MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Grutte Dirk]

One more thing before I shut up.

No. Never shut-up. I enjoy it too much for any limit.

Others have made good followup comments, but I will add a few more. May it continue.

Yes. This is correct thinking.

[Grutte Dirk]

But we have a family-friendly board, and I want to keep it that way.

I find it odd (keeping it family-friendly) that both Championships have a 7:30 PM tip-off.
Why not back-to-back so we can enjoy each stream? (serious question for you all)

[Dutchman17]

Such a bad loss for Hope.  Played with so much energy and hustle in the first half, and then reverted to their horrible slow half court offense in the second half.  It's not just "they shot poorly in the second half".  Your shooting is going to get worse when you're flat footed and playing slow, or winding the shot clock down so far before doing anything.  Bad

[BigBallBoy]

Such a bad loss for Hope.  Played with so much energy and hustle in the first half, and then reverted to their horrible slow half court offense in the second half.  It's not just "they shot poorly in the second half".  Your shooting is going to get worse when you're flat footed and playing slow, or winding the shot clock down so far before doing anything.  Bad

Yeah, it is a tough loss.  However, I would give the Calvin team much of the credit for increasing defensive intensity and taking Hope out of what worked so well in the first half.  Can't fault Hope for lack of rebounding effort, defensive mettle, and a gutsy performance, even if they came up short. 

I enjoyed MIAA basketball this year and applaud all the student-athletes for their efforts.

[Dutchman17]

Calvin is a very good team, no question about it.  But Hope has to take responsibility for it too.  If Calvin comes out and changes the dynamic of the game, we've gotta find a way to fight back.  It's similar play from Hope that we've seen a good chunk of the year.  There are many times when they just do not put pressure on defenses

[wiz]

Coming from behind and controlling the second half is an indicator of superior coaching.

[pointlem]

An exciting game, with no discredit to Hope players and coaches for taking favored Calvin to the wire, and holding them to 62 points. After a great first half, coaching wasn't responsible for the missed point-blank layups at the start of the second half, for the missed free throws, or the 1 of 12 3-point shooting. Nevertheless, when Hope went ahead by 12 with less than 16 minutes to play, I was feeling optimistic and I daresay the inestimable Mrs. OldKnight was growing pessimistic.

Varnado for Calvin and Wourman for Hope were both pretty sensational. I'm looking forward to watching them (well, one of them) again next year.

Kudos to the seniors for all they've invested in developing their talent and gifting us with it, with a special shout-out to Zach Hawes for ending his career so impressively the last four games. Both Hope and Calvin are graduating some players that will be greatly missed, but bring back a lot of talent as well.

[Grutte Dirk]

... coaching wasn't responsible for... the 1 of 12 3-point shooting.

I didn't see Holland replicating their 1st half 6-9 (66%) 3-p shooting in the 2nd. With that quality, Holland needed to put the game out of reach, which didn't happen.

[sac]

Coming from behind and controlling the second half is an indicator of superior coaching.

"Superior coaching" is now 7-8 overall and 1-3 vs Hope in the MIAA Tournament while being the favorite 3 times. 



Have fun in the tournament, well deserved.  Calvin had a great conference season. 

[pointlem]

At the end of each half, the referees went to the monitor, apparently to assess the timing as a ball went out of bounds. Thanks to Calvin's excellent broadcast, we can--as morning after fans--see what the referees saw.

In the first, Marcus Wourman collides with Calvin players in the basket circle and falls to the floor while attempting a layup at 1.4 seconds. https://youtu.be/cimPQAze4JM?t=3443 After reviewing the play, the referees declared the half over with (a good? bad?) no call.

At the game's end, as you can see by pausing play, the ball hits out of bounds at 2.7 seconds. But the clock continues running to 1.4 seconds. (Likely the person running the clock couldn't see where the ball hit.) After presumably seeing what you can see, the referees reset the clock to 1.8 seconds. https://youtu.be/cimPQAze4JM?t=7427 Not that it would have mattered . . .

Regardless of where they go from here, kudos to Calvin for an amazing season, after losing Jalen for the year and starting the season 1-6. Who would have guessed?

[Grutte Dirk]

Coming from behind and controlling the second half is an indicator of superior coaching.

"Superior coaching" is now 7-8 overall and 1-3 vs Hope in the MIAA Tournament while being the favorite 3 times.

@wiz may be referring to yesterday's match. I'm just reading into the context.
I do like yore supporting Holland's coach–well done.

[oldknight]

An exciting game, with no discredit to Hope players and coaches for taking favored Calvin to the wire, and holding them to 62 points. After a great first half, coaching wasn't responsible for the missed point-blank layups at the start of the second half, for the missed free throws, or the 1 of 12 3-point shooting. Nevertheless, when Hope went ahead by 12 with less than 16 minutes to play, I was feeling optimistic and I daresay the inestimable Mrs. OldKnight was growing pessimistic.

Varnado for Calvin and Wourman for Hope were both pretty sensational. I'm looking forward to watching them (well, one of them) again next year.

Kudos to the seniors for all they've invested in developing their talent and gifting us with it, with a special shout-out to Zach Hawes for ending his career so impressively the last four games. Both Hope and Calvin are graduating some players that will be greatly missed, but bring back a lot of talent as well.

I'm back by popular demand. Well, maybe not popular, but at least there was some demand.

The inestimable Mrs. OldKnight did register some concern. Her less estimable husband's major concern was whether the turnaround he expected to see would come in time for Calvin to register a comeback that would cover the deficit. From long experience in Rivalry games, and from watching the 2024-25 version of Calvin's men's basketball, I was pretty sure that the Knights would make a run, but didn't know whether it would come on time and last long enough. By the sweat of my brow, it did.

Hope's first half was superb, featured good shooting that was fueled by solid ball movement and excellent defense that largely kept the home team at bay by forcing turnovers. Mrs. OldKnight perceptively noted that it's tough to score when you don't get a shot off. The turnaround came at the 16 minute mark of game when Hope took a 48-36 lead. From there, Calvin outscored Hope 26-11 to close out a hard fought 3 point win. Hope played the entire first half at high energy and I was wondering (Hoping?) they would start to run out of gas. Slowly but surely, the fuel started to show signs of leakage, a quality that I think was simultaneously the result of playing 3 games this week along with having to finish that stretch against a never-say-die Calvin defense that has just gotten better and better over the season.

The longer the game went, the tougher it got for Hope players to get off a good shot with their feet in position to comfortably leave the floor as they launched the ball. You could see it in the body language, and it seemed pretty much every shot Hope took the final 10-15 minutes was forced late in the shot clock. That explains Hope's shooting disparity between the first half (51%) and second half (24%). It wasn't just bad luck for Hope, nor poor decision making. Calvin's defense went into lockdown mode.

Of course, it helped that the Knights stopped turning the ball over. I looked at livestats early in the second half, and Calvin had committed 12 turnovers at that point. They finished the game with 14 TO's. Didn't hurt that with Hope up 56-53 with 5 minutes left, Daane Harvey banked in one the ugliest 3 point shots ever taken at Van Noord Arena. But as someone helpfully pointed out, it went in. 

[calvin_grad]

Not a D3 guru by any stretch. What are the chances Calvin will host the first weekend?

[Happy Calvin Guy]

As of this afternoon, I believe Calvin has the nation's longest active winning streak

[sac]

Not a D3 guru by any stretch. What are the chances Calvin will host the first weekend?

Illinois Wesleyan cannot host, so this part of the country will need a replacement, however there are about 3 teams rated higher in the latest NPI that could easily host.

Slim, but its out there.