MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Mr. Ypsi]

They just honored last year's Alma team at Smith Arena prior to the tipoff of tonight's Augustana @ Alma contest, and when Jason Beckman was introduced in absentia there were scattered boos from the crowd.

Not very classy ... but I'm sure not unexpected either.

[kzoo99]

Kalamazoo up 39-36 over Manchester at the half.  Good game.  Kzoo playing with a lot of energy.

[kzoo99]

Kalamazoo over Manchester. 76-67.  Kzoo shot 50 percent from the field. 80 percent from the line. Too many turnovers. Tommy Cernan and Roger Hood had really good games. If kzoo can cut down on the turnovers they will be tough this year in conference.

[maroonandgold]

Calvin won 90-49 over Finlandia.  Their rebounding and passing inside were outstanding, particularly between Denney and Bykerk.  They showed better depth among the guards than I might have expected.  Van Boxel especially looked good in all aspects of the game.  Bykerk and Denney really dominated the game in the first half and Welch provided good support in rebounding, scoring, and defense.  Their starting guards are still learning to contribute to the scoring but missed more than they made.  They should improve as they get used to their new roles.  The freshmen who played looked good for the future.

In the rest of the league we seem to be competing very well with Kalamazoo,  Trine, and Albion winning, and Hope way ahead in the first half.  Alma put up a good fight before losing to Augustana, mainly because of turnovers.  They actually outshot the Augies in all three categories of shooting.

[KnightSlappy]

Calvin won 90-49 over Finlandia.  Their rebounding and passing inside were outstanding, particularly between Denney and Bykerk.  They showed better depth among the guards than I might have expected.  Van Boxel especially looked good in all aspects of the game.  Bykerk and Denney really dominated the game in the first half and Welch provided good support in rebounding, scoring, and defense.  Their starting guards are still learning to contribute to the scoring but missed more than they made.  They should improve as they get used to their new roles.  The freshmen who played looked good for the future.

Denney and Bykerk were really fun to watch tonight. Denney came up one point shy of a triple double with 10 assists and 13 rebounds. Six of his assists came feeding Bykerk inside (including two of Bykerk's three dunks). Cam's shooting touch was off tonight though -- he's going to be kicking himself for not reaching double-digits in the scoring column.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Some good performances, but, come on guys, it was FINLANDIA!  Sibelius himself could not make them look good!

[TUAngola]

Trine 72 Kenyon 64.

Another ugly win for the Thunder, but I'd rather win ugly than lose ugly.  Thankfully Kenyon shot the ball a little worse than we did for the game.  Offensively the first half was lousy for both sides, the shooting did get better in the 2nd half.  Dixon played pretty well, Copeland and Langston both had good games off the bench.  I was praising Cummings for the first game, but this one he never did get involved.  Kenyon did a good job of collapsing on him, something Defiance didn't do.  Late in the 1st half Cummings stepped on a Kenyon player's foot awkwardly and twisted his ankle.  He hobbled noticeably the rest of the game and was pretty much a nonfactor on both ends of the court.  Kreglow was awful in the first half, but to his credit played much much better in the 2nd.  The team had way too many silly fouls, too many careless turnovers, Coach Miller has a lot of work to do with this team. 

As hard as it was to watch the 2nd game, the first game between Ohio Wesleyan and Albion had much better flow, much better shooting. Ohio Wesleyan is very impressive, Trine will have to play way better to hang with them tomorrow.  I thought Albion was pretty good too, they look better than Trine right now.  Fordham is a tough kid, very skilled.  Albion has a couple freshmen bigs who are impressive too.  I won't be at tomorrow's games, prior out of town commitment, so won't have a report for the board, which might be a good thing as OWU is the real deal.

[oldknight]

I think most fans came into tonight's game expecting a fairly easy Calvin win over a Finlandia program that has struggled over the years, and that's what we got. The Knights pulled away from an early 9-9 tie to thoroughly dominate the last 15 minutes of the first half, outscoring the Lions 38-11 in that span. Finlandia was actually more skilled than I expected but simply got overwhelmed by Calvin's size. As already mentioned, the Denney to Bykerk combination simply ate up the visitors from Hancock. Other game notes:

--I'm pretty sure Cam Denney feels far more comfortable being a set-up guy for teammates, as opposed to having to live with the expectation of being the go-to guy on the team. Cam seems to have quickly forged a bond with the high flying Bykerk, who had 3 rim rattling dunks at VNA. As far as I know, there has never been any Calvin record keeping for the most dunks in a season, but if there were, I think it's likely that Austin would smash right through it.

--Speaking of Denney, that's about as good a game he's played in maroon and gold, even if he only shot 3-10 from the floor. Cam dominated inside play and his court presence was very good.

--Freshmen Matt Trewhella started yet again and he does play with confidence even though he hasn't shot like you expect an Indiana prepster to shoot. After making his first attempt (a three) he missed his last seven efforts even though every one of them was a good look. Gotta believe that sooner or later Matt will put it together.

--Maybe the best news of the night was the play of Luke VanBoxel who was terrific. If what I saw tonight is a sample of how Luke will play this year, we're seeing the point guard of Calvin's future. He did everything well--playmaking, defending, and taking his offensive opportunities. Eventually, VanBoxel will be a double digit scorer on this team I think.

--We'll know more tomorrow how much progress Calvin has made. Augustana may have lost their entire starting five but a win at Art Smith Arena tells me they still have players who can play. From the box score it looks like Alma lost the game by failing to take care of the ball. 24 turnovers. Yikes!

[KnightSlappy]

Very interesting to see KVS use Nick Kronemeyer as a Nikodemski-esque post-up guard. I think all of his points were in the paint.

[calvinite]

Very interesting to see KVS use Nick Kronemeyer as a Nikodemski-esque post-up guard. I think all of his points were in the paint.

Agreed; this was Finlandia... And, I agree with the two previous posters that VanBoxel made his presence known, and I also think the just mentioned Kronemeyer had a great game at both ends of the floor and with his hustle. And, although it was Finlandia, I thought the ball movement was noteworthy--still a couple sloppy turnovers, but the passing seemed crisp, intentional, and done with a purpose. As a result, I also think there were fewer desperation shots, desperation drives to the hoop, and that Calvin was able to take mostly good shots.

[KnightSlappy]

Some good performances, but, come on guys, it was FINLANDIA!  Sibelius himself could not make them look good!

You can only play the game in front of you. And you can only post about the game you just saw.

[Dutchfan]

I was watching Sports Center a few minutes ago and one of their reporters was giving the weather for west Michigan  (for the WMU game), when he raised his hand from Kalamazoo to Holland and said "and here is Holland. Hope college just won their season opening basketball game in division 3. Harrison Blackledge had a great game. Just giving a shout out to them."

[Dutchfan]

Some good performances, but, come on guys, it was FINLANDIA!  Sibelius himself could not make them look good!

You can only play the game in front of you. And you can only post about the game you just saw.

Wish someone would tell that to the College Football Playoff committee. Maybe then they might actually raise WMU past no. 22.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Some quick thoughts on the Hope game last night.  Hope came out with an intense, aggressive, attacking game, and quickly built a big early lead and built it to as much as 25 in the first half. Stout fought back to cut the lead to 12 at the half. Noteable that the entire Hopebench played in the first half (Ibelieve some planning there to be ready for the quick turnaround to a 1pm game today).   

Second half was a lot of back and forth with the lead at 10-14 points for the most part. Stout got as close as 8 (I believe) and then Hope again took control and quickly got the lead to 20+.

The  two big runs in the game - early in the first and late in the half were both great defensive runs, and it was great to see the young guys buying in and contributing. One stands out in my mind - Teddy Ray blocking two late 3 pt attempts in the same possession to force a shot clock violation. Teddy is an excellent defender and will be an impact player for the Dutchmen.

Blackledge had a great all around game, with some great complimentary play from Stuive, O'Brien, Brushwyler, and Ray. The one area Hope struggled with was their guards on the offensive side. Carlson and Hawkins were a combined 2-19, but I see that as an anomaly. Look for them both to shoot better versus UWRF today.

[sac]

An anomaly in Menomonie