MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[HoopsCoach]

Hope was +7 on the glass for the game after a slow start in that category. Moving to pack line D will put them at risk at times when they leave good shooters (like 44 for Ripon in the first half). Granger has added better handles and a healthy Gamm adds a huge plus to that need for improved D. Still, a very nice start and a different more positive air/chemistry about this squad.

[NW Hope Fan]

Sad news if you followed Hope basketball in the late 90s.
https://heritagelifestory.com/obituaries/kevin-van-timmeren.129412

[wiz]

A lot of preseason hype about Sage Walker.  Where is he now?

[SBell]

A lot of preseason hype about Sage Walker.  Where is he now?

Hype for a player who rarely started his senior season in high school?

[sac]

I don't believe Sage Walker is with the Olivet program any longer.  Not sure if he's still enrolled at OC.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

A lot of preseason hype about Sage Walker.  Where is he now?

Hype for a player who rarely started his senior season in high school?

Seems like hype was the right word if you consider this definition:

promote or publicize (a product or idea) intensively, often exaggerating its importance or benefits.

[Jameswys]

I don't believe Sage Walker is with the Olivet program any longer.  Not sure if he's still enrolled at OC.

I do believe he is still at OC, I'm pretty sure I saw him this week.

[sac]

Hope 66  Benedictine 57

Granger 18, Lewis 15, Hackert 11

Kind of a strange game.  They played five full minutes  and change of the first half with the score 9-2 Hope, 3 1/2 minutes later they'd doubled the total points to 16-6.  With 2:39 to play Benedictine had 6 points still before Eric Grygo made two Ft's to give them 8, all of those points were his.   With just over a minute left it was Hope 34 the Fighting Eric Grygo's 10.   Hope led at halftime by 21 and had gone scoreless for nearly 6 minutes themselves.

Bad halves like Benedictine had are usually part great defense, part bad offense.  I sure hope alot of it was good Hope defense, because they were tough to score on for a very long time.  First half box https://athletics.hope.edu/sports/mbkb/2019-20/boxscores/20191113_v2q2.xml?view=period1   Everyone else not named Eric Grygo went 1-19 for Benedictine. 

Hope sort of held on to win this one, the 2nd half was choppy and lacked any kind of flow.  Benedictine probably responded to their halftime talk and simply played harder the 2nd half.  Hope made a lot of silly mistakes throughout the half but did enough to keep the Eagles away.


Weird last 30 seconds with Hope up just 9 and absolutely choking at the FT line, Benedictine subbed out their starters for bench players.  That's plenty of time to get a few more good 3 point looks.  Just weird.


1)  Loved the hustle and hard work Hope's putting into tracking loose balls.  Jake Honor was great here.
2)  rebounding was pretty good for the most part, got owned the 2nd half after owning the first, what an asset Evan Thomas will be there.
3)  Free throws, through 2 games Hope has got to be close to dead last in D3.  22-43 for 51.1%

Hope's off until next Saturday when they host Anderson.  2-0 is better than any of the other alternatives.

[Dutchman17]

Thomas was very impressive with his rebounding and leadership even as a freshman, on top of his obvious offensive talent.  I'd expect him to keep gaining confidence quickly.  Really should be starting

[HOPEful]

Thomas was very impressive with his rebounding and leadership even as a freshman, on top of his obvious offensive talent.  I'd expect him to keep gaining confidence quickly.  Really should be starting

Agreed. Thomas has in my opinion lived up to every bit of what I was hoping Hope would get from him this season. He has clearly transitioned well.

That being said, coming "off the bench" for Hope this season, at least for right now, is basically the same as starting from a minutes/game perspective. After 2 games, Hope's really only playing eight players, all of whom are averaging over 10 minutes a game.

Thomas is getting over 25 minutes per game, so other than the arbitrary title of "starter", how much does it really matter if he's on the court at tip-off? I would say for Hope to meet and exceed their goals for this season, they'll need the guard play of Lewis, Hackert, George, and Thomas all pretty equally.

What I'm most scared of is... what happens when Preston gets into foul trouble? He

[HoopsCoach]

Some of the Hope success was a poor shooting night by Benedictine, but if you caught a glimpse of their action vs St Norbert and compared to last night, Hope just did a great job taking them out of their flow.

Officiating was not great - recall a handful of calls that had you scratching your head and a listen to the archived radio broadcast confirms. Gamm had two phantom calls limit his action which may have hurt the rebounding (from +10 at half to -3 for the game) because he and Honer in together were really getting after things. Even so, others stepped up - the signs of a good team blossoming.

What strikes me, two games in, is that the scoring can come from a variety of places, which will make Hope harder to beat. That and being able to grind out bad offense with solid defense can be a winning combo. The ability of Granger, Thomas, Honer, and Gamm to battle on the glass and especially Honer on the O glass may well win Hope a game or two this year, whereas that was not the case last year.

[Jameswys]

Tough loss for Olivet tonight in Ohio against Great Lakes Christian (both schools are in Eaton County but drove to Ohio to play each other). Olivet made it close a few times late but GLC kept pulling away, helped along by 9-18 shooting from beyond the arc. The starters for Olivet were announced incorrectly, with Cam Ramos playing 20 seconds until the first whistle and being replaced by Shawn Pardee. The core of this years team looks to be Keyon Rainey, Chris Martin, Shawn Pardee, Jared Long and Eddie Thigpen. Colin Carter and Chris Martin split the minutes but Martin narrowly edged Carter in scoring 18-1.

With the exception of Rainey and the accidental starting of Ramos, everyone who played tonight is new to the Comets, none of the Ernst recruits made it in tonight. I'm not sure if this will be a trend on the season or just a new coach figuring out a mostly new roster. It looks like Olivet has some scorers, with 4 players over 14 points, I just think this team needs to get some experience together before the MIAA season starts.   

[goodknight]

The Bill Sall era begins on a promising note with a win on the road at the Shirk Center.

Calvin 89
IWU 83

Derrick DeVries with 28 and 10 boards.
Thad Shymanski with 20 points
Alex Box with 18 points
Emmett Warners with 12 points

Titan Coach Ron Rose said DeVries posed a vexing match up problem for IWU, creating chaos for their defensive scheme.

[sac]

Albion 72  Ohio Wesleyan 70  F

Jamzelle Davis hit a jumper with :01 to go for the margin.

Link found here:  http://athletics.capital.edu/sports/mbkb/mbb-webcast    Game is archived at bottom of screen, winning shot sequence at 1:46:00.  The announcers seem oblivious to anything happening on the court.

[maroonandgold]

The Bill Sall era begins on a promising note with a win on the road at the Shirk Center.

Calvin 89
IWU 83

Derrick DeVries with 28 and 10 boards.
Thad Shymanski with 20 points
Alex Box with 18 points
Emmett Warners with 12 points

Titan Coach Ron Rose said DeVries posed a vexing match up problem for IWU, creating chaos for their defensive scheme.

Calvin really seems to be competing effectively under Coach Sall.  Their shooting percentage over 60% both overall shooting and on threes was great!  The biggest change I notice under the new coach is that the starters are playing far more minutes than I can recall in the past with 4 of the 5 starters playing 36 minutes or in one case 40 minutes.  Whether that is due to less depth or coaching philosophy is hard to tell, but it was not just this game.  Starters played almost all game against Ferris, too.  It appears everyone seemed more relaxed taking shots.  Whether they can keep hitting anything close to that kind of shooting percentage is hard to believe, but I would love to see it.  The biggest problem was giving up too many offesive rebounds and there were still too many turnovers.