MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[knights2000]

Well Dark Knight, KVS agreed with you. As I said earlier, the first half I sat right behind the Calvin bench and listened in during timeouts, and the very first timeout he called he got on the Knights for looking, scared, frightened, and imtimidated.

[Fun_Ron]

calvin did a lot of standing around and trying to do things as individuals.  hope had great ball movement.  they also hit the offensive glass very well.

KVS was totally correct.  There was no passion or spirit on Calvins team.  first half defense was nonexistant.  the big 3 for hope came up big!

[sac]

Has there ever been a Hope/Calvin game where both sides were in such thorough agreement about how the game went well and went wrong?

Everyone's posts basically say the same things just not in the same words.


Also, if Calvin fans don't want to see anymore "Oscar winning performances",......... tell Caleb to keep the elbow in.

[pointlem]

The Calvin supporters are surely right that Calvin will learn and grow from Saturday night, not to mention return to their more typical shooting.  I vividly recall Hope (in 1996, as I recall) getting badly embarrassed in a 30 point or so loss at Aquinas, where nothing went right, and then developing into the team that dominated its way through the NCAA tournament until almost beating Rowan (with its 5th year Division I/II players) in the national championship game. 

But then Hope's new rotation and its inside players should also continue developing.  One simply couldn't ask for more---or even expect in the future as much---from its three starting guards, who not only scored 61 of their team's 76 points on Saturday, but also are the team's three leading rebounders after two games.  The inside guys and their subs, though challenged by being undersized in the paint, did play tough defense and smart team-oriented offense and we will see their points in future games, no doubt.  They also punched some rebounds out of Calvin's taller hands that were picked up by others.  All in all, everyone conntributed to a great team effort.

[wiz]

"Everyone's posts basically say the same things just not in the same words."

Well, here's a different issue to consider.  No one is talking about the turnovers, and maybe it is because the stats are so perplexing.  21 TOs for Hope and only 12 for Calvin.  I saw the game and read all the posts.  I agree that Hope had a stellar defense.  But, in spite of KVS and every one else admonishing the Knight's defense, somehow they caused Hope to have nearly twice as many turnovers.  Hope only had 15 against Cornerstone, even though DVS had 2 crucial turnovers in the last 30 seconds of that game.  One was recovered and the other led to the Joppe miscue under the Cornerstone bucket with only a few seconds left.

[sac]

The rest of the MIAA weekend action

Saturday
Albion 71, Centre, Ky. 69
Rochester 66, Adrian 55
Baldwin-Wallace 74, Olivet 71 .......very impressive, I believe BW is the OAC preseason favorite

Today
Kalamazoo 78, Benedictine 65
Hanover 83, Albion 69...........3rd double digit loss of the year for Albion, wow.

MIAA is 11-15 overall.

......... the other led to the Joppe miscue under the Cornerstone bucket with only a few seconds left.

Almost made it an entire post without your bitterness for Hope showing.  So  close


Those TO totals look suspicious to me, I don't remember Hope having to many to's at halftime, although I only briefly looked at the stats.  Imagine the score if Hope took better care of the ball.   

Calvin's primary deficiency on defense wasn't necessarily defending and pressuring as much as it was being slow to recover to the open shooter and being out of position.  Which Hope exploited magnificently.

Surprising # no doubt, but I wouldn't have ever called Hope sloppy yesterday.

[sac]

Well being the stat geek I am I just had to investigate this turnover thing.

Looking at the game tracker, Hope committed 10 of those turnover the final 11 minutes of the game with Hope up by 15-20 including 4 in final 2 minutes.  They were basically on pace for 16, perhaps they got a little sloppy at the end.  I don't think Calvin did anything special.

I'd be more worried about Caleb's 3 to's in the first 2 minutes.

http://miaa.org/mbb/stats/0607/1125caho.htm

[wiz]

Bitterness?  Come on Sac, you've gotta feel the love!  Some of my favorite people come from Hope.  Hope handed it to Calvin yesterday.  But, you implied everyone was posting the same thing, so I brought up another aspect to consider.

If you were at the game on Friday, then you know that Cramer did the right thing when the Cornerstone player took off with the loose ball and headed downcourt for a layup.  If I'm not mistaken, Hope was only up by 1 point at the time.  Cramer needed to reach in and not allow the layup.  Much better to send the guy to the freethrow line and force him to make two shots for the 2 points rather than just one easy layup.  It was a "heads up" play on Cramer's part but apparently Joppe had his head up someplace too.  Coach Elders didn't blame the official for the loss and neither do I.  Elders said there were other factors, like rebounding and defense.  And, even if Cornerstone took the lead at that time, I think Hope still would have had plenty of time to come back and win it.  Momentum was in their favor.

Sac, you need to lighten up just a little bit.  Your boys are 2-0 and rolling along.  I think it is Hope all the way, baby!

[CalvinChelseaMom]

Hey DarkNight, I'm assuming you meant me when you said you saw "basketballmom" across the gym.  There is another poster named "basketballmom," but I am "bballmom."  Got it?  It's confusing I know, but all basketball players do have moms!

Regarding the man with the lovely orange shorts, if he was an older gentlement, with light peach-orange pants, that might be Bill, GVW's very good friend.  He came to many a Chelsea game with GVW and is a delightful fellow.  But who knows, maybe there were other men in orange pants Saturday night!

[oldknight]

Since the Calvin/Hope posters all pretty much agree on what happened last night (man, we better not do too much of that this year lest this board will get pretty boring) why don't we discuss something else of interest--like the choice of officials for the game. I can't ever remember seeing Jim Schipper--a former Calvin player--officiate a Calvin game before, and a Calvin/Hope game no less. Of course, as I mentioned to someone before the game began any potential Calvin advantage was offset by putting him in the same crew with Geerlings. 

[goodknight]

The man in orange pants is (correct me if I'm wrong here, Hopesters) Bill VandenBerg, the unofficial bard of Hope basketball, a devotee about whom many a Holland Sentinel or Lakeshore Press feature has been penned.  He drafts sentimental poetry for the Dutchmen and goes through a pair of orange-ish slacks every few years until they fade to something verging on optic pink.

In related fashion news, Flying Dutch Fan has been widely viewed (pun intended) in shockingly orange bermudas in recent years, but he was sporting blue at the Fieldhouse this weekend.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled MIAA chit-chat.....

[sac]

The man in orange pants is (correct me if I'm wrong here, Hopesters) Bill VandenBerg, the unofficial bard of Hope basketball, a devotee about whom many a Holland Sentinel or Lakeshore Press feature has been penned.  He drafts sentimental poetry for the Dutchmen and goes through a pair of orange-ish slacks every few years until they fade to something verging on optic pink.

All true even the pink part, and one of the nicest gentlemen you'll ever meet.  He's also pretty funny to sit next to during a game and isn't shy about letting officials know what he thought........but most everyone in the gym knows that already.

Also likes to remind the Hope staff when to return to a zone defense.


Oldknight=----ya know I heard a few rumblings about Schipper doing this game from behind me.  It really didn't cross my mind, Hope is pretty used to seeing him in Holland a few times a year.  Most of the loudest rumblings though were about Geerlings .   These guys are all professional and you expect them to behave that way on the court, most people don't have a problem with Schipper because he's a Calvin grad, if any Hope fans have a problem its because of his officiating skills or perceived lack of    I think they'd be wrong to assume because he's a Calvin grad he would be giving Hope the short end of the stick somehow.

I would be interested to know how he got in on this gig, I don't know how they chose officials for this one.  Maybe he just took advantage of an opportunity to do a Hope/Calvin game.  Maybe he was one of the few available. Who knows?  I believe all 3 live in the immediate GR area.

The stare he gave GVW at one point was abslutely priceless.

[GoKnights68]

Word is that the Calvin student-senate sent out a survey with asking students what mascot they preferred out of a selection of pictures with knight costems on.  No joke.

[oldknight]

I think Schipper is an excellent official and I don't think his background as a player would ever influence his reffing. But I was still surprised to see him do the game. For the record, I thought last night's game was very well officiated.

[sac]

I think Schipper is an excellent official and I don't think his background as a player would ever influence his reffing. But I was still surprised to see him do the game. For the record, I thought last night's game was very well officiated.

I'm probably one of the few who like Schipper, I also like Joppe.  I too thought last night's game was well done and in fact the tournament as a whole was well done, esp for so early in the year.  Geerlings would have been doing a Big Ten football game last weekend.....thats quite a change.

Word is that the Calvin student-senate sent out a survey with asking students what mascot they preferred out of a selection of pictures with knight costems on.  No joke.

I'd make a comment about being behind the Hope curve again, we've already done the mascot thing, .....but you guys have had a rough weekend so I'll leave it alone.

......or maybe I'll cleverly take a little jab 8)