MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

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Massey's "most likely" final score: NC 75, Hope 74 nailed the final margin--and almost the final score. But it couldn't capture the excitement of the finish.

NC fans could object that, with 9 seconds left, the ref whistled a NC flop rather than a Hope charge. But as things played out, the whistle did stop the play and preclude a wide open Clayton Dykhouse 3-point attempt, and allow NC to set up its half-court defense.

Nor could Massey capture an all-American level performance by Matt Helwig, whose agility, elevation, and shooting finesse earned him 30 points. Hat's off to his performance, which brought to mind Hope alum Steve Cramer, and his similar ability to elevate and create shots.

An exciting game on a par with last year's NC/Hope overtime game . . . with each team coming away with a win. Hope can now, hopefully toughened by a rigorous pre-league schedule, look forward to the January return of Tim Schoonveld's defense and of Hope's own pre-season all-American, Evan Thomas.

If Hope is relying on Tim's defense they're in trouble. 

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North Central 74 Hope 73 F

Hope:  McKenzie 19, Wourman 16, Dykhouse 12, Wiegerink 12
NC:  M. Helwig 30, Lewis 12


Matt Helwig was the show with a superb performance for the Cardinals.

Fairly typical weird vibes December game between everyone going home and Christmas.  Hope needed a late rally and finally denying Helwig some space after 35 minutes struggling to find any answer, think TJ was on him for most of the final stretch.  Helwig didn't score the last 8 minutes of the game after putting them up 10.  A few stops got Hope back in the game and  had a chance to tie which turned into a chance to win.  Wourman was denied at the buzzer and Hope's bench seemed pretty certain his arm was grabbed.   Don't look at me I'm old with deteriorating vision and 100 feet away.  To bad the students are away because that nifty overused under the basket camera would probably show us what happened. 

Hope got caught in a game of launching 3's and didn't make enough of them.  The real reason Hope lost was 2 bad turnovers 1 at the end of the first half and 1 in the last 2 in the 2nd. One gave NC an extra possession and bucket, 1 gave NC a free dunk, 4 points, potential 8 or more point swing.   Every possession counts, and those two hurt. 

The twitter folks are focusing on the flop technical with 9 seconds left, by itself yeah probably a rough call, do that 3 times in 5 minutes and you're not getting that call a 3rd time buddy.   That kind of stuff is exactly the reason the technical exists, to get it out of the game.  Good call, don't flip your head back on contact.  Simple.   Somewhere Trave Spaman and Greg Immink are weeping, what has the world come to.

Hope was without Evan Thomas, who hopefully gets some good news this week, Eli Schoonveld who also hopefully gets some good news this week or next week, and Ethan Crabtree looked a little hobbly and didn't play much.   Hope was stretched pretty thin, but got some quality 2nd half minutes from Nocek, Chaney and Hawkins that helped them stay within reach and maybe even showed a couple guys the effort you need on D.

Babson will be a similar test or maybe a tick higher.

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North Central 74 Hope 73 F

Hope:  McKenzie 19, Wourman 16, Dykhouse 12, Wiegerink 12
NC:  M. Helwig 30, Lewis 12


Matt Helwig was the show with a superb performance for the Cardinals.

Fairly typical weird vibes December game between everyone going home and Christmas.  Hope needed a late rally and finally denying Helwig some space after 35 minutes struggling to find any answer, think TJ was on him for most of the final stretch.  Helwig didn't score the last 8 minutes of the game after putting them up 10.  A few stops got Hope back in the game and  had a chance to tie which turned into a chance to win.  Wourman was denied at the buzzer and Hope's bench seemed pretty certain his arm was grabbed.   Don't look at me I'm old with deteriorating vision and 100 feet away.  To bad the students are away because that nifty overused under the basket camera would probably show us what happened. 

Hope got caught in a game of launching 3's and didn't make enough of them.  The real reason Hope lost was 2 bad turnovers 1 at the end of the first half and 1 in the last 2 in the 2nd. One gave NC an extra possession and bucket, 1 gave NC a free dunk, 4 points, potential 8 or more point swing.   Every possession counts, and those two hurt. 

The twitter folks are focusing on the flop technical with 9 seconds left, by itself yeah probably a rough call, do that 3 times in 5 minutes and you're not getting that call a 3rd time buddy.   That kind of stuff is exactly the reason the technical exists, to get it out of the game.  Good call, don't flip your head back on contact.  Simple.   Somewhere Trave Spaman and Greg Immink are weeping, what has the world come to.

Hope was without Evan Thomas, who hopefully gets some good news this week, Eli Schoonveld who also hopefully gets some good news this week or next week, and Ethan Crabtree looked a little hobbly and didn't play much.   Hope was stretched pretty thin, but got some quality 2nd half minutes from Nocek, Chaney and Hawkins that helped them stay within reach and maybe even showed a couple guys the effort you need on D.

Babson will be a similar test or maybe a tick higher.

I don't know about weeping but all the flop call controversy this year has certainly sent Greg Immink flying across a few rooms. 

[TUAngola]

Trine 62 Baldwin Wallace 60

Last non-conference game goes to the Thunder as they hold on to beat the Yellow Jackets in Berea, OH.  Record stands at 10-1 heading into conferernce play next Wednesday as they host Hope.

Trine: Cox 18, Jones 15
BW: Price 20, Mazzeo 18

[Dutchfan]

How good of a coach is Greg Mitchell and should Hope be considering looking for a new coach?

[pointlem]

How good of a coach is Greg Mitchell and should Hope be considering looking for a new coach?

Just to be clear, Dutchfan, you're asking about the coach whose team last year won the league, won the league tournament, beat Calvin three times, has recruited some exciting new players, and has scheduled and played a tough pre-league schedule (including beating two WIAC teams) . . . but recently has been playing without its preseason all-American?

[tartanpride2016]

How good of a coach is Greg Mitchell and should Hope be considering looking for a new coach?

Here we go again. Hope fans start calling for Mitchell to be fired until he has the Dutch back in the title race...
Didn't realize it was that time of year already! Cheers all!

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How good of a coach is Greg Mitchell and should Hope be considering looking for a new coach?

Here we go again. Hope fans start calling for Mitchell to be fired until he has the Dutch back in the title race...
Didn't realize it was that time of year already! Cheers all!

"fan", singular.

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Babson 83  Hope 60  F

Babson played a great game tonight, more aggressive, more strong.  Punched above many of their season averages, including the biggest factor in the game outscoring Hope from beyond the 3pt line 33-3.  32% 3pt shooting team shot 44% for the game including 50% in the 2nd half whilst slamming the comeback door shut.

It was a night of compounding problems all night for Hope, not strong around the basket with finishing, almost no threat from beyond the arc, even struggled from the FT line, and as has been far to common very sloppy turnovers.  They didn't give themselves to much of chance to stay close. 


Schoonveld was back after missing 3 games, though notice he did not play the 2nd half or much (I think).  Evan Thomas dressed and participated in warmups, think Hope's still hopeful  he can go next week or the week after.

Hope:  Wourman 14, Dykhouse 12, McKenzie 10
Babson had 5 guys in double digits and were just better all night.


If Babson can win at Chicago Saturday they'll be 8-3, with a pretty decent schedule I think.   They were picked 2nd in the NEWMAC which has been a pretty strong conference recently.  Should the Beavers finish 2nd you'd think they'll have a decent enough resume to receive an at large bid or at least be in the conversion.  So that looked and felt like a program in the mix for post-season play, like most of the programs Hope has faced.  Its been a tough schedule, made tougher having to play without a couple of important pieces along the way.  Could have been better, but could have been worse.

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After being obsolete the day DeVos Fieldhouse opened, Hope is finally replacing the scoreboard above the court and should have it in place for the next home game which happens to be Calvin for the men.

Don't ask if it has team fouls or timeouts or other pertinent game information, I don't know. Probably cool look at us videos though

[maroonandgold]

Calvin fell to Elmhurst last night by a score of 84 to 80.  It was a game of 2 very different halves.  In the first half, Elmhurst hit 55 % and 58% on threes, and Calvin seemed cold shooting, and slow, hitting only 33%.  Calvin really came out fast in the second half, scoring the first 8 points and playing much more energetic defense.  But for most the half, Elmhurst responded and came back.  Finally, in the last 5 minutes Calvin charged back and closed to six points, led by Egekeze who scored 25 points along with 8 rebounds and 6 steals.  With 5 points in the last seconds it ended a 4 points game.  Bult scored 15 and Overway  13.  Van Essen had his best game in some time with 9 points off the bench.

Hopefully it will provide a good learning experience for a young Calvin team about the kind of full game intense play thta will be needed in league play.  The last 3 games all shared the feature of one strong dominant half and one poor half, and that led to losses that could well have been wins,

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Olivet's Tevin Ali had a 32 point, 23 rebound day vs Wittenberg.

[Dark Knight]

Did anyone catch the Adrian vs Oklahoma State University match yesterday on ESPN? Oh, it wasn't basketball -- it was their varsity cornhole team.

[tartanpride2016]

Unsure if FDF was planning on running the MIAA pick'em this year, so I decided to get it jump started.
If he wants to take it back over, I would be more than happy to relinquish control. Just wanted to make sure that it was available for everyone to play!

First games are Wednesday at 7:00 PM EST, so get your picks in before then!

http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=5915.0

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Deonte Roberts 5-9 G Lansing Waverly will attend Albion.

Roberts was also the QB for the Warriors football team and drew interest from multiple MIAA schools for both sports.