MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[NW Hope Fan]

With all due respect I have to disagree.  Being an "old time Knight" the last thing I want is Hope to come home with a National Championship.  There are some that believe we have to root for the MIAA, just like Michigan fans have to root for Ohio State because of the big Ten, or Dale Ernhardt Jr. fans have to root for Jeff Gordon because they both drive Chevy's.  Tonight this Knight fan will be rooting for Washington U.

Go Washington U!
Beat Hope!

Congratulations Hope for winning the consolation prize.  What a great season, you should be proud.

Please save it... 

[NW Hope Fan]

Next week.........DVS playing, Derek Griffin not!

Looks to me like DVS wins on all accounts.  Keep backing it up!

Hey, looks like they're both done now.

And DVS with a few extra feathers in his cap... Including an All Tournament Team Selection: Congrats Derek!

[Gregory Sager]

For what it's worth, with Wash U up 16 in the final four minutes of the title game, it's now blindingly obvious that Hope will have fallen to the eventual national champions.

Congrats to the Dutch on a great season!

[NW Hope Fan]

Since they make the teams play a consolation game, they may as well play a round robin... I would have liked to see Hope against Amherst. Not that they would have won that one either, but it still would have been a good match up.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

Hope is going to finish the year on a positive note beating Ursinus.  Up by 20, and GVW is taking the seniors out one by one.  One of Ursinus's better players is apparently hurt, and their 6' 10" guy fouled out.

Having just returned from Salem I can say that you'd be surprised but Ursinus' 6'10" player was too slow and had bad foot work. In my opinion he was their third best center. Actually, by far the most impressive player who was a big was 23, who played as the 3rd center it seemed to me. I am not sure if he was hurting or what but I felt the Ursinus coach made a fatal error not playing 23 more. He clearly was a greater offensive force than the other bigs, at least today.

[aueagle]

Congrats to Hope on a great season...you guys have alot to be proud & thankful for! Great job to an outstanding team & fans.

[hope1]

as a long time suppoter of the miaa i always roosted for the miaa teams to do in the fianl 4 round and the playoffs  it would be nice if some of the calvin fans rooted for hope to do good and not just loose  and our seasson got done yesterday and i rember your team got done like 4 weeks ago  and if calvin goes far next year i will root for you what with the recurits hope might get they might make a another run next year or the 2 years after that

[hope1]

hope seniors what a great 4 years you had for basketball you supported hope really good 3 years ago  final 16  last year  final 8  this year final 4  what a great run you have  nothing to be sad for  what a great 4 years and what a class speech gw did friday night after the game to the hope fans thanks for that

[tniem]

Hope is going to finish the year on a positive note beating Ursinus.  Up by 20, and GVW is taking the seniors out one by one.  One of Ursinus's better players is apparently hurt, and their 6' 10" guy fouled out.

Having just returned from Salem I can say that you'd be surprised but Ursinus' 6'10" player was too slow and had bad foot work. In my opinion he was their third best center. Actually, by far the most impressive player who was a big was 23, who played as the 3rd center it seemed to me. I am not sure if he was hurting or what but I felt the Ursinus coach made a fatal error not playing 23 more. He clearly was a greater offensive force than the other bigs, at least today.

Couldn't agree more - even if we had discussed this to death in a three and a half hour car ride (wait, I think we did...)  Ursinus is completely a riddle to me.  Amherst ran them off the floor the night before and Hope appeared poised to do the same and then the 6'10" guy would come off the floor and a 20 point lead would be down to 10.  Perhaps 23, like the guy the fans chanted MVP for, was hurt or sick.  If that's the case, that explains a lot.  (And I really would love to hear someone that had seen them all season respond) - but the team we saw this weekend was a level below the other three schools at the Final Four.

[tniem]

Three brief thoughts on why Hope lost.

1) For about a 10 minute period from 15 to 5 minutes in the second half Wash U was just unconscious shooting from the field. They made some open shots earlier but then started hitting shots with hands in their face off of dribble creation. There were a couple where Hope could have not done anything better to stop them.

One thing to say in response - especially to a number of posters that were not at the game saying that they felt Hope did the same throughout the season, WashU hit two different types of shots during this run that basically closed the door.  They hit open threes (the kind that it sounds like Hope made throughout the year).  They also hit a number of off-balance mid-range jumpers that really were the killers.  I cannot emphasize both how surprising, impressive but also frustrating some of those shots were.  All I could think was we needed to play them another night.

Also, it seemed every time Russ got and shot the ball they called a shooting foul in the second half.  I was too far away to see but either Hope needed to stop swiping at the ball and adjust or there was a bit of inconsistency on the calls.  One other thing on this line of thought, the center for WashU was great and was going to get his.  But he didn't kill us.  It was the other guys hitting both open and off balance shots.  If we could have it over, I am sure you let him get his 30 and guard everyone else.

2) FT!!! I realize DVS missed three in a row but overall he played a great game and the FT misses went well beyond that. 11-18 won't cut it when the other team is 23-27.

I was shocked to learn we had shot as well from the line as 11 of 18.  To be honest, it seemed like we missed at least one from every trip to the stripe.  I would expected to be more like 8 of 18.  I really thought it was that bad.  And really made it hard to keep close.

3) The balding official in the first half was atrocious. There were a couple swing plays where stuff was let go against Hope and this guy would call terrible fouls on the other end. Including blowing the whistle before any contact occurred at least twice when he merely was anticipating what might happen next. I am not saying this is why Hope lost but this guy was atrocious and it did create foul problems for Hope all game.

My two favorite calls of the night:

1) action coming towards the Hope base line in the first half - WashU player driving towards a Hope defender, whistle blows, another step is taken as part of lay-up drive, shot finally taken, then contact.  Somehow a two shot foul is given.  Absolutely awful.  Ref anticipated contact instead of waiting for it to happen.  I really thought it should have been a charge when all was said and done.  But you have to wait until things happen before blowing the whistle.

2) in the second half, Hope goes up for shot, gets fouled.  Whistle blows.  Guy from the back comes in and appears to over turn the baseline call.  Puts two thumbs in the air - which I thought was the universal signal of a jump ball.  Hope crowd goes nuts - horrible call.  But he meant two shots with the thumbs.  I guess he got it right but unless I am mistaken they totally had no idea what hand signals to use throughout the game.  If the NCAA is going to bring a pep band from Cleveland to the game, can't they bring some better officiating crews?


And for the requisite disclaimer, Hope lost because of the ten minute stretch where WashU hit everything and the Hope players began to lose faith.  It had nothing to do with the officials.  I could have refed the game in full partisanship and the Bears were going to win Friday (and apparently all weekend) - they were that good. 

[Flying Dutch Fan]

I do think the fouls called on Hope in the semis really did change the game (I AM NOT BLAMING THE OFFICIALS).  With 3 starters with foul trouble, the Hope defense backed down - a natural reaction.  When Hope doesn't play intense defense, they are beatable, and a good team like WashU took advantage of that.

[HopeConvert]

One thing to say in response - especially to a number of posters that were not at the game saying that they felt Hope did the same throughout the season, WashU hit two different types of shots during this run that basically closed the door.  They hit open threes (the kind that it sounds like Hope made throughout the year).  They also hit a number of off-balance mid-range jumpers that really were the killers.  I cannot emphasize both how surprising, impressive but also frustrating some of those shots were.  All I could think was we needed to play them another night.

Also, it seemed every time Russ got and shot the ball they called a shooting foul in the second half.  I was too far away to see but either Hope needed to stop swiping at the ball and adjust or there was a bit of inconsistency on the calls.  One other thing on this line of thought, the center for WashU was great and was going to get his.  But he didn't kill us.  It was the other guys hitting both open and off balance shots.  If we could have it over, I am sure you let him get his 30 and guard everyone else.

The problem is that unless we doubled-down on him, we weren't going to keep him at 30. The way Ruths played this weekend, the issue wasn't letting him get his 30, it was keeping him down to 30. The guy is a great back-to-the-basket player who has all sorts of shots from all sorts of angles, and the confidence to shoot them in pressure situations. No one else in Salem had a player like that. Combine that with effective outside shooters and the Bears were just simply really hard to defend. Ruths took what the defense gave him: he beat the single-team, and kicked out on the double-team.

Just as after the Wheaton game I opined that Hope's shooters were too good to have 3-point shots without a hand in their face, the same has to be said of WashU. They exploited the opportunities presented by the defensive schemes. They're a talented, well-coached team.

It seemed to me, watching these games, that a skilled big man with good post moves is just gold at this level. I knew going into the weekend that Ruths was good; I didn't know he was that good. Hope simply didn't face a player with his set of skills all year, and that lack of experience showed, I thought.

All that said, I would like to see a best of seven series between Hope and WashU.

[hope1]

we got back at 6.00 am in the bus trip what a long trip but it was worth and really motel  nice to stay in

[ziggy]

Hope is going to finish the year on a positive note beating Ursinus.  Up by 20, and GVW is taking the seniors out one by one.  One of Ursinus's better players is apparently hurt, and their 6' 10" guy fouled out.

Having just returned from Salem I can say that you'd be surprised but Ursinus' 6'10" player was too slow and had bad foot work. In my opinion he was their third best center. Actually, by far the most impressive player who was a big was 23, who played as the 3rd center it seemed to me. I am not sure if he was hurting or what but I felt the Ursinus coach made a fatal error not playing 23 more. He clearly was a greater offensive force than the other bigs, at least today.

Couldn't agree more - even if we had discussed this to death in a three and a half hour car ride (wait, I think we did...)  Ursinus is completely a riddle to me.  Amherst ran them off the floor the night before and Hope appeared poised to do the same and then the 6'10" guy would come off the floor and a 20 point lead would be down to 10.  Perhaps 23, like the guy the fans chanted MVP for, was hurt or sick.  If that's the case, that explains a lot.  (And I really would love to hear someone that had seen them all season respond) - but the team we saw this weekend was a level below the other three schools at the Final Four.

The nature of the DIII tournament allows for a team to make the final four that really isn't at a level of probably a dozen other schools.  Until the NCAA reconfigures the tournament to truly allow the best teams to advance this is what will happen.  Same situation with York (PA) when Calvin was at the final four in 2005.

[northb]

as a long time suppoter of the miaa i always roosted for the miaa teams to do in the fianl 4 round and the playoffs  it would be nice if some of the calvin fans rooted for hope to do good and not just loose  and our seasson got done yesterday and i rember your team got done like 4 weeks ago  and if calvin goes far next year i will root for you what with the recurits hope might get they might make a another run next year or the 2 years after that

Most of us did.