MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[EC Knight]

Second, the ever unpopular GVW discussion.
Caveats: I had GVW as a professor, I think he is a great person. Second, I am sure he has forgotten more about basketball than I and most everyone else on this board will ever know.

Nevertheless, I do not understand the theory that GVW is infallible that seems to permeate this board. Any time someone questions a decision GVW makes the person is lambasted as a "nut job" and their karma takes a serious knock. I realize this is D3 and Hope has a particularly supportive fan base. In NO way am I suggesting Hope alum or students should rise up to push out GVW as coach (like the guy at U Washington who offered $100K if Ty Willingham is fired). He has had a great history and will and should leave on his own terms. But that doesn't mean its inappropriate for fans to wonder about some of the decisions that are and have been made by the coaching staff over the years. Moreover, I assure you I am not alone on some of my questions. I may be the only one willing to express them on this board but I have had conversations with many other alum who follow the team over the years that have left games scratching their heads just like me.

Your opinions are a refreshing change from the usual company line out of Holland.

That line has come out the Dutch school to the East as well (sorry for reducing it to a dichotomy Stinger). It's not just a trend in Holland to give your coach the benefit of the doubt when he has done as well for the program as these two men have. Not many of us have spent even a fraction of the amount of time they have around basketball. Of course, they're still just men and capable of mistakes. Opinions that differ from theirs are to be expected and should appear on this board if anywhere, where we specifically talk about how we (well mainly you guys) feel concerning this league and these games, players, coaches and officials.

As Sac has written while I was working on this post though, it's the W that counts, and Hopesters and Calvinites alike should be glad they both got their seasons off on the right foot. Albion and Tri-State are now behind the 8-ball for the time being.

As someone who is unable to see any games in the near future in person, thanks for all the recaps, as seeing a score like 56-48 on miaa.org is a bit depressing. Is there really credence to the idea that oldknight brought up that the dust on the floor from construction was really such an inhibiting factor on offenses? That could make for some wild card games later on and lead to a possible change in strategy in the future when facing speedier teams.

Finally, those are fightin' words Scottiedawg:

They just beat a team, that at the moment, is clearly the second best team in the conference.  

What is your basis for making that statement?

[Dutch_Man]

Sac, I just happened to notice your picture and the caption underneath it "More Bowser". It made me think of last night and his playing time. Will Bowser only played 7 minutes!!! I guess he is only averaging 10.7 minutes per game but I thought he did a nice job while he was in last night. He came up with a couple good rebounds and hit a nice long two-point shot.

haha Sac, I am not trying to whine about the coaching on this one . Personally I just would have liked to see a little more playing time for Mr. Bowser last night. I guess I thought he played well enough while he was in to deserve a few more minutes.

Not a huge deal though.... It is just a minor observation. I think this saturday will be big for the Dutchmen to get back on track and get things rolling after a long break and a hard fought battle with Albion.

[calvinite]

You can criticize officials, coaches, ballboys, ushers, concession workers all you want.  As long as you understand how silly your posts look to other people.  Whiney is a good word thats been used to describe Hope fans and their relationship with officials.  I try my best to break that stereotype but have been caught up in the individual criticism of past officiated games myself.  In hindsight those thoughts look really dumb.

I watched a really tough hard fought game, exactly the kind of game I thought it might be, and to my dismay I read 15 posts about how bad the officials and coaching was.    I couldn't even pick out the officials in a lineup, cause I was watching two teams competeing fighting and scraping for every tiny edge to get a big W.

People would be well served to go back and read past posts and you'll see how whiney and downright dumb some thoughts can be.  Trends do not lie.  I personally see no point in calling out a coach or individual player, paritcularly when family members, friends or the individual in question may be reading.  It serves no purpose.

I'd just like to second SAC's post concerning the officiating. While I don't know enough about basketball rules to knowledgably evaluate the performance of any of the refs, my experience in other sports (college athlete, HS coach, and HS ref) leads me to believe that poor refs make equally poor calls against both teams. I think it is extremely rare that a ref 'has it in' for a particular player (and even rarer that a ref has it in for a particular team). But even on these very, very rare occasions when a ref appears to give one side an advantage, I think this is 'checked' by the other official(s). The fact of the matter is that any ref can make a mistake – look at a Division I football game a year ago when the refs made a mistake AFTER having the benefit of looking at the video (and apparently lost his job?). Finally, however, even if there's something to complain about concerning the reefing – and I don't think there is – I really don't think it does any good to complain – here on D3Hoops or at the game. I freely ADMIT that I yell when I think I see a bad call, (half the time I come home with a hoarse voice) but I don't think I've ever seen a ref  change a call because of my yelling (although a ref did reverse a call at the Calvin/Tri-State game last night—but it wasn't because of fans yelling). I tell myself that my yelling will cause the ref to be 'more careful' the next time he makes a call against my team, but deep down inside I know that's not true.

[almcguirejr]

I wonder if these guys had 9 days off?

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=280100045

[sac]

St. Louis and GW both had 12.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/teams/schedule?teamId=139

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/teams/schedule?teamId=45

[Hopester]

First time poster.... here it goes

My thoughts on Wednesday's game vs. Albion

I felt that Hope had a size advantage (in talent, not necessarily height) inside that they didn't exploit to the full potential of breaking down the tough man to man defense played by Albion. This could have led to more open threes and cleaner layups thus better offense. I felt like it was equally called. There were some bad calls but they are human, and that will happen (We still are allowed to complain during the game though, LifeTimeKnight yelling is completely appropriate).

Another thing I noticed during the game was about Ty Tanis. On his two made threes he set and shot, and on his two misses he rushed the shot a bit and was completely set and square. I love the kid, he is exciting to watch, but sometimes, I feel he gets a little ahead of himself and that causes him to struggle at times.

All that said great wins for Hope and Calvin, and even though neither team played well we got the W's and we aren't as bad as St. Louis. 24 consecutive missed FG's WOW.

[almcguirejr]

I personally see no point in calling out a coach or individual player, paritcularly when family members, friends or the individual in question may be reading.  It serves no purpose.

DC Hope Nut didn't call out anyone yesterday.  He went to the game and posted his opinion on it.  If GVW or anyone else on the coaching staff  is offended because DCHN thinks Hope should have used a time out in the first half they should find other work.  DCHN also pointed out Tanis didn't hustle after a play and was taken out of the game.  I see no harm in commenting on what 3000 people saw with their own eyes.

If GVW reads this board he may be offended by you calling for more playing time for Bowser.  Perhaps you should take that down lest he feel bad.

[bionbrit]

I wasn't at the game, just reading the last 3 pages of timeout and ref discussion.

You have to give the refs a break... If the score was 18-16 at halftime I'm 100% sure that the two teams were beating the snot out of each other. It is much easier to ref a game where neither team is playing much D and the game is in the 90's.  If you went back and watch the film I bet you would have seen a foul on just about every possesion. This is the case in just about every game in the MIAA especially a hope calvin albion game. These games are ALWAYS very physical.  Would you have rather seen an 18-16 half where the refs stayed out of the way. Or a 36-34 score that was just a glorified free throw shooting contest. I'm sure they missed a call, but ATTENTION HOPE FANS REFS MISS CALLS IT USUALLY EVENS OUT THROUGHT THE COURSE OF THE GAME!!!

Now to coaching! MIAA FANS ARE LUCKY. I would challenge any league to come up with a better list of coaches. I would say it is one of the main reasons that the MIAA can be a premier DIV III league despite all the SCHOLARSHIP schools that we have in this state.

My take on the timeout situation(again I wasn't there)... The largest lead by either team was 5 points in the 1st half. Most 1st half timeouts are taken when the big MO is shifting one way or another. I can't imagine this happened in an 18-16 game. Another reason to take a timeout is if you don't like your teams energy or effort. Again from the recaps of the game it sounds like the defense was swarming, and the rebounding was about equal. So I doubt either team had bad effort.   Both teams are deep. In a game where everyone is struglling both coaches were probablly trying to figure out if there was a spark on the bench anywhere. This is a better answer to solving offensive woes than calling a timeout. Also as many of you have mentioned both teams had been off for a long time. I'm sure both coaches were just tyring to race to see who could get the kinks out first. You can't do that during a timeout.

Lets say GVW or Turner calls a timeout early because they missed some shots. Then a couple plays later there is a loose ball and a player calls a timeout in the scrum to get possesion. Now you have burned two. Then someone hits a few 3's and the lead extends to 8 or 10 which could easily have happend. Now you have wasted 3 timeouts in the 1st half.

[Civic Minded]

Well said, Bionbrit.

I really don't remember there being a lot of griping about the refs from Wednesday, but if Sac says so, I'll trust him (rather than take time to scroll back through).  Really, I don't see any reason to beef about the refs -- yes there were some odd/badd/missed calls, but they were very equally distributed, and did not affect the outcome of the game.  Maybe the horrid reffing in Florida gave me a new insight into and appreciation for our beloved MIAA refs.   

I remember one particular tournament in the VanAndel when they were using instant replay on the big screens.  It was amazing to see how often calls that the crowd thought were bad were actually correct when replayed.  I'm sure most refs do a better job than we are able to discern in the heat of the moment.  Anyone have that picture of the dead horse?   

[HopeConvert]

I'll put in my two cents on this criticism issue, although I largely agree with almcguirejr. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that democratic debate starts with having a healthy skepticism with regard to ones own position and a healthy regard for that of the other. That seems to me not a bad formula to govern our observations regarding the public actions of coaches and players. I should think that one of the primary purposes of a forum such as this is that it affords us the opportunity to express our considered judgments on the performance we witness on the court, keeping in mind our own limitations. I wouldn't think it's fair for me to criticize Ty Tanis for missing a shot - Lord knows I couldn't do better - but if I see a lack of hustle, or bad decision-making, or a weakness in his game, I can't see why I shouldn't be able to express that. If Zach Osborn would enter the game, start taking the ball upcourt and launching threes, I would be perfectly justified in criticizing him for that. That's bad judgment on his part, and it would be bad coaching if GVW were to leave him in if he kept doing that. So long as we're not taking gratuitous shots, we should have the freedom to make our observations, and I'm sure others on the board will be quick to call us out if we have been unfair or unreasonable in our judgments. If FDF wants to criticize substitution patterns, or DCHN wants to call GVW out on the (non)use of times-out, or someone believes that a play was badly designed, it seems to me that this is precisely the place to state this. Criticism is fine, it is unwarranted criticism that is the problem, but the line between warranted and unwarranted is determined within the activity of the agora.

I know there are websites where I am criticized in the public performance of my duties, and I generally avoid such websites. Still, call me a Papist, but I believe that public judgment of your actions does you no harm if you are doing things right, and does you good if you aren't.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

In my mind (a scary place), the purpose of posting here is to share observations about games witnessed in person - to let others who weren't there"experience" that game.  Those observations are going to be both positive and negative, and I have no problem with that, as long as it is about what happened, and not a personal attack.  If the ref blows a call, or a player does poorly, or a coach behaves badly, or the pep band is flat, we should be able to talk about it, as long as it's not personal.

On a different topic, great article today about GVW and his approaching 600th win.

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/011108/localsports_20080111053.shtml

[almcguirejr]

agora.

Do you use these words for fun or are you trying piss off the other 99% of the board who have to google the definitions to find out what you're trying to say? 

[goodknight]

agora.

Do you use these words for fun or are you trying piss off the other 99% of the board who have to google the definitions to find out what you're trying to say? 

almcquirejr, your agoraphobia is showing.
Remember where HopeConvert received his foundational education?

[realist]

In my mind (a scary place), the purpose of posting here is to share observations about games witnessed in person - to let others who weren't there"experience" that game.  Those observations are going to be both positive and negative, and I have no problem with that, as long as it is about what happened, and not a personal attack.  If the ref blows a call, or a player does poorly, or a coach behaves badly, or the pep band is flat, we should be able to talk about it, as long as it's not personal.

Amen:  "as long as it's not personal".  A great rule to use in deciding what to post.  

[almcguirejr]

Remember where HopeConvert received his foundational education?

Yes, It's almost as if he's been wandering in the desert since he left.