MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[hope1]

hope played pretty good tonight     now ready for albion friday night at calvin schould be a good game i think albion has to win to make the ncaa

[RastaRob]

It is early to be asking for tix. I wouldnt worry about it. I know Kzoo wont show up. They love to bow down to the almighty Knights! So, I am saying dont really waste yoru money. Just my opinion.

[sac]

HOPE 85 Alma 63

Pretty basic and standard first round tournament win, everything you'd Hope for.......play well, everyone plays and no injuries.

About 10 minutes into this one Hope had the Scots doubled up and very shortly it was a comfortable 15 point lead.  Alma never got closer than that the rest of the night, it was 46-31 at the half.

Marcus VanderHeide set the tone with his "weak" 3pt shooting average and canned his first 3 attempts of the night.  He was pretty agressive all night, one of his better games in the Orange and Blue.

Second half was just more of the same, Alma badly outmanned and Hope executing very well at both ends.  The lead got to 25 before the dogs were coralled and put on their chain for the evening.  No starter saw the floor after 12 min, and no one in the first 10 rotation saw the floor after 9.

......and kudos to those guys for finishing the game, with no subs for 9 minutes.

Alma didn't quit and played hard,  but they are simply badly outmanned vs Hope.


Maybe the most excitement of the night was reserved for after the game as around 1000 or more Hope fans waited for word from Calvin.  They put the game on the p.a. system and we listened to Mr. Hudsonville Ice Cream himself call the final minutes of the game.  A few gasps, groans and cheers as the final minutes played out.  Pretty unusual scene.

Friday should be excellent, the  Brits I believe are fighting for their lives.  Should be a good one.

[Dark Knight]

Wow, you rarely see fist fights at a basketball game, but between two coaches? On the same team? 

When Soderberg got called for his second T, an assistant coach, who was trying to restrain him, must have felt the wind of Soderberg's fist flying past his head. At least that's what it looked like from where I was sitting.

The knights couldn't have gotten a brick to fall by dropping it tonight, but they pulled out the 82-76 win. At least they were hitting FTs, making 37 of 40 attempts.

Dozie was jawing with the refs all evening until he got called for his third foul, and a few more comments resulted in a T. Soderberg complained dramatically and got his own T. After Draayer made the four free-throw shots and another player made the two for the original foul, the refs evened things up with several make-up calls on Calvin.

Olivet played very agressive defense, and played a full-court press for much of the second half, resulting in the large number of foul calls.

Meckes had 6 steals.

Veldhouse led all scorers with 24 points, including 14 for 14 from the free throw line.

Quite a game!

[big_yellow_hat]

I was at the Calvin game and I must say the officiating on both sides was pretty horrible.  The reason why Olivet had so many fouls in the last five minutes was because they were applying a press and would either cause a turnover or foul, rarely in the final 5 minutes did Calvin get in a set and take a field goal it seemed like every play was a turnover or a foul.

But in the words of Gerald Dozie the refs were racist and one was a skin head.  I wouldn't go that far but they were not good at all.

As for the Ts the Olivet coach was out of control the whole game (yelling at the refs, yelling into his jacket and punching his assistant coach-no joke)

[sac]

I know this is awfully early to be asking this question, but does anybody know how difficult it will be to get tickets for friday's games, when I'll need to get them, if I need to call ahead, etc?  Any help would be appreciated.

Bulldogalum-----my experience with tournaments at Calvin is there will be plenty of seats.  Call the Calvin ticket office before you leave but I'm sure there will be some available.

[ziggy]

Olivet's production came from Pruitt and Kurtz.  Two fine individual performances in their last games for the Comets.  As for Coach Soderberg, he's a fiery one and he deserved every Tech he got.  I give the refs credit for dealing with him as long as they did.  He know has three Technical fouls against Calvin this year and Olivet has been called for 5 against the Knights in the three meetings.  I really wasn't surprised at this game because the previous two had been a bit too close for comfort.

The actual words of Gerald Dozie were, "The refs are racist as $#!t.  They're racist as F*ck.  [Points to bald ref] He's a skinhead".  Unfortunate way to end the season but I guess it explains a lot; they have some talent but they lose their composure easily.

[bulldogalum]

Thanks all, for the info on tickets for Friday.  I'm looking forward to seeing a couple of good games.

[walawala]

oh man, what a ridiculous game.  First of all let me let everyone know that i am going to give an unbiased account, even though I am a huge Calvin fan.

First of all let me say that I think Olivet out played my knights the whole game.  Not only did we force shots, but we also had a large amounts of bad turnovers.

Ok, now the refing.  I only remember seeing one of these refs before, and i have always thought this guy to be one of the worse refs in the league.  Yes, the bad calls went both ways, but the timing of the Olivet bad calls were well unfortunate.

Especially the last series of calls.  First a probable foul gone uncalled on a three pointer, and then a questionable hand-check call.  This set olivet's coach off.  He did his best to restrain himself by actually hugging his assistant coach and burying himself behind him.  The ref was right there and decided to give him a crucial tech.  All i'm saying is i understand his frustration. 

Going back earlier in the game to the tech on Dozie.  He definitely had a case.  The foul was almost definitely on the other Olivet player, and the ref got the wrong guy.

At the end of the day I would have much rather seen Calvin win a clean game.  My heart goes out to the Olivet fans who have seen their team's season end in an unfortunate way.

[KnightSlappy]

The Comet press gave the Knights trouble and caused a ton of turnovers.  It seemed like every Calvin shot was off iron.  The difference in the game was Olivet letting the poor officiating get to them.

I would like to congratulate D'Andre 'Luda' Pruitt.  He played a great game and has had a great career.  He always joked with the Calvin students before the games, making him a Calvin student favorit.

[RastaRob]

Walawala,

If I could give Kudos, I would. I appreciate your unbiased opinion. I really do. It is unfortunate the Olivet did not win tonight, but while I was rooting for them, I would much rather have the last four that we have for the weekend. I always want to see the best teams play and hopefully we will this weekend. It will be a good weekend for sure. Should be a lot of good games.

[goodknight]

Actually, Olivet has played Calvin tough in all three contests this season.  Pruitt loves to shoot in the bright(er) lights at the Fieldhouse, and Dozie is a really strong post presence for the Comets.  When Kurtz hits from long range, as he did tonight, they present formidable matchup problems for the Knights.
That said, Calvin played an especially sloppy game tonight.  They only showed up defensively for a few spurts -- most of them provided by Meckes.  And the offense was just sputtering all night.  The brutal second half shooting percentages have been reported elsewhere.
I'm not going to weigh in on the officiating.  
Not much of a crowd tonight.  Seems the Knight Club and some of the regulars were as interested in seeing the Comets as the Calvin players were.
I expected a close game, and I expect another one on Friday at the Fieldhouse when the Hornets come in.
Should be a great night of MIAA basketball, and congratulations to the four winners tonight -- and best wishes to the coaches and players on the teams that bowed out this evening.  There are a great number of fine student-athletes who played a final collegiate game today for Olivet, Alma, Adrian and Tri-State.  Congratulations to them, too.

[oldknight]

WOW. If you were trying to decide which MIAA tourney game to go to and you didn't go to Calvin/Olivet you made a mistake. This had to be easily the wildest and most interesting game of the night. It started when I told my seating partner that I didn't like the way the Knights were warming up. Calvin appeared to be goofing off during their layup line and most of their outside shots were bricks. That's a bad way to approach a dangerous team like Olivet which has to be one the most talented 6-20 teams in D3. If the NCAA played a tournament with only last place conference teams in it, my money is on the Comets. It's very dangerous to play a last place team with a chip on its shoulder and holding the attitude of nothing to lose.

The game started with a certain level of Calvin disinterest in the proceedings until they woke up from their slumber mid-way through the first half and trailing 25-15. At that point they started switching defenses from time to time (going to a zone a few times, something they rarely do), created some TO's and hit some open looks. The Knights scored 14 straight before Olivet righted the ship and the half ended with Calvin up 38-36.

The second half started with a much harder working and more focused Calvin crew. Their defensive intensity was significantly better and Olivet had a much harder time getting the open looks and offensive rebounds that had come to them so easily in the first half of play. Unfortunately for Calvin, they couldn't put the ball in the hole and only led 51-43 with about 10 minutes left. That's when the fireworks started.

Dozie was called for fouling Zoerhof while shooting, a call I didn't think was too remarkable, but Dozie apparently didn't like it and said something to the ref as he passed by. From a distance it didn't look like much but he must have used one of the magic words because the ref instantly called a T. This set off Soderberg's fuse too and he got T'd as well. When all the dust settled from this tiff the Knights had hit 6 straight free throws and they also scored on their next possession to give them what appeared to be a comfortable 59-43 lead. My partner thought it time to go home early but I urged caution.

To their credit Olivet didn't quit. The Comets slapped on a full court press that completely baffled the Knights who started to turn the ball over with regularity. Olivet scored 10 straight to get back into the game and with 5 left the Comets closed to 63-60. Calvin appeared to be in deep trouble and Knight fans had this sinking feeling that the semis would be at DeVos after all. Calvin (who shot miserably from the floor the entire second half) needed a basket badly. I'll let you guess who hit the biggest 3 of the game. It was at that point that I turned to my partner and said "Of course, the clock's under 5 minutes and the game is on the line so of naturally Veldhouse has to make a 3."

Veldhouse went on to make 8 straight free throws but still Olivet wouldn't fold. Calvin seemed to give up a basket (including a couple of 3's) every time they made 2  free throws and with just under a minute (and the game at 76-70) an Olivet player clearly pushed Dustin Smith out of bounds on an inbounds pass. To my amazement the ref chose not to call a foul and then to my greater amazement he awarded the ball to Calvin even though Smith obviously had gone out of bounds with the ball in his hands. This was too much for Soderberg to take who nearly had a coronary and he got his second T. From where I was sitting it appeared that Soderberg actually punched one of his assitant coaches after getting the T and I thought some of the Olivet fans were going to head for the floor--to get the ref, not Soderberg. Draayer hit both FT's to go up 78-70 and it appeared to be over with about 30 ticks left but a silly foul by Smith on a Kurtz 3 attempt, and then after 2 more Calvin FT's another Olivet 3 (all 6 points scored by Kurtz) cut the Knight lead to 80-76, but the Comets simply ran out of time.  The final buzzer didn't come a moment too soon.

Olivet played with a lot of heart. Kurtz was terrific and Pruitt and Dozie both played excellent games. Calvin was fortunate to win and basically won only because they shot unbelievably well at the line hitting 37 of 40 (and that included 2 straight misses by Smith with about 30 seconds left. Just think about that. If the Knights shoot 75%, 30 for 40 from the line (a pretty good number) they lose by 1. Veldhouse had 24 and Smith did a pretty nice job off the bench with 11. Draayer scored 17 mainly on the strength of 10 free throws, 6 of which were technicals he shot. He couldn't buy a basket from 3. They were all close, they just wouldn't go down. Snoeyink didn't have a great game.

On a related note I heard Wentworth make not one but two "The hay is in the barn" calls both of which he nearly lived to regret.

[dren]

he awarded the ball to Calvin even though Smith obviously had gone out of bounds with the ball in his hands

Dejavu all over again... I seem to remember a simular play a couple of weeks ago just before "the shot"

[sac]

Box scores are out

VanderHeide 15, Immink 10, Voisin 10

Murphy 12, Nelson 11, Smith 11, Massey 11

Two stats of the night for Hope, 9-22 from 3 and most impressive just 7 turnovers........and considering how much the bench played thats pretty good.


Other games

Albion shot 36 FT's in their contest and outrebounded Adrian 40-22

Olivet shot 61% in the 1st half vs Calvin

Nothing spectacular in the Kzoo/TSU game........other than the team picked last is in the MIAA Semi's.


Offtopic sidenote.......Aquinas won their first round WHAC game 93-33 over Davenport.