MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[realist]

Jordan Brink, and Tyler Kruis share player of the week honors. 

[Happy Calvin Guy]

Wittenberg starts 4 seniors and a junior. 

Average height of their starting lineup is 2.4 inches shorter per man than Calvin's.  That of course changes if Calvin starts Parks instead of Dykstra again.

Only common opponent is Wheaton.  Witt lost to Wheaton in OT, Calvin played one of their two best games of the season against Wheaton and won big. 

[almcguirejr]

Hope upgrading their schedule this year helped them.  Calvin has to address this in the coming years.  Hope played a strong schedule and had marginal success against those teams.  It was a huge success in the regional ranking process.  Hosting is a great reward.  Other than pride Saturday's loss really didn't hurt Hope.  Calvin needs to get rid of Finlandia, get better quality opponents in the tip off tournament, and drop the Hall of Fame tournament.

[sac]

Having a strong SOS is going to be a real battle for MIAA schools in the years to come.

No Pool C team with an SOS below .520 made the field this year.    Hope's schedule was a little ridiculous, how often are you going to be able to get the WIAC 1 and 2, CCIW 1 and 2 along with a good team like Centre.  That's just frankly hard to do and honestly compared to most schedules its on the extreme end of the spectrum.

Hope got a little lucky this year that the OAC imploded at the end of the year and the NCAC was so competitive among their top 4 teams that they beat each other up to the point Hope's 6 D3 losses and other criteria was #2 in the region. 

The changes to the criteria were great this year and they certainly helped and motivated Hope to make some big changes but the barriers of time, distance and availability is still the same as it has been for the past 10 years.

[sac]

Let's say Calvin wins the league like they were favored to and beats Hope 3 times making Hope a  true Pool C candidate and not a league champion that lost in the tournament.

Hope       .680/.550/ 1-7

Does this get in?  and would we be praising Matt Neil's difficult schedule or would we be left  wondering if a couple easier non-conference wins would have done the trick?

[AndersDY]

It has been a long time since Calvin played Wittenberg correct?

My memory says 1995.  Calvin lost at Witt in 1st round.  Same night the "team that shall not be mentioned" beat Hope.

I don't get it... why is Baldwin-Wallace the "team that shall not be mentioned"?

Ouch, right in the childhood... and might I mention: Booooo! 

BW was the 8th seed that beat a #1 seed Hope that had serious National Championship aspirations.  Just when Sac seems to be over it, someone brings it up again and sets him back months in his recovery.

With hindsight after that game, would the consensus have been that BW was much stiffer than a 1 vs 8 kind of game? The geography seemed to trump seeding in the tourney more at the time and it seemed that we learned Hope was an untested undefeated team (pretty down MIAA year, wasn't it?) playing a team with a mediocre record, but coming out of a much more rugged OAC.

[realist]

It has been a long time since Calvin played Wittenberg correct?

My memory says 1995.  Calvin lost at Witt in 1st round.  Same night the "team that shall not be mentioned" beat Hope.

I don't get it... why is Baldwin-Wallace the "team that shall not be mentioned"?

Ouch, right in the childhood... and might I mention: Booooo! 

BW was the 8th seed that beat a #1 seed Hope that had serious National Championship aspirations.  Just when Sac seems to be over it, someone brings it up again and sets him back months in his recovery.

With hindsight after that game, would the consensus have been that BW was much stiffer than a 1 vs 8 kind of game? The geography seemed to trump seeding in the tourney more at the time and it seemed that we learned Hope was an untested undefeated team (pretty down MIAA year, wasn't it?) playing a team with a mediocre record, but coming out of a much more rugged OAC.

The one quote in the center is not from me, but Oldknight I believe.

If memory serves correctly there was quite a kerfuffle in 1995 regarding where that home game in Holland was to be played.  The floor in the Civic center was about 4 feet shy of regulation size, and the NCAA said the floor must be full regulation size.  The game was moved to the Dow center, and meant a much smaller crowd.  This kerfuffle probably caused Hope to lose a bit of concentration. 
I think Hope was like # 1 or #2 going into the game, and won the MIAA 12-0, and won the MIAA tournament.  Calvin had a pretty decent team in 94-95 with Knoester being MVP (lost to Witt in the NCAA), and as I recall Kalamazoo had some very good teams in that era.  I wouldn't say that B-W was mediocre, however, very few people gave them much chance to beat Hope in Holland. 
Hope had very high expectations for the 94-95 team, and rightly so.  They were very, very good.  Hope made it to the finals the following year with most of the players from the 94-95 team.  So much for teams with a low SOS not being competitive.

[sac]

BW was OAC runner-up fresh off a loss in the OAC quarterfinals.  They were a really good #8 seed.

[pointlem]

Jordan Brink, and Tyler Kruis share player of the week honors.

From what I saw at DeVos on Saturday, both honors are well-deserved.  The Knights will miss these two next year.  (Or is Jordan Brink returning?)

Is it just me, or has Jordan Brink really improved this year--perhaps stepping up to fill Tom Snikkers' shoes?  He both shoots very well, and moves well--taking people on one-on-one matchups when a side is cleared for him. 

[calvin_grad]

Jordan Brink, and Tyler Kruis share player of the week honors.

From what I saw at DeVos on Saturday, both honors are well-deserved.  The Knights will miss these two next year.  (Or is Jordan Brink returning?) .

Calvin seniors are DeVries, Kruis, and Mast.

[thealmascots]

It has been a long time since Calvin played Wittenberg correct?

My memory says 1995.  Calvin lost at Witt in 1st round.  Same night the "team that shall not be mentioned" beat Hope.

I don't get it... why is Baldwin-Wallace the "team that shall not be mentioned"?

Ouch, right in the childhood... and might I mention: Booooo! 

BW was the 8th seed that beat a #1 seed Hope that had serious National Championship aspirations.  Just when Sac seems to be over it, someone brings it up again and sets him back months in his recovery.

With hindsight after that game, would the consensus have been that BW was much stiffer than a 1 vs 8 kind of game? The geography seemed to trump seeding in the tourney more at the time and it seemed that we learned Hope was an untested undefeated team (pretty down MIAA year, wasn't it?) playing a team with a mediocre record, but coming out of a much more rugged OAC.

The one quote in the center is not from me, but Oldknight I believe.

If memory serves correctly there was quite a kerfuffle in 1995 regarding where that home game in Holland was to be played.  The floor in the Civic center was about 4 feet shy of regulation size, and the NCAA said the floor must be full regulation size.  The game was moved to the Dow center, and meant a much smaller crowd.  This kerfuffle probably caused Hope to lose a bit of concentration. 
I think Hope was like # 1 or #2 going into the game, and won the MIAA 12-0, and won the MIAA tournament.  Calvin had a pretty decent team in 94-95 with Knoester being MVP (lost to Witt in the NCAA), and as I recall Kalamazoo had some very good teams in that era.  I wouldn't say that B-W was mediocre, however, very few people gave them much chance to beat Hope in Holland. 
Hope had very high expectations for the 94-95 team, and rightly so.  They were very, very good.  Hope made it to the finals the following year with most of the players from the 94-95 team.  So much for teams with a low SOS not being competitive.

Good post, but one correction...Knoester was a senior and league MVP in 93-94 not 94-95. You are correct that Calvin lost his senior year to Witt.

[realist]

It has been a long time since Calvin played Wittenberg correct?

My memory says 1995.  Calvin lost at Witt in 1st round.  Same night the "team that shall not be mentioned" beat Hope.

I don't get it... why is Baldwin-Wallace the "team that shall not be mentioned"?

Ouch, right in the childhood... and might I mention: Booooo! 

BW was the 8th seed that beat a #1 seed Hope that had serious National Championship aspirations.  Just when Sac seems to be over it, someone brings it up again and sets him back months in his recovery.

With hindsight after that game, would the consensus have been that BW was much stiffer than a 1 vs 8 kind of game? The geography seemed to trump seeding in the tourney more at the time and it seemed that we learned Hope was an untested undefeated team (pretty down MIAA year, wasn't it?) playing a team with a mediocre record, but coming out of a much more rugged OAC.

The one quote in the center is not from me, but Oldknight I believe.

If memory serves correctly there was quite a kerfuffle in 1995 regarding where that home game in Holland was to be played.  The floor in the Civic center was about 4 feet shy of regulation size, and the NCAA said the floor must be full regulation size.  The game was moved to the Dow center, and meant a much smaller crowd.  This kerfuffle probably caused Hope to lose a bit of concentration. 
I think Hope was like # 1 or #2 going into the game, and won the MIAA 12-0, and won the MIAA tournament.  Calvin had a pretty decent team in 94-95 with Knoester being MVP (lost to Witt in the NCAA), and as I recall Kalamazoo had some very good teams in that era.  I wouldn't say that B-W was mediocre, however, very few people gave them much chance to beat Hope in Holland. 
Hope had very high expectations for the 94-95 team, and rightly so.  They were very, very good.  Hope made it to the finals the following year with most of the players from the 94-95 team.  So much for teams with a low SOS not being competitive.

Good post, but one correction...Knoester was a senior and league MVP in 93-94 not 94-95. You are correct that Calvin lost his senior year to Witt.

You are 100% correct on Knoester graduating in 1994.  I have slept since than, and that does things to us older folks.
Calvin lost to Witt in both 94, and 95 in the NCAA.
The 94-95 Calvin team was still pretty good.

[HollandKnight]

Jordan Brink, and Tyler Kruis share player of the week honors.

From what I saw at DeVos on Saturday, both honors are well-deserved.  The Knights will miss these two next year.  (Or is Jordan Brink returning?) .

Calvin seniors are DeVries, Kruis, and Mast.

Brink is actually a fourth year junior but I think his staying/going will depend on his offers to play overseas or he could be a potential GR Cyclone 

[AndersDY]

My goof, realist, I was trying to trim down the quote to not eat up a ton of space.

The 90' floor issue was definitely mixed in with the rest of that. (Interestingly, it was a perfectly acceptable site for the womens' title game in 1990, so much for equality. I also wonder if that might have created the first spark of an idea in the Hope administration for building a better facility on campus that had a regulation floor.) I seem to remember there being questions at the end of the regular season of whether Hope had had too easy a path through the conference that year. Of course Calvin was not too far removed from some strong teams and I seem to recall Kzoo being quite a handful the very next year so the conference couldn't have been complete fluff. The one flaw I recall being highlighted in the 1995 team was a lack of Sr leaders with only Duistermars being a Sr (or at least the only Sr with major contributions). The 1996 team brought a bit more Sr urgency when they put that run together.

[HopeConvert]

Hope upgrading their schedule this year helped them.  Calvin has to address this in the coming years.  Hope played a strong schedule and had marginal success against those teams.  It was a huge success in the regional ranking process.  Hosting is a great reward.  Other than pride Saturday's loss really didn't hurt Hope.  Calvin needs to get rid of Finlandia, get better quality opponents in the tip off tournament, and drop the Hall of Fame tournament.

This is an interesting observation. I've been thinking a lot - obsessively almost - about Saturday's game, and what it says about both teams. I haven't thought this before, but I thought Hope got thoroughly outcoached on Saturday. Calvin anticipated defensively everything Hope was going to do and kep them from getting comfortable in their sets. For example, Hope has had this long-standing pattern of bringing the ball to the top of the key, passing it left, and then swinging it around the perimeter. It's a predictable and, here I speak in part from ignorance, ineffective tactic. Calvin pressured the ball, but also the wings, making it very difficult for Hope to make that initial pass. This is in part what led to the 10 first half turnovers that, frankly, kept Hope from blowing the game open early. Calvin dared Hope to go inside or drive the baseline and kick out to the weakside 3 which, I guess for obvious reasons, Hope didn't do.

Offensively Calvin took a page out of Trine's playbook and attacked the rim and, when stifled, had a drop pass back to Kruis who parked at 18 feet and consistently drained the shot. Hope never adjusted to this. The Dutchmen looked lost and confused much of the afternoon. They didn't adjust to the personnel Calvin had on the floor, and didn't seem to have a plan in place once it was obvious Calvin had dropped their ineffective weave. And, sad to say, when Calvin jumped on them in the second half, they largely gave up.

Here's the thing: good teams don't get blown out like that (that goes for both schools). The bad thing for Hope is not how many losses they had, it is how one-sided most of those losses were - the worst being to Albion, but the most painful being Saturday. I don't see either team doing a lot of damage in this tournament. Hope is still young, though, and I think getting into the tournament will give them some valuable experience and serve them well for next year, when they may well be able to make a deeper run (depending on recruiting and so forth).