MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Civic Minded]

Oldknight, I believe, mentioned that maybe I should share some thoughts from the Albion/Calvin game last Saturday.  Since they sort of tie in to comments about last night's Calvin game, I'll share just a few observations:

--Caleb may not be playing, but his senior leadership was evident at Albion.  More often than not he was talking to players, encouraging, giving suggestions, staying very in touch with the game.  We were sitting in the Albion section and at one point (I learned a lot about Albion parents Saturday) someone behind me says "oh, is he coaching now?" in a snide tone.  I thought the way he was leading w/o being able to be on the floor was commendable.

--Dustin Smith -- again, the folks behind me had a comment "watch that little guy, would you?!?" -- Dustin was shooting well, and with the attention on Mantel, he was getting some nice open looks.

--The other little guy -- I will have to say that the officiating was seemingly very lopsided.  Albion got called for some fairly ticky tacky stuff on a regular basis, while Calvin players seemed to be able to defend with gusto.  Salo regularly had his guy in a bear hug, but was not called for it.  I call that good defense, myself (unless he's bear hugging someone in orange and blue  ).

--We were pretty surprised by the way Mantel started out shooting free throws; a lot of misses, fairly uncharacteristic of him.  He picked it up in the end though.  He was at the line a lot though, folks, because of the ridiculously lame calls being made.  Shoddy officiating seems to be the new point of emphasis this year.   

--I've seen Calvin play a lot this year, and I know this will seem strange to most of you, but as long as they are not playing Hope, I have very mixed feelings about whether I want them to win or lose.  Of course it would have been nice for Hope if Calvin would have lost on Saturday, but there is a little bit of sibling respect, I guess, that makes me smile just  a little when Calvin is being Calvin, defending well, and getting the job done.  Just a little.

[calvinite]

the only thing I don't like about VanNoord is that you can't go between the upper and lower sections without leaving the court and finding some stairs. 

I agree with everything Intagir posts -- especially the easily going between upper and lower sections.

[oldknight]

the only thing I don't like about VanNoord is that you can't go between the upper and lower sections without leaving the court and finding some stairs. 

I agree with everything Intagir posts -- especially the easily going between upper and lower sections.

I have mixed feelings about this issue but after attending several games and reflecting on the options, I think separating the upper and lower sections is the right thing to do with an arena style basketball facility of VanNoord's size. Traffic flow/management issues are much better with the current arrangement and I think this will be more evident when the Flying Dutchmen pay a visit and the arena is packed. There's no perfect way to build a facility like this but I wouldn't change it if given a do-over.

[Intangir]

I have mixed feelings about this issue but after attending several games and reflecting on the options, I think separating the upper and lower sections is the right thing to do with an arena style basketball facility of VanNoord's size. Traffic flow/management issues are much better with the current arrangement and I think this will be more evident when the Flying Dutchmen pay a visit and the arena is packed. There's no perfect way to build a facility like this but I wouldn't change it if given a do-over.

True, that's a good point, one of the fieldhouse's big problems definitely was how packed it got during and after busy games, that should be loads better now (though getting in to the lower section past the Calvin bench may be a new bottleneck), and it's not a big deal either way, I love the place otherwise. 

[HopeConvert]

Attendance figures from last night:

Hope: 2310
Calvin: 2047
Alma: 173
Adrian: 301

[arena]

Attendance figures from last night:

Hope: 2310
Calvin: 2047
Alma: 173
Adrian: 301

Looks like with combined attendance, we filled it...

[hope1]

i think hope will have a tough gamw sat vs olivet  hey have a fast point  guard  that will give them trouble. think gv will coach 10 more years  then maybe coach switches over to the boys side

[sac]

Attendance figures from last night:

Alma: 173

That seems low to me, there were at lest 180 there ...........kidding aside it was the biggest 'Alma' crowd I've seen there in about 6 or 7 visits.  The 3 goofball 'superfans' were pretty entertaining, too bad they have no one to entertain but themselves........a decent student turnout, though no one seemed to care there was a basketball game going on.


I'm confused about what exactly Alma is doing with regards to their gym.  I swear they made an announcement they were building a new gym onto the Hogan center.  Inside the lobby they had 3 displays with nice color coded sections of the Hogan center and dates for completion..........which showed only that someone knows where Kinko's is.  These showed nothing about what is being renovated, how or why only that it would be done, and showed no additions to the Hogan Center itself. 

Cappaert gym I believe has a nice brand new floor, or at least they refinished the old one.   Which has me more confused because they still claim they're breaking ground this spring on a totally new gym right next door.  http://www.alma.edu/alumni/advancement/hogan_renovate

Either way it was glaringly obvious that Cappaert is easily the worst gym in the MIAA now, the PA system is downright pathetic.  The floor is beautifull but the rest is just meh and old, this never bothered me untill this year for some reason.  Maybe its all our new gyms.

[sac]

Officials

I think the MIAA has lost some good officials the last couple years, not sure why, but I've seen only 5 or 6 games and other than Kelser, Kooiker and one other guy I haven't recognized any of them.

As bad as officiating is, the cries from the stands is equally bad.  I spent Saturday with one man yelling for a foul, any foul on Calvin for 40 minutes.  In the other ear I had a man yelling for 3 seconds, everytime down the floor, it didn't matter that he was wrong every single time, or that the player wasn't even in the lane, it was 3 seconds every single time, it just had to be.  One of them even cried that the fouls were blatantly uneven........at the time it was Albion 8 Calvin 6, I mean give us all a break bud.

At Adrian there were 4 students that decided it would be cool to sit in front of the Hope contingent and basically taunt everyone for the whole game.........the Hope contingent didn't exactly endear themselves to me either with a few catcalls and whining for fouls.

Last night I had another guy infront of me who complained about every call against Albion........all 24 of them, and everyone in the gym could hear the guy.  I guess none of the 24 were a foul and the Brits were getting skrewed by the refs up by 15.

The Alma fans remained stoic........they are the best fans in the MIAA.

[HopeConvert]

On Trine's first 3-pointer last night Weir's right foot was clearly inside the line. His back heel was even with the back of the line, and I know this because I was looking right at it. Yet it was counted as a 3. This is not the first time I have seen this happen this year, so I'm wondering if these refs have been getting a little confused about the lines.

[realist]

i think hope will have a tough gamw sat vs olivet  hey have a fast point  guard  that will give them trouble. think gv will coach 10 more years  then maybe coach switches over to the boys side

I am inclined to agree with you on this.  I picked Hope in the pickem by 4, but if there is a game on the schedule that could be the "upset of the year" in the MIAA this may be it.  
Not sure about GVW.  A year ago I didn't think Turner would leave, and we know that happened.
CM: Thanks for your comments on the game.  + karma.  I think my feelings about Hope mirror yours on Calvin.  I always want to beat Hope, but if we aren't playing it doesn't trouble me if they do well.

[Gregory Sager]

On Trine's first 3-pointer last night Weir's right foot was clearly inside the line. His back heel was even with the back of the line, and I know this because I was looking right at it. Yet it was counted as a 3. This is not the first time I have seen this happen this year, so I'm wondering if these refs have been getting a little confused about the lines.

I can't say that I've noticed any more discrepancies than usual during men's games, but I certainly have during women's games. I'm the scorekeeper for the NPU women's team, and on two different occasions this season an official has come over to the table during a dead ball and instructed me and the scoreboard operator to change his previous call. I think that the refs are trying to help each other out with spotting the foot positioning of shooters and making deuce-or-trey calls during women's games.

[ziggy]

Officials

I think the MIAA has lost some good officials the last couple years, not sure why, but I've seen only 5 or 6 games and other than Kelser, Kooiker and one other guy I haven't recognized any of them.

As bad as officiating is, the cries from the stands is equally bad.

I have seen some other familiar names; Jopie, Creek, Bray.  Doug Wentworth has noted on recent broadcasts that he is seeing some faces for the first time.

Not to give fans an excuse, but bad calls are harder to take when they are so prevalent.  To err is human, but bad officiating can be infuriating.  Optimistically, the decrease in quality officiating is a blip on the radar and will increase with experience.

[sac]

Most posters will remember the Steve Honderd/Wade Gugino matchups of the early 90's, which were just terrific. If Honderd hadn't been at Calvin those years I've got to believe that Wade would have led Hope to at least one Final Four in his time at Hope.

My memory might be hazy, but I seem to recall that by Wade's Sr year, Honderd's Jr. that both Douma and VanWieren decided both players were too important to guard each other after different games of each/one or the other getting in foul trouble because of the other one.   So they didn't guard each other during that season.  Perhaps it was just one game.

Since then really, Hope and Calvin's best players simply haven't been at the same position at the same time that I can recall.

[RFMichigan]

I haven't been in any of the new gyms in the MIAA (but watched my first college game at Knollcrest and had the pleasure of scoring my career high in the Civic Center  ) but the whole "new gym" issue is an interesting one.

What is the bottom-line purpose of building a new basketball facility in small colleges? Is it that you need more seating capacity? That there are "behind the scene" needs such as lockerroom, office, and classroom space? Could it be that everybody else in the conference has a new gym and we can't compete for the best athletes if we don't have one too?  Are there some alumni around with some money they need to park somewhere and it  gives them pride to enhance their alma mater. Or is it that the old place is just a dump and needs to be replaced?

Now I'm not saying that any of these are necessarily bad reasons, but it begs a chicken-and-egg question, and I'll use Alma as an example.

After my brother graduated from Alma as a pre-med student long ago, he was somewhat miffed that there was what he thought an unproportionate amount of money spent on the Alma athletic facilities when they had about 12 PE graduates per year and fine arts buildings when they had about 15 fine arts majors per year (I hope the Fine Arts gang doesn't jump all over me for this ), but the biology majors, of which there were more than the previous two combined, were in the Dow Science Hall which hadn't had an update in years.

My point is this: Do they need a new gym because their current one is basically an above-average high school gym and it's time to upgrade to the "quality" of the other gyms in the conference, or do they want/need a new gym to attract better athletes which will give them better teams which will in turn attract larger crowds (which they obviously don't have now).

I realize that "the gym is a classroom", but is it better for most schools to spend money on renovations to  improve the overall gym/lockerrooms/offices/weight rooms, or is it more cost effective to build new from the ground up, especially in these economic times?

By the way, there are a couple of gyms in the WHAC that aren't even average high school gyms.

At any rate, I'm curious about the whole question. With that being said, I am very anxious to see the new Hope and Calvin buildings. (And they are special cases as far as attendance.) And I wish my alma mater would build a new gym!