success so far is the fact they aren't playing the game the "old way".

Quote from: ziggy on November 29, 2010, 11:22:04 AM

Quote from: goodknight on November 29, 2010, 10:34:14 AM
It will be interesting to see how KVS works his two true point guards, Trent Salo and David Rietema, into the rotations when they become available toward the latter part of next month.  Notwithstanding the generally excellent backcourt play of Brink and Powell, finding minutes for Salo and Rietema will be a good problem to have in the conference games.

A good problem that should help their biggest problem: turnovers.

In fairness to the Knights, one turnover from Saturday night's game was due to an official not getting out of a tight space quickly enough, and knocking the ball away from Tom Snikkers and out of bounds. An unfortunate play that gave Cstone a (brief) shot of life in preventing Tommy an easy layup that would have sealed the game.

But don't get me started on the officiating from Saturday night. I understand the occasional bad (or missed) call, but I can't understand bad officiating. This crew was a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

One could also argue that one of the big differences for CU between Friday and Saturday was FT shooting (percentage and points from the line).  

Friday CU went 19-28 (.679) from the line.  
Saturday CU went 7-12 (.583) from the line (including missing the front end of 1-1 twice in the last couple minutes).

Valid point FDF:  I looked at that and sort of came to the conclusion Calvin played the defense they did without fouling to do it.  A question mark remains why CU with their significant experience advantage did not force the action against Calvin?

Quote from: Flying Dutch Fan on November 29, 2010, 11:47:31 AM
One could also argue that one of the big differences for CU between Friday and Saturday was FT shooting (percentage and points from the line).  

Friday CU went 19-28 (.679) from the line.  
Saturday CU went 7-12 (.583) from the line (including missing the front end of 1-1 twice in the last couple minutes).

I too was impressed with Calvin's ability to play good position defense without fouling so much.  

Quote from: realist on November 29, 2010, 11:36:43 AM
After this weekend I think we pretty much agree that CU is the real deal, while AQ not so much.
I agree it is good to temper the enthusiasm.  However, to get some idea where Calvin is at this point I tried matching how Hope performed defensively against CU's starters, and how Calvin performed against the same 5.  I won't even need radio commentary to do this.
CU starters played 140 minutes against Hope, and 132 minutes against Calvin.
CU starters had 25 rebounds against Hope, and 13 against Calvin
CU starters scored 69 points against Hope, and 43 against Calvin.
As someone else posted earlier I think CU was caught off guard by how Calvin played this game.  In fairness Hope held CU's bench to 16 points, while CU's bench had 33 against Calvin.  I could be wrong, but it appears KVS really wanted to shut down CU's starters.  Calvin did great against the 3 forwards, and held the guards to about what they did against Hope.  
I still think 5' 9" Salo is going to have a tough time getting serious playing time.  Not sure about Rietema, but his fight for p.t looks larger than Salo's does.   Part of Calvin's success so far is the fact they aren't playing the game the "old way".

Reluctant though I am to disagree with you, it's my belief that Salo will get significant playing time when he's back in game shape.  He may or may not see the kind of PT he got last year, but his ball-handling ability and his knack for hitting an opportunistic/clutch three-pointer will get him significant minutes. If I'm wrong about that, I'll apologize to you at mid-court at any game you deign to attend).

I only saw Rietema in action a few times last year on the JV team, but I've heard (not on the radio  ) that he was very impressive in the summer league -- both on the offensive and defensive ends.  I cheerfully concur that Rietema's less likely to see big minutes than is Salo.

By the way, I don't think Salo's game has anything to do with what you describe as "the old way."  It's the absence of a low-post banger (though Kruise may yet develop into one) and the assembling of a more athletic group of players that prompted a new look to the offensive schemes.

thought I'd start the week off with a little, friendly debate with lots of percentages, formulas, etc...  

Anyone who has played the game and been fortunate to be "that person", knows what I'm talking about.  Do I keep Timmy on the floor because he's knocked down 4 or 5 in a row, or do I put " insert name" back in because that's what I usually do with my starter?  90 seconds of game clock and a timeout for a breather.  Kid just hits 2 three's to put us in the lead when we were struggling, or come back with Timmy because he's our stud even if he's not playing particularly well......  Play a kid when he's sick and hasn't practiced AND is playing badly because that's the normal gameplan or try someone else who "may play well and wait for it......catch fire!!!! or simply not f-things up too much.

Let the debates begin! Again!

When healthy, Salo will play for one simple but important reason--he's a leader. Teammates beg for someone they can respect and follow. Coaches love having a leader on the floor. Trent doesn't have the creativity of a Bryan Powell nor the promise of steady strength the young freshmen from Illiana has already demonstrated, but Salo can lead. Anyone who saw him hop on his one good leg to separate would-be combatants in the Ohio Wesleyan game to quickly defuse a potentially ugly situation knows what I mean. It's really hard to teach that kind of stuff.

Quote from: goodknight on November 29, 2010, 10:34:14 AM
The encouraging development is that the Knights are steadily improving with each game -- and KVS is working his freshmen into the rotation at a pace that gives them meaningful opportunities without overextending them.  It's been exciting to watch Jordan Brink and Tyler Kruis in these early games, and I'm eager for more of Mitch Vallie as the season unfolds. 

I agree.  I'm also encouraged by how hard Calvin has played.  The intensity has been great.  They're young, they make some mistakes, but they are fun to watch.