MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

Trine 68 Dominican 61

http://www.mtaloy.edu/athletics/teams/mens_basketball/

Catholic 80 Adrian 78
Adrian would play Mt. Aloysius tommorrow

[KnightSlappy]

Pretty tight rotation from the Adrian Bulldogs.  All of the starters (I am guessing they all started) played 30+ minutes including Young for all 40.  Only one bench player saw more than 5 minutes and even he only played 8.

I think Adrian may need to find some depth in order to challenge for a top 3 spot in the league.

[sac]

Adrian 91, Mt. Aloysius, Pa. 71

http://www.mtaloy.edu/dotAsset/1218202.htm

Lots of games this week as we kick it in to full gear.  Keep an eye on Olivet/Aquinas.  AQ has some roster issues.


Monday, November 17
Alma at Anderson, Ind., 7:30 p.m.


Tuesday, November 18
Olivet at Aquinas, 7:30 p.m.
Trine at Franklin, Ind., 7:30 p.m.


Thursday, November 20
Indiana-South Bend at Hope, 8 p.m.


Friday, November 21
Alma at Michigan Tech, 5 p.m.
Marygrove at Adrian, 7 p.m.
Notre Dame, Ohio at Olivet, 7 p.m.
Defiance, Ohio at Albion, 7:30 p.m.
Grace Bible vs. Calvin at Grand Rapids Christian HS, 7:30 p.m.
Kalamazoo at Manchester, Ind., 8 p.m.


Saturday, November 22
Alma at Northern Michigan, 1 p.m.
Trinity Christian, Ill. at Hope, 7:30 p.m.
Calvin hosts Tip-Off Tournament at Grand Rapids Christian HS
Kalamazoo at Manchester, Ind. Tournament
Olivet hosts Gary Morrison Tournament


Sunday, November 23
Madonna at Albion, 3 p.m.
Marietta, Ohio at Adrian, 3 p.m.

[sac]

HELLO..............Hello..............Hello

ECHO...............Echo...............Echo

Now batting for Pedro Borbon, Manny Mota.........Mota.......Mota

[sac]

Anderson 92 Alma 73

http://www.anderson.edu/athletics/mbasket/Alma.html

Alma might be the first MIAA team ever, or at least in a long time, to play an opponent coming off a game with a Big 10 team.  Anderson had an exhibition with Indiana over the weekend at Assembly Hall.  I imagine for those Indiana kids that was a great thrill.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finishing up

Kalamazoo doesn't have their roster pared down from 25 online, so I can only give you the returning players.   All but one player who could return did, giving Kzoo 11 returning varsity members from their MIAA tournament roster.  Continueing the theme this year, the Hornets are also an overall young program, with 4 Sr's and 2 Jr's, leaving 19 underclassmen to fill out the varsity roster.  Of those are 13 soph's, 6 who have varsity experience.

Kzoo will obviously rely heavily on Sr's Orozco, McCain, Jerome and Novak.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Olivet also returns all but one who could return this season.  The comets snuck 5 Sr's by us from last season, so overall there will be alot of new faces in their new gym for us.   Just one Sr. in the elder McClary and an incredible 8 Juniors, which makes up over half their roster.

So oddly enough Olivet might be one of the more veteran teams age wise, but fully 8 of their players are new to MIAA play.  Olivet added 3 Juco transfers to go with a couple of promising Freshman.  A bit of an  unkown, but from all I've been told the Comets have upgraded their talent.  But those 5 Sr's were a pretty big part of Olivet's team last year.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Lasty Trine, who suffered what I think is the biggest loss of someone who could return in Tony Benford who went to Bethel College.  Last year Trine had 9 sophs on their final tournament roster, this year they return only 3 of those players.  Total the Thunder return only 7.  Again another young program with only 1 Sr, and 5 Jr's.    6 each of Soph's and Freshmen.

Quite a Freshmen class heigth wise....6-2, 6-4, 6-5, 6-6, 6-7, 6-10.  Trine may have become one of the taller, bulkier teams in the league comparatively, some of those guys aren't twigs either.........170, 215, 185, 220, 190, 280 in that order.

--------------------------------------------------------------

My first impressions pouring over rosters is this is a very young league.  My second is there are a significantly higher number of transfers..........just off my head at the moment I count 10.

Within the league its been very competitive for a number of years, but for the last 2  we (as a league) have really struggled to pull in some wins in non-conference play.

2006--- 52-35
2007--- 27-51
2008--- 34-44

It would be great to get back to the 52 win level, but its probably more realistic to hope for 40, which would be just about break even.   The early accounts are the league has added some better players throughout,.........will that translate to wins?  Hard to say.  But I hope so.


Usually I have a pretty good handle on how things will go, but this season I'm pretty stumped.  So many new faces, many unknown, its just really hard to make any kind of educated guess how things may turn out.   

We'll have to watch the non-conference closely, at first glance it looks like the league has upgraded the scheduling a bit, lots of good NAIA's around us this year, and maybe a touch more D2's on the schedules.  Could be tough to get those 40 wins.

As always we'll sort this out the right way between Jan 7 and Feb 21

[hopehoopfan]

Once again, sac has shown us that his Karma is drastically underrated! You have given us an incredibly insightful look at the teams. One that is worthy of the sports pages(maybe you missed your calling)! Thanks

Also, word out of Hope is that Logan Neil, fresh off the soccer team has joined the JV squad.

[Civic Minded]

Alma might be the first MIAA team ever, or at least in a long time, to play an opponent coming off a game with a Big 10 team.  Anderson had an exhibition with Indiana over the weekend at Assembly Hall.  I imagine for those Indiana kids that was a great thrill.

I don't know about them, but it gives this Hoosier goosebumps.  Very cool.   8)  (I was born about 10 miles from Anderson...trust me, it was a big deal for them to play at Assembly Hall.)

[Flying Dutch Fan]

sac - loved your reviews, great stuff.  Got me thinking abou the average age of each team, so of course I had to collect the data and calculate it.  I used a fairly simple method FR=1, SO=2, JR=3, and SR=4.  Since Kazoo doesn't have just a varisty roster, I based theirs on who played in their scrimmage against Western.

Team --- Average "age"
Albion --- 3.13
Calvin --- 3.07
Hope --- 2.53
Olivet --- 2.47
Kazoo --- 2.44
Trine --- 2.19
Adrian --- 2.13
Alma --- 1.93

Quite the range between the teams.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

sac - loved your reviews, great stuff.  Got me thinking abou the average age of each team, so of course I had to collect the data and calculate it.  I used a fairly simple method FR=1, SO=2, JR=3, and SR=4.  Since Kazoo doesn't have just a varisty roster, I based theirs on who played in their scrimmage against Western.

Team --- Average "age"
Albion --- 3.27
Calvin --- 3.07
Hope --- 2.53
Olivet --- 2.47
Kazoo --- 2.44
Trine --- 2.27
Adrian --- 2.13
Alma --- 1.93

Quite the range between the teams.

I'm a bit surprised that despite a great deal of talk about how "young" Hope's team will be its the third "oldest" in the conference. Some really young teams out there.

[HopeConvert]

The better metrics, however, would be years of varsity experience or average minutes played at the varsity level per player. Class level tells us how much time they might have left with a portion of the current roster in place. Hope has four sophomores who bring the average "age down" but have quite a bit of varsity experience between them. And Veldhouse's 7 years at Calvin certainly raises their average.

[Civic Minded]

And Veldhouse's 7 years at Calvin certainly raises their average.

Now I have to clean iced tea off of my monitor...thanks!     

[hope1]

by the way happy birthday civic   wed   and basketball thuresday

[Flying Dutch Fan]

by the way happy birthday civic   wed   and basketball thuresday

Actually the game and CM's birthday fall on the same day - Thursday.  To quote CM "Best birthday present I could ever ask for, a Hope basketball game"

[Flying Dutch Fan]

The better metrics, however, would be years of varsity experience or average minutes played at the varsity level per player. Class level tells us how much time they might have left with a portion of the current roster in place. Hope has four sophomores who bring the average "age down" but have quite a bit of varsity experience between them. And Veldhouse's 7 years at Calvin certainly raises their average.

I agree completely, it was just a lot faster to do it my way (I know, what a cop out).  FYI - I'm working on the numbers for actual experience on a varsity college team.

[realist]

The better metrics, however, would be years of varsity experience or average minutes played at the varsity level per player. Class level tells us how much time they might have left with a portion of the current roster in place. Hope has four sophomores who bring the average "age down" but have quite a bit of varsity experience between them. And Veldhouse's 7 years at Calvin certainly raises their average.

Hope may recruit more players than Calvin so we just get some of them to stay around longer!!

I find it very interesting that none of the 4 jr's listed for Hope has game experience with the Dutch.  What happened to the talented recruiting class of 06 h.s. seniors?   
I think the real issue we are discussing is how many "new" to the MIAA players are on most teams rosters regardless how they got there.