MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

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Albion 88  Kzoo 61

Close first half with both teams primarily trading hoops, 1 or 2 pt margin between the teams nearly the whole way.  Looked like Albion was starting to take command right at the end of the half only to have Kzoo outscore the Brits 7-2 including a 3 right near the buzzer to pull Kzoo with 1 at the half.

Second half was all Albion right from the opening in-bounds.  Albion shut off the lane and Kzoo just couldn't get anything to drop and very quickly found themselves down 15+ and never recovered. 

Albion had balanced scoring nearly across the board  Davis 14, Ebeling 13, Armstrong 12, Perry 11, Colins 10 and very balanced minutes as well.  Kzoo was led by the pretty impressive Jeremiah Vincent with 21, Ollie added 13 but almost nothing when it was still a ball game.

Albion has Trine and Calvin at home next week and their students return to campus.   Those should both be close games.  Then they go on the road to Hope and Olivet the following week. 


I don't think Kzoo is that far away from being a good basketball team.  They have nice size across the board, they're just so young out there they'll make a bunch of mistakes.  A little more skill here or there and Kzoo is going to start making some hay.

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Olivet 84  Alma 80

I was in Cutler for this thing.   Alma had many chances late to steal this one and Olivet was pretty fortunate Kyle Woodruff and Steve Harvey combined to go 2-13 from 3 in the 2nd half otherwise the Scots might have won it.   Olivet did a good job pushing Woodruff out, a lot of these misses were long ones, Harvey was mostly parked in the corners and just couldn't buy one.

Olivet should have blown this one out though, on the cusp of doing so up 18 and then mental stupidity kept Alma in the game.  There was a few possession stretch where they went a bit cold which gave the Scots an opening back in the game and they nearly pulled it out.  Olivet had to hit FT's at the end to clinch it but Alma never got a possession with a chance to tie or lead.

Colin Jones is something man, such a skilled player with great agility for his size, basketball smarts, soft touch around the rim and a great 3-point shot.  He's  a real candidate for MVP

Olivet:  Roberts 21, Manuel 21, Jones 20, Edmund 17
Alma:  Kleiver 18, Stevens 16, Harvey 13, Woodruff 12, Gamble 10
Kleiver will be all-MIAA at some point.

Olivet has 3 MVP type players and the best PG, they should win the league easily, its just, IF's.





couple other things:
Alma wore their new teal jerseys, which look sort of sharp.  But.....school colors?   Humorous start to the game when Kevin Gamble couldn't start because he wore the wrong color t-shirt underneath.  Officially subbed out before the game even started.  That's a little known rule btw, the tshirt must match the primary jersey color.

Olivet's first two T's were just jawing and it was silly.  I thought Olivet was sort of lucky they didn't get one or two more, but officials backs were turned when a couple Olivet players one being Manuel decided to carry on with a couple out of line Alma fans (parents? I hope not).  This is exactly what they want you to do btw.   The directive (my words) for officials to not engage the Olivet coach and stay away from him seems to be still in force this year, he earned a T but didn't get it.

Third 'T' was exactly how Jameswys described, lucky cooler heads prevailed there.

If you watched from home you saw a couple longish delays during the T's, that was on the officials who seemed to have issues communicating with the scorers table.  But for the push (third T) there was a lot going on there.  They might have been discussing whether it should or could have been a flagrant.  I also noticed that the officials may have extended a 30 second timeout right around that time to a full timeout to let things settle down.
--   in other words the usual at Cutler.

Olivet's roster is at 14 but they only had 11 dressed, I'm not familiar enough with their bench guys to know who was missing, but I do know Chase Brocker was one of them.  He's played significant minutes for them this year.  Otherwise, short bench for the Comets last night.


Great coaching by Diangelo Carlton in the last couple minutes. 

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Standings with +/-    (+1 for road win, -1 for home loss)

Albion    4-0     +2
Olivet     3-1    +2
Trine      3-1       0
Alma     2-2      0
Hope     2-2      0
Calvin    2-2   -  1
Kzoo      0-4     -1
Adrian    0-4     -2

Probably a little unfair to Kzoo/Adrian but I think the template of Win remaining Home games and games w/Kzoo/Adrian would have the standings look like this.  Tie-breakers obviously factor in but I wouldn't know where to begin here.

Albion  10-4
Olivet  10-4
Alma    9-5
Hope    9-5
Calvin   8-6
Trine    8-6

Any win on the road at one of these 6 is huge, any home loss or loss to Adrian/Kzoo is also huge.

Imagine Trine being the #6 seed, yeesh.

[Jameswys]

Olivet's roster is at 14 but they only had 11 dressed, I'm not familiar enough with their bench guys to know who was missing, but I do know Chase Brocker was one of them.  He's played significant minutes for them this year.  Otherwise, short bench for the Comets last night.

Chase has been out of the lineup since Albion. He was hoping to be able to play last night, he's a great kid and I hope he's back soon because he deserves it!

Spencer Naffziger, Cam Ramos, and Nate Colon were the other three not dressed (Nate wasn't even in warmups). From what I heard there was some miscommunication and 2 of them were supposed to start the JV game and play the first half, thus still being eligible for the varsity game. I guess they also played the second half and because of that they couldn't dress tonight. But I heard that second hand (I trust the source) and wasn't there in time to watch the JV game.

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Hope 87  Alma 74 

Really good team win for the Dutchman tonight.  I considered this pretty much a must win.  A few career nights one being Danny Beckman with 18 points and 6 for 7  three-point shooting, really gave them two nice sparks in each half that kept the Scots at bay.  Dennis Towns with 14 points and 13 rebounds.  Riley Lewis and Ryan Stevens were outstanding cancelling each other out with 25 each.  Amari Hudson had 16 for the Scots. 

Big advantage for Hope behind the arc, 15-32 to 4-18.   

Hope:  Lewis 25, D. Beckman 18, Towns 14, Ray 10, Hackert 10
Alma:  Stevens 25, Hudson 16



Trine 79  Albion 71
Calvin 83  Kzoo 71
Olivet 75 Adrian 54

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Standings with +/-    (+1 for road win, -1 for home loss)

Olivet     4-1      +2
Albion    4-1      +1
Trine      4-1      +1
Hope     3-2      +1
Calvin    3-2      -1
Alma     2-3      -1
Kzoo      0-5     -1
Adrian    0-5     -2

The template of Win remaining Home games and games w/Kzoo/Adrian changed a bit


Olivet  10-4
Hope    10-4
Trine    9-5
Albion  9-5
Alma    8-6
Calvin   8-6


Only Hope and Olivet have no home losses and thats why this look like it does..

[Jameswys]

Big night coming up at Cutler as Olivet hosts Hope on Saturday night. Pledging to the Greek houses starts on Friday night at Olivet and that usually brings a lot of energy to campus, especially on the first weekend. If the Greeks leave their houses expect Cutler to be packed and wild.

[HOPEful]

I wasn't able to watch any basketball last night. Did Preston come out of the game injured? Just now saw he only played 14 minutes.

[RuleBritannia]

Tough loss for Albion last night against a very game Trine squad. Albion was up by as much as 17 in the first half, but Trine steadily eroded that margin until taking a late lead.

No Jamezell Davis last night for the Brits, and I think that made a difference as Albion seemed to run out o steam offensively late in the game. Apparently Davis suffered a concussion. The broadcasters doing the video seemed to think he might be back for the next game, but with a concussion  of course it can be significantly longer and an abundance of caution is warranted.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

I wasn't able to watch any basketball last night. Did Preston come out of the game injured? Just now saw he only played 14 minutes.

No injury that I am aware of.  Hope played most of the game with 3 and sometimes even 4 guards (6'0" or less) on the floor.  In game adjustments to what was working from my point of view.

Was good to see Ryan Gamm getting back to the floor and playing a few minutes.

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Alma's primary lineup can be viewed as 4 guards, 1 big.  Hope put Ray on Stevens, either Granger or Towns on Gamble/Rake which left one of them to guard Harvey.  I don't think Hope liked that match-up and Dennis was kicking tail and taking names all night so Preston sat on the bench.

Against Alma's zone having both on the floor and neither being capable 3-point shooters is kind of tying your own hands behind your back (remember my kingdom for a 6-5 or taller 3-point threat).  So Hope used Hackert and D. Beckman more  and basically gave them the green light.   Now, their minutes might have diminished if they missed some of those shots and Hope may have just tried something, it worked, and they stuck with it.

The risk of course was on the defensive end, but Hope held their own particularly in rebounding where Alma struggles anyway and for the most part were trading 3 points for 2 most of the night.  On a night Alma's hitting 3's this might not of have looked like such a great idea.  The biggest "surprise" to me was the job Beckman and Lewis did on their defensive assignments against two very good perimeter players in Woodruff and Kleiver.   Had it not been for the great effort of Amari Hudson this could have been ugly, conversely had it not been for the great efforts of D. Beckman and Hackert this could have been ugly.  Basketball!!!


Saturday's zone from Olivet is the same 2-3 yet so very very different due to personnel differences, a small lineup might not workout as well for them.  You can call this Hope's zone examination week.  Part I and Part II

Watch for Olivet to pull an old zone Hope used to use a lot back when Ryan Klein played and was the point man in a 3-2 or 1-2-2 look.  Olivet's using Trevor Manuel there and usually plays hyper aggressive for a few possessions, they'll also press the heck out of you sometimes.

[maroonandgold]

Unusual situation at halftime in Olivet with Hope down 47 to 23.  Even more unusual is the fact that the two leading scorers for Hope are their forwards Townsend and Ray.  Usually that  would be a very good thing, but Lewis only has 2 and Danny Beckman 5.

[Jameswys]

Cutler was on fire tonight! The start of Greek pledging coupled with Olivet entering the day tied for first led to an exciting game. I don't have much of a game report as I'm Greek and my house was there in force! Our brother Spencer Naffziger came off the bench and went 2-2 with 5 points in the final two minutes.

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Olivet 89 Hope 62 F

Not much of a competitive game at Olivet, over and out of reach pretty early.  Disappointing to see Hope play so timid in that gym again.  Without Jason Beckman Hope needed guys to step up and they just didn't.  Lots of throwing things at the wall and nothing sticking.  Sole positive is Coach Mitchel made sure everyone participated in the loss, a total team loss, all at fault. 

Olivet was really good on the defensive end and couple that with an excellent night shooting 3's especially in the first half and a night Hope was careless with the ball, Hope was easy pickings.


Ray 12, George 12
Manuel 20, Edmund 17, McAdoo 12, Jones 11, Roberts 11


Hope's running out of road games that can substatially change the standings, only one left is Albion on the final day.  Might be over by then.

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Standings with +/-    (+1 for road win, -1 for home loss) w/remaining games

Olivet     5-1      +2  (@Cal, ALB, TRN, KZO @Alm, @Adr, @Hpe, CAL)
Albion    5-1      +1   (@Hpe, @Oli, ADR, ALM, @Kzo, @Trn, @Cal, HPE)
Trine      5-1      +1   (@Alm, @Hpe, @Oli, ADR, @Cal, ALB, @Kzo, ALM)
Hope     3-3      +1   (ALB, TRN, @Kzo, CAL, @Adr, ALM, OLI, @Alb)
Calvin    3-3      -1    (OLI, @Adr, @Alm, @Hpe, TRN, @Kzo, ALB, @Oli)
Alma     3-3        0    (TRN, @Kzo, CAL, @Alb, OLI, @Hpe, ADR, @Trn)
Kzoo      0-6     -1     (ADR, ALM, HPE, @Oli, ALB, CAL, TRN, @Adr)
Adrian    0-6     -3     (@Adr, @Alm, @Hpe, OLI, @Alb, @Cal, @Trn,  KZO)

Nice little splits there

The template of Win remaining Home games and games w/Kzoo/Adrian, no changes this week


Olivet  10-4
Hope    10-4
Trine    9-5
Albion  9-5
Alma    8-6
Calvin   8-6