MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[oldknight]

Trine leads Calvin 33-31 at the half. Kind of maddening as the Knights made a number of excellent passes to open players near the hoop and have 11 assists in the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately, they have also made a lot of poor decisions with the ball and have 10 turnovers which is the reason the Thunder have the lead. Daley got his second foul just 3 minutes into the game, didn't play much after, and scored only 2 points. Fortunately, Wilks came out of hibernation to lead Calvin with 11. It appears frosh Carlos Amoros has replaced Nick Kronemeyer as the first sub off the bench at the point guard spot.

I must say the Trine broadcast team is a genuine pleasure, easily the best internet team I've ever heard doing small college basketball. They're professional, prepared, even-handed and articulate, seemlessly mentioning esoteric things such as noting the team nickname of Amoros high school (the Wolves) and noting the fact that Meppelink's high school team won a state championship at Lynden, Washington. Also learned Trine player Ellis Cummings is the nephew of former NBA star Terry Cummings. Hope has better video but Trine's overall broadcast is tops.

[oldknight]

Trine beats Calvin 80-67. The Thunder broke away from a 39-39 game with a 23-8 run that decided the game. Hope guts out a 74-66 win at Albion. Gardner and Hawkins combine for 40. Alma trying to hang on by their fingertips against Kalamazoo, leading 82-80 late.

Alma hangs on to win 85-80. With it still a two point game and less than 30 seconds left, Nikodemski (20 pointsf) hit a huge runner from the free throw line to give Alma a four point lead. DJ Beckman struggled going 2-8 from the floor.

[Gregory Sager]

Alma 85
Kalamazoo 80

That makes twice this season that the Hornets have nearly pulled off a major upset over the Scots. Alma nipped Kazoo by one in overtime back on January 6 at Anderson AC.

[sflzman]

Official attendance at Alma was 1018 today with probably the worst student turn out I've seen there all year. Nice to finally see some community support at Alma and nice to see the Art Smith Arena continuing to become a true home court advantage

[GreatScot!?]

Official attendance at Alma was 1018 today with probably the worst student turn out I've seen there all year. Nice to finally see some community support at Alma and nice to see the Art Smith Arena continuing to become a true home court advantage

The community support for the game tonight was because tonight was Alumni Night and there was a lot of former Alma players and their families tonight. Weird that they're were not more students at the game.

[TUAngola]

Some observations from the Trine-Calvin game today. Thunder seem to struggle generating offense in the 1st halves this year.  I know they want to run their screen game and try to get an open look for their shooters or dump it in the post to Holmquist, but all the MIAA teams know the Trine offense and where they try to get the ball.  More often than not we scramble to get a shot off before the shot clock expires, and the shot is usually a forced one.  I think Trine plays much better when they play faster and not worry about eating up the clock.  Will Dixon was the man today, really got hot the 2nd half to put some separation in what was a tight game.  Calvin ran a nice offense, it was pretty much a layup drill in the 1st half, they got a lot of bunnies.  Trine played better defense against their post screens the 2nd half.  Daley with 2 quick fouls, sat the rest of the first half.  But Calvin has a nice bench, so probably didn't affect them as much.  Calvin's coach, he is intense, his voice just carries.  It was pretty quiet in the gym and you can hear every time he "encouraged" his players.     

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Adrian prevails in OT over Olivet, 83-76. Nice comeback (from down 14) in the second half by the Comets who took a 6 point lead, only to have Adrian hit a layup with 2 sec left to force OT.   Olivet is 2-6, but oh so close to a 2 win week and a 4-4 record. Definitely an improved team not to be overlooked.

Christian Coville had 42 for Adrian.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Nice complete game by the Dutchmen today against the tough D you can always expect at Kresge. Hope's 3pt shooting (12-24) and FT shooting (18-21) made the difference. Hope has started their 3 guard offense for several games now. Pretty sweet to get 49 points out of those guys today.

[sac]

Hope 74  Albion 66

Just an outstanding basketball game at Kresge today.   Corey Wheeler for Albion made a jump shot with 14:40 left in the first half to trim a 6 point Hope lead to 4, from that point on the rest of this game was played within a 4 point margin either way until Dante Hawkins sank 2 FT's with :15 left to put Hope up 6.  Just over 34 minutes of really tight basketball.  8 points was the largest margin for either team.

Hope made some big plays on both ends of the floor down the stretch to pull away.   What a great feeling to see Sam Otto hit two big 3's late in this game.  Ben Gardner was great again today, really worked hard at both ends


Of note, to me anyway, thought it interesting Hope went their Sr's down the stretch of this one.  Beating Hope means a lot to Albion, that I'm sure of, but winning at Kresge means a lot to Hope as well and it really showed by the reaction of Hope's bench at the end of this one.  Including an excited group of coaches.  Its weird to say but these two teams just "get it" when they play each other.

[sac]

Adrian 83  Olivet 76  OT

Olivet dressed 8 guys, luckily for them they were 7 of their best 8 players.  Adrian dressed 9 which I think is actually normal for them, 3 JV guys joined them but they weren't going to play.  Adrian hit a 3 to start the game, Olivet couldn't even get the ball across the timeline on its first possession and had to call a timeout.  It got significantly better after that.

Olivet played really well tonight and they are a much better team than they were 3 weeks ago when I saw them last (at least tonight they were, Alma rolled over them Wednesday).  Lee Gardner played but didn't produce much,  just his mere presence makes them better and puts guys in the right positions on the floor.  Adrian beat Gardner up physically all night and he played very frustrated and probably committed 3 of his fouls just out of frustration.  He finished with only 8 points, but 9 rebounds, 5 offensive and kept at least a half dozen more balls live that Olivet ended up possessing.  Eric Ewing, Zach Walker, RJ Haas and Quinten Way each played pretty close to the best games I've seen them play for Olivet.  (4 times this year, probably same last year).

Adrian's portion of this game was dominated by Christian Covile who was simply dynamite tonight.  42 points, box score says he was 15-25 from the floor and I can say probably 4-6 of those misses were potential layups blocked by Olivet.   He really could and maybe should have had 50.  One of many highlights of his night was a one hand alley-oop slam that just shouldn't exist at this level.  Adrian had a 14 point lead and looked well on their way to winning rather easily when Olivet just started knocking shots down and went on a 23-4 run and led by 5 with 2:26 to play.

Adrian made 3 super clutch shots to get it tied again at 68 with a minute to play, after Olivet missed a layup (not really easy) Adrian had the ball with :40 to go ran a play for Rickey Jackson who's 15 footer rimmed out and was rebounded by Olivet with about :15 to play.  Olivet slowed up short of the timeline either to call a play or consider a timeout and here is where it got weird.  In a rush of blood an Adrian player intentionally grabs the Olivet player with :09 seconds left, remember its a tie game.  So Olivet shoots and makes 2 foul shots to lead by 2 with :09 to play, Adrian quickly advances the ball sets a quick isolation play for Travon Johnson who hits a nifty running right hander to send the game to overtime.

In overtime the Bulldogs dominated but even with 1 minute left it was still just a 3-point game, Olivet just didn't make anything in overtime.  Tough loss for them but a really big win for Adrian.   

[sac]

These 4 guys had a pretty good week.

Christian Covile   65 points,  22-38 FG's, 6-11 3pt FG's,  15-20 FT's, 16 reb's, 7 assists, 5 steals, 2 blocks, 10 turnovers   65 minutes

Ben Gardner  48 points, 16-28 FG's, 8-14 3pt FG's, 8-10 FT's, 6 reb's, 1 assist, 2 steals, 1 block, 5 turnovers    50 minutes

Jared Holmquist   44 points,  13-32 FG's, 0-1 3pt FG's, 18-18 FT's, 15 reb's, 4 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 4 turnovers   68 minutes

Will Dixon  44 points,  16-35 FG's, 4-7 3pt FG's, 8-10 FT's, 8 reb's, 6 assists, 2 steals, 0 blocks, 5 turnovers    72 minutes

[HopeConvert]

Nice win for Hope yesterday. There were  TO's between Gardner and Hawkins. They need to clean that up.

What's the deal with Albion having a video feed but no audio? Also, no score or clock on the screen?

[Kellogg Center]

Nice win for Hope yesterday. There were  TO's between Gardner and Hawkins. They need to clean that up.

What's the deal with Albion having a video feed but no audio? Also, no score or clock on the screen?

It's an unfortunate lack of interest on Albion's part.  Seems like a layup to pay a student employee to provide audio, giving that student a positive experience, and giving viewers the occasional score update from inside Kresge. 

[sac]

+1 for road win, -1 for home loss
Alma      8-0    +3
Hope     7-1    +3
Albion    4-4      0
Adrian   4-4      0
Trine      4-4    -1
Calvin    3-5      0
Olivet     2-6    -2
Kzoo      0-8    -3

Home teams are 21-11  (6 of those losses belong to Kzoo, Olivet)

Remaining games:
Adrian:    Alma, Trine-------------@Albion,@Hope---------@Calvin, Kzoo
Albion:    @Calvin, @Kzoo-------Adrian, Olivet-----------Alma, @Trine
Alma:      @Adrian,@Hope-------Calvin, Trine-------------@Albion, @Olivet
Calvin:     Albion, Olivet----------@Alma, @Kzoo-----------Adrian, Hope
Hope:      Olivet, Alma-----------@Trine, Adrian-----------@Kzoo, @Calvin
Kzoo:      Trine, Albion-----------@Olivet, Calvin-----------Hope, @Adrian
Olivet:      @Hope, @Calvin------Kzoo, @Albion------------Trine, Alma
Trine:       @Kzoo, @Adrian------Hope, @Alma-------------@Olivet, Albion


If everyone in the top 6 wins their remaining home games and beats both Kzoo and Olivet( any win on the road vs any of these 6 teams is a really big win.)

Alma     11-3
Hope     11-3
Albion     8-6
Calvin     8-6
Trine       8-6
Adrian     7-7

Out of  Calvin, Albion, Trine and Adrian, Calvin has the most favorable schedule remaining.  Adrian has a really big week with Alma and Trine both at the Merrilot Center.

[Happy Calvin Guy]

Tickets for the Calvin-Hope matchup in GR on 2/20 are good for both the 12:30 women's game and 3:00 men's game . I understand that the conference does the scheduling, and that these women's/men's doubleheaders are done by design, but I think it's a bad idea in this case.

Let's say that ordinarily Calvin might draw 2,000 fans for a Calvin-Hope women's game (that seems to be the average over the past couple of years, but could be as high as 3,000), and that they more or less sell out the men's game (4,500). That's a total of 6,500 tickets sold, while this year they will max out at 4,500 tickets sold. The lost revenue could therefore be in the range of $15k.

Secondly, while there is some overlap in women's and men's basketball fans, and I imagine a good amount of fans will take in both games, there won't be 100% overlap. Either because they are only interested in the women's game, or because they can't fit 6 hours of basketball into their Saturday schedule, some of the fans at the women's game will not also attend the men's game. That means that even though there might be demand for 4,500 people to attend the men's game (and the official attendance might be quoted as 4,500), there inevitably will be empty seats at the men's game, while some fans who wished they could attend will be left without a ticket. My economics classes at Calvin taught me that this is not an efficient allocation of resources, but it likely could be addressed.

I estimate that there could be approximately 500 fans that attend the women's game who do not plan on attending the men's game (this is a total guess, but seems reasonable). Thus, unless their tickets can be transferred to someone who only wishes to attend the men's game through some sort of secondary market, there would be 500 empty seats at the men's game. (and, theoretically, somewhere between 0 and 500 fans who would like to attend the men's game but can't get their hands on a ticket). I wonder if some sort of ticket donation station could be set up so that those seats don't go unused. It could be publicized, staffed by one or two volunteers, and simply request a donation to one of the two schools. My guess is that at minimal cost or hassle, a few thousand dollars could be raised and a few more fans from both sides would be able to enjoy the game.

This is, of course, completely unnecessary if I am overestimating demand for men's tickets and the game doesn't sell out in the first place. But, it might be relevant, especially if the MIAA continues this scheduling pattern, and especially if the scenario plays out in Holland in a future year.