MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Flying Dutch Fan]

2nd half shooting for Hope tonight

64% FG (16-25)
67% 3pt FG (2-3)
29% FT (5-17)

ARGH!!!!!!

[sac]

Hope's team FT shooting is a curious thing.

Krombeen, Bunn, Snuggerud and Overway are all good to excellent FT shooters with the stats to prove it.   All 73% or higher.

Billy Seiler and Nate VA have been the anchors hanging out with Shaq.

So far it hasn't hurt them because their opponents are also a woeful 65% from the stripe. 

[Flying Dutch Fan]

So far it hasn't hurt them because their opponents are also a woeful 65% from the stripe.

Credit the coaching staff for their great game planning defending the FT line     

[sac]

Saturday's lineup:  or "Home game Saturday in the MIAA"

Mt Vernon Nazerene at Hope -  see previous post


Trinity Christian at Calvin -- TC is 6-7 on the season.  Not sure what to make of the Trolls, they lost to Kuyper early, and most of their wins seem to be against bible school level teams.  Calvin will be their first NCAA level competition.   TC usually puts a lot of effort into their Hope and Calvin meetings but with only Calvin on the schedule all of their effort will go to this one, however TC only has 1 player from West Michigan on the roster.  Calvin has won the last 2 in the series.


Oberlin at Alma  --Oberlin is 3-5 on the season their 3 wins against not very good basketball programs, they have been described on the NCAC board as being 'maybe a little better but still not very good', which to this point could probably also describe Alma.  The series is split at two games apiece.


Spring Arbor at Olivet  --  SAU is 7-3 and in my opinion a pretty good NAIA team.  Olivet seems to play well against these guys so this could be a close game, most of them have been.  SAU has won 2 of the last 3.


Denison at Kalamazoo  --  The Big Red are just 3-4 on the season but all 4 losses have come to seemingly good teams, 3 that probably expect to be in the NCAA tournament.  8 different states are represented on the Denison roster.


Carthage at Albion  --   Carthage is 2-4 and on a 4 game losing streak.  After losing both games at the MIAA/CCIW Challenge last weekend, Carthage lost midweek to a pretty good Lake Forest team by 3.  This is Albion's first game in 9 days, it could be an ugly game to watch.


Trine and Adrian are studying.

I'm wavering but 3-3 could be a good day.  League is 28-25 to this point, a year ago the league was 26-26.

[hope52]

a good  game  last  night   

schould be  pretty good  game  today

snuggs  played  great

[DewCrewVett]

Well after a chunk of games into the first part of the season I thought I would weigh in with a couple of thoughts.

1. Hope is clearly the best team in the MIAA, and possibly one of the top 10 in the country. VanArendonk is young and inexperienced, certainly not worthy of all the pre-season hype he got, but he will get there with a strong work ethic, time is on his side.

2. I remember posting some time ago about a teams pre-conference record being a good insight into how good the team will fair the rest of the season - and more importantly come tourney time. With a bunch of common opponents, it is clear that 7-1 Hope is going to have a really good chance at getting deep into the tourney, barring significant injuries etc. At 4-4, Calvin really has no hope for anything with the way things are going now. When your best player is shooting a staggering 33% from the floor and just above 26% from 3 you have got yourself a real problem. Snikkers is more of a post-up 3 man, and can do damage near the basket, not away from it.

3. Granted, those Hope-Calvin games will always be tricky and will always have a chance of going either way, so Calvin will still have a shot at a (in my opinion) meaningless regular-season conference title. Of course, the Calvin posters will celebrate the fact that they most likely will have beaten Olivet, Alma, Trine, and Kzoo twice and it will of course pad their record, and make them look a little better then I actually believe them to be. But make no mistake, if somehow Calvin sneaks their way into the tourney with a conference tournament championship, they will go nowhere based soley on their pre-conference record. Correct me if I am wrong, but the last time they won the national title they entered the MIAA season with only one, maybe two losses. Conversely, when Hope went the final four for the last time they had two losses, one in overtime to a good Aquinas bunch headed into the conference season. It really is the best way to grade a teams' ability due to the fact that overall ability of the MIAA is relatively weak, and you rarely get to see the caliber of teams you do in the pre-conference record whether it be D3 or NAIA.

4. Im not hating, just stating.

DCV

[sac]

Halftimes

Hope 43  Mt Vernon Naz 30  ...Krombeen 13, Bunn 12

Calvin 47 Trinity Chrs  33  ...Calvin's led comfortably the whole way,  Snikkers 10, DeBoer 10, Mast 10

Oberlin 25 Alma 24   ....its been close the whole way.

Spring Arbor 39 Olivet 37  ...Olivet is hanging in there, actually led for good portions of the half

[sac]

FINALS as they roll in ......

Calvin 83 Trinity Christian 63
Tom Snikkers 17, Matt DeBoer 16, Jordan Mast 13, Bryan Powell 11


Spring Arbor 79 Olivet 78
Olivet loses by a FT with 1 second left in a tie game.

Alvino Ashley 19, Jaren Edsall 18, Matt Ell 11......This was Alvino's 2nd start for the Comets, I think we can count on him starting over Ellis for the foreseeable future.


Hope 101 Mt Vernon Naz. 67
Hope just blew-out the Cougars in the 2nd half, 58-37

David Krombeen 21, Peter Bunn 16, Billy Seiler 11, Nate Snuggerud 10


Oberlin 74 Alma 66
Oberlin pulls out a tight game in the final minute, Alma didn't score a FG in the final couple minutes while Oberlin made most of their FT's.

Tommy Erickson with 29 for the Scots, Josh Merritt with 33 for the Yeomen.


Kalamazoo 75 Denison 66

After trailing early in the game by 10 and 8 early in the 2nd half, Kzoo fought back to win, icing the game away from the FT line.
Joe Prepolec  24, Eric Fishman 17, Mark Ghafari 17, Grant Carey 13

This is probably a pretty good win for Kzoo, Denison will probably be on the outside looking in of the NCAC's top 4 or 5, but I had this as a 50-50 type game.


Carthage 51 Albion 43

Mike Smith with 10 for Albion

This is Albion's first game in 9 days, it could be an ugly game to watch.

Pretty much.


league goes 3-3 on the day, 31-28 for the year.

[ziggy]

4. Im not hating, just stating.

DCV

And saying doesn't count for much. You may be completely right about how each season will play out but that doesn't necessarily your analysis at this point in time is correct. Calvin entered MIAA play at 8-3 in 2004-05, a good record but nothing that would have suggested that team would go to the Final Four and finish number two in the final d3hoops poll.

The growth of this Calvin team over the last couple weeks is notable as they've adjusted to the loss of Jordan Brink. I'm not saying they're destined for great things but saying Calvin "has no hope for anything" is premature.

[KnightSlappy]

Well after a chunk of games into the first part of the season I thought I would weigh in with a couple of thoughts.

1. Hope is clearly the best team in the MIAA, and possibly one of the top 10 in the country. VanArendonk is young and inexperienced, certainly not worthy of all the pre-season hype he got, but he will get there with a strong work ethic, time is on his side.

2. I remember posting some time ago about a teams pre-conference record being a good insight into how good the team will fair the rest of the season - and more importantly come tourney time. With a bunch of common opponents, it is clear that 7-1 Hope is going to have a really good chance at getting deep into the tourney, barring significant injuries etc. At 4-4, Calvin really has no hope for anything with the way things are going now. When your best player is shooting a staggering 33% from the floor and just above 26% from 3 you have got yourself a real problem. Snikkers is more of a post-up 3 man, and can do damage near the basket, not away from it.

3. Granted, those Hope-Calvin games will always be tricky and will always have a chance of going either way, so Calvin will still have a shot at a (in my opinion) meaningless regular-season conference title. Of course, the Calvin posters will celebrate the fact that they most likely will have beaten Olivet, Alma, Trine, and Kzoo twice and it will of course pad their record, and make them look a little better then I actually believe them to be. But make no mistake, if somehow Calvin sneaks their way into the tourney with a conference tournament championship, they will go nowhere based soley on their pre-conference record. Correct me if I am wrong, but the last time they won the national title they entered the MIAA season with only one, maybe two losses. Conversely, when Hope went the final four for the last time they had two losses, one in overtime to a good Aquinas bunch headed into the conference season. It really is the best way to grade a teams' ability due to the fact that overall ability of the MIAA is relatively weak, and you rarely get to see the caliber of teams you do in the pre-conference record whether it be D3 or NAIA.

4. Im not hating, just stating.

DCV

So let me get this straight. You're saying that win-loss record in 11 non-conference games without any look at schedule strength is a better comparison of team quality than 14 games against the exact same schedule?

You're going to have to provide some actual evidence to convince me of that.

[sac]

Spring Arbor's winning FT at Olivet came with .1 second on the clock. 

[wiz]

...But make no mistake, if somehow Calvin sneaks their way into the tourney with a conference tournament championship, they will go nowhere based soley on their pre-conference record. Correct me if I am wrong, but the last time they won the national title they entered the MIAA season with only one, maybe two losses.

I don't recall Hope's first national title, let alone their last national title.  How many losses did they have when they entered the MIAA season in those years? 

[wiz]

The growth of this Calvin team over the last couple weeks is notable as they've adjusted to the loss of Jordan Brink.

Calvin showed some good signs again today.  Big men are playing well, outside shooting improved, turnovers down considerably, patience improved, very unselfish and willing to spread it around, and more.  Tough to benchmark today's victory over Trinity, however, as the height advantage for Calvin made for a significant mismatch.  Trinity showed some positive signs but when you get 11 shots blocked and you are outrebounded by 20, it can get a bit demoralizing.

[KnightSlappy]

Trinity was getting slaughtered on the inside by Calvin through the first two-thirds of the game, but they improved drastically when they switched to zone. It forced Calvin to revert to jump shots from mid-range and further, and we all know that isn't their strength.

[oldknight]

It's kind of tough guaging the value of Calvin's spanking of their reformed bretheren from Palos Heights. The Trolls came into today's action at VanNoord with a 6-7 record which included a tough overtime loss to Dordt College--a school said to have one of their better teams, an opinion that appears to be true. The Defenders are 13-0 this season, including an impressive win at Northwestern College, FDF's alma mater (I believe there was silence from FDF on the BB board that day--no doubt part of the mourning process ). On the other hand Trinity has a loss to Kuyper College on their record.

For as long as they remained interested in the game, Calvin was far the superior team. The Knights clearly outclassed Trinity in basketball talent, and Calvin steadily built a 30 point lead. Disinterest set in about midway through the second frame, especially on the defensive end but Trinity, to its credit, never stopped playing hard and cut Calvin's lead to 17 in the final five minutes. For as long as they were attentive, the Knights totally dominated play in the paint, grabbed 20 more boards than the visitors and repeatedly swatted away Trinity shot attempts as if they were bothersome gnats. Kruis and VanEck were credited with eight blocks from the post, most of them in the first half. Matt DeBoer continued his understated excellence scoring 16 points. I think Matt is a wise player who has learned how to be the beneficiary of the attention Snikkers draws from opposing defenses.

I would like to go easy on DCV's criticisms of Calvin as stated in his post today. While I don't agree with everything he writes, he makes some valid points, particularly the one mentioning the anchor of 33% shooting by Calvin's best player. When Tom shoots 8-16, involves his teammates and doesn't force the action, he is easily the best player on the floor as we saw from him today. My, would I pay good money to be 20 years old with that kind of talent. Instead, I settled for an excellent post game meal at The Greenwell Pub on Cherry Street, a place I highly recommend. All in all, a pretty good afternoon for this Calvin fan. Of course, when you're seated across the table from the inestimable Mrs. OldKnight along with your favorite beverage and a Calvin win in hand, could it be otherwise?