MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

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.

Been awhile, without looking it up I think we've had 3 teams win 15 games for quite some time.  That looks in danger this year right now, but its still possible for someone to get hot........Albion started out 0-2 last year and finished 12-2.  Its do-able.

[goodknight]

Boarded -- and possibly toasted.

[sac]

Boarded -- and possibly toasted.

Lets leave the Cosmo's out of this. 

[KnightSlappy]

A lot has been made about Calvin's experience advantage so I decided to check just how much more "Rivalry" experience the Knights actually have.  I looked through the past 3 seasons of box scores for players that would be playing this week.  Hope has a decided W-L advantage but the total minutes played number is in Calvin's favor big time.  Nothing on the list is very surprising but it is interested to see the numbers.

	TOTAL GP	TOTAL MINS	"Full Games"	W	- L
Caleb Veldhouse	12	334	8.35	3	- 9
Dustin Smith	12	281	7.025	3	- 9
Tyler Zoerhof	12	189	4.725	3	- 9
Tim Katt	7	64	1.6	1	- 6
John Mantel	8	175	4.375	2	- 6
Matt Veltema	8	113	2.825	2	- 6
Mischa McCray	2	7	0.175	0	- 2
Mike Zwier	1	2	0.05	0	- 1
CALVIN TOTALS	62	1165	29.125	14	- 48
Jesse Reimink	11	237	5.925	9	- 2
Zach Osburn	4	26	0.65	4	- 0
Will Bowser	3	8	0.2	3	- 0
Ty Tanis	3	29	0.725	3	- 0
Brandon Bosch	2	15	0.375	2	- 0
HOPE TOTALS	23	315	7.875	21	- 2

*Each "full game" is 40 minutes worth of experience
** Only games in which a player appeared in the box score are counted in GP and W-L.

[calvin66]

As previously posted, it's a weak year for the MIAA.  Hope and Calvin are far ahead of the other teams in the league.  It's a two team race and I agree a 13-1 record for both teams is a definite possibility.  I pick Hope tomorrow (home game and GVW over KVS again.) 

[HopeConvert]

A lot has been made about Calvin's experience advantage so I decided to check just how much more "Rivalry" experience the Knights actually have.  I looked through the past 3 seasons of box scores for players that would be playing this week.  Hope has a decided W-L advantage but the total minutes played number is in Calvin's favor big time.  Nothing on the list is very surprising but it is interested to see the numbers.

	TOTAL GP	TOTAL MINS	"Full Games"	W	- L
Caleb Veldhouse	12	334	8.35	3	- 9
Dustin Smith	12	281	7.025	3	- 9
Tyler Zoerhof	12	189	4.725	3	- 9
Tim Katt	7	64	1.6	1	- 6
John Mantel	8	175	4.375	2	- 6
Matt Veltema	8	113	2.825	2	- 6
Mischa McCray	2	7	0.175	0	- 2
Mike Zwier	1	2	0.05	0	- 1
CALVIN TOTALS	62	1165	29.125	14	- 48
Jesse Reimink	11	237	5.925	9	- 2
Zach Osburn	4	26	0.65	4	- 0
Will Bowser	3	8	0.2	3	- 0
Ty Tanis	3	29	0.725	3	- 0
Brandon Bosch	2	15	0.375	2	- 0
HOPE TOTALS	23	315	7.875	21	- 2

*Each "full game" is 40 minutes worth of experience
** Only games in which a player appeared in the box score are counted in GP and W-L.

Very interesting. Thanks for doing that.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

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

I will say one thing for your calculations.  Calling it TRASH is dead on.   

Let the trash talking begin  <groan>

[realist]

KS I agree with HC that those are interesting numbers.  I looked at them for an hour trying to discern what it all meant.  Can Calvin's advantage in experience (p.t. in prior rivalry games) be used in any meaningful way to predict what might happen tomorrow?  Not that I can find.  About the only conclusion I can draw is Calvin (KVS) has had to rely on younger players more often than Hope (GVW).  A companion to that startling revelation is the one that Hope has experienced more turnover recently than Calvin.  Simply the fact Hope has jrs. with no rivalry experience reinforces that.
Am I missing something? 
FDF.  I looked at those trash numbers for the longest time yesterday, and came to the same conclusion that you have. My little red flag started waving when I saw Hope's numbers went down when they beat Kalamazoo, and Kalamazoos number went up for losing. 
Using TRASH, and KS"S #'s I will stick with my eartlier guess that Calvin will win a close one.  Knowing full well Hope is a more talented team playing on their home court. 

[KnightSlappy]

KS I agree with HC that those are interesting numbers.  I looked at them for an hour trying to discern what it all meant.  Can Calvin's advantage in experience (p.t. in prior rivalry games) be used in any meaningful way to predict what might happen tomorrow.  Not that I can find.

I don't think my numbers show anything definite (you can't ever pull a statistic like this that ever means anything really), just that Calvin's players have played many more minutes in Rivaly games.  I am sure (although I never played in one) a Calvin/Hope game has a much different feel to it.  Emotions and adrenaline run very high.  If some of the young Hope kids get the "wide eyed" look while playing in their first meaningful minutes, Calvin could take it to them.

FDF.  I looked at those trash numbers for the longest time yesterday, and came to the same conclusion that you have. My little red flag started waving when I saw Hope's numbers went down when they beat Kalamazoo, and Kalamazoos number went up for losing. 

I don't want to speak for DK's formula but, I bet TRASH takes into account HOW a team wins or loses.  Kzoo 'covered' TRASH's spread so in response, "+" for Kzoo.  In turn Hope didn't cover so it gets a "-".  All of the power numbers are relative and add up to zero so for one to go up, someone needs to go down.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

Its very quiet in here less than 30 hours before the big game! Too quiet....

[KnightSlappy]

Its very quiet in here less than 30 hours before the big game! Too quiet....

I think the Knight fans are trying to trick you while some of Calvin's resident computer nerds sneak into DeVos and re-wire/re-program the scoreboard so visitor "2-pointers" count as 3 points and "3-pointers" count as 4 points (I am told free throws will still count as one).  Also, Hope will begin each half with 4 team fouls...

[ziggy]

Its very quiet in here less than 30 hours before the big game! Too quiet....

I'm sure most are like me and are just waiting to see it play out.  In a quiet moment of reflection, I came to the conclusion that nothing would really surprise me this weekend.  I think any possible scenario is in play, including a blowout either way.  My (biased) gut tells me that Calvin should be a slight favorite but I can't seem to downplay the possibility of a major disappointment.  The Adrian game has done very little to downplay this fear, although it probably should.

The results of Wednesday's games have me thinking toward the end of the season.  Hope and Calvin should both have very good conference records, which means they will end up with very good in-region winning percentages.  Witt and Woo have had similar seasons to Calvin and Hope, so the GL region could be very interesting... (not to open up the can of worms again...)

[Erm Schmigget]

Boarded -- and possibly toasted.

Lets leave the Cosmo's out of this. 

What!?!?!?!?

The more Cosmos the merrier!!!

Besides, seeing how the head hockey coach is a Cosmo, it's prety hard to leave them out of it.

BTW--and to insert a little basketball in this post on a basketball discussion board--said coach's younger brother played for GVW...and was a Frater.  You wanna talk about getting toasted...  

[HopeConvert]

KS I agree with HC that those are interesting numbers.  I looked at them for an hour trying to discern what it all meant.  Can Calvin's advantage in experience (p.t. in prior rivalry games) be used in any meaningful way to predict what might happen tomorrow?  Not that I can find.  About the only conclusion I can draw is Calvin (KVS) has had to rely on younger players more often than Hope (GVW).  A companion to that startling revelation is the one that Hope has experienced more turnover recently than Calvin.  Simply the fact Hope has jrs. with no rivalry experience reinforces that.
Am I missing something? 
FDF.  I looked at those trash numbers for the longest time yesterday, and came to the same conclusion that you have. My little red flag started waving when I saw Hope's numbers went down when they beat Kalamazoo, and Kalamazoos number went up for losing. 
Using TRASH, and KS"S #'s I will stick with my eartlier guess that Calvin will win a close one.  Knowing full well Hope is a more talented team playing on their home court. 

They're suggestive, not definite. Heck - I'm nervous and jumpy today, and I'm not playing. I can't imagine what a freshman point guard feels like. Although, being a freshman didn't hurt Veldhouse in his first game, lo those many years ago. Argh.

Does anyone know what time the doors open tomorrow?

[sac]

Sometimes Freshmen don't know they're supposed to be nervous.