MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[realist]

Calvin  100  Alma 99   Alma had a couple shots, but didn't make it.

[realist]

Did he ever play JV or was he at the end of the bench from day one?

A case of bringing a guy up too soon?

Nate king was on Varsity from day 1.  He was offered to play both JV and varsity to get game experience but he turned it down

I know I shouldn't say anything on this topic but..... GVW was on a role at that point in bringing up freshmen. In his last few years as coach, it felt like he brought at least 2-3 freshmen a year. Now I do think a lot of these players were worthy of it but they did take spots from some JV players that had put in their time and deserved to find their way on to the roster even if it meant ridding the end of the pine... I do understand that not every recruit/player develops the way you hope.... Even with all that said though, It is not very often that you see a freshmen make varsity and not move up the depth chart in those 4 years.

Each coach needs to decide what works best for their team, and for the players that they have.   When you look at the Calvin roster, in comparison to Hope's, you will see quite a few guys that saw p.t as fr.  Snikkers, Powell, Kruis, Brink, Dykstra, Nadeau, Huizenga, Stout, Vallie.  De Vries was at Wheaton last year, and one or two others may have seen some minutes as fr.

If you are so loaded with talent that you don't have to play a fr. that is one issue, but if you hold a talented fr. back just because they are a fr., and you think it is necessary that they "pay their dues" it is quite another.  I recall a national championship team from the MIAA that had two starting fr.     Hard for a coach to go wrong if he plays his best five guys, and just because you were best last year doesn't mean you are a lock for this year or next year.

[wiz]

Calvin has only 10 turnovers and outrebounds Alma by 18.  But, in classic Hargraves style, Alma takes 28 three pointers and makes 15 of them.

[wiz]

Congrats to Hope on an outright MIAA championship.

[KnightSlappy]

A win over Hope would clinch a tourney spot for Calvin.

I believe Kalamazoo was eliminated tonight. I believe Alma remains alive.

[monsoon]

Alma's grown feisty this year.

[oldknight]

Mr. kookier is in the house.

Goodknight and I noticed and we exchanged wary glances. Actually Kevin called a pretty solid game. However, one of his partners was horrid.

Calvin & Alma going to OT tied at 88. Didn't see that one coming....

Neither did several "Doubting Thomases" who left VNA with just over three minutes left in regulation, presumably believing the Knights could not resurrect a win when down 84-77.

[goodknight]

Alma's grown feisty this year.

That Sam Hargraves has the Scots playing hard-nosed, smart basketball.  He's going to make a really fine coach for someone.

[Civic Minded]

I realize I'm a little late in responding to the conversation about diminishing attendance at VNA, but I'll add my two cents worth now.  At college we now have students that didn't get involved in attending high school sports and still feel that way about college sports.  The school I teach at not long ago had a Homecoming parade complete with floats from grades 7-12.  Now there are no floats and no parade, because it was such a headache to get students to build them.  These students are now at college and I recently returned to my reunion at Hope to see there was no parade or floats.  Why, because no one wanted to do them.  I also find that students are rather ambivalent about attending sporting events if they aren't part of the team.  A team with a lackluster record will keep, all but the die hard fans, at home.

Welcome F1996.  +K   It is hard for some of us older posters to realize that what was isn't now.
That doesn't mean today's generation is wrong, and it doesn't mean the older generaton is wrong.  We simply need to acknowledge that "the times they are a changing".   Personally I feel sorry for today's generation in that they aren't allowed the luxury of building some of the long lasting ties that our generation enjoyed making.  Perhaps time will prove that what is going on today is bettter than what we experienced.  If so you are blessed, and if not than..........

Perhaps social media is permanently chaning the way we connect, so that instead of being the big social gathering of the week, sporting events are now one of several dozen options, and more apt to be attended by those truly drawn to the sport itself.  If I already have a pretty good idea of what "Joe" has been up to today based on FB status updates, will I feel drawn to go to a game to get a chance to connect?

[oldknight]

Give Alma credit, they're not the Scots' doormats we have gotten used to seeing the last few years. They spread the floor well and can really shoot the ball. It's amazing how hard it is to beat a team when they take a lot of threes and make a high percentage of them. Calvin won--even dominated--virtually every important statistical category except for the shooting behind the arc, and only won when Corey Schneider (7-12 from the 3 point line) missed a wide open triple with five seconds left in overtime.  After a slow start Snikkers took over the game down the stretch for the Knights and wound up with yet another double/double (26 and 11), while Powell added 21 points on 10-18 shooting. Bryan did take a couple of questionable shots but he did take care of the ball committing no turnovers in 31 minutes.

[knights2000]

Lots of missed layups (many possibly due to the physical nature of this game) almost cost the Knights this game. I'd have to guess at least 18 of Calvin's offensive rebounds led to layups, with maybe 8 misses? I can remember one possession at the beginning of the second half when the Knights missed at least 4 layups in a row.

[Dutch_Man]

Did he ever play JV or was he at the end of the bench from day one?

A case of bringing a guy up too soon?

Nate king was on Varsity from day 1.  He was offered to play both JV and varsity to get game experience but he turned it down

I know I shouldn't say anything on this topic but..... GVW was on a role at that point in bringing up freshmen. In his last few years as coach, it felt like he brought at least 2-3 freshmen a year. Now I do think a lot of these players were worthy of it but they did take spots from some JV players that had put in their time and deserved to find their way on to the roster even if it meant ridding the end of the pine... I do understand that not every recruit/player develops the way you hope.... Even with all that said though, It is not very often that you see a freshmen make varsity and not move up the depth chart in those 4 years.

Each coach needs to decide what works best for their team, and for the players that they have.   When you look at the Calvin roster, in comparison to Hope's, you will see quite a few guys that saw p.t as fr.  Snikkers, Powell, Kruis, Brink, Dykstra, Nadeau, Huizenga, Stout, Vallie.  De Vries was at Wheaton last year, and one or two others may have seen some minutes as fr.

If you are so loaded with talent that you don't have to play a fr. that is one issue, but if you hold a talented fr. back just because they are a fr., and you think it is necessary that they "pay their dues" it is quite another.  I recall a national championship team from the MIAA that had two starting fr.     Hard for a coach to go wrong if he plays his best five guys, and just because you were best last year doesn't mean you are a lock for this year or next year.

I understand and agree with what you are saying but a number of those freshmen that GVW pulled up didn't pan out.... Just off the top of my head....

Steve Kratt
Doug Sharpels
Kelvin Carter
Nate King
Jared Mysliwiec (Sadly due to Injury)

Freshmen that DID pan out dating back to '05-'06....

Jesse Reimink
Will Bowser
Ty Tanis
David Krombeen
Nate Snuggerud
Josh Holwerda

Obviously we/GVW can't predict the future but that's a lot of freshmen and a lot of great talent in both of those lists! Not sure if Neil is recruiting the same kind of talent or just allowing the system (JV team) to run its course. I guess we will see over the next few years. Either way, I am happy where the program is at! 2 MIAA Championships in 2 years at the helm! Cheers to Hope Basketball and Cheers to Coach Neil!

[Dutch_Man]

Speaking of freshmen... Austin Rivers! WOW!

[Knightmare]

Speaking of freshmen... Austin Rivers! WOW!

No Kidding!  Duke made a furious rally to come back from 10 down in the last couple minutes and then a deep 3 game winner from a freshmen who leads all scorers with 29 in the game.  Pretty good finish.

[sac]

Hope 87 Kalamazoo 59

http://miaa.org/mbb/stats/1112/hopem.htm

Well this is the 2nd time in two games the Flying Dutchmen entered a gym vs a team missing a key player or two, tonight it was Joe Prepolec who's probably worth two when healthy.   So once again it was probably easy to think it would be easy.  Tough to see a Sr. go down late in the season, hopefully he'll get a chance to suit up for Kzoo Saturday in their Sr. Day game.  Apparently Joe's been battling an injury all season and it just became too much.

Kalamazoo put up a good fight for the first 20 minutes, in a half that closely replicated the Hope game at Albion Saturday.  Kzoo pretty much made their shots and Hope let them, it was for me a 3rd straight half of less than good defensive play for the Dutchmen, not terrible just lacking in Hope's usual intensity a little.  Things wouldn't have been so close had Hope been just a little better at finishing shots in the first half, I felt like they left a lot of points out there, which probably sounds funny since they shot 54%......and that was the bad half.


In the second half Hope came out and did what probably most people there expected them to do and blew the doors off the game with a 25-2 run to start the half.   A lot better defense, getting hands in passing lanes, blocked shots, and turning the fastbreak up the court so quick.  Fun to watch.  Hope's run actually began with about 3 minutes remaining in the first half.  Hope led 31-30 and 8 minutes into the second half it was 62-34.   That's a pretty spectacular 31-4 run over 11 minutes of basketball.  Kzoo helped but it was Hope forcing the issue.

I thought Nate Van Arendonk was an excellent passer tonight, he had 5 assists but that seems like they missed a couple or maybe his teammates couldn't finish after his great passes.  On defense he was his usual menace at blocking or altering shots.  Josh Holwerda also had a nice shot blocking game tonight.  David Krombeen was typical David Krombeen  6 assists, 4 steals, 5 rebounds, creating havoc and finding time to score 12 points.  I'm running out of games to watch this kid play, that makes me a little sad.   Peter Bunn hasn't been struggling lately he just hasn't been a prominent part of Hope's scoring so it was good to see him tally 13 including a couple strong finishes around the basket.   Kzoo couldn't handle Nate Snuggerud either and the big guy ended up with 21 and was pulled pretty early.   For the second straight game Hope had 25 assists which is just a couple large wooden shoes full of assists.  It also makes for fun to watch basketball.

Offensively I would like to have seen Hope have to operate in the half-court a little more in a tighter game but not much to complain about really.  Hope did what they were supposed to do and won handily.  Even the end of Hope's bench operated the offense well.  When things click they click I guess. 

Overall a pretty good night, I think we even forgot they clinched the MIAA Championship tonight.