MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[almcguirejr]

The current issue of Sports Illustrated has a list of people that play hoops with Barack Obama.  One of those listed is Marty Nesbitt who it says played at Albion College.  Playboy (the preferred reference manual for d3hoops) says he played there in the mid 80's.  Anybody remember him?

[sac]

The current issue of Sports Illustrated has a list of people that play hoops with Barack Obama.  One of those listed is Marty Nesbitt who it says played at Albion College.  Playboy (the preferred reference manual for d3hoops) says he played there in the mid 80's.  Anybody remember him?

Marty is listed as a 1985 graduate of Albion basketball in their media guide........thats a bit before my time though.

[GoKnights68]

Any news on Zoerhof?  Will he be alright to play Saturday?

[Hopester]

Any news on Zoerhof?  Will he be alright to play Saturday?

Please let him be alright! He needs to play Saturday!

[sac]

Standings with +/- (+ for road win, - for home loss)

Calvin 3-0   (+1)
Hope 3-0    (+2)
Adrian  2-1  (0)
Albion 1-2    (0)
Alma 1-2      (0)
Kzoo 1-2      (-1)
Olivet 1-2     (-1)
Trine 0-3      (-1)

Saturday, January 17
Adrian at Alma, 1 p.m.
Calvin at Hope, 3 p.m.
Trine at Albion, 7:30 p.m.
Olivet at Kalamazoo, 3 p.m

Olivet at Kzoo ---  this is really a must win for both teams, esp Kzoo, a second home loss would be killer.  Olivet's made up one of their home L's.  Both teams chances are already thin, loser I'm afraid is probably out of the race.

Adrian at Alma ---  must win for Adrian?  can't afford a loss here thats for sure, but coming off a 31 point loss, this might be tough one for the Bulldogs to get up for, esp with Alma coming off a win........their most complete win in years.

Trine at Albion ---  Trine is just struggling, they need a win anywhere.  Albion is looking to repeat their come from behind 0-2 start from last year.  Another home loss would be devastating.

Calvin at Hope ---  The obvious big game of the day, a win for Calvin sets them up amazingly well for a title run.  a Hope win protects the home court giving them 2 home wins vs the top 2 challengers potentially.  Winner leaves in the drivers seat.

[sac]

Hope and Calvin have played nearly identical schedules, with nearly identical results for the most part........

Grace Bible
Calvin 82 Grace Bible 49
Hope 78 Grace Bible 64

AQ game 1
Aquinas 78 Calvin 73
Aquinas 58 Hope 46

AQ game 2
Aquinas 78 Calvin 65
Aquinas 62 Hope 57

Cornerstone
Calvin 85 Cornerstone 82 OT
Hope 82 Cornerstone 74

Trinity Christian
Trinity Christian 75 Calvin 63
Hope 73 Trinity Christian 65

Wheaton
Wheaton 68 Calvin 56
Wheaton 91 Hope 79

Carthage
Carthage 95 Calvin 82
Carthage 89 Hope 68


............untill we get to the MIAA where Hope and Calvin have played basically opposite schedules.

Calvin ..........Alma, Trine, @ Adrian
Hope  ..........@Olivet, Albion, @Kzoo

I can't remember too many occasions when we didn't have at least one MIAA game to compare.


If there's an extra volt or two of anticipation and excitement for Saturday, there's a good reason and it seems almost impossible to be true.

I went back all the way to 1998 and Saturday is the first time in at least that long that Hope and Calvin will play each other with unbeaten MIAA records.     That seems miniscule and unimportant, but to think that at least one of these teams has stumbled before the first Hope/Calvin game for a dozen years goes totally against the grain of perceptions of the MIAA.

[realist]

Thanks HC.  I agree with you completely.  I was also considering the factor of a key player pressing to hard, or trying to carry to much of the load by himself.   Would Jesse do that?  Would GVW let him do it?
No question the winner of Sat's game is in the catbird seat for the MIAA.  Assuming it is a tough, hard fought game I would think a loss by Hope at home potentially hurts them a bit more than a Calvin loss.
Sac:  You might be writing off Adrian too soon.   Few things are worse to deal with than an animal that feels trapped or cornered.  Adrian is going to smack someone around good before the season is over, and personally I am glad Calvin's turn at Adrian is done.

[oldknight]

I was impressed with the balance of the Calvin team and their stars did not disappoint, but I must say give Veldhouse an Emmy for his flop and pulling Asher on top of him at the end of the 1st half.  After seeing this John Stockton imitation for 7-8 years from him (he has been there that long hasn't he), it made me laugh that the officials of the MIAA still can't see that he always fall down in that situation and give him that call.

...perhaps "brushing up" on his "Immink flop" in preparation for Saturday??

As a freshmen, Caleb took a 300 level course in theatrics at the DeVos classroom building.

But did he pass the course?

At the final exam time he collapsed on the floor and was taken away to the ER, so the prof. let him pass without taking the exam. 

Was the professor's name Ray Kelser?   

Nope. I think he was wearing # 14. Besides, the boxscore shows Ray wasn't officiating. Here's the link.

http://www.calvin.edu/sports/mens/basketball/results/2005-06/cm31.htm

[Dark Knight]

After Albion's somewhat surprising victory over Olivet and Alma's very surprising (and convincing) victory over Trine, I decided to TRASH* the game results to see what they would do to the power rankings. So I typed them into the spreadsheet.

Recall that last time, since there were only two games per team in TRASH, I said that

...things will no doubt change dramatically after the next round of games.

Indeed.

Team	Week 1 strength	Week 1.5 strength
Calvin	12.2	17.9
Hope	15	9.1
Alma	-13	-2.1
Kazoo	-9.3	-2.2
Trine	4.3	-3.4
Olivet	6.3	-4.1
Adrian	-6.3	-6.3
Albion	-9.2	-8.9

Alma was the big winner, gaining a full 11 power points with its convincing win against Trine. Alma did more than 30 points better than TRASH had expected, and the gain boosted Alma from last place all the way up to third!

Kazoo picked up 7 power points and three places with a good game against Hope, and Calvin picked up 5.5 power points with a convincing win against Adrian.

Olivet dropped 10 power points, Trine shed 7, and Hope slipped by 6.

Poor Albion scored an upset victory, gained in power, and still slipped a place in the ranking.

At the moment, it looks like Calvin, a step down to Hope, and a step down to all the others, who are pretty close to one another.

With only three games down, there is still a lot of variability in the system, but with each game scores will get more consistent and more accurate.

*TRASH = Team RAting spreadSHeet

[GoVols]

In much more entertaining news, I for one, am so pleased that Scott Jungling has been added to the roster at Hope.  Truthfully I felt he was underappreciated at C-stone and shocked he didn't initially make the team.  Probably a more important question-  Do you think any of the JV players feel "screwed" that a kid that got cut during tryouts, received the nod over players already in the program (JV)?  I find it a bit perplexing.  I'm sure someone else can fill us in on the details of this situation, if it already hasn't been covered. 

Lastly, throwing out my opinion, I found a statement in todays Sentinel a little ironic.  I think that's the term.  Something  to the effect about Peter Bunn not digging the role of bench player at Oakland.  It's this rationale, I believe that will lead to the exodus of 1 or 2 players on the Hope roster at the end of the season who initally were thought to have great careers in Holland. I hope its not the case though.  We shall see

This kind of issue comes up from time to time.  It is similar to the transfer issue.  Although you might expect some of this kind of grumbling, the upshot of the whole thing is that GVW knows what he is doing, and gets the desired results year after year.  I would not sweat it.

When you think about it, there was no real reason to go into great detail about WHY Bunn transferred to Hope, but one or two reasons still have to be mentioned when that topic is brought up. That was covered in a previous story in the Sentinel which you can read in the following link.
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/archive/x1157488114/Transfer-could-help-Flying-Dutchmen-at-guard

[GoKnights68]

I really was not expecting it to be 1998 the last time these two teams met when they were unbeaten in league play.  When thinking about all the success Calvin and Hope has had in NCAA tourney play since then, that little fact is hard to believe.

Sac's results of scores this season show that this match-up looks like it will be another close in the series.  I hope I can handle it...

Entering Wednesday's games, the unofficial vegas line was Hope -5 over Calvin.  After Wednesday's games and Calvin's impressive win, the vegas line just went down to Hope -2 over Calvin.  We'll see if that line changes before tip-off.  Usually Vegas likes to give the home-court team an automatic extra 2 points, so that means that this game is pretty much a toss-up to them.


A lot of Calvin fans on here seem to be pretty confident about the game.  Hope has beaten Calvin 4 straight times, and has demolished Calvin at the DeVos arena the last 2 times, so I guess I am not as confident as some Knight fans are.  Who do I think is going to win?  I do not know yet.  Calvin sure has the experience edge in this match-up, but we'll see if that comes into factor on Saturday.  These group of seniors do not have a pretty record against Hope, so I'm sure KVS and those seniors have thought about this game a lot in the last year.  Hopefully they (the team) come in with a solid game-plan. 

Anyways, that's my final little rant about the game.  Go Knights!

[hope#1]

This is going to be a great game!  I haven't had the chance to watch Calvin yet this year but I like the way Hope is playing coming into the game.  Since Krombeen's insertion into the starting line up, this has been a well-oiled basketball machine when it wants to be.

Hope's biggest problem this year has been the tendency to get complacent in games but when they decide to turn it on, they have the ability to kick into an additional gear.  Against a team as solid as Calvin, the Dutchmen can't afford to get bored or they will find themselves digging out of a hole against similar type talent, something difficult to do.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this game turns out.

[ACHOOPS-00]

When was the last time the league has been this bad?  Calvin and Hope will only lose to each other...
I would say Calvin and Hope are looking at 13-1.. Olivet, Alma, Trine, Adrian and Kzoo and Albion will beat up each other.  Any of those bottom teams could lose to on a given night.  We could be looking at the 3rd and 4th seed being under 500.  These is just a 2 team race this year.

[goodknight]

Nothing would please me more than to see Hope get bored -- totally bored -- this Saturday.

[sac]

Nothing would please me more than to see Hope get bored -- totally bored -- this Saturday.

Hope hosts Calvin in hockey Saturday night..........someone's likely to get boarded.