MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

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. 

And I think anyone who saw what Troy Ruths did to Hope would disagree with the premise that Hope had any success shutting down players in Salem.

[MIdoubleA]

Anyway  , it's all done

Congratulations gentlemen

So if you are GVW, Tom Davelaar and Matt Neil, what are you looking for in this recruiting class? Is there a specific gap that needs replacing? Who are you really trying to get for next year?

I'm not looking for someone to tell me "umm we lost 4 starters so we should be looking for some superawesomeblahblahblah." I'm speaking realistically.

It looks to me as though we have a few strong guards, some great wingmen, but again we lack a big man. Is this bad?

Over the past few years Hope has played a style that I enjoy. Moveable, athletic players on the court in all positions. We have taller-than-average guards/forwards and then a "shorter" center. A traditional center or speedy guard occasionally burns us, but more often than not our lineup creates more problems for the opposing teams.

The arrival of Logan Neil at Hope next year will interest me greatly. Does he have the skill to make varsity? How will he transition from the fall soccer season? I feel as though there's probably a lot of potential nay-saying in the works with his father being the coach, and a lot of undue pressure on him to succeed.

Thanks for reading my book of a post

[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. 

And I think anyone who saw what Troy Ruths did to Hope would disagree with the premise that Hope had any success shutting down players in Salem.

Never said they shut anyone down in Salem.

Your original point was just like what everyone was saying Friday night, that Amherst would be able to handle Washington.  I heard people saying the same things about #10 for WashU and his inability to contain Olson.  Yet Olson had zero points after 14 minutes and was harrassed all day into 8 turnovers by someone who was called by a broadcaster on the D3hoops.com crew last week as a liability. 


As for Ruths and being able to shut him down, Hope's played him twice in two years, last year he scored 10 in a game where the D's were allowed to be physical.  Neither Amherst or Hope were allowed to be very physical with Ruths this past weekend.  The number of fouls logged by both teams on Ruths was pretty high.

[hope1]

just move on the game is done with

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Your original point was just like what everyone was saying Friday night, that Amherst would be able to handle Washington.  I heard people saying the same things about #10 for WashU and his inability to contain Olson.  Yet Olson had zero points after 14 minutes and was harrassed all day into 8 turnovers by someone who was called by a broadcaster on the D3hoops.com crew last week as a liability. 


As for Ruths and being able to shut him down, Hope's played him twice in two years, last year he scored 10 in a game where the D's were allowed to be physical.  Neither Amherst or Hope were allowed to be very physical with Ruths this past weekend.  The number of fouls logged by both teams on Ruths was pretty high.

sac - they did a very good job with Olson and certainly had the entire Amherst team on their heels for much of the game. That was very surprising considering how much Amherst tends to go after teams and were certainly on the offensive for the entire game against Ursinus. No one expected to see a defending champion in the championship game seem timid. Even Coach Hixon pointed out in the post-game interviews that Wash U. took a page out of Amherst playbook and did to the Lord Jeffs what Amherst had done to many other teams.

As for being physical... I thought the Hope/Wash U. game was one of the most physical games I have seen in basketball in YEARS. The refs allowed a lot of contact, especially inside. That being said, as one coach said to be after, that game was a travesty to the game of basketball. I can see his point. It was more like a football or rugby game. Heck... maybe wrestling, as Pat Coleman pointed out in the broadcast of that semi-final game!

And as for the comment about Ross Kelley being a liability, that broadcaster was talking about him on offense, not defense. The reference was to the fact he had 17 turnovers and only 8 assists in three games prior to Salem. I agree with that point, especially when Hope took advantage of it and Kelley was actually not on the court during key sequences and periods of the game for Wash U. in the game against Hope... especially in the second half when the Bears extended their lead and eventually put Hope away. Kelley impressed a lot of people - including Sean Wallis, who consideres Kelley a better defender than himself - in the championship game. Though, I don't see who on the Hope team would have been able to shut down Olson - just an observation.

[sbaum]

Klein, Carter, DVS, Bosch. All of these guys were quite good this year defensively, particularly on game changing guards. I don't know if they would have forced Olson into 8 TO, but they would have been able to do a good job. After all, they forced Kent Raymond into a lot of turnovers and held him in check when they played Wheaton twice this year. And Raymond is arguably a better player than Olson.

As for the physicality of the WashU-Hope game, yes, it was physical, but I've seen a few more physical games that Hope has been in this year. Maybe it has to do with the style of play in the midwest/great lakes regions, as compared to out east, but this style of physical D did not surprise me a ton. Heck, Capital, OWU, and Wheaton all played incredibly physically against us. There were times when I thought the Wheaton game was turning into a football game, and there were a few times this past Friday against WashU where I saw it too, but it wasn't the physicality that bothered me, it was the inconsistency by the refs in calling the game that was the most appalling part.

[Pat Coleman]

The same person who talked about Kelley as a liability on offense couldn't stop talking about the turnovers the Bears caused on their opponents last weekend, just to provide some context.

[sac]

Yeah, the WashU game wasn't even the most physical game Hope played in the tournament let alone in years.


I find it hard to believe the 11th best team at creating steals would have a hard time finding someone to contain Olson.  Kent Raymond was the best gaurd Hope faced this year, they only held him under his average twice, including shutting him out from 3 once, and harassing him into 20 turnovers over the 2 games.  He made the D3hoops.com all-american team.  Derek Griffin who's a terrific scorer and scared me more than anyone else Hope played was held to ZERO points.

The argument that Hope couldn't contain Olson is just like the ones about Amherst beating Washington and Washington not being able to contain Olson.  Yet it happened.  We're dealing with something we'll just never find out.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Klein, Carter, DVS, Bosch. All of these guys were quite good this year defensively, particularly on game changing guards.

In fact just DVS and Carter did a great job on Raymond the first time Hope & Wheaton met - Kent finished that game with a double-double, 23 points and 12 turnovers.

The argument that Hope couldn't contain Olson is just like the ones about Amherst beating Washington and Washington not being able to contain Olson.  Yet it happened.  We're dealing with something we'll just never find out.

And we all need to keep that in mind - we're expressing opinions here, not facts, but it is a fun way to go through the D.T.s of D3 withdrawl

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Press release from Hope about post-season honors.  GVW is named D3 Coach of the year by the Basketball Times, and Marcus VDH is named to 4 different All-American teams.

http://www.hope.edu/pr/pressreleases/content/view/full/18200

[hope1]

that is good news for hope gw really did a nice job coaching this year and his staff

[tniem]

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. 

And I think anyone who saw what Troy Ruths did to Hope would disagree with the premise that Hope had any success shutting down players in Salem.

Isn't there a big difference in the ability to shut down a center and a point guard?

[almcguirejr]

DII Elite 8

Winona State 67
GVSU 54

WSU went the last 12 minutes of the first half without a point.  GVSU outscored them 18-0 during that stretch.

[GoVols]

just move on the game is done with

Ditto. And thanks for mentioning this.
BTW, if anyone has a program from the DIII championship, I believe it lists in there somewhere all of the Final Four teams, their records and how many times they finished 1, 2, 3, or 4.
Now, if anyone wants to take the time to go through that and transpose it all ......

[goodknight]

Here's an insightful piece from a well-regarded Hope College prof, published in today's LA Times.

Examining the primal urges behind sports fanaticism.
By David G. Myers


On the face of it, college basketball is a bit ridiculous. Fans scream encouragement to five people trying to get a ball through a steel ring suspended 10 feet in the air while trying to prevent opponents from doing the same. I'm a professor at Hope College in Michigan, and just before we took on our top basketball rival, Calvin College, I had a philosophical moment. Turning to a friend, I asked, "Why does this matter?"

The same question has crossed the minds of fans (or their bemused spouses) during USC-UCLA games, Cubs-White Sox games and now during March Madness. Why do we fans sulk in defeat and exult in victory?

There's something primal at work when the crowd erupts as two rival teams take the floor. Our ancestors, living in a world in which neighboring tribes raided and pillaged one another's camps, knew there was safety in solidarity. Dividing the world into "us" and "them" entails significant costs -- racism and war not least among them. But there are also benefits: Whether hunting, attacking or defending against the fast break, 10 hands are better than two. To identify us and them, our ancestors -- not so far removed from today's rabid fans -- dressed or painted themselves in group-specific costumes and colors.

As social animals, we live in groups, cheer on our groups, kill for our groups. Our groups help define who we are and who we are not. Groups -- even completely arbitrary groups -- promote what social psychologists term "ingroup bias." Ask children, "Who are better, the children in your school or the children at another school nearby?" Virtually all will say that their school has the better children. Cluster people into groups defined by the last digit on their driver's license and they'll feel a kinship with their number mates.

Group solidarity soars further when people face a common enemy (think of the United States immediately after 9/11). When facing an external threat during wartime, we-feeling rises. Membership in civic organizations increases, and citizens rally behind their leader and their troops. But there doesn't have to be a true threat; creating a rival generates a near-automatic response.

Psychology researcher Muzafer Sherif experimented with the unifying effect of a rival group in the 1950s. He brought 22 Oklahoma City boys to a Boy Scout camp and randomly split them into two groups for a series of competitive activities, giving prizes to the victors. In less than two weeks, each group became intensely proud of itself and hostile to the other group. Food wars and fistfights broke out. Cabins were ransacked. When brought together, the two groups avoided one another, except to taunt and threaten. Sherif would surely find familiar the antics of Hope and Calvin basketball fans. One Hope colleague's 10-year-old son, arriving at the Calvin fieldhouse, begged his father to "carry me to the gym so my feet won't have to touch Calvin soil."

Winning amplifies group identification. Queried after a big football victory, university students commonly reply that we won. They bask in reflected glory, notes Arizona State University researcher Robert Cialdini. Queried after a defeat, students separate from the team, reporting they lost.

In studying rabid fans after Indiana University basketball games, psychologist Edward Hirt found that fans' self-concepts also rise with victory and fall with defeat. After a Hoosier loss, fans offered bleaker assessments of their own likely performance at throwing darts, solving anagrams, even getting a date. When our team is suffering, it may seem that nothing will go our way.

Ironically, we often reserve our most intense hatred for rivals most similar to us, or those closest at hand. Sigmund Freud long ago recognized that great animosities form around small differences: "Of two neighboring towns, each is the other's most jealous rival; every little canton looks down upon the others with contempt. Closely related races keep one another at arm's length; the South German cannot endure the North German, the Englishman casts every kind of aspersion upon the Scot, the Spaniard despises the Portuguese." USC and UCLA fans nod knowingly.

As an occasional resident of Scotland, I've witnessed many examples of an observation recorded in the humorous "The Xenophobe's Guide to the Scots" -- that is, Scots divide non-Scots "into two main groups: 1. The English; 2. The Rest." Just as rabid UCLA fans are happy if either the Bruins win or the Trojans lose, so rabid fans of Scottish soccer revel in either a Scotland victory or an England defeat. "Phew! They Lost," rejoiced one Scottish tabloid front-page headline after England's 1996 Euro Cup defeat -- to Germany, no less.

"A village's mortal enemy is the group from which it has recently split," anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon observed. That's the case here in western Michigan. When Hope plays Calvin, it's the Dutch-heritage Reformed Church in America college facing off against the Dutch-heritage Christian Reformed Church college -- a denominational split from 1857. When the two basketball teams clash, it's like a mini religious war. There's no fundamental hate, but plenty of passion. In these parts, we joke that an atheist is "someone who goes to the Hope-Calvin game and doesn't care who wins."

David G. Myers is a social psychology professor at Hope College and the author of "Intuition: Its Powers and Perils."
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times