MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[OC_SID]

Halftime score
Hope 18
Albion 16

Final Score
Hope 64
Albion 49

And this was two halves that were like totally different games.  According to the official CM stats at the half, Hope had 6 field goals, 6 free throws, and 19 rebounds.  She normally tracks turnovers, but in fear of running out of ink, she didn't.   My best guess is that  both teams had more turnovers than points in the first half - a lot of it due to the defense, but also both teams looked stiff and just out of it.

The second half had much better shooting, with the Hope defense at the same level as the first half, while the Britons defense slipped a bit.

Scary moment in the second half, when an Albion player fell out of bounds after launching a 3 and landed right on Coach Turner.  It appeared he hit his head and injured his leg.  After the game, he was walking on crutches and had his leg wrapped and iced.  

A quick look at the stats, you were right that there were more turnovers than points scored in the first half. Each team had eight turnovers.

[calvinite]

Calvin over Tri-State 56-48.  It was ugly.

All right, it was far from beautiful (Veldhouse 1 for 10, 16 turn overs - - some of which were inexcusable), and periods when Calvin was rusty and couldn't his a shot (start of the 2nd half).

But, there were some positive signs. First, I don't remember seeing this year as much movement on the offensive end as I did tonight. Veltema hit a few threes. The free throw percentage was up -- not where it should be, but at least watching the game I wasn't pulling my hair out like at some previous games. And, I thought Mantel played a more 'physical' game which I think he needs to do. Finally, I think it was good to see scoring from several players rather than just one to two players doing the majority of the scoring as has happened several times earlier this year.

Anyway, considering the lay-off and everything, things could have been worse.

[northb]

Scary moment in the second half, when an Albion player fell out of bounds after launching a 3 and landed right on Coach Turner.  It appeared he hit his head and injured his leg.  After the game, he was walking on crutches and had his leg wrapped and iced.  

the kid or the coach?

[GoKnights68]

An offensive struggle for both teams tonight.

Calvin forced a TON of turnovers tonight, which was nice to see.  Tri-State missed a lot of short shots, which never helps.

Calvin obviously struggled offensively as you can see by the score.  They sturggled to convert on fast-breaks, took a few too many 3-pointers, and just barely got any field-goals the second half.

Wasn't Veldhouses night.  Nice to see Van Harn get playing-time.  Englsma had a nice second half.

[bulldogalum]

Adrian 68
Olivet  66

F

A good day to be a Bulldog.

Let me just preface this by saying that Olivet is a much better basketball team than they've been in a long time.  They hired the right coach.  They're more disciplined, they play smarter, and they carry themselves better than I can ever remember.  This is a team that will only improve as the season goes on, even if it may not show up in their win/loss record.

Talking with folks after the game, the consensus seemed to be that this was a "meh" game.  You didn't get the impression that Adrian played its best game, but I don't think they were ever terrible.  They simply went out and, by and large, consistently did things well enough to win--but barely.

The first half was very much a back and forth affair.  Looking at the stats, I was surprised to see that Olivet was only 2 of 9 from 3 point range.  Seemed like they made more than that, but perhaps it was just that the two that they made came at inopportune times.

The Bulldogs struggled at times with settling into their offensive set, but when they did, they met with great success.  Defensively, Adrian was generally effective, but lacked intensity at times.  The half ended with a 37-35 Adrian lead.

I was fully expecting the Bulldogs to come out playing aggressive basketball in an effort to close out the Comets early in the second half, but got quite the opposite.  For the first 5 minutes of the second half, Olivet outscored Adrian 14-4, in large part due to the fact that the Bulldogs appeared to fall asleep for those minutes.  The next couple of minutes after that, the officials did their best to hurt Adrian (although I thought in general they called a good game).  For those two minutes, what had been a fairly lenient officiating crew suddenly started calling a tight game, including a couple of very shaky foul calls against Ryan Gallus, and "point of emphasis" intentional foul call on Ian Weber on a routine foul on a layup.  These calls didn't so much help Olivet on the scoreboard so much as it stifled any momentum Adrian might have been getting through its defensive pressure.

As much as I disagreed with the intentional foul call, it seemed to be the spark the Bulldogs needed.  After that call, the intensity level increased considerably, and eventually the scoreboard righted itself.  Once Adrian made it all the way back with 8:35 to go, I never really doubted that Adrian was going to find a way to win the game.

So who played well for the Bulldogs?  Ian Weber had a great second half, and was the spark that the team needed.  Grabbing 12 boards over the McClary brothers is nothing to sneeze at.  Matt Wayne had his best game of the year.  Finally, he looked like he did early last season before his injury--aggressively attacking the basket and providing a nice complement to Weber down low.  Lamar Cardenas, recently returned from injury, also had a good game.  The Bulldogs really missed him early in the season, and it was nice to see him back on the floor.

Now it's on to Angola to take on the Thunder.  These games always tend to get a little chippy, and it's always good to leave Indiana with a victory.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to sac, FDF and gohope.  Nice win for y'all tonight.

[sac]

the kid or the coach?

The coach, it looked pretty bad, he sat most of the 2nd half and when he did stand immediately collapsed and sat back down.  Hope it turns out better than it looked.



Judging by boxscores, first hand accounts and my own eyeballs, the 9 or 10 days off between games for most teams was pretty much a disaster.

[sac]

Hope 64 Albion 49

Brutal---best word to describe the 1st half.  It started out as really good tough defense, 3 minutes in everyone looked exhausted.  The half gradually turned into just plain sloppy play by both teams with intermitant moments of really good defense.  Neither team could leave the floor happy at the half but both were probably ecstatic the other didn't bury them before halftime.  Both teams had that chance, but neither could find any consistent offensive rythem.

I've seen these two teams suffocate each other many times in one half but can't recall both doing it at the same time.  It wasn't very long ago, Albion held Hope to 15 1st half points.

I wanted to say first one to 40 wins, (turns out that held true also) but I really felt 50 was the magic number.  One of these teams was going to break out in the 2nd half, and fortunately for Dutchmen fans it was Hope.  Hope did a few things to try and quicken the pace, a little full court press, some break out passing but Albion just did a great job controlling the pace really.  The difference for Hope came 2 ways.....1) they seemed to make the extra pass they weren't doing in the first half and got some easier puppies, 2) they finally hit some outside shots to balance out the offense a little. 

Key moments in the game was kind of an odd one from a Hope perspective.  After Ryan Klein picked up a technical (the absolute last person on Hope's team you'd expect to get one) Albion hit the FT's and back to back 3's to take a 29-26 lead at a point when Hope looked to be taking over the ballgame.  Then Hope suddenly fires in 3 straight 3's the first two from the no conscience freshman Ty Tanis and then Derek VanSolkema.  Hope was 0-for the game from 3 to that point, but to be honest really weren't looking for 3's the whole game. 36-31 in the blink of an eye really.

From that point on, Hope seemed to be more fluid on the offensive end, even though they really didn't get a whole lot more FG's, they just had better movement and a better plan.  Ryan Klein's big 3 with 5 1/2 left seemed to be the dagger  that Albion couldn't recover from, and Hope was able to force an awfull lot of 1 and done's on the defensive end.  The lead was double digits the final 5 minutes, maybe not really indicative of how even the two teams played each other tonight.  In the end Hope was a touch better at both ends of the floor and that got them this 'W'.

A solid win protecting the home floor.

Wolfe 16, VanSolkema 13, Klein  10

Mocini 13........he had some outstanding minutes for the Brits.

[gohope]

Hope vs. Albion

Well... that was a game! Some thoughts from the upper row:

*  First of all, I just got home from the game and all of the "Birthday Celebrating!!!"  CM - I know where you live.....  

*  An interesting note - there were no Freshman players on Albion's team.  

*  Final score of the first half - Hope 18, Albion 16. When you look at that score you might wonder if you had flashed back to the 70's  - no shot clock and that good ole four corner stall. But it was just lots of turnovers, poor shooting, and possibly the "first MIAA game" jitters.

*  Then came the second half. Hope's defense definitely showed up, as did the shooting and the assists. My favorite moment was with about 5 minutes left in the game, Hope is driving and Jesse Reimink has the ball, with the majority of the DeVos thinking that he's going for the hoop and then he dishes the ball off to Tyler Wolfe - it was PRICELESS!!

* Since our seats are behind the benches, we were not able to see the player go into Coach Turner. But we did wonder why he didn't get up for time-outs, or do much coaching during the 2nd half on the sideline. But after talking to people after the game and reading some posts, we'll just HOPE that things are okay for Coach Turner and add him to our prayer list!

*  Well - it was a "W" for the Flying Dutchmen. And Whew! that one is done.  Maybe when I recover from all my BIRTHDAY PARTYING I'll take a look at the stats, etc.

[gohope]

p.s. It was GREAT to see Jeff Seidel at the game. Jeff was previously a sports reporter for the GR Press and now works for the Detroit Free Press. Probably should check out www.freep.com tomorrow!

[sac]

Couple thoughts

----Guy sitting next to me first asks if "this place is new", then asks while scanning the crowd "is this a rivalry or something" (attendance 3200).  Turns out it was Kzoo JV coach Craig Otter doing a little scouting.  Odd who you end up sitting next to sometimes.........I didn't give anything away.


----I went early to the JV game hopeing to catch a little of Brian Wiese and a couple other guys.  Unfortunately Wiese was in street clothes, however I was pleasently surprised to see Chris Nellis who looked really sharp.   But it was Daniel Cox's 28 for Hope and  JC Cruse with 24 for the Brits who kind of stole the show.

[hoopdreams]

Albion shot 23% FOR THE GAME, and had more turnovers than fg's.  Hope's defense was outstanding (slightly better than Albion's), rotations were solid, and rebounding was a strength, yes strength in the second half. More sets needed to get shots for sg's.  Wolfe hasn't got a clean look at the hoop in so long, that he passed up 2 opportunites that he should have taken.  No, neither shot bypassed resulted in a better shot for a teammate. 

[ChicagoHopeNut]

The defenses were certainly quite dominant in the first half, though the score overplays that point a bit as it seemed both sides had as bad of luck as could possibly be had with shots going down. As aggressive as the defenses were, it was also no surprise that there was plenty of questioning of the officiating. I definitely did not agree with all the calls, but did anyone else notice the one ref who had the least hair actually turn to a certain mouthy fan and tell him to "keep talking, pal" while making the flapping-jaw hand motion? There are certainly fans who the refs could deservedly chastise, but that seemed like a surprisingly silly/cocky move by an official who is supposed to be keeping control.

Many thoughts on tonight's game. My first live attendance game in two years so humor me and all the posts that will come in the next two days.

I thought the first half officiating was fine. Considering how awful both teams played though even if the officiating was bad it would have been hard to tell. That said the ref who had the balding spot was atrocious in the second half. In addition to the moment mentioned above I was absolutely floored by his conduct following the technical on Klein. I was 10 feet from the whole situation so I saw it clearly.

In my opinion considering Klein was mauled and the foul was late being called after Klein got upset and slammed the ball it was one of the few situations where the ref could have easily pretended he didn't see him slam the ball as he walked to the scorers table and let it go. He chose not to and I can handle that because Klein slammed the ball and that is a T 98% of the time. I think the ref absolutely crossed the line though because as he finally headed to the scorers table he on two occasions turned around to watch Klein to see what he would do next. It really appeared if he was just looking for the opportunity to T him up again and kick him out of the game. The other two refs were watching and that is there job so there was no need for the balding guy to monitor at that point. Klein actually handled the situation very well, took a minute, calmed down and moved on. However, I found the officials conduct of turning and again and again atrocious particularly considering Klein never said word one to the referee.

Moreover, the officials other calls in the game started at questionable and later moved to downright wrong. Not even close a couple times. And twice when he had the best angle and position for balls knocked out of bounds he had to look to the other officials to ask who the ball had gone out on. He just wasn't in the game.

I am not sure where the MIAA finds its refs but after years and years of this you'd think someone, anyone would ask that the MIAA find a new head of officiating in an attempt to solve this problem.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

A few thoughts on my return.

1) It's still priceless to see GVW's blue and orange striped socks.

2) It's almost as priceless to see 9 Hope coaches to Albion's 3! 

Game Notes:

If tonight's game was a professional or high level D-1 game both teams would have been booed off the floor at half-time. After watching the first half I said to someone "I should have gone to Knollcrest instead tonight, not only would it be a better game but either the Calvin or Hope women would be up by 10 on either of the men's teams right now as well."

Calling the play (and coaching) on both sides atrocious is an injustice to the word atrocious. Bad shooting, sloppy, sloppy play. There was some defensive moments on both sides but in the first half it was mainly silly turnovers, bad passes, and bad shots on both sides.

So many more thoughts for tomorrow particularly on the "coaching" employed in the first half by Turner and GVW. (You may all begin to attack my karma now).

[almcguirejr]

"but either the Calvin or Hope women would be up by 10 on either of the men's teams right now as well."

[oldknight]

If Woody and Bo were watching last night's game at the Fieldhouse they must have been smiling--it was like a tailor made 1970's style running attack when their teams won ugly games. Brutal. It's true the defense on both sides (aided by officiating quite indifferent to physical contact) was very good but the shooting wasn't very good either. If anyone had told me going in that Benford and Veldhouse would combine for a total of 11 points on 4 of 24 shooting I would have laughed. Guess what? I'm not laughing.

I fully agree with almcguirejr that Veldhouse has become a very good defender since first showing up at Knollcrest. He wasn't as a freshman but he is now. He really did hound Benford all night and Veldhouse has every right to be proud of how he helped his team win despite a 1 for 10 shooting performance. As KVS noted in his postgame comments, if both Caleb and Tony have an off night, that actually benefits Calvin because Tri-State really doesn't have many other options.

But the best defense Calvin put up may have been all the dust on the floor which made it almost impossible for an offensive player to shake his defender. Several times in the second half a Tri-State player tried to free himself up for a trey attempt only to find himself nearly fall flat on his face while working a shake-and-bake move. It was almost as if Calvin had a grounds crew that game planned it by spreading dust on the floor to slow down Tri-State's offense. Seriously, it was bad and Calvin needs to find a way to keep all the foot traffic--which brings in the dirt that surrounds the Fieldhouse as a result of all the construction--from ruining the playing floor. The mops seemed to have no effect at all.

I saw some flashes of excellent inside play from Mantel. He went strong to the hoop several times and late in the game made a big basket inside on a nice move down the lane. John is also proving to be a very reliable free throw shooter which is always nice to see from a big man. Once he perfects the art of hitting the basket after getting bumped by the defender we'll see more of the "and one" from him instead of two shot free throws he got last night.