MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[HOPEful]

I think the St. John's win will end up being a valuable one for Hope.  A very good team was going to leave the Jack Sikma Invitational 0-2, and that ended up being the Johnnies.

I think St. John's is going to win the MIAC and have a great record.  Good W to have in the pocket.

Agreed that it's a nice win. This Hope team is very young and shallow in the front court and too streaky with their perimeter shooting at this point in the season for me to reasonably believe that we'll be looking at Hope's quality wins in comparison to other teams come end of February.

Also, if IWU continues to get Hope, a WIAC contender, and St. John's down for their tournaments in years to come, they'll continue to be great!

[Titan Q]

I think the St. John's win will end up being a valuable one for Hope.  A very good team was going to leave the Jack Sikma Invitational 0-2, and that ended up being the Johnnies.

I think St. John's is going to win the MIAC and have a great record.  Good W to have in the pocket.

Agreed that it's a nice win. This Hope team is very young and shallow in the front court and too streaky with their perimeter shooting at this point in the season for me to reasonably believe that we'll be looking at Hope's quality wins in comparison to other teams come end of February.

Also, if IWU continues to get Hope, a WIAC contender, and St. John's down for their tournaments in years to come, they'll continue to be great!

I can't remember the 4 teams next year, but I know Yeshiva is one.  It is going to be a great tourney every year.

[sac]

Hope games aren't going to look very pretty.

Early theme is teams trying to take away 1 or 2 of Hope's 3 guards, which is not shocking.  That puts a lot on Hope's wing and post players to pick up some slack, so far they haven't been able to knock down the 3-ball well enough, their wing/post went 3-15 this weekend.  Make opponents have to guard the post/wings on the perimeter and they become really tough to defend one on one.  I don't know if Cheney, Nocek or Halbert(assume he has a role) would have made to much difference this weekend, but I'd sure like to roll with more depth there.


Thought Friday night Hope had a really hard time with IWU's movement and intensity and didn't really settle in until the middle of the 2nd half, it was a real struggle offensively up until that point.  IWU probably backed off a bit as well.  For an early season game really high energy.  IWU might end up with less than 5 losses, they are good.

Saturday, Hope was a little more settled offensively from the tip and it was StJ that struggled to shoot the ball.  Big take was under some pressure late Hope hit a couple big shots and knocked down the Ft's to eek out the win.  As stated by others it should be a good win resume wise,  StJ will probably win a lot of games this year.   But I think this Hope team will be looking to win the MIAA Tournament as their only path to any further play.


Saturday Hope plays Benedictine, also a pretty young team that took Wheaton to the wire, you might remember, but most likely don't, that Wheaton went 10-0 in last years abbreviated CCIW season.  Benedictine and Trine hookup Tuesday night in Angola.

[TUAngola]

Trine 74  Benedictine 67

What a great game.  The atmosphere in MTI tonight was rocking big time.  By far the best student turnout of any game I've attended since the move to MTI...and they were loud.  I tell you what BenU will be a tough out for most teams.  They have a good combination of interior play with Montiel and Agwomoh and have a sharp shooter in Kosich and lightning quick PG in Johnson.  I knew it would be a tough game.  But of the 3 games played so far by the Thunder I thought this was their best all around game as BenU was much better than MSJ and Manchester.  BenU has got some shooters, they shot very well from behind the arc.  But when they tried to drive to the basket Manny was there to either alter the shot or block you.  This is the best game I've seen Manny play, he hit the boards and had some nice put backs and even hit a few jumpers.  He had a sequence in the 1st half where he had 2 emphatic blocks on Montiel and boy the crowd went crazy.  Montiel, however, is pretty good and is just a sophomore.  We got him in foul trouble the second half but even with him out of the game we couldn't put the Eagles away.  We had a very balanced attack.  Freshman Hayden Jones is a nice piece to our rotation.  He can shoot the ball and is physically rock solid for a freshman.  Nick had a solid game, with 3 steals and break away dunks.  Aiden struggled a bit tonight but had a key steal and layup late in the second half.  Now it's time to see how we do on the road with games at Muskingum and at an ultra talented Mount Union team this weekend.

Trine:  Bowman 15, Geller 10, Hayden Jones 10, Megnanglo 10 pts 7 boards, 4 steals, 4 blocks
BenU:  Kosich 14, Montiel 13, Agwomoh 12

[KnightSlappy]

Calvin hosts Augustana tonight. The Knights are 0-4 against the Vikings since 2016 (I'm not sure if they'd played in prior years). Augustana is 2-1 on the year with the defeat being a 90-70 affair at #17 UW-Oshkosh (in my opinion Oshkosh is a Top-5 team). Augustana was without starting guard Carter Duwa in that loss as well. Duwa has played both subsequent games and scored in double-figures both times.

Duwa and 6-8 center Dan Carr were named to the All-CCIW teams last year. Carr has averaged 18.7 pts and 13.3 rebounds per game through 3 contests this season. He's going to be a tough assignment for Jordan Katje

I'm interested to see if 6-4 guard Alec Fruin will make his season debut for Calvin tonight. He started two seasons at Northern Michigan so I would presume he will feature heavily in the Calvin rotation.

For me, Luke Morrison has been the best Calvin player through two games. I'd really like to see better scoring efficiency out of Shymanski and Warners in particular (Thad is 3-16 on three-point attempts in the two games). Calvin's going to need the 5th year players to have big games against tough opponents.

[maroonandgold]

Calvin won tonight's game against a very good team by a score of 78-60, primarily due to outstanding defense.  The defense absolutely dominated the first 15 minutes and continued strong throughout.   Ugekeze played a great all-around game with defense, steals, rebounds, and scoring 17 points.  Morrison led the scoring with 23 points, including some crucial threes.  One of things that especially interested me was the fact that they were playing against the first really good big man, who scored his share and got 14  rebounds.  But they kept him under control and even dominated him the first half.  In the second half he often made defensive rebounds due to his ability to play above everyone Calvin has.  But they really kept the pressure on the other team and kept making important scores when they were really getting uncomfortably close.

[KnightSlappy]

Calvin took an 11 point lead with 9:11 to play in the first half and never had the margin return to single digits. Augustana was able to cut the lead to 10 a few times, but it always seemed that Calvin was able to pull it back to 17 within a few possessions. From my vantage point, Calvin defense played tremendously well, particularly in the first half, and Augustana was not prepared for their athleticism and deceptive amount of length.

Augustana's 6-8 center Dan Carr got his numbers -- 14 pts, 15 rebounds -- but the stat of the night for me was that it was Calvin who had 42 pts in the paint vs. 22 pts for Augustana.

[KnightSlappy]

I think the rotation from last night is probably going to be the one Calvin uses going forward. Here's the breakdown by years of college playing experience:

Shymanski: 5th
Warners: 5th
Fruin: 5th
Morrison: 4th
Katje: 4th
Minderhoud: 4th
Sensenig: 3rd
Egekeze: 2nd
Bult: 2nd

They're an experienced bunch for sure.

[Titan Q]

#4-Illinois Wesleyan (4-0) at Calvin (2-0), 3:00pm ET...

#4-Illinois Wesleyan (4-0)
G - Luke Yoder, 6-0 Jr.  8.3 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 3.8 apg
G - Cory Noe, 6-2 Sr.  18.8 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 2.0 apg
G - Ryan Sroka, 6-5 So.  3.5 ppg, 3.8 rpg
F - Cody Mitchell, 6-7 Jr.  11.8 ppg, 8.5 rpg
F - Matt Leritz, 6-7 Sr.  18.3 ppg, 9.3 rpg
---
G - Lucas Heflen, 6-2 Jr.  5.5 ppg
G - Connor Heaton, 6-5 Fr. 2.5 ppg
F - Nick Roper, 6-7 Fr.  2.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg
F - Grant Hardy, 6-8 So. 2.0 ppg
G - Landon Wolfe, 6-5 Jr.  1.0 ppg

Injured/Out: G Pete Lambesis, 6-4 Sr.  13.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 3.0 apg


Calvin (2-0)
G - Thad Shymanski, 6-1 GS  11.0 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 4.0 apg
G - Luke Morrison, 6-5 GS  19.0 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 5.0 apg
F - Uchenna Egekeze, 6-4 So.  18.0 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 3.5 apg
F - Emmett Warners, 6-6 GS  8.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 3.0 apg
F - Jordan Katje, 6-5 Sr.  8.5 ppg, 10.5 rpg, 2.0 apg
---
G - Eli Sensenig, 6-3 Jr.  6.5 ppg
F - Marcus Bult, 6-6 So.  4.5 ppg, 2.0 rpg
G - Alec Fruin, 6-4 GS  4.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.0 apg
F - Nate Minderhoud, 6-3 Sr.  1.0 ppg



IWU Game Notes: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/iwusports.com/documents/2021/11/18/mbb2122game04_Michigan05.pdf

Video 1: https://vimeo.com/event/1246203

Video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85lg4MR77-E

Stats: https://calvinknights.com/sports/mbkb/2021-22/boxscores/20211120_64gq.xml

[ziggy]

I think the rotation from last night is probably going to be the one Calvin uses going forward. Here's the breakdown by years of college playing experience:

Shymanski: 5th
Warners: 5th
Fruin: 5th
Morrison: 4th
Katje: 4th
Minderhoud: 4th
Sensenig: 3rd
Egekeze: 2nd
Bult: 2nd

They're an experienced bunch for sure.

Looks like it's setting up to be that nine man rotation as all mine listed there for first half minutes and no one else played last night. Even among those nine, Bult, Minderhoud and Sensenig saw fewer than ten minutes of play.

[ziggy]

Calvin did a nice job moving the ball last night, both in transition and in the half court. 20 assists on 30 made baskets.

[HOPEful]

Hope 72 Benedictine 63

When Evan Thomas plays like that, he's really really good and Hope looks like a different team. Well... minus the still pitiful shooting from behind the arc (19% tonight). The difference was that Hope made 22 out of 24 of their free throws (Thomas made 14 out of 15) and Benedictine was 11 for 21.

Back to back really nice wins for the Dutchmen.

[sac]

Hope 72 Benedictine 63

When Evan Thomas plays like that, he's really really good and Hope looks like a different team. Well... minus the still pitiful shooting from behind the arch (19% tonight). The difference was that Hope made 22 out of 24 of their free throws (Thomas made 14 out of 15) and Benedictine was 11 for 21.

Back to back really nice wins for the Dutchmen.

His 2nd half drive and dunk was pretty big time. 

[sac]

https://www.miaa.org/miaaheadlines/MemoriamCooper

I missed this from earlier in the week.   I met Joe years ago and knew him for a few years before I ever really knew what he did for the MIAA.  My dad and Joe's son in law would frequently play golf together in Albion and I'd join them occasionally.  Afterwards Joe would join us for lunch in the clubhouse.   So I was lucky to hear a few great stories mostly about baseball and his ties to juniors baseball.  It wasn't until later on that I would recognize him sitting at the scorers table or in the stands at various MIAA games evaluating officials that I'd realized I had known and been talking to basically the MIAA supervisor of officials for several years.  He simply never mentioned it.    If you watched or participated in amateur, high school or college sports, particularly baseball in the State of Michigan in the last 50 years you were likely touched by Joe's work.   It was a pleasure to have known him and talked to him if ever so briefly. 

[pointlem]

Take your pick: Mount Union hosting Trine . . .

• Massey Ratings: MU 70, Trine 60
• Actual result: MU 72, Trine 62

But TUAngola will have the real game assessment.