WBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletics Association

[sac]

Meant to post this late last Friday but forgot.  Friday's game versus Hiram was the 500th game the Flying Dutch have played with Coach Mo at the helm.  No biggie - he's just 430-70 in those 500 games - a winning percentage of 0.860!!!!!

Congrats Mo!!

125-3 in DeVos Fieldhouse

[sac]

Hope 82  Olivet 57
http://athletics.hope.edu/sports/wbkb/2013-14/boxscores/20131126_1366.xml?view=boxscore

Too much interior depth for Olivet to contend with tonight.  Strong starts to both halves combined with a strong end of first half led to this victory.  They made Olivet play up hill all night and very few times let them get much momentum.

59 of Hope's 82 came from their "bigs"  20 each from McAfee and Llorens with 5 from Doell and just when you think you have them covered inside Traversa steps up with 14 with an impressive 4-6 from 3.

Olivet did a pretty good job on Berry and Gaddy, neither of those two were really an offensive factor.  But most of the time it felt like there was one too many Hope players that Olivet had to defend.

Olivet has a nice inside post player in Lang and a very nice PG in Campbell to get her the ball.  Hope didn't always defend her well but they came up with enough steals and good post defense to disrupt Olivet's offense.  On the other end I think they took advantage of Langs lack of mobility and dribbled around her quite a bit for easy layups.  Overall though, lack of depth was Olivet's biggest issue, they just couldn't match-up with Hope there.

I don't know man, unless Olivet or Calvin pulls off a win in DeVos or Hope messes up somewhere on the road they shouldn't its a little hard to see a loss on the remaining schedule anywhere.  I know this totally jinx's them.

[Roundball999]

Lange is awfully tough to stop if she gets the ball in the low box; she has a nice touch around the basket and does a great job keeping the ball high and releasing quickly so she doesn't get tied up.  But I think you hit the nail on the head; Hope really exposed a lack of interior quickness (not just Lange) and Hope posts repeatedly drove through the lane for layups.  Hope defense looked a bit improved, with 14 steals and forcing 26 TOs.  They seem to have Campbell figured out in recent games, limiting her to single digits and turning her over 10 times.  Berry has been quiet for Hope this year, but after her phenomenal long range shooting year last year teams are paying a lot of attention to her.  I think this is opening up the interior for Hope, their bigs are carrying much of the scoring load this year.

[bballfan13]

Calvin has been selected to host the women's basketball Final Four in 2015 and 2017.  Great to see the Final Four coming back to West Michigan

http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2013-12-06/ncaa-championships-site-selections

Calvin has also been selected as the host for women's volleyball in 2015 and 2017.

[Roundball999]

Hope wins its Post Exam Jam tournament with an impressive 93-68 win over a very solid Capital team.  The big difference was that the Dutch pounded Capital on the boards 53-29 including 27 offensive boards.  Megan Kelly put up 23 points and was very impressive, Llorens went for 21 and 12 and was named MVP, McAfee hung up yet another double double and Berry went 4-7 from deep and looks to be shooting with the same confidence that caused her to lead the nation in 3 pt accurancy last season.

I wasn't sure before but am beginning to think the Dutch's lofty ranking is about right.   This team is big, deep and athletic and has 6 or 7 players that are capable of putting up 20 on any given night.

[bballforever]

Lots of scorers for Hope I agree, but very suspect defense!! And you know what they say, "defense wins championships"

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Lots of scorers for Hope I agree, but very suspect defense!! And you know what they say, "defense wins championships"

Are they giving up points - yes, an average of 61.9 ppg through 9 games.  But when you are winning games by an average margin of 29 points, then the end of your bench is playing siginificant minutes - in many cases against the better players from the opponent. 

[Roundball999]

Lots of scorers for Hope I agree, but very suspect defense!! And you know what they say, "defense wins championships"

Are they giving up points - yes, an average of 61.9 ppg through 9 games.  But when you are winning games by an average margin of 29 points, then the end of your bench is playing siginificant minutes - in many cases against the better players from the opponent. 

The Dutch are clearly not the same defensive team as last season, which I primarily attribute to the graduation of Liz Ellis.  As a 3-time league Defensive POY, she prevented other teams from even starting their offense.  And Morehouse has said in interviews that the new guidelines for referees are having an influence on how the team plays defense as well.

But I'm not sure I'd call the defense very suspect; not as good as last year but still pretty good.  As FDF said, with huge average victory margins (#3 nationally) the end of the bench is often seeing time in the first half.  Only 3 players see 20 minutes per game and no one plays more than 23.  The Dutch are #4 nationally in turnover margin, #5 in steals per game and are also among the leaders in rebound margin.  I think their defense will be OK.

[bballforever]

Same playing time situation as last year but the Lady Dutch are letting teams score on an average 20s more point per game than last year.  62 points verses 45 points last year.  Looks suspect to me.

[Roundball999]

So far, Dutch are giving up 18 ppg more this year.  They are scoring 20 ppg more, so victory margin is higher this year than last.  Though comparison for part of this season vs. full last season is probably not too meaningful; just like last year I expect defensive ppg will decline significantly once they get into the heart of the league schedule.  Hope has already beaten the other two league contenders on their own courts and its toughest non-league opponents; stands to reason that defensive ppg will likely go down from this point forward.

[sac]

No comment........ok, comment.  Calling the league leader in all 4 of the major defensive categories suspect is, well, suspect.

SCORING DEFENSE
# Team                  G   Pts Avg/G
-------------------------------------
1.Hope College........  9   557  61.9
2.Trine University....  7   447  63.9
3.Calvin College......  7   460  65.7
  Kalamazoo College...  7   460  65.7
5.Albion College......  8   543  67.9
6.Olivet College......  8   552  69.0
7.Saint Mary's College  9   641  71.2
8.Adrian College......  7   507  72.4
9.Alma College........  8   674  84.2

FIELD GOAL PCT DEFENSE
# Team                  G     FG   FGA   Pct
--------------------------------------------
1.Hope College........  9    188   516  .364
2.Olivet College......  8    199   529  .376
3.Trine University....  7    150   382  .393
4.Kalamazoo College...  7    158   402  .393
5.Saint Mary's College  9    240   593  .405
6.Adrian College......  7    185   455  .407
7.Calvin College......  7    158   383  .413
8.Albion College......  8    192   445  .431
9.Alma College........  8    235   495  .475

3-POINT FIELD GOAL PCT DEFENSE
# Team                  G     FG   FGA   Pct
--------------------------------------------
1.Hope College........  9     42   170  .247
2.Adrian College......  7     22    86  .256
3.Saint Mary's College  9     45   163  .276
4.Calvin College......  7     22    78  .282
5.Olivet College......  8     43   145  .297
6.Trine University....  7     28    93  .301
7.Kalamazoo College...  7     35   112  .313
8.Albion College......  8     50   154  .325
9.Alma College........  8     61   155  .394

STEALS
# Team                  G  Steals  Avg/G
----------------------------------------
1.Hope College........  9     135  15.00
2.Calvin College......  7      77  11.00
3.Saint Mary's College  9      91  10.11
4.Trine University....  7      68   9.71
5.Adrian College......  7      52   7.43
6.Alma College........  8      58   7.25
7.Kalamazoo College...  7      47   6.71
8.Albion College......  8      53   6.63
  Olivet College......  8      53   6.63

[sac]

So far, Dutch are giving up 18 ppg more this year.  They are scoring 20 ppg more, so victory margin is higher this year than last.  Though comparison for part of this season vs. full last season is probably not too meaningful; just like last year I expect defensive ppg will decline significantly once they get into the heart of the league schedule.  Hope has already beaten the other two league contenders on their own courts and its toughest non-league opponents; stands to reason that defensive ppg will likely go down from this point forward.

....and 18 more per game from the lowest defensive total in league history.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

So far, Dutch are giving up 18 ppg more this year.  They are scoring 20 ppg more, so victory margin is higher this year than last.  Though comparison for part of this season vs. full last season is probably not too meaningful; just like last year I expect defensive ppg will decline significantly once they get into the heart of the league schedule.  Hope has already beaten the other two league contenders on their own courts and its toughest non-league opponents; stands to reason that defensive ppg will likely go down from this point forward.

....and 18 more per game from the lowest defensive total in league history.

How about looking at efficiency (points per possession):

Hope 2012-2013 (full season)
Offense - 106.9
Defense - 66.2 (ridiculously low)

Difference = 40.7

Hope 2013-2014 (through 9 games)
Offense - 113.7
Defense - 80.6

Difference = 33.1


Even more telling is if you look at average possessions per game (a good measure of the speed of the game). 

Hope 2012-2013 (full season)
Hope possessions per game - 64.5
Opponent possessions per game - 64.6

Hope 2013-2014 (through 9 games)
Hope possessions per game - 80.0
Opponent possessions per game - 76.8

That's 15.5 more possessions on offense per game for Hope, and 12.2 more for the opponent.  That's a lot more posessions per game.

[bballforever]

#1 in MIAA defensive statistics!  hmmmm.  I would not take much value in that.  League down this year in all phases of games.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

#1 in MIAA defensive statistics!  hmmmm.  I would not take much value in that.  League down this year in all phases of games.

Are you sure about that?  Last season the league was 36-43 in non MIAA, non NCAA Tournament games.  Thats a winnning percentage of 0.456.  Thus far this season, the league is 23-26, for a 0.469 winning percentage.  If the league is down in all phases of the game, then so is the competition we've been playing.