MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Quick reminder - if you want in on our pick 'em contest, get your picks in before the games tomorrow.  It's located in its own thread under the Great Lakes Region.  We've got 18 players so far

[Dark Knight]

The Thunder gave the Knights all they could handle tonight, Calvin winning 85-79 in overtime. The Thunder hits 14 treys and played tight defense causing several turnovers. Calvin led by 2 at the half but went down by 10 after a rain of thunder threes, with 8-10 minutes left. But the knights found a higher gear, tied the game, and won in overtime.

I think Snoeyink had 20 points, so he's emerging as nice post player. Meckes was out with the flu and Draayer was nursing a hamstring problem. Having Meckes out really seems to hurt the knights.

Calvin hit 8/15 3s and shot over 50% overall, but they struggled with turnovers, too many offensive boards for Tri-State, and other problems that could be due to their youth.

[sac]

Hope 86 Kalamazoo 49

The Dutchmen just hammerd the Hornets tonight.  Hope actually led by 44 and Kzoo scored the last 7 points of the game.  Everyone played, I believe everyone scored and the starters didn't play a heck of a lot.   The last starter went out with 1230 to go and Hope up by 34.

I guess you start with very solid defense from Hope, they forced Kzoo into a lot of tough shots and didn't give up much inside.  I imagine Kzoo didn't have more than a handfull of offensive rebounds as well.

Offensively Hope was fairly sharp, they shot the ball very well tonight including a solid 10-18 from 3.  No real standout performance tonight, just very good from everyone.  However Tim Partridge had the hot 3 point hand tonight with 4 treys off the bench, I don't think he missed one.  Very nice to see.

Good way to start off the MIAA season and of course make the Hornets first trip to DeVos a very unpleasant one.  Between the men and women its  179-77.

The paper tommorow will call this Hope's 16th in a row over Kzoo but its acutally 17.  The Hope website is missing a 2002 87-60 Hope win and has a couple years wrong on a couple scores starting in 2000.  Sometimes its good to archive your own scores 

Off to Olivet to erase some demons.

[Picket Fence]

How much longer does Passage have at K? i know he's a great guy, but they're bad and it doesn't look good.

[sac]

All of tonights MIAA finals

Albion 75, Adrian 58
Hope 86, Kalamazoo 49
Calvin 85, Tri-State 79 (ot)
Alma 80, Olivet 61

Calvin is simply ordinary without Meckes.

Give it up for the Alma Scots, when was the last time Alma won a conference game by 19.

[bulldogalum]

Well, I stand corrected on my Adrian/Albion prediction.  The Bulldogs struggled to match up with the size of the Britons.  On top of that, they did not shoot particularly well in the first half (haven't seen the stats, but that was my impression).  They did a good job defending Crawford, limiting him to 17 points, but the rest of Albion's team really stepped up.  Adrian played much better in the second half, but had dug themselves a hole too deep to climb out of in the first half.  Bottom line, it's hard to score 17 points in the first half and still win, especially against a strong opponent.

[sac]

Just saw the boxscore from the Hope game.

Partridge 12, Cramer 12,  Voisin 10, Hope starters average 18 minutes, no one over 19.

Kzoo shot 14-60 for the game......thats 23%......22% in the first half, 24% in the second.


Albion's Brandon Crawford had 17 points 14 rebounds...what a year he's haveing.  What is that 10 double-double's.

[allsportball]

It is truely shocking to see Buck Riley still coaching after such a game as last night. For all you Buck Fans. Ya  He is a nice guy but terrible coach. I have been on the bench watched teams quit,players every year transfer, His half time speeches and practice can not be put in to words. There is hope not for this season but If given the chance D.W. could run circles around Buck.  

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Does anyone out there know what has happened to Mark Barnes from Alma.  He has not shown up in their stats the last few games. 

[benoitwi]

I have heard that Mark is having academic issues....dont know for sure...just what I have heard

[flash96]

With the way that Hope is currently playing, I haven't seen them live yet, just the paper and the website, they should have no problem beating Olivet.  But wasn't that supposed to be the case last year?  Hopefully they can exercise some demons from last year and beat the Comets.  Its terrible for any program to lose to Olivet, the basement dwellers of the MIAA!

[MIdoubleA]

Does anyone else feel that Hope is seriously getting the short end of the stick in the polls? I know that polls don't matter til the end of the season and blah blah blah, but I am sick of teams losing and staying ahead of Hope, with the exception of Wittenberg. After IWU and Amherst losing this week, and Wooster losing last week, things need to change.

Does anyone else feel this way?

Maybe I am being superficial feeling that rankings matter that much, but I just don't understand their rationale on how they rank these teams sometimes. Anyway, there is my rant for the day... good luck to all MIAA teams in action this weekend!

[hopefan]

re flash96's previous statement

exercise some demons?    is that like making them do situps and pushups  -- Hey you demon, get down and give me 20!!!!!

whaddaya think, Mrs W, FDF?

[AndersDY]

Better to get no love from the D3hoops poll than in the regional rankings. Those aren't posted until later in the year, or are they available somewhere now? As much as we might monitor the D3hoops poll, the NCAA regional rankings don't seem to follow the same bias.

Just so long as we keep winning enough to earn a bye and home court game in the tourney, that's all you can really ask for. As we've seen plenty of times before, being ranked near the top nationally doesn't keep you away from matchups with the other highly ranked teams early on in the tourney. Ultimately Hope will have to just beat a tCOW or a Witt where it won't matter much who was voted higher prior to the game.

[Civic Minded]

As to poll rankings, I'd much rather fly below the radar for a while longer.  It seems like (in the past at least) once you're in the top 3, it messes with your head, and nothing good comes of it.     I'd rather be in the bottom of the top 10 all year and then take care of business at the big dance, than to be closer to the top and then fall. (Just my humble opinion, you understand.)   

I do understand MIdoubleA's frustration though.