MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[AlwaysHope]

The Hope website just announced that Stevens Point is where we are officially going on Friday night, a distance of 400 miles from Holland.  As already announced, we will be playing on Friday night vs.Carroll, WI (18-8).  Anyone know of any chartered bus leaving Holland?  Or a chartered Lake Express?

As I was leaving the Aurora gym on Sat. night, a security guard started to talk to me.  Among other things, he said it was the first time he had ever seen players and fans from the two teams talking to each other after the game, as if they knew each other.  Since I had a long drive to Grand Rapids waiting for me, I decided I did not have the time to explain "The Rivalry."  He already knew that the rivalry was tied at 83-83.

[oldknight]

Thanks for the link Titan Q; that nails it down.

[HopeConvert]

My heart rate has returned to normal. Kudos to GVW for taking Cramer out of the game with a minute left so he could have his moment in the sun after playing two of the finest games I have witnessed in a long time. (I have to confess I was a little stunned as I was thinking the outcome was still in doubt! The final score was not indicative of how well Calvin hung in there.) Kudos to Cramer for thanking each of his teammates after the game. Kudos to DeVries for his classy gesture with the Dew Crew. Kudos to Calvin's seniors for great careers. Kudos to Mantel for showing us all what a special player he is going to be.

Prior to the game we were at Culvers in Aurora and bumped into a couple of tables of Calvin fans and had some nice conversations together. At the end, we wished each other's team luck for the game. This is one of the things that makes this rivalry so wonderful. It's like when I play games against my brother: I want to beat his brains on the court or the links, but then buy him a tall one when it's done. It was great to see both teams well represented at the games.

Sac, CM, FDF: great to enjoy the game with you. We gotta work on those high fives a little though.

[diehardfan]

Sac, CM, FDF: great to enjoy the game with you. We gotta work on those high fives a little though.

So, uh, where is Sac (our favorite MIAA sandbagger/pessemist)? I would have thought he'd have been all over this board with his game recaps by now after such a great weekend for his team and the MIAA? Did he get caught speeding or blasting through the I-Pass lane one to many times and get taken to prison?



Incidentally, I am almost definitely coming to Stevens Point next weekend. Here's hoping I get to see a lot of old friends and meet a lot of you there!

[HopeConvert]

As to the game itself:

Hope's defense did an outstanding job on Griffin and Veltema. I was surprised to see Griffin actually launched 5 3-pt attempts. It didn't seem like that, because he never had a clear look (but was victimized by the most bizarre double-dribble call I have ever seen). Veltema had NO shots from the floor. That is amazing, and is a huge difference from the previous two games. Hope trapped and doubled less than they had, to their advantage. Very interesting call by KVS to start Zoerhof in an attempt to rein in Cramer. Even then, we are seeing that when Cramer wants to shoot, he will get a shot off against taller defenders simply because he elevates so high on his shots, and his release point is high as well.

The big difference is that Hope didn't allow themselves to get in the hole early. I never felt comfortable, since there were so many runs in the first half, but I sure felt good about having an 8-point lead at the half. GVW did two nice things in the second half, I thought. First, he had a line-up on the floor with about 12 minutes left where he didn't have a lot of scoring options. He slowed the game down, working the clock and allowing his shooters to rest. The big play in that sequence was Jager's huge 3 with about 2 seconds left on the shot clock. Once he got the starters back in at about the 9 minute mark he had them push the ball hard up the floor. It looked to me like Calvin ran out of gas at that point. Hope probably owes an assist to Aurora on that one (although we are talking about 18-22 year-olds). The one play that amazed me in that sequence was when Cramer put up a shot inside, which missed, and then got hammered after grabbing the rebound. I've never seen someone jump/land/jump that quickly before. I have no idea how he got back up in the air again that fast (and not even he has that kind of hangtime).

The visiting team won all five games this year. Odd.

[Dutch_Man]

I really thought GVW did a great job coaching the boys this weekend and especially last night. I feel like he mixed up our offense a bit. They ran a lot of high screens and drove the ball in and kicked it out and swung it around and found the open player.  It almost looked like the way Calvin played against us at DeVos. I even liked seeing Cramer bring the ball up at the point a few times in the first half! It really freed up his teammates on the perimeter. I believe Calvin only had 4 3-pointers all game and Hope had 8 in the first half. That was a huge difference in this game compared to the previous two games they played.  Hopes defense really shut down Derrik Griffin and didnt let him get in the zone. The Dew Crew was all over him right from the start when he airballed his first 3-pointer (haha I dont think he really airballed it either, I believe it was tipped) But he wasnt able to do much after that. The Dutchmen came to play last night against Calvin (its about time)

I think there will be a charter bus for students this next weekend. I am in the process of getting that set up.

[hope1]

what hotel is the hope fans looking to stay at just wondering

[Dark Knight]

Well, it sounds as though Calvin could use another 3-point weapon for next year. Fortunately, there's a good one coming up from the JVs who hit 51% of his 3-point attempts this season and averaged 2 hits per game. That would make him tops in the MIAA among players who scored at least 1.5 treys per game.

He's hard to block, too, because he's 6'9". 

[northb]

So........any news on recruits?  Transfers?     

[Flying Dutch Fan]

No time to think about recruits or transfers right now   
and shooting 54% from three in JV games does not necessarily transfer to the same in the varsity games 

This weekend was a chance to watch some really good basketball, and a time to be proud of the MIAA.

Hope vs Chicago
With the patented easy bucket off the opening tip, Hope was ready to go right from the start.  The defense Hope played was almost as impressive as Cramer's night of shooting.  That first half by Steve was amazing - probably the best half I have ever seen by a single player.  The second half was really a case of Chicago being so concerned with Cramer, that it opened up the inside for Hope, and the Dutchmen just controlled the game.

Calvin vs Aurora
Calvin played a great first half, and lead by as many as 20 in the first half.  We had resigned ourselves to The Game V by half, but decided to see what happened in the first 5 minutes of the second before we left.  Glad we did, as Aurora came out with some improved defense, and some fire on offense.  The Aurora crowd was loud and into it, and it was a great run to the final buzzer.  Calvin struggled a bit in the second half, but found a way to win - as it seems only Calvin can.  I said as soon as that game was over, that the Knights might have some fatigue factors on Saturday, as they expended a lot of energy to win on Friday.

Hope vs Calvin part V
Given the history of this rivalry this year, I was pumped to see that Hope wa in their road uniforms   .  Hope's defense was the definitive difference in this game.  Rather than playing some specifically designed defense for Calvin, they played them straight up without doubling the post.  In the first half, this netted Mantel some big points.  The foul line kept Calvin in the game at the half with Calvin going 16-17 while Hope was 1-1 (which was a four point play by Cramer).  Hope did a better job of denying the entry pass in the second half, and played great D on the shooters.  Cramer was great again, but I thought Partridge's defense and 10 points off the bench were huge.  Big 3's from Reimink, and the dagger 3 from Marcus put the game away.

Great careers from Snoeyink, Mekes, and Bear DeVries.  All class guys, and I was fortunate enough to tell them so last night.

So on to Wisconsin - for some beer and cheese and basketball. 

I'm sure we'll hear from sac sometime tonight, when/if he gets back from celebrating in Chicago

[Gregory Sager]

It is starting to look like the MIAA will have atleast one team in the second round.   Great game Hope.  Does this mean the MIAA wasn't quite as bad as we thught it was all year?

Conference reputations are pretty much fixed in December. If some teams in a conference take longer to get their act together, the conference still has a bad external record.

I don't think we really have very much information about the relative strength of some conferences until a few NCAA tourney games have been played.

I don't agree, because only the topmost teams from any conference get into the tourney; sometimes it's only one team that gets in. On the other hand, non-conference play reflects the level of the league as a whole.

Actually, by this time we've got very good information about how the teams in a conference compare. If you were to learn that one team is much stronger or weaker than previously thought with respect to the rest of DIII, you'd have good information about the whole conference.

However, just one or two post-season games don't give a very good indication of the strength of a team. Suggestive evidence, really.

Take the women's ASC as an extreme example. Massey has 4 teams from that conference in the top 6. However, although we know pretty well how the teams in that conference compare with each other, they each play only about 4 out-of-conference games, early in teh season. The strength of the whole conference could be skewed.

If both ASC teams were to lose early in the tourney, we'd have suggestive info that the other teams in the conference were overrated as well. Make that, if the other ASC team also loses early.

That's not a germane analogy, because the ASC is an outlier example among conferences as far as conference/non-conference schedules are concerned. It's so isolated geographically by D3 standards that its teams play almost no games against outside D3 teams between them -- and it's so huge that even a reduced schedule of double round-robin games within divisions and single round-robin games across their divisions eats up the vast majority of their schedules.

[monsoon]

Stevens Point, here we come...

[John Gleich]

Here's some hotel info in the Stevens Point area:

http://www.eastcentral-wi.worldweb.com/StevensPointWI/WheretoStay/HotelsMotels/

The Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express are brand new (finished last summer).  The Country Springs Hotel and Convention Center  USED to be the Holiday Inn in town and is recently renevated (finished last summer).  The Comfort Inn and Country Inn and Suites are both very nice as well.

[dumezrules]

Here's some hotel info in the Stevens Point area:

http://www.eastcentral-wi.worldweb.com/StevensPointWI/WheretoStay/HotelsMotels/

The Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express are brand new (finished last summer).  The Country Springs Hotel and Convention Center  USED to be the Holiday Inn in town and is recently renevated (finished last summer).  The Comfort Inn and Country Inn and Suites are both very nice as well.

Holiday inn express was booked for the weekend already this am....

I will find a way to root on the Dutchmen this weekend....had to send elementary hoopster to watch Sat. night and got the lowdown from him.  He said "it was the most fun game EVER"  then proceeded to give me a Cramer play by play.....said they ran the high ball screen with Cramer and Reimink alot....leading to a couple of 3's by Reimink and isolating Cramer....that play worked great in the 2nd half in the MIAA championship game.  Wondered if they would use it even more. 

[sac]

 I'm a bit embarrassed to admit but........I thought I could save a few miles and cut across the lake, so I headed to Milwaukee to catch the ferry, only to find out service doesn't start untill April 14.  I tried explaining to the manager how badly this messes up the D3 world of athletics.  He just sort of looked at me with a blank stare..........I thought it was best to just leave.   


ps:  not really