MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[oldknight]

I like how no one on this board is commenting on how disappointing Calvin is this year.

No one is commenting on how the sun is rising in the east either, nor on how disappointing MSU's Spartans are--3 straight losses, tonight to Nebraska in East Lansing. Nebraska? Really?


Calvin with an easy win over Kalamazoo, 90-64.. The Knights shot the ball so-so overall (43%), and poorly from the arc (7-29) but somehow still put up 90 points. Kalamazoo has pretty good size up front, and quickness on the wings, but they don't seem to be able to shoot a lick, hitting less than 30% for the game. K really needs the normally reliable Adam Dykema to shoot well for the Hornets and he didn't tonight, going 2-10. Other game notes:

--When Tony Canonie scores a little bit, he's a terrific player for Calvin because he's a superb defender. Tonight Canonie scored 14 on 5-9 overall and 2-4 from the arc. If Tony gets to the point in his career where he's putting up numbers like that consistently, he's an All-Conference selection.

--He still occasionally throws a bone head pass, but Cam Denny showed tonight that he can be a dangerous and effective post player merely by using his ball handling skills. Six assists tonight to go along with 13 points and a lot of good choices when the ball was in his hands. Would be nice to see that kind of level headed play on a consistent basis.

--Jordan Daley can make a 25 point, 8 rebound game look ordinary. I know because I saw it tonight.

--So what's happened to Michael Wilks? 1-11 the last three games and a complete nonfactor.

[sac]

better lace'em up tight when you go on the road in the MIAA this year.


Hope 76  Adrian 73

If you've seen any of Mark White's teams the last few years, this is another one.  Good defense, tough, hard nosed rebounding only I think this year he has offensive options.  Christian Coville is a really good player, I thought Hope did a good job on him but he hit a few really tough shots with hands in the face and finished with a team high 16.  I think Hope will feel ok about their defense, it was really good for about 10-12 minutes in the first half erasing a 7 point deficit and gaining a 10 point lead.   It seems like they kind of forced a lot of Adrian's other players to shoot, 22 shots and 28 points from Adrian's bench seems above their average but I'm not sure about that.  The Bulldogs just made a lot of shots when they had to.

Hope had Adrian on the ropes down 13 but just couldn't lay the hammer, I give all the credit to Adrian they hit a few 3's to get them closer and that really seemed to light a fire under them and they were really tough defensively the rest of the game.  Last few minutes Hope really came up with all the big rebounds but weren't able to convert offensively which kept Adrian in it and close.   Adrian was really poor at the ft line, especially late in the game making just 3-8 in the last 1:27, one intentionally.  In fact FT shooting was woof city for both teams.

[sac]

Alma really picked up a big win tonight.  They've now won at Calvin and at Trine.  Beforehand we probably would have said that's 2 of their 3 toughest road trips and it still may pan out that way.  Still have to go to Hope, Adrian and Albion and I don't think those will be easy.  Now that Art Smith Arena is some kind of impenetrable fortress of death, road losses is about all we have left.

Albion really messed up tonight.  Starting Saturday they have 4 straight of @Alma, Trine, Hope and @Calvin.  That stretch is really their whole season and that loss tonight will be really hard to make up, providing no one else loses to Olivet or Kalamazoo.


It just really looks to me like the next 4 weeks are going to be a real grind.   I'm kind of enjoying this.

[Sjt0412]

Hey I know this is probably gonna be a long shot but does anybody have 2 hope Calvin tickets for sale please let me know thanks

[GreatScot!?]

Nice win at Hershey Hall last night for the Scots. Allowed Trine to shoot their way back in it, but they showed poise and picked up the OT win! Absolutely dominated the first quarter of the game on both sides of the floor. The Thunder actually out shot the Scots, but the amount of FT's we took was the difference. Holmquist ended up with 21 points, but needed 17 FG's to get there. Malone looked great going 11-19 from the field and 6-12 for 3 ending up with 28 points. In the second half Trine shot 71% from the field and 64% from 3 to force the OT, which is easily the best half a team has had against the Scots 2-3. Tough break for Trine who is now 2-3 in the MIAA. For the Scots, their shooting and attacking is complimented by their selfless passing. It seems that they are passing up good shots to get great shots and that is why they are so efficient. Combined with the stifling 2-3 their point differential sits at a tidy +58 through 5 games.

As SAC noted it was a big loss for Albion who has a very tough schedule coming up. Coming into conference play I thought it would be K-Zoo who would get their first conference win before Olivet, but the Comets have already notched two wins. Did not expect to see them ahead of Adrian in the standings at any point in the season. Will be interesting to see how the standings will look at the half-way point of conference play after the next two games.

[cmlundy]

Anyone have two tickets for the game next Wednesday??

[sac]

A couple tidbits I neglected to mention from last nights Hope/Adrian game


----Adrian played without their 2nd leading scorer Davonte Harris for the 3rd straight game.  A few guys in track suits on the Adrian bench but Harris was the most obvious one missing.  Adrian really is quite different from a year ago when Ricky Jackson was their leading scorer attempting 13 shots per game, he's now their #3 scorer taking just under 9.  Ben Rodak was their second leading scorer a year ago with 2nd most FG attempts and is now coming off the bench and 4th in FG attempts.  Most of Adrian's offense is now shouldered by Covile and Harris


----Hope had a really rare 5-point play in the first half last night, which in hindsight turned out to be a really important play

04:28    CARLSON,CHAD made 3-pt. jump shot    31-26    
04:28    Assist by EIDSON,ALEX    -    
04:28       -    Foul by HENRY,KEN
04:28    O'BRIEN,MITCHELL made free throw    32-26    
04:28    O'BRIEN,MITCHELL made free throw    33-26    

There's no doubt O'Brien was run-over setting a screen, but in my purely amateur opinion the shot shouldn't have counted, but I'd like a 2nd look.  One of a few curious calls made both ways last night.  We also had a jump-ball on an Adrian FT after the officials messed up a 1-1 shooting situation.  Adrian missed the FT and Hope rebounded but they stopped play thinking it was two shots.  After a brief consul determined it should have been 1-1 Adrian was awarded the jump ball on the arrow.  Adrian didn't score on that possession so the mistake was cancelled out.   You can make bad calls all game long but you shouldn't get game management stuff wrong.  That's twice in two games I've seen a FT situation messed up.

Also a tad frustrating to see illegal screens ignored all night long and then call one on the most important play of the game. 

[sac]

The storm on the East Coast reminds me of the adventures some Calvin fans had in 1993 traveling back from Emory and Henry College where they played in the Sweet 16.  E&H is in Emory, Va in the far SW part of the state.   I believe that was the fabled "Storm of the Century".  It dumped 2-3 feet of snow throughout SW Virginia and West Virginia making travel out of the area nearly impossible.

Back then I heard second hand the stories of woe from a couple people a little closer to the Calvin program which were pretty interesting.  Including a couple days stranded in a hotel that ran out of food.  Eventually they found their way out of Virginia going South and West across Tennessee to Nashville and then North to Louisville.   

[realist]

The storm on the East Coast reminds me of the adventures some Calvin fans had in 1993 traveling back from Emory and Henry College where they played in the Sweet 16.  E&H is in Emory, Va in the far SW part of the state.   I believe that was the fabled "Storm of the Century".  It dumped 2-3 feet of snow throughout SW Virginia and West Virginia making travel out of the area nearly impossible.

Back then I heard second hand the stories of woe from a couple people a little closer to the Calvin program which were pretty interesting.  Including a couple days stranded in a hotel that ran out of food.  Eventually they found their way out of Virginia going South and West across Tennessee to Nashville and then North to Louisville.

Being one of the people on that trip I remember it well.  The refs at the Fri. night game really did not like Steve Honderd's playing style.  The police weren't going to let us leave the E&H gym, and were making plans for us to spend the night, but that changed and we made it back to the hotel (we stayed in Bristol TN across the expressway from the Nascar track).  The storm let up enough on Sat. so that the game against ONU was played.  The bus from ONU slid into a railroad crossing, and the team walked a couple blocks to get to the gym.  Because of the storm the refs we had on Sat. were the  ones used on Fri.  Calvin lost the game.  Mr. Honderd got so frustrated with the calls he eventually got a T.  There were probably less than a hundred people at the game.  We had a chapel service at the motel on Sun., and I remember a fun pizza party later in the day.  The motel did run out of most food items.  We left the motel about 10 a.m. on Mon., and as you say we made it back to the Calvin campus after midnight. 

[Knight2Day]

I like how no one on this board is commenting on how disappointing Calvin is this year.

No one is commenting on how the sun is rising in the east either, nor on how disappointing MSU's Spartans are--3 straight losses, tonight to Nebraska in East Lansing. Nebraska? Really?

The bigger issue is the one that no one is talking about. You have two players who were supposed to be major contributors to the program, one that panned out and one that didn't, quit. Unfortunately there are more instances of quality players quitting the team at Calvin than you all would like to aknowledge, not to mention the quality athletes that don't even try out as freshmen because of the coaching staff. This is the problem. Calvin needs to figure it out because otherwise the little support left for the basketball program will soon diminish to zero and that arena that is supposed to be basically a monument to Calvin basketball history will be left empty on game days.

[northb]

I like how no one on this board is commenting on how disappointing Calvin is this year.

No one is commenting on how the sun is rising in the east either, nor on how disappointing MSU's Spartans are--3 straight losses, tonight to Nebraska in East Lansing. Nebraska? Really?

The bigger issue is the one that no one is talking about. You have two players who were supposed to be major contributors to the program, one that panned out and one that didn't, quit. Unfortunately there are more instances of quality players quitting the team at Calvin than you all would like to aknowledge, not to mention the quality athletes that don't even try out as freshmen because of the coaching staff. This is the problem. Calvin needs to figure it out because otherwise the little support left for the basketball program will soon diminish to zero and that arena that is supposed to be basically a monument to Calvin basketball history will be left empty on game days.

For instance?

[arena]

I like how no one on this board is commenting on how disappointing Calvin is this year.

No one is commenting on how the sun is rising in the east either, nor on how disappointing MSU's Spartans are--3 straight losses, tonight to Nebraska in East Lansing. Nebraska? Really?

The bigger issue is the one that no one is talking about. You have two players who were supposed to be major contributors to the program, one that panned out and one that didn't, quit. Unfortunately there are more instances of quality players quitting the team at Calvin than you all would like to aknowledge, not to mention the quality athletes that don't even try out as freshmen because of the coaching staff. This is the problem. Calvin needs to figure it out because otherwise the little support left for the basketball program will soon diminish to zero and that arena that is supposed to be basically a monument to Calvin basketball history will be left empty on game days.

All coaches have a shelf life. All programs need change. The time for change at Calvin is soon, if not now.

[oldknight]

With Calvin down 20 at Adrian (no video), I'm watching Kalamazoo @ Hope. The visitors are putting up a nice fight leading 65-61 mid-way through the second half. I'm following livestats too and I don't get it. Hope is still searching for answers. Its nearly February and Hope has already put 11 guys on the floor--eight of whom have played double digit minutes.

[realist]

Calvin loses 61-85.

[oldknight]

Calvin loses 61-85.  Just following live stats I doubt the game was as close as the score would indicate.
Looking ahead to the next 8 games it may be a struggle to make the MIAA tournament.

They won't. The Knights just aren't that good and the MIAA is a little better this year. I think it's likely to be a 7-7 conference record.