WBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletics Association

[HopeConvert]

Good grief - Hope couldn't enjoy even 24 hours as #1 in the country!  I haven't yet seen a recap - did Carissa go crazy on 'em, or was it a total team victory?

Actually, Hope will still get to "enjoy" one week.

If I had to make a guess, the Damsels won't enjoy their trip to the DeVos.

Called it.

[sac]

3,433 attendance for the Hope/Calvin game.

Nice!!!

[WWWRHH]

After the loss in Grand Rapids I was worried that this year's edition of the Dutch were not equal to those of the last three years.  I was worried that perhaps they were not physical enough, were perhaps not as quick or maybe too dependent on one player when things got tough.

It looks like the loss was a wake up call and Saturday's game helped answer most of my questions. 

On offense the Dutch were not bothered by the Knights aggressive perimeter ball defense because they dribbled less, passed more crisply and moved much better away from the ball.  This opened up both driving and inside passing lanes.  The good ball movement also created just a little bit more time to look at the basket before taking the outside shot.

I thought it was the best defensive effort I have seen in any type of BB game in a long time.  Someone sitting near me wondered if Hope has implemented a new scheme or were playing a match up zone.  It appeared to me they were playing their traditional agressive man to man, but that the help rotation was almost perfect..

After Saturday's victory I am looking forward to the post-season and may break my personal policy of looking to far ahead and book my room in Bloomington soon.

[Erm Schmigget]

After Saturday's victory I am looking forward to the post-season and may break my personal policy of looking to far ahead and book my room in Bloomington soon.

I like your enthusiasm.  After the way the chips fell on Saturday, I would say you might also want to hold the weekend of March 4-5 as a possible travel date.  By the alternating year rule, I believe that if both the men's and women's teams make it to the NCAA tourney, the possibility of hosting at the DeVos would belong to the men's team. I'm not sure how the teams' respective regional rankings, etc. would play in that decision, but if past years teach us anything, we can assume there isn't much communication between the women's and men's tourney selection committees.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if the DeVos is virtually dormant that weekend.  

[realist]

When Calvin won the first meeting they played about at their max. ability.  It wasn't the Hope team we have seen in recent meetings, and they proved that by roaring back on Sat.  Good job, great game.  Hard to over come 34 turnovers.

[Pat Coleman]

After Saturday's victory I am looking forward to the post-season and may break my personal policy of looking to far ahead and book my room in Bloomington soon.

I like your enthusiasm.  After the way the chips fell on Saturday, I would say you might also want to hold the weekend of March 4-5 as a possible travel date.  By the alternating year rule, I believe that if both the men's and women's teams make it to the NCAA tourney, the possibility of hosting at the DeVos would belong to the men's team. I'm not sure how the teams' respective regional rankings, etc. would play in that decision, but if past years teach us anything, we can assume there isn't much communication between the women's and men's tourney selection committees.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if the DeVos is virtually dormant that weekend.  

Actually, I am pretty sure they do communicate on this issue. If only one of a school's basketball teams is seeded to host, it will do so.

By the way, the women have first-weekend hosting priority this season, not the men. In even years, it's reversed.

[sac]

The last regional poll suggests Hope won't have to worry about hosting.

[fannie]

Could someone explain the regional ranking thing to me?  How is a team ranked 1-4 in the country and not 1 or 2 in the region???

[sac]

Could someone explain the regional ranking thing to me?  How is a team ranked 1-4 in the country and not 1 or 2 in the region???

The d3hoops.com poll and the NCAA regional poll's are independent of each other, the NCAA poll has very specific criteria to follow.  The d3hoops.com poll is an opinion poll.

There's a FAQ page around here somewhere that explains the NCAA criteria, if someone could find the link and post it that would be awesome.

[Pat Coleman]

http://www.d3hoops.com/interactive/faq/

[WWWRHH]

Hope's regional ranking is an issue every year and it has nothing to do with the quality of the program or the team's actual relative strength vs. other teams in the region.

It is primarily a strength of schedule issue based on the their opponents' winning percentage and, to some extent their opponents opponents winning percentage.  They play 19 games against conference opponents and most of the conference is consistently weak.  Excluding Hope and Calvin the combined conference record is 50  - 95 and against only non-conference teams it is 17 -41.  This year, St. Mary's is the only conference team (other than the Knights and Dutch) to have a winning record against non-conference opponents.  I am sure that it is hard for many of the players to get very excited about a mid-week road trip to Alma or Trine.

The D3 Hoops poll has consistently been more accurate than the regional rankings as a predictor of the Dutch post season performance but that is not going to change the reliance on a quantitative system that provides a consistently reasonalbe framework for evaluating teams that have few common opponents.

The Dutch and Knights are destined to play most first round tournament games on the road until the bottom five conference teams (and they are the same ones every year) become competitive outside the confernce.  And that is not going to happen anytime soon.

[WWWRHH]

It is now official.   The fashion community has discovered what Hope College fans have long known.  Orange is the color of choice for the sartorialist in the know.

Saturday's weekend Wall Street Journal reports, "In the Netherlands, orange is the official color of royalty.....Orange is also having a moment in the fashion zeitgeist....designers this spring have a particularyl high tolerance for orange's sweet-and-sour charms."

This may be the first time in my life that I have been cool enough to be ahead of a trend.

[sac]

It is now official.   The fashion community has discovered what Hope College fans have long known.  Orange is the color of choice for the sartorialist in the know.

Saturday's weekend Wall Street Journal reports, "In the Netherlands, orange is the official color of royalty.....Orange is also having a moment in the fashion zeitgeist....designers this spring have a particularyl high tolerance for orange's sweet-and-sour charms."

This may be the first time in my life that I have been cool enough to be ahead of a trend.

This is funny because on my drive home last night while flipping through the stations I stopped to hear a women complaining that she couldn't 'do' orange and that orange didn't look good on blondes.

I just laughed.

[realist]

It's about time to start listing our MVP and All MIAA selections isn't it?

[sac]

The MIAA MVP might avg just 20 minutes per MIAA contest.