MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[KnightSlappy]

Tonight's win was KVS's 400th win at Calvin.

I was messaging with a former Calvin player last night trying to determine which player had the most wins under KVS. I'm not sure if I have the correct answers but here's what I found.

Looks like Jon Potvin was on the roster from '99-'02 when the Knights won 92 games.
Jeremy Veenstra was a part of 89 wins from '00-'03.
Jordan Brink was a part of 88 wins in '11 and '13-15.

[knights2000]

Tonight's win was KVS's 400th win at Calvin.

I was messaging with a former Calvin player last night trying to determine which player had the most wins under KVS. I'm not sure if I have the correct answers but here's what I found.

Looks like Jon Potvin was on the roster from '99-'02 when the Knights won 92 games.
Jeremy Veenstra was a part of 89 wins from '00-'03.
Jordan Brink was a part of 88 wins in '11 and '13-15.

Looking into the area around the Final Four team in 2005... Aultman and Shilts had 46 in two years, Meckes had 88 in four.

[realist]

Good win for Calvin last night.  Glad to see them pull out a W in a close game on the road to open up MIAA play.  I personally am a big fan of both Welch and Siegel taking minutes from Denney and Bykerk.  I think Welch is more physical than Bykerk which lead to more points in the paint for Calvin and foul trouble for Trine.  Siegel, who occasionally can seem out of control with the ball, has done nothing but good things over the past few games.  Interesting side notes: both teams committed fewer than 10 turnovers, Calvin shot better from the field than the free throw line, and Calvin's bench out scored Trine's 33-6.

While it is nice that the bench was able to score half of Calvin's 66 points last night it points to a bigger weakness than strength.

[GreatScot!?]

Alma absolutely bombed Kzoo tonight with 20 3-point makes on 36 attempts.  Kzoo's been in pretty much every game they've played this year and given last years 2 close losses to Alma getting beat 107-63 is certainly a bit shocking.

Alma scored 107 points and shot 3 ft's.



Edit**   Kzoo may have lost leading scorer  Adam Dykema to a leg injury early in the second half up at Alma.  Not an injury that will be easy for the Hornets to overcome.

Lack of free throw attempts had more to do with how open the looks were that Alma got than their aggression in the point, I feel like this might be the least amount of free throws recorded for a team that scored 100+ points in history, hard to prove though!

[Ralph Turner]

I take this break from Men's Basketball to post this link from a news conference at Calvin College yesterday, Epiphany 2017.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/06/spectacular-collision-suns-will-create-new-star-night-sky-2022/

Calvin Astronomy Professor Larry Molnar has predicted the birth of "new star" that will be visible in 2022 as the result of the collision of the 2 suns in the binary star system, named KIC9832227. which is 1,800 light years away. The two suns spin around each other every 11 hours and their orbits are increasing in speed.

I guess that the announcement coming from Calvin of an event such as a "New Star"  can only be assumed to be "pre-destined".

[Mr. Ypsi]

I take this break from Men's Basketball to post this link from a news conference at Calvin College yesterday, Epiphany 2017.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/06/spectacular-collision-suns-will-create-new-star-night-sky-2022/

Calvin Astronomy Professor Larry Molnar has predicted the birth of "new star" that will be visible in 2022 as the result of the collision of the 2 suns in the binary star system, named KIC9832227. which is 1,800 light years away. The two suns spin around each other every 11 hours and their orbits are increasing in speed.

I guess that the announcement coming from Calvin of an event such as a "New Star"  can only be assumed to be "pre-destined".

I don't know about 'pre-destined', but if it will be visible in 2022 and is 1800 light years away, the collision actually occurred 1795 years ago - talk about old news!

[FyteOnne]

Albion is not streaming the game from Kresge tonight for free.

Wow. They used to stream but it appears on both the MIAA and Albion websites that they dropped it this season. I'm not at all learned in this area... so how much does it cost a school to operate and stream a lone camera from the top of the bleachers? For example, Adrian's feed is terrible, but at least I can watch without having to spend 5 hours in the car heading to and from Adrian.

Albion has streamed video of all five games at Kresge so far this season.  They are also all still available through the YouTube channel.  Sometimes the link isn't on the schedule until just before the game.  They haven't had announcers yet this season, but they usually do for some of the conference games when the students are back at school. 

I think Albion does a great job with the video.  The video is better quality than it was the first few years, though Albion was one of the first in the MIAA to stream video, and when it started, I was just glad to be able to see the games!  I like that they keep the audio from the gym, even without the announcers.  The games Albion played at Trine earlier this season were silent, which made me (as well as GoBrits and Mrs. GoBrits) realize we like the noise.     (This is probably not the case when Trine is actually playing in the game, and I really do appreciate them streaming the video at all!)

[sac]

Can't remember if its been posted here but Olivet has a "commitment" from East Lansing 6-3 guard DeAndre' Robinson. 

[oldknight]

Calvin with their second straight heart stopping win, this time over Albion 71-70. A Michael Welch put back with 30 seconds left followed by stout defense on the Brits final possession was just enough to give the Knights a 2-0 conference record heading into next Wednesday's home game against Olivet. Calvin looked passionless for the first thirty plus minutes and I held out little hope for a comeback. As sac correctly noted to me at halftime, the Knights seemed pretty content to simply pass the ball around the perimeter until someone chucked the ball up without really probing the Albion interior defense. It wasn't until under 8 minutes--with Albion holding a 60-50 lead--that Calvin players finally starting taking the ball inside on repeated possessions, thereby putting the visiting team on their heals. It led to many trips to stripe and was led by Wilkes and Denney who combined to take 10 free throws down the stretch. Wins are going to come tough and be ugly all year for this team I suspect. Other game notes:

--a very interesting final 30 seconds after the Welch basket that proved to be the game winner. Both teams had chances to call timeouts and neither did. With Albion choosing to run the clock down, Canonie was talking to KVS asking if he wanted a foul. Foul he did with 6.7 seconds left and the Knights having one to give. Neither team chose to sub or call timeout at that point either and Canonie played excellent one-on-one defense against Darius Branch forcing a difficult shot that hit nothing but air. I'm not critical of either coach for their choice but would find it fascinating to hear both Jody May and KVS explain their thinking in letting it all play out. Having the final possession run without a timeout (or even a substitution) actually made the final 30 seconds quite exciting.

--Denney can be a frustrating player to watch but he does some things quite well. A solid stat line as he scored 19, grabbed 8 boards and dished 7 assists.

--Dylan Bennett--who has hardly played this year, and didn't play at all against Hope--went 6-9 from the arc and 8-11 overall. Bennett had 26 total points for the season coming into the game and scored 22 at VNA. Weird.

[Ralph Turner]

I take this break from Men's Basketball to post this link from a news conference at Calvin College yesterday, Epiphany 2017.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/06/spectacular-collision-suns-will-create-new-star-night-sky-2022/

Calvin Astronomy Professor Larry Molnar has predicted the birth of "new star" that will be visible in 2022 as the result of the collision of the 2 suns in the binary star system, named KIC9832227. which is 1,800 light years away. The two suns spin around each other every 11 hours and their orbits are increasing in speed.

I guess that the announcement coming from Calvin of an event such as a "New Star"  can only be assumed to be "pre-destined".

I don't know about 'pre-destined', but if it will be visible in 2022 and is 1800 light years away, the collision actually occurred 1795 years ago - talk about old news!

Yeah that is older news than the Treaty of Ghent and the Battle of New Orleans.

As for your comment about "pre-destined", I have never figured you for being Calvinistic, good friend.

I am partial to Wesleyan Universities myself. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

I take this break from Men's Basketball to post this link from a news conference at Calvin College yesterday, Epiphany 2017.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/06/spectacular-collision-suns-will-create-new-star-night-sky-2022/

Calvin Astronomy Professor Larry Molnar has predicted the birth of "new star" that will be visible in 2022 as the result of the collision of the 2 suns in the binary star system, named KIC9832227. which is 1,800 light years away. The two suns spin around each other every 11 hours and their orbits are increasing in speed.

I guess that the announcement coming from Calvin of an event such as a "New Star"  can only be assumed to be "pre-destined".

I don't know about 'pre-destined', but if it will be visible in 2022 and is 1800 light years away, the collision actually occurred 1795 years ago - talk about old news!

Yeah that is older news than the Treaty of Ghent and the Battle of New Orleans.

As for your comment about "pre-destined", I have never figured you for being Calvinistic, good friend.

I am partial to Wesleyan Universities myself. 

Heck, the Treaty of Ghent and the Battle of New Orleans are barely over 200 years ago - when the collision occurred Rome as still the dominant power in the (known to Europeans) world, and Aurelius Augustinus (better know as St. Augustine) was still waiting almost 150 years to be born!  We're talkin' OLD news!

Nope, never been a Calvinist, but I was a religion major my first 3 years at IWU, so quite familiar with the concept of predestination.

[sac]

Hope 97  Olivet 76

Hope played perhaps its finest half of basketball this year in the first half at both ends of the floor and led 54-22 at halftime.  Defensively they held Olivet's two big scorers Ewing and Washington to 6 points, 3 each.   Offensively Hope was a machine shooting 65% including 9-16 from behind the arc where they frequently passed up likely contested 3's for wide open ones, sometimes more than once.  Some truly beautiful basketball to watch.

The 2nd half happened, some fouls were called and we all went home....eventually.

Hope:  Carlson 15, Blackledge 13, Hawkins 12, McGivney 10
Olivet:  Ewing 17, Lewis 11, Way 10, Washington 10.

[sac]

--a very interesting final 30 seconds after the Welch basket that proved to be the game winner. Both teams had chances to call timeouts and neither did. With Albion choosing to run the clock down, Canonie was talking to KVS asking if he wanted a foul. Foul he did with 6.7 seconds left and the Knights having one to give. Neither team chose to sub or call timeout at that point either and Canonie played excellent one-on-one defense against Darius Branch forcing a difficult shot that hit nothing but air. I'm not critical of either coach for their choice but would find it fascinating to hear both Jody May and KVS explain their thinking in letting it all play out. Having the final possession run without a timeout (or even a substitution) actually made the final 30 seconds quite exciting.

Albion was in such a tough spot here.  Hind site is 20/20 but it might have been better to call a TO or run some weave(or both) and hope that Calvin gave up that foul a little earlier than 6.8 seconds to play.  Having watched Albion a few times I knew their options were very limited at that point.  Albion had Burks, Zahran, Bennet, Branch and Fordham on the floor.   Albion's big guys Burks and Zahran are like large rocks going down hill, they need loads of space and take forever to get the ball into the lane, way more than the 6.8 would allow after some kind of entry pass.   Albion has this habit of always inbounding the ball to its PG, which meant the ball was in Branch's hands and he would be the guy to deliver the pass or take the shot.

Albion's options were basically
Zahran -- slow rock, has to go down hill
Burks  -- bigger slow rock
Fordham  -- having a bad day
Bennett  --  having a career day
Branch --- Albion's best player the last 5 or 6 games

I've watched Branch hit that same shot a number of times this year, it seems like the one he's most comfortable with.  He's obviously better when he has a chance to square up rather than moving to his right like anyone would,  but Calvin defended it very well and from my vantage point you could tell he had to alter his shooting angle to get it on the rim.  Calvin made it a tough shot.   I didn't see a lot of movement from Albion anywhere else, so it looked like the play they wanted, if any play was called at all.


Albion played a better game than any of the others I've watched but they still don't know where to go late in games when they really need a basket, and can't rely on that defense to get a stop when they really need one.  Albion just gets stuck in the last 8 minutes and can't find enough offense or defense. 



The killer for me was this sequence:
06:33    WHEELER,COREY made layup    64-55    
06:33       -    Foul by WELCH,MICHAEL
06:33    WHEELER,COREY missed free throw    -    
06:33    DAVIS,ADAM offensive rebound    -    
06:24    BRANCH,DARIUS missed jump shot

That was a chance to make it an 11 point game and could certainly have run more time off the clock than 9 seconds, Albion actually got another crack to make it 11 the next time down and I think that was a really bad miss by Wheeler late in the shot clock.  They might have weathered the storm if they got a bucket there.  After that it seemed to all go wrong for them.  But geez, they gave up 4 offensive rebounds that resulted in points the last 3 minutes and had one defensive stop the last 6 minutes and that wasn't really one when Denny missed 2 FT's.


This Calvin team does a lot of very un-Calvin like things, but you probably already know that.  I'd expect a lot of games like this one. 

[GreatScot!?]

Alma 79-76 over Adrian. The Scots were down 13 with around 12 minutes to go in the game and the young squad came back and won showing poise and toughness down the stretch. As SAC mentioned on twitter, 3 out of our 4 leading scorers were freshman with Stevens putting up an impressive 17-5-3, he's going to be really good folks. Adrian is tough, switching screens and being very physical on slips and rollers. Davonte Harris put a very efficient 43 freaking points on 14-22 shooting, 6-7 for 3 and 9-10 from the line, kids a baller. Webster was also very hard to handle getting o-boards and shooting lots of FT's. Tough game on the road and great win for the Scots, on to Hope Wednesday in what should be a very exciting game!

[ipoint]

This conference seems wide open this year. Hope is clearly the best on paper, but Alma may factor in. The league seems really down, though. Calvin has gotten off to a good start.