MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[ChicagoHopeNut]

Clearly Ursinus didn't agree this season and played 41 a lot more - he has better stats.  But I have not heard why 23 was not used more this season.

You can imagine my shock as a Centennial Conference fan venturing into the MIAA room and seeing an extended discussion about an Ursinus reserve post player...

The Ursinus posters in the CC room can probably fill you in better, but for what it's worth, I saw Ursinus twice this season and Howell barely saw the court in either game.  Shema developed into a very solid post option for the Bears, especially in NCAAs.  I'm not sure why Shema was so ineffective in Salem, but it looks like you guys think Howell has some potential.

Congrats to Hope on another Final Four.  As an F&M fan, I know the pain of that close-but-no-cigar feeling -- but it doesn't take away from a great season.

RW, based on what I saw this weekend Howell has the potential to be a very good player the next two years. I was very impressed with his play against Hope. There is no doubt that in that game he was a far greater threat than Shema and if he can keep playing like that or improve the CC better watch out.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Just looking back at the careers of the six seniors from Hope.  This group, in 3 years of varsity play (2.33 for DVS and 2 for Glaser), amassed some pretty amazing records:

- They finished with an 82-12 overall record - a .872 winning percentage

- They finished 9-3 in NCAA tournament play - a .750 winning percentage

- They reached the sweet 16 once, the elite 8 once, and a final four, finishing 3rd

- They finished with a 9-3 record against Calvin - a .750 winning percentage

- They finished with an MIAA league record of 38-4 - a .905 winning percentage (2 of the league losses were to Calvin, and the other two were at Albion)

- They won 2 MIAA regular season championships

- They won 2 MIAA tournament championships

I'll post more later about their individual accomplishments

[truedutchman]

Hope College would be the 2008 National Champions if they had saturday's ref's on friday.

The terrible calls that led to Hope's 3 big men to either play very light defense or sitting on the bench due to foul trouble.

...those calls usually resulted in Ruths dropping in an automatic 2 free-throws or finishing a 3 point play

[Titan Q]

Some of the comments on final ranking are very interesting, especially when I recall the two D3 game announcers saying at half time (of Hope/WashU game) that based on the first half, "they would take either Hope or Wash U over Amherst" at that time.

As one of the halftime hosts, I sure don't remember anyone saying this.  At that point, we were all blown away by Amherst in the early game and feeling like they were a favorite over either Hope or Wash U.

I suppose someone could have said it, but it really doesn't seem to fit.

[Civic Minded]

Some of the comments on final ranking are very interesting, especially when I recall the two D3 game announcers saying at half time (of Hope/WashU game) that based on the first half, "they would take either Hope or Wash U over Amherst" at that time.

As one of the halftime hosts, I sure don't remember anyone saying this.  At that point, we were all blown away by Amherst in the early game and feeling like they were a favorite over either Hope or Wash U.

I suppose someone could have said it, but it really doesn't seem to fit.

Interesting...I didn't see that in Amherst at all.  The first game (Amherst vs. Ursinis) looked like slop all the way around, with Amherst just throwing up shots -- no apparent set offense to speak of.  The following night vs. Wash U, I was more impressed with their offense (they actually ran a play or two), but still not impressed with them overall.  Wash U, on the other hand, was the real deal, and fun to watch (well, at least the second night).     

As to truedutchman's comments about the reffing -- it sure was suspect, and that pitiful "foul" that was MVH's 5th was laughable.  But, Hope had chances to play above it, and didn't or couldn't that particular night.  They looked a little tired, with fewer hands in faces than I would have liked to have seen.  But they earned their way to Salem, and I couldn't be more proud of who they are and how they performed this season.  Thanks, Dutchmen!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Some of the comments on final ranking are very interesting, especially when I recall the two D3 game announcers saying at half time (of Hope/WashU game) that based on the first half, "they would take either Hope or Wash U over Amherst" at that time.

As one of the halftime hosts, I sure don't remember anyone saying this.  At that point, we were all blown away by Amherst in the early game and feeling like they were a favorite over either Hope or Wash U.

I suppose someone could have said it, but it really doesn't seem to fit.

Hmm... I took part in that halftime show and I don't remember saying anything like that either. Not sure where that "quote" came from!

Now, just because we also thought Amherst would beat Wash U doesn't mean much, Wash U was unreal in that championship game. Remember, they shot 60% for the game; 70% in the second half alone! I saw Hope play and I don't think they would have been able to shut Olson down like Wash U did. I also don't think if Amherst and Hope had played that the Lord Jeffs would have been as worried/distracted on defense about a player like Troy Ruths on Hope's team... freeing up some of their weak-side defense that I think was the biggest reason for their easy success with Ursinus.

[Gregory Sager]

My question wasn't meant to be posed in only the context of the tournament. As I looked at who has won titles, I was remembering how high I see both Hope and COW on lists of all time D3 wins and winning percentage. The other teams I'm used to seeing heading such lists: Witt, Calvin, IWU of course have made it there. Now that you've re-framed the discussion a bit, I'm guessing that when I see all time "D3" lists, I am seeing a list of all-time records for teams currently classified as D3 so that shows their winning for a longer time period, but also through various levels/divisions. I of course cannot find such a list currently to recall how the wins were broken down.

There's an entire Posting Up room devoted to the discussion of this very subject:

http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=4297.105

The all-time history in my mind was all season long every year, so more historic but less focused on tourney results. I don't know that strictly tournament results make for an perfectly even type of arbitration either though, given the tournament's historically geographic limitations. Certainly I'll give Augustana credit for that type of tournament record coming out of the midwest but I'd question if a team like F+M has faced as tough a climb each time they are in the tournament (ie - do they end up facing a Calvin in the first weekend with regularity?).

Franklin & Marshall has been a powerhouse since the very beginning of D3 back in the mid-'70s. The Diplomats have the winningest head coach in D3 history, Glenn Robinson, and he's been running the show at F&M since before the D3 era began. For most of the three and a half decades that D3 has been around, the Middle Atlantic Region was one of the stronger regions in D3 -- not only were the Diplomats a national juggernaut, so was Scranton under Bill Bessoir and Widener under James Rowe, and there were other programs (Ursinus, Lebanon Valley, and later Catholic under Mike Lonergan) that were nationally competitive as well. The decline in that region's strength over the past decade is not reflective of what F&M's had to face over the years in the tournament as a whole -- although, yeah, I think that Augustana and Hope have overall tended to have harder roads in the tournament.

[sac]

I saw Hope play and I don't think they would have been able to shut Olson down like Wash U did.

Dustin Rudegair, Derek Griffin, Desmond Young, Steve Kyser, Nate Stahl  and Kent Raymond might have a differing opinion in Hope's abilities to shut down someone down when needed. 

[wiz]

Hope College would be the 2008 National Champions if they had saturday's ref's on friday.

The terrible calls that led to Hope's 3 big men to either play very light defense or sitting on the bench due to foul trouble.

...those calls usually resulted in Ruths dropping in an automatic 2 free-throws or finishing a 3 point play

What a bunch of silly talk.  There were lots of fouls but they were pretty evenly split:  Hope 21, Wash U 18.  And, of course, the refs missed calling the technical on DVS when he kicked a Wash U player.  Could see it several hundred miles away on the video.  Don't know how the refs missed it.  But, none of it matters becaise winning teams play through it all and Wash U did just that.

The woulda, could, shoulda talk about where teams should be ranked after the season is over is also quite silly.  All the bragging rights belong to Wash U for winning the national championship and the rest doesn't matter.  You want the glorey, you win it all.

Speaking of that, I'm wondering how many coaches have made several trips to the final four and never come back with a championship.  Being an old football fan, I remember Bud Grant taking his Vikings to the Super Bowl four times and never come back with a victory.  Very painful.  I'm sure GVW must feel the same way, but there must be more coaches in the same boat.  I can't seem to find the stats on coaches that have made mutiple trips (an accomplishment by itself) to the final four.  Anyone know where this info can be found?  What MIAA coaches have brought teams to the final four besides GVW and KVS?

[Gregory Sager]

In the spirit of planning ahead, would I be correct in my belief that the MIAA-CCIW Challenge will be held at Wheaton in early December?

Yes, that is correct. The four-year rotation begins anew next season at Wheaton.

[Gregory Sager]

Speaking of that, I'm wondering how many coaches have made several trips to the final four and never come back with a championship.  Being an old football fan, I remember Bud Grant taking his Vikings to the Super Bowl four times and never come back with a victory.  Very painful.  I'm sure GVW must feel the same way, but there must be more coaches in the same boat.  I can't seem to find the stats on coaches that have made mutiple trips (an accomplishment by itself) to the final four.  Anyone know where this info can be found?  What MIAA coaches have brought teams to the final four besides GVW and KVS?

The only other MIAA school to reach the Final Four besides Hope under Glenn Van Wieren and Calvin under both Ed Douma and Kevin Vande Streek is Albion. The Britons finished third in 1978, early in Mike Turner's career as Albion's head coach.

There is no listing anywhere that I know of for multiple-trip Final Four head coaches. I'll take a stab at it, though:

coach	school(s)	# of F4s	# of titles
Bo Ryan	UW-Platteville	5	4
Jerry Welsh	Potsdam State	5	2
Larry Hunter	Wittenberg	5	1
Bill Bessoir	Scranton	4	2
Dave Hixon	Amherst	4	1
Glenn Robinson	Franklin & Marshall	4	0
Dan McCarrell	North Park	3	3
Bosko Djurickovic	North Park / Carthage	3	2
Dave Vander Meulen	UW-Whitewater	3	2
Dennis Bridges	Illinois Wesleyan	3	1
Jim Borcherding	Augustana	3	0
Jerry Schmutte	Nebraska Wesleyan	3	0
Glenn Van Wieren	Hope	3	0
Jack Bennett	UW-Stevens Point	2	2
Ed Douma	Calvin	2	1
John Giannini	Rowan	2	1
Dave Paulsen	Williams	2	1
Kevin Vande Streek	Calvin	2	1
Charles Brown	New Jersey City	2	0
Alan Rowe	Widener	2	0
Jose Rebimbas	William Paterson	2	0
Harry Sheehy	Williams	2	0

There's a bunch more that I haven't listed yet, but I gotta get off the computer now. I'll come back and fill in more of the missing ones later.

[HopeConvert]

Hope College would be the 2008 National Champions if they had saturday's ref's on friday.

The terrible calls that led to Hope's 3 big men to either play very light defense or sitting on the bench due to foul trouble.

...those calls usually resulted in Ruths dropping in an automatic 2 free-throws or finishing a 3 point play

What a bunch of silly talk.  There were lots of fouls but they were pretty evenly split:  Hope 21, Wash U 18.  And, of course, the refs missed calling the technical on DVS when he kicked a Wash U player.  Could see it several hundred miles away on the video.  Don't know how the refs missed it.  But, none of it matters becaise winning teams play through it all and Wash U did just that.

What the video may not have picked up is Derek (after the scrum) immediately tapping the player and apologizing as soon as he caught up with him, and during the next dead ball the two of them voluntarily talking to each other, and smiling and patting one another as they did so.

[AndersDY]

Franklin & Marshall has been a powerhouse since the very beginning of D3 back in the mid-'70s. The Diplomats have the winningest head coach in D3 history, Glenn Robinson, and he's been running the show at F&M since before the D3 era began. For most of the three and a half decades that D3 has been around, the Middle Atlantic Region was one of the stronger regions in D3 -- not only were the Diplomats a national juggernaut, so was Scranton under Bill Bessoir and Widener under James Rowe, and there were other programs (Ursinus, Lebanon Valley, and later Catholic under Mike Lonergan) that were nationally competitive as well. The decline in that region's strength over the past decade is not reflective of what F&M's had to face over the years in the tournament as a whole -- although, yeah, I think that Augustana and Hope have overall tended to have harder roads in the tournament.

I am too young a D3 fan to say I would have known the strengths of different regions through the years. It often is striking to me though when the same names will make a deep run in one region of the bracket repeatedly though, leaving those of us who know OAC or CCIW or UW-somewhere teams will be looming all over our tournament path any given year to wonder who exactly those eastern teams have to beat up on. As you say though, perhaps that is a more recent development. And as a Hope fan, it probably does not help to color my perception of F+M in particular that the first game ever played in Salem was a trouncing of F+M by Hope.

[ChicagoHopeNut]

coach	school(s)	# of F4s	# of titles
Bo Ryan	UW-Platteville	5	4

A piece of trivia that I do NOT have the answer to so don't get mad at me for not providing it later. I wonder if anyone else has ever led a team to #1 in the polls at the D1 level and another level (II or III not NAIA). I also think Ryan has a real chance of leading a second team to the Final Four this year.

Hope College would be the 2008 National Champions if they had saturday's ref's on friday.

The terrible calls that led to Hope's 3 big men to either play very light defense or sitting on the bench due to foul trouble.

...those calls usually resulted in Ruths dropping in an automatic 2 free-throws or finishing a 3 point play

What a bunch of silly talk.  There were lots of fouls but they were pretty evenly split:  Hope 21, Wash U 18.  And, of course, the refs missed calling the technical on DVS when he kicked a Wash U player.  Could see it several hundred miles away on the video.  Don't know how the refs missed it.  But, none of it matters becaise winning teams play through it all and Wash U did just that.

The woulda, could, shoulda talk about where teams should be ranked after the season is over is also quite silly.  All the bragging rights belong to Wash U for winning the national championship and the rest doesn't matter.  You want the glorey, you win it all.

Speaking of that, I'm wondering how many coaches have made several trips to the final four and never come back with a championship.  Being an old football fan, I remember Bud Grant taking his Vikings to the Super Bowl four times and never come back with a victory.  Very painful.  I'm sure GVW must feel the same way, but there must be more coaches in the same boat.  I can't seem to find the stats on coaches that have made mutiple trips (an accomplishment by itself) to the final four.  Anyone know where this info can be found?  What MIAA coaches have brought teams to the final four besides GVW and KVS?

Wiz, since you were not at the game you could not see everything that happened and the officiating was atrocious at periods during the first half on Friday. The balding ref might as well have been in another gym given some of the calls he made. And the calls did affect the way MVH was able to play defense as Hope's biggest player and that hurts when you are trying to stop someone like Ruths. That said every single post I have read, including my own, to mention this subject except the one you quoted has been brief and also noted that Wash U was exceptional in the second half and deserved all the credit for winning the game.

Finally, the fact the fouls were evenly split means nothing. You've seen enough basketball in your life at every level to know that referees have an amazing ability to "even up the calls" late that doesn't mean an early discrepancy can't effect elements of a game. 

[realist]

Some of the comments on final ranking are very interesting, especially when I recall the two D3 game announcers saying at half time (of Hope/WashU game) that based on the first half, "they would take either Hope or Wash U over Amherst" at that time.

As one of the halftime hosts, I sure don't remember anyone saying this.  At that point, we were all blown away by Amherst in the early game and feeling like they were a favorite over either Hope or Wash U.

I suppose someone could have said it, but it really doesn't seem to fit.

Interesting...I didn't see that in Amherst at all.  The first game (Amherst vs. Ursinis) looked like slop all the way around, with Amherst just throwing up shots -- no apparent set offense to speak of.  The following night vs. Wash U, I was more impressed with their offense (they actually ran a play or two), but still not impressed with them overall.  Wash U, on the other hand, was the real deal, and fun to watch (well, at least the second night).     

CM:  Thanks for the support.  I know what I heard, and suspect many times announcers are just trying to fill in air time, and perhaps make a statement they later wish they had not made (or don't recall having made).   Based on what I heard in the first game, and the first half of WashU Hope I had the same thought.