MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

Olivet 80  Grace Bible 74

Olivet looked like a completely different team tonight

[HopeConvert]

Well, that was interesting.

Interesting lineups, interesting use of zone defense, interesting foul calls, and an interesting final second. My guess is that's close to the best game Hanover has played all year, and the Dutchmen were not at their best. But a good win.

[HopeConvert]

Clutch free throws by Dante. A nice recovery from Wheaton. I'd like to see a replay on that. It wasn't obvious to me that it was a foul.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Clutch free throws by Dante. A nice recovery from Wheaton. I'd like to see a replay on that. It wasn't obvious to me that it was a foul.

Clearly a foul from my perspective - would be more interested to see if it was truly a 3 or not (foot was very clsoe to the line).

[HopeConvert]

Clutch free throws by Dante. A nice recovery from Wheaton. I'd like to see a replay on that. It wasn't obvious to me that it was a foul.

Clearly a foul from my perspective - would be more interested to see if it was truly a 3 or not (foot was very clsoe to the line).

Like I said, I'd like to see the replay. I was sitting right there, and it wasn't obvious to me. But it all happened very fast and Dante's shot almost went in, so I'm not trusting my eyes on that one.

[sac]

Hope 85  Hanover 81 OT

Hanover's probably a better team than their record shows.   A little young, missing a player for the first 7 games who makes his debut against Hope and promptly goes 4-6 from the 3-point line.  They played well in most parts of the game, hit some really big shots throughout the game.  I'm sure they'd like that final play in regulation back.  But Hope found a way to win again and it was a little retribution for Dante Hawkins who missed what would have been the winning FT against Wheaton.  Dante's making a bigger and bigger impact in recent games and was pretty big again last night.  Easy to forget that was a Sophomore making 3 straight FT's with under a second to play on a team full of Sr's with big expectations, being iced at the line, having missed a potential game winner just 2 weeks ago.

Cody Stuive deserves a mention here, his length on defense was invaluable to Hope's comeback.  He mostly drew Hanover's Michael Van Kleunan who was having a hot day shooting the ball.  Van kleunan had 1 shot attempt (he made it) in the last 10 minutes of regulation and the OT, much of that due to Stuive's defense, some of that is probably on Hanover for not getting him the ball enough, but they tried.

Hope keeps digging themselves a hole and they keep using the same shovel and that's getting frustrating.



There isn't just one thing going on here its multiple, but here's 3 I can think of.......

1.   #4   This number appears to have gone to their heads.  I get the dynamics that go into polls and why Hope is receiving this kind of recognition, but this isn't the #4 team in D3 right now.  We all got excited when they beat Steven Point (who is now 4-4) and then completely obliterated Aquinas and were being compared to Augustana (which is ludicrous), but Hope's body of work since then doesn't warrant the current ranking they are getting.  Hope's 7-1, but two pretty close to miracle escapes at home from being 5-3.   There are easy ways and hard ways to learn lessons about how teams are going to play against you and Hope's looking like they will learn that the hard way.


2.    Concentration seems to be almost poor.  I can think of no better example than this teams FT shooting.  Last year this same group was 80% as a team, this year they're at 65% but in the first 30  minutes of games its more like 50%, then they make a healthy % down the stretch of these close games.  Poor concentration manifests itself elsewhere, let me give this example, you have 2 fouls, your front court teammate has 2 fouls, you are both immensely important to your teams success, you've just been inserted back into the last 2 minutes of the first half.  Your number one objective is to not pick up that 3rd foul......and you spend the next two possessions reaching in on defense in the backcourt.  AHHHHHHH!!!!!!     Also as someone mentioned afterwards last night coming out of timeouts and not knowing where you're supposed to be on the floor.  You just talked about it.


3.    Hope started this year with a lot of fire, a cohesive unit with one goal, one mission in mind and they seem to have forgotten what drove them all summer. Its hard to continually go to the well of emotion and sustain that for an entire season, but it really feels like Hope has just lacked energy since the Hall of Fame games.   They look like they think they can just walk out on the floor and win, maybe I'm misreading that but it sure feels that way.   Its a little weird and perplexing because at the same time they've had to dig pretty deep to forge comebacks against Wheaton, Carthage, Platteville and now Hanover and even more weirdly its almost looked easy.


There's good news here and that's that Hope, a good team, has found a way to win a couple very close games the way good teams usually do.  Its weird to think of how Hope has had so many really good teams over the years that blew through their schedule and never really felt tested until the tournament.  And then boom, its over.  Well this group is getting tested and that's fine.  But I can't help but feel that losing a game to someone they should beat might not be such a bad thing.

[sac]

Clutch free throws by Dante. A nice recovery from Wheaton. I'd like to see a replay on that. It wasn't obvious to me that it was a foul.

Clearly a foul from my perspective - would be more interested to see if it was truly a 3 or not (foot was very clsoe to the line).

Like I said, I'd like to see the replay. I was sitting right there, and it wasn't obvious to me. But it all happened very fast and Dante's shot almost went in, so I'm not trusting my eyes on that one.

Its weird how our eyes deceive us because I was absolutely convinced Dante was able to get that shot off over one of Hanover's taller defenders.   Turns out it was guard Levi Buck (isn't that just the most Southern Indiana name).  I can't tell you if he was fouled I was watching the ball flight as the whistle blew and I was sure it was going in.


I was reminded about the Elmhurst game down in Florida a few years ago when Hope lost a game in a similar fashion.  Never did get consensus from those there on whether it was truly a foul or not.  So maybe the God of basketball looked down and gave Hope a little nod last night. 

[Titan Q]

and were being compared to Augustana (which is ludicrous)

I think I am the only poster that talked about Hope in comparison to Augustana, Scott.  Having watched both play multiple times, it's simply my opinion that Hope is very close in talent to Augie. 

[sac]

Playing the part of John Candy and Steve Martin is the Hope basketball team

Car #2 is every Hope fan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_akwHYMdbsM

[wiz]

Clutch free throws by Dante. A nice recovery from Wheaton. I'd like to see a replay on that. It wasn't obvious to me that it was a foul.

Clearly a foul from my perspective - would be more interested to see if it was truly a 3 or not (foot was very clsoe to the line).

Like I said, I'd like to see the replay. I was sitting right there, and it wasn't obvious to me. But it all happened very fast and Dante's shot almost went in, so I'm not trusting my eyes on that one.

So maybe the God of basketball looked down and gave Hope a little nod last night. 

Maybe it was Pat Stegeman.

[knightvision]

Hope 85  Hanover 81 OT

Hanover's probably a better team than their record shows.   A little young, missing a player for the first 7 games who makes his debut against Hope and promptly goes 4-6 from the 3-point line.  They played well in most parts of the game, hit some really big shots throughout the game.  I'm sure they'd like that final play in regulation back.  But Hope found a way to win again and it was a little retribution for Dante Hawkins who missed what would have been the winning FT against Wheaton.  Dante's making a bigger and bigger impact in recent games and was pretty big again last night.  Easy to forget that was a Sophomore making 3 straight FT's with under a second to play on a team full of Sr's with big expectations, being iced at the line, having missed a potential game winner just 2 weeks ago.

Cody Stuive deserves a mention here, his length on defense was invaluable to Hope's comeback.  He mostly drew Hanover's Michael Van Kleunan who was having a hot day shooting the ball.  Van kleunan had 1 shot attempt (he made it) in the last 10 minutes of regulation and the OT, much of that due to Stuive's defense, some of that is probably on Hanover for not getting him the ball enough, but they tried.

Hope keeps digging themselves a hole and they keep using the same shovel and that's getting frustrating.



There isn't just one thing going on here its multiple, but here's 3 I can think of.......

1.   #4   This number appears to have gone to their heads.  I get the dynamics that go into polls and why Hope is receiving this kind of recognition, but this isn't the #4 team in D3 right now.  We all got excited when they beat Steven Point (who is now 4-4) and then completely obliterated Aquinas and were being compared to Augustana (which is ludicrous), but Hope's body of work since then doesn't warrant the current ranking they are getting.  Hope's 7-1, but two pretty close to miracle escapes at home from being 5-3.   There are easy ways and hard ways to learn lessons about how teams are going to play against you and Hope's looking like they will learn that the hard way.


2.    Concentration seems to be almost poor.  I can think of no better example than this teams FT shooting.  Last year this same group was 80% as a team, this year they're at 65% but in the first 30  minutes of games its more like 50%, then they make a healthy % down the stretch of these close games.  Poor concentration manifests itself elsewhere, let me give this example, you have 2 fouls, your front court teammate has 2 fouls, you are both immensely important to your teams success, you've just been inserted back into the last 2 minutes of the first half.  Your number one objective is to not pick up that 3rd foul......and you spend the next two possessions reaching in on defense in the backcourt.  AHHHHHHH!!!!!!     Also as someone mentioned afterwards last night coming out of timeouts and not knowing where you're supposed to be on the floor.  You just talked about it.


3.    Hope started this year with a lot of fire, a cohesive unit with one goal, one mission in mind and they seem to have forgotten what drove them all summer. Its hard to continually go to the well of emotion and sustain that for an entire season, but it really feels like Hope has just lacked energy since the Hall of Fame games.   They look like they think they can just walk out on the floor and win, maybe I'm misreading that but it sure feels that way.   Its a little weird and perplexing because at the same time they've had to dig pretty deep to forge comebacks against Wheaton, Carthage, Platteville and now Hanover and even more weirdly its almost looked easy.


There's good news here and that's that Hope, a good team, has found a way to win a couple very close games the way good teams usually do.  Its weird to think of how Hope has had so many really good teams over the years that blew through their schedule and never really felt tested until the tournament.  And then boom, its over.  Well this group is getting tested and that's fine.  But I can't help but feel that losing a game to someone they should beat might not be such a bad thing.

Didn't see the game but took a quick peek at the box score and was quite surprised to see that other than Stuive's 28 minutes the starters played especially heavy minutes.  Not sure if that is part of GM's plan as we get farther into the season or in response to the way this particular game played out, but that seems like a bit of a departure from what I had seen in earlier Hope games where there were minutes being spread out among what to me seemed like almost too many guys.  Other thing that struck me from the box score was that other than Stuive's 11 points, the rest of the bench combined scored two points.  Eidson's struggles continue to surprise me--seems like he could be a big scoring spark off the bench but just can't seem to find his rhythm (yet).

My recollection from my playing days, however distant, are that these post exam pre-holiday/holiday games are always a bit sloppily played and just feel kinda weird--out of the normal class/practice routine, campus is empty, back and forth from home, etc.   

[sac]

Hanover 72 Olivet 67

I didn't get to watch much of the game but neither team looked like they did yesterday.  Fun game this basketball.

[DBQ1965]

Hope springs eternal.

[sac]

Hope 98  Grace Bible 83

Hope played a great maybe even brilliant first half on both ends of the floor, showed a lot of flashes of their potential followed by a second half of  lots of moments of dumb, gave up 54 second half points and out-rebounded overall by 22.

Gardner 16, Otto 15, Carlson 14, Blackledge 14, Hawkins 10


On to Florida, and Merry Christmas!

[GreatScot!?]

The Scots wrapped up their journey to San Antonio with a 1-1 record. The first game wasn't as much of a marathon as sprint as the Scots had 40 points in the first 11 minutes of the game. The final score ended up being 113-97 in favor of the Scots. The score is closer than the game suggests, because they had their reserves in for the last 12 minutes of the game. The Beckman brothers ended up scoring a combined 42 points with Fairchild, Bradfield and Gamble all being in double digits. Gamble put up his first double-double of his career with some big minutes off the bench. Alma pretty much had a 50-50 split from the field and 3 while holding MHB to a 40-40.

The next day the Scots went up against #25 Texas Lutheran in a big game for both sides. Alma seemed to lead for the majority of the game, but a baseline floater put Lutheran up 1 with about 7 seconds to go, which the Scots would not score in their final possession. It came down to the Scots missing box outs in the last five minutes and Lutheran making some big shots. The reffing seemed fair, but it did not help the Scots having both their big men in foul trouble for a majority of the game. DJ Beckman lead the Scots in scoring with 21 (5-9 3pt) followed by Nikodemski with 18 (6-8 from the field). It would've been nice to come away with two wins, but still a pretty good showing for the Scots down in Texas.

Some other tid-bits, the Scots travel to St. Norbert to play two games the 29th and 30th, some big games for the Scots before they go into conference play. Nikodemski dropped from 1st to 3rd in FG% in the nation, which is very impressive being that he is a point guard and happens to be their best post up option. Jason Beckman has also improved his 3pt FG% to 60%, so after the stats are updated is most likely going to be in the top few as well and is tops in the MIAA.

Hope everyone has a great christmas! #letsgoscots