MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[bgwd41]

Is there any way to get tickets for tomorrow's game?  Can I even drive out to Holland tomorrow morning and still be able to get tickets?  Help me people.

[John Gleich]

LaCrosse reminded me of a football team playing basketball.

Interestingly, Werner went to UWLaX to play football and decided not to play in his first year.  He then asked the basketball coach if he could try out... Hmm... 6'7" 240, ripped... yeah, I think we can find a jersey for you.

[John Gleich]

... and OUCH!  27-45 from the free-throw line?  If La Crosse makes all of their free throws, they win this game!  ... on the other side of the coin, if Calvin makes all of theirs, it looks like a blowout... hmmm...

[hope1]

i can not wait till tonight  at 7.00  schould be a good game   hope by  12 over calvin  with the ladder

[hope1]

we waited in line till  10.30 last night for tickets must been 11.30 till every hope reserved fan  got the tickets  got in line at 15.00 left in game

[arena]

I called the Calvin Boxoffice.  There are 100 tickets available there.  Since I just called, I'm sure there are many people in line, so, I guess I'll have to listen to Mr. Wentworth's call of Calvin's win on the radio.

[albionbritfan]

HOPE 93 Wisc-Lutheran 51
I've been a D3 fan for about 16 years.......in that time I've often envied the easy first round game those Northeast powers have played.   Tonight I saw one.

It's these and some other games from last night such as Bethany that causes this Albion fan to gnash his teeth.

Should be a good game today.  There won't be any surprises tonight for either team; execution is the key.

[oldknight]

My random thoughts for the night.

-----Tonight was fun but I'm not totally sold on this regional concept, Calvin deserved a home game out of this deal, on the other hand the NCAA did give us a better overall draw moving teams around more.  

----My thoughts on officiating, I thought both the MIAA teams had a little trouble adjusting.  I'm not sure what it was but it was a little different than MIAA officiating.  

Calvin's game against LaCrosse was almost as good as playing at home and DeVos is an excellent and extremely nice venue to hold an NCAA tournament game (though I think about 500 more seats would have been just about right for DeVos). Even with a large segment of the crowd having no emotional stake in the outcome I'm sure LaCrosse felt like they were playing a road game, not one at a neutral site, and I'm pretty sure the Calvin players were quite comfortable with the surroundings. Of course it helped when plays like Zoerhof's dunk and Smith's half court shot get the fans' blood moving as it did. The way the first half ended was pretty deflating for LaCrosse I thought and their coach even commented on it in the paper.

I guess I stand corrected in my perceptions on the first half officiating. No other poster who was at the game seems to think the refs (imperfect as they may be) did a poor job so apparently it was just me. Some of you (sac included) did point that with an out of state officiating crew it seemed to throw the players off balance. Maybe it pulled me off balance for a time too because I thought the officiating in the second half was better. Maybe I adjusted to the refs and the officiating didn't change so much as the person watching the game.

[albinomascot19]

Hope clearly has the edge in the game...they have yet to lose at Devos, and playing in front of a sellout crowd also helps.  However its the 2nd round of the NCAA round and anything is possible....this is where dreams are made.    

[oldknight]

A couple of other thoughts from last night.

I was expecting more from the Wisconsin teams. I expected Hope to win by a comfortable margin but 42 points? That's embarrassing. I also thought that if these teams are representative of play across the lake then we play a lot better defense in the MIAA than they do. It seemed to me the main reason is because the team concept on defense is stronger with MIAA teams than what we saw displayed by the cheeseheads last night. The Wisconsin teams play hard enough as individual defenders, it just seemed that when Calvin and Hope ran their offenses for about 20 seconds that defensive breakdowns occurred with regularity leading to open looks, something that happens with far less frequency in our conference.

Werner of LaCrosse is a stud. I'm not surprised to found out that he is a football player first. I don't know what position he plays on the gridiron but my son commented about midway through the first half how Werner would make a great tight end. He could use a little more polishing with his post play but he was a man among boys on the boards.

[arena]

I called the Calvin Boxoffice.  There are 100 tickets available there.  Since I just called, I'm sure there are many people in line, so, I guess I'll have to listen to Mr. Wentworth's call of Calvin's win on the radio.

Well, I guess I will get to the game tonight.  Got tickets.

[pointlem]

Hope clearly has the edge in the game...they have yet to lose at Devos, and playing in front of a sellout crowd also helps.  However its the 2nd round of the NCAA round and anything is possible....this is where dreams are made.    

Ah yes, and we've all seen dreams made and dreams die in this.  As a Hope fan thinking about tonight, I have deja vu for 1992.  Hope dominated the league that year with what was arguably its best team ever, led by Wade Gugino and Eric Elliott (both still playing professional basketball today).  They beat Calvin by 20 points, as I recall, the prior Saturday.  They had the home court.  But Calvin came in and upset them at the Holland Civic Center, thanks to a game tying last second basket by a Holland Christian grad.  I still remember a disconsolate Eric Elliott escaping the floor after missing his desparation last minute overtime shots, and Wade Gugino trying to get through the Calvin pile-up to congratulate Steve Honderd (classy gesture, at that point).  And then (dreams were made as well as killed that night) the MIAA's second place team went on to get their first banner.   That, even more than the B-W loss that has been mentioned here, was the most painful defeat in my years of watching Hope BB.

Calvin did the MIAA proud last night.  And with Trewhella, Veldhouse, and Drayer all averaging 40 to 45 percent of the 3-point shots this season, is certainly capable---if they're hitting them, as they were last night---of sending Hope and its fans home depressed again.   I look forward to tonight, and I dread it.  If Calvin loses, they'll be sad, but still able (I sense from OldKnight and others) to celebrate an impressive season that's a credit to their team and coach.  If Hope loses, they'll have had a great season, too.  But the pain will linger longer.

[oldknight]

Hope clearly has the edge in the game...they have yet to lose at Devos, and playing in front of a sellout crowd also helps.  However its the 2nd round of the NCAA round and anything is possible....this is where dreams are made.    

Ah yes, and we've all seen dreams made and dreams die in this.  As a Hope fan thinking about tonight, I have deja vu for 1992.  Hope dominated the league that year with what was arguably its best team ever, led by Wade Gugino and Eric Elliott (both still playing professional basketball today).  They beat Calvin by 20 points, as I recall, the prior Saturday.  They had the home court.  But Calvin came in and upset them at the Holland Civic Center, thanks to a game tying last second basket by a Holland Christian grad.  I still remember a disconsolate Eric Elliott escaping the floor after missing his desparation last minute overtime shots, and Wade Gugino trying to get through the Calvin pile-up to congratulate Steve Honderd (classy gesture, at that point).  And then (dreams were made as well as killed that night) the MIAA's second place team went on to get their first banner.   That, even more than the B-W loss that has been mentioned here, was the most painful defeat in my years of watching Hope BB.

Calvin did the MIAA proud last night.  And with Trewhella, Veldhouse, and Drayer all averaging 40 to 45 percent of the 3-point shots this season, is certainly capable---if they're hitting them, as they were last night---of sending Hope and its fans home depressed again.   I look forward to tonight, and I dread it.  If Calvin loses, they'll be sad, but still able (I sense from OldKnight and others) to celebrate an impressive season that's a credit to their team and coach.  If Hope loses, they'll have had a great season, too.  But the pain will linger longer.

I think you are thinking about 91 not 92 because the year Calvin won it all they were undefeated in the conference and went 31-1 overall losing only at North Park I believe (Greg Sager should remember, he surely would have been at the game). In 1991 Hope won the conference (with a 12-0 record) and Calvin upset Hope in the NCAA in a game played at the Civic (apparently on an illegal floor--so does the result count?) that went into overtime. As I remember it, that was Chris Knoester's freshmen year and also his coming out party as he hit some big 3's down the stretch to put the Knights over the top to beat an excellent Hope squad who had defeated Calvin both times during the regular season.

You're right about my pride in this year's version of the Knights. Win or lose tonight they have had a wonderful season but I expect Hope to win. It's possible that Hope will come out tight and Calvin with a carefree attitude about tonight's result which would influence the game (probably a Hope fan's worst fear) but I really think the Hope players are tough enough mentally to avoid this pitfall. They seem now to recognize that their strength comes as much through their commitment to team play as through their individual talents (which are many) and even without having seen other teams in our sectional play I think Hope is the favorite to go to Salem. But the longer the Knights can hang around tonight the more nervous Hope fans will get. So let's make them nervous.

[kcrest]

Hope clearly has the edge in the game...they have yet to lose at Devos, and playing in front of a sellout crowd also helps.  However its the 2nd round of the NCAA round and anything is possible....this is where dreams are made.    

Ah yes, and we've all seen dreams made and dreams die in this.  As a Hope fan thinking about tonight, I have deja vu for 1992.  Hope dominated the league that year with what was arguably its best team ever, led by Wade Gugino and Eric Elliott (both still playing professional basketball today).  They beat Calvin by 20 points, as I recall, the prior Saturday.  They had the home court.  But Calvin came in and upset them at the Holland Civic Center, thanks to a game tying last second basket by a Holland Christian grad.  I still remember a disconsolate Eric Elliott escaping the floor after missing his desparation last minute overtime shots, and Wade Gugino trying to get through the Calvin pile-up to congratulate Steve Honderd (classy gesture, at that point).  And then (dreams were made as well as killed that night) the MIAA's second place team went on to get their first banner.   That, even more than the B-W loss that has been mentioned here, was the most painful defeat in my years of watching Hope BB.

Calvin did the MIAA proud last night.  And with Trewhella, Veldhouse, and Drayer all averaging 40 to 45 percent of the 3-point shots this season, is certainly capable---if they're hitting them, as they were last night---of sending Hope and its fans home depressed again.   I look forward to tonight, and I dread it.  If Calvin loses, they'll be sad, but still able (I sense from OldKnight and others) to celebrate an impressive season that's a credit to their team and coach.  If Hope loses, they'll have had a great season, too.  But the pain will linger longer.

Yep Calvin was 31-1 in 1992 and the loss came at Xmas time on the road vs North Park.  After that Calvin finished the season with about a 20-game winning streak (or thereabouts).  Didn't lose to Hope that year.

I see that the game will be televised tonight in Holland only.  Comcast 15 and Charter 22.  Wonder if Comcast GR could be convinced to pick up a feed?  I'm calling them that's for sure!

Dren, I have no doubts my daughter could take your niece.  Let's talk offline about how to make it happen.  Winner gets a big foam hat.

Hope fans may want to make hotel reservations for next weekend (and for Salem).  It's all starting to come together for the Dutch.  I've seen this before - in 1992 and 2000. 

Also, game time tonight is 7 pm despite what the tickets say. 

[sac]

and playing in front of a sellout crowd also helps.

1/3 of those seats will be filled with maroon and gold.  More than any other game this season.


I wouldn't draw too many conclusions about Wisconsin teams from last night...........LaCrosse could compete in the MIAA, but defensively they aren't on the same level as Hope, Calvin and Albion.  But how many are?

Wisc Lutheran was an upset winnner of the LMC, traditionally a pretty weak conference to begin with.  I think against teams of similar makeup they probably are pretty competitive, but against the upper tier teams from the CCIW, WIAC, MIAA .......they have no chance.

After reading their stats and looking at scores I expected a little more competitive team.  Maybe Hope just played that well, I don't know.



......and thus begins the LONG wait for 7 pm.  <sigh>