MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[calvin_grad]

KS:  "Woe is me. 19-9 is so terrible."

That depends.  If you were expected to be a 15-13 team it might be viewed as a great year.  However, if you had the talent to be a 25-3 or even a 23-5 team it might be considered disappointing.  Each of us has an opinion.  For the 8 years you used IMO  2 years Calvin was very disappointing, 4 years they disappointed, 1 year as expected, and 1 year exceeded expectations.  
Just because the administration may be satisfied with 19-9 doesn't mean that I have to find it acceptable.    

U of M football fans got sick of 8-4 and 9-3 seasons as well.   

[Mr. Ypsi]

Look at it this way - Calvin is probably the only MIAA school where basketball attendance is higher than football attendance!

[KnightSlappy]

Look at it this way - Calvin is probably the only MIAA school where basketball attendance is higher than football attendance!

Hope basketball outpaced the football team by an average of 2836 to 2612.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Look at it this way - Calvin is probably the only MIAA school where basketball attendance is higher than football attendance!

Hope basketball outpaced the football team by an average of 2836 to 2612.

Aw, geez, I make a cheap wisecrack and someone throws reality in my face!

[wiz]

Look at it this way - Calvin is probably the only MIAA school where basketball attendance is higher than football attendance!

Hope basketball outpaced the football team by an average of 2836 to 2612.

Aw, geez, I make a cheap wisecrack and someone throws reality in my face!

But, again, other than going to a Hope game, the only other thing to do in Holland is to get in the car and drive over to Grand Rapids for some real culture.  (bye, bye karma)

[Busted Stuff]

I definitely feel a dropoff in student section support now vs 15-20 yrs ago.   

I was at the home opener this year and was surprised to see that the student section was nearly full. 

The student section is where I've notice the biggest difference in the last 15 to 20 years.  I went to a home game last year and counted 20 students there at tip-off.  Maybe this year will be different.  It would be nice to see. 

One thing I notice with Calvin's student attendance is that the basketball season tips off right about when the wave of mid-term exams begin.  I think that some of the students (who normally would attend) are busy studying for tests and projects and what not.  I usually find that attendance among students grows progressively over interim and is usually fairly strong once conference play is in full swing.  The 'Dew Crew' does a much better job cheering during any given game, but I can't say Calvin's students are too far behind Hope's students during Rivalry games.

[KnightSlappy]

I definitely feel a dropoff in student section support now vs 15-20 yrs ago.   

I was at the home opener this year and was surprised to see that the student section was nearly full. 

The student section is where I've notice the biggest difference in the last 15 to 20 years.  I went to a home game last year and counted 20 students there at tip-off.  Maybe this year will be different.  It would be nice to see. 

One thing I notice with Calvin's student attendance is that the basketball season tips off right about when the wave of mid-term exams begin.  I think that some of the students (who normally would attend) are busy studying for tests and projects and what not.  I usually find that attendance among students grows progressively over interim and is usually fairly strong once conference play is in full swing.  The 'Dew Crew' does a much better job cheering during any given game, but I can't say Calvin's students are too far behind Hope's students during Rivalry games.

For me, tests always took a back seat to Calvin hoops. My proudest moment came Sophomore year when I completed a 90 minute engineering exam in 45 so that I would make it to the Fieldhouse in time for the tipoff of the Calvin-Ferris game. Got an A- too! That may have been the last time Calvin played Ferris in the regular season.

[Knight2Day]

Calvin hasn't dipped to that low of a level but they have been just an above average small college team in recent years with the exception of early 2000's (and national championship) and the other unexpected trip to Salem in mid 2000's (that not many saw coming).

I'm can't quite tell if you're complaining that Calvin is only "above average" and not a perennial Final Four contender, or if you're saying they've only been a smidge above average.

Average record over past 8 seasons (avoiding the early 2000's): 19.8 - 9.1.
Not including the "unexpected" trip to Salem year: 18.7 - 9.4

Woe is me. 19-9 is so terrible.

Knightmare can correct me if I am wrong. But the way I interpreted his comment was Calvin has not been at top-10/top-15 level it was at in the early years of the 2000s. So while Calvin is still a strong team it's not been a team most of us would see making a Final Four run as the last few seasons have begun.

You are correct sir.  See my explanation post just above.

This does raise an interesting question for the Calvin fan base, or the fan base of any team in general.

Would you rather have a top-10 ranked team every year that has national championship aspirations but never does win a national championship or would you rather have a top-30 or 50 ranked team every year with a final four and national championship sprinkled in every 10 years or so?

Myself, I'll take Calvin just the way it is with a couple final fours and a National Championship every 10-15 years and then some years where you might not quite make it into the top-25.

That just means we are due and hopefully the clock is ticking down to National championship #3 in the near future  .

Looking at the current talent in the program and the potential for bringing in a few more recruits, I'd say the Knights are about a year (maybe a little more) from a NCAA tourny run. This is a team that already is showing promise and it is comprised with 10 underclassmen on the varsity roster....3 of which start. The fact that this team has the potential to still win the league this year and is giving nationally ranked programs competitive games, there's a bright future if you are a fan of these "baby Knights."

[Gregory Sager]

Maybe we'd have better perceived depth if we could play the Nathcon, Midwest and SLIAC as often as the CCIW.

oh nevermind!

I noticed that you left out the WIAC, the HCAC, and Wash U/Chicago, all of whom also play the CCIW more often than does the MIAA.

I think part of the problem is that there isn't much nationwide familiarity with the level of non-D3 basketball around West Michigan. Replace Hope's losses against Cornerstone, Davenport, and Grace Bible with UW-River Falls, Wooster, and VA Wesleyan -- all weaker teams, according to Massey -- and Hope would look a lot different in many eyes.

You're arguing over something that has not been in dispute in this discussion. As I said previously, Bosko was not knocking either Hope or Calvin in that radio interview that Oldknight mentioned. He was knocking the MIAA as a whole, and that only in the specific sense that it lacks the overall strength of the CCIW. So reciting Hope's 2010-11 non-conference strength of schedule is not germane to the topic at hand.

That bias toward familiar teams isn't going to change. It just means that strength of schedule is hard to estimate for people like d3hoops.com pollsters or even CICW coaches.

The MIAA's strength of schedule isn't a relevant point in the eyes of CCIW coaches, players, and fans. They go by what they see with their own eyeballs. And what they've seen are a lot of comparatively weak MIAA teams. Over the past four-plus seasons (including this one to date) the CCIW owns a 32-13 head-to-head advantage over the MIAA. Lest anyone think I'm cherry-picking stats, I'll go back three more years in which the MIAA did much better -- and over those seven-plus seasons, the CCIW still owns a 40-28 advantage.

But it goes beyond that, in historical terms. Keep in mind that when we're talking about the two respective leagues we're talking about them from top to bottom. Depth, as ChicagoHopeNut pointed out, is a key indicator of a league's strength. The CCIW does just fine in this regard; all eight CCIW schools have made multiple trips to the D3 tourney over the years, at least three minimum for each program. In fact, five of the eight CCIW schools have gone dancing in March within the past five seasons. The MIAA? Three of the seven long-term members of the league have never once laced 'em up for a D3 tourney game -- Adrian, Alma, and Olivet -- and neither has newcomer Trine/Tri-State. That may not sound like much of a big deal to Hope and Calvin fans, but it is; the list of schools that have been D3 members for at least twenty years that have never made a D3 tourney appearance is actually pretty small, and to have 3/7ths of a league's long-term membership on that list is eye-opening. (Even the NCAC, a league notorious for being top-heavy, can claim D3 tourney appearances for the likes of Oberlin, Hiram, Denison, Kenyon, etc.) A fourth long-term MIAA member, Kalamazoo, made a single one-and-done appearance back in the mid-'90s. Even Albion, the MIAA's RC Cola to the Big Two's Coke and Pepsi (I'll let you guys sort out which is which ), has a surprisingly modest D3 track record in terms of number of appearances with three (1978, 1979, and 2005).

The MIAA is historically top-heavy to a shocking degree, and that plays into the perception of Bosko (and, hey, just about everybody else on this side of the lake) that the CCIW is a stronger circuit. As I said before, nobody denigrates Hope and Calvin; those two programs enjoy universal respect in CCIW circles. But the MIAA's lack of depth plays into the way that outsiders think of it, and, as a result, while Bosko wasn't very tactful when he said that Carthage is going to face a tougher road in January and February than will Hope and Calvin, he had both history and firsthand observation backing him up.

[sac]

Maybe we'd have better perceived depth if we could play the Nathcon, Midwest and SLIAC as often as the CCIW.

oh nevermind!

The primary strength of the conference W/L record each year is derived from beating up on the 3 conferences I mentioned.  Unless the mix has significantly changed in recent years, that has been the case for most of this decade.

also......nevermind!

[Gregory Sager]

Maybe we'd have better perceived depth if we could play the Nathcon, Midwest and SLIAC as often as the CCIW.

oh nevermind!

The primary strength of the conference W/L record each year is derived from beating up on the 3 conferences I mentioned.  Unless the mix has significantly changed in recent years, that has been the case for most of this decade.

also......nevermind!

Granted ... but it's also come from "beating up on" the MIAA.

[sac]

I'm having no success logging into any Albion web address (perhaps Greek austerity measures have taken their toll on Parthenon technology) so getting anything from Albion might be a chore tonight.

[sac]

....another thing to keep in mind when talking about Calvin's 'lack' of NCAA success or Calvin teams not being as successful as in the past....

It is much harder to get into the NCAA tournament these days, remember in the early 00's we had only a 48 team field thankfully expanded since then. 


I submit that under the old system and formats of the 80's/90's, these MIAA teams probably would have made the tournament that didn't.

2002--Calvin 20-7
2003--Albion 22-5
2004--Hope  21-5
2004--Albion 20-7
2006--Albion 20-6
2008--Albion 19-10
2009--Calvin 19-8
2010--Calvin 19-9

If that were the case, Calvin's list of NCAA teams this past decade would be

2000
2001
2002
2004
2005
2006
2007
2009
2010

Calvin would have missed only the 03 and 08 tournaments.  Nine appearances in 11 years, looks and probably would feel better than 6.

Also, in the 80's/90's both Hope and Calvin hosted a lot of NCAA Tournament games.  The process and criteria to host those games has changed significantly this decade even since 2000.  Tournament games bring in big crowds and I bet we'd find that in most season's Calvin had a very high attendance average they also hosted an NCAA game or two.

[NW Hope Fan]

Look at it this way - Calvin is probably the only MIAA school where basketball attendance is higher than football attendance!

Hope basketball outpaced the football team by an average of 2836 to 2612.

Aw, geez, I make a cheap wisecrack and someone throws reality in my face!

But, again, other than going to a Hope game, the only other thing to do in Holland is to get in the car and drive over to Grand Rapids for some real culture.  (bye, bye karma)

Only 5 minutes down the Beltline from Calvin for a culturally rich club for men...   

[HopeConvert]

Look at it this way - Calvin is probably the only MIAA school where basketball attendance is higher than football attendance!

Hope basketball outpaced the football team by an average of 2836 to 2612.

Aw, geez, I make a cheap wisecrack and someone throws reality in my face!

But, again, other than going to a Hope game, the only other thing to do in Holland is to get in the car and drive over to Grand Rapids for some real culture.  (bye, bye karma)

I've on more than one occasion seen a Calvin poster in a watering hole down by Hope's campus.