MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

They are NAIA I, as opposed to AQ and C'stone who are NAIA II, slightly higher level.  They play in the Chicagoland Athletic conference and went 17-16 last season.

Some curious wins, and curious losses from last season.  http://www.iusb.edu/~sbathlet/mbbsched.shtml

12 underclassman a year ago, including 9 Freshman.  They call their gym SAC, which can't be half bad.

I wouldn't call this the easiest opener for a team that will need name tags for a few practices.

I said this back in early September.............then forgot about it.  Then remembered it.



This post below bothered me all day, I just didn't really check on it..........nothing personal Hopester I just didn't think it was cautionary enough.

Did a little lookup on Indiana South Bend in preparation for tomorrow night's game.

IUSB is 2-5 with nothing impressive about anything they have done. 2 point victory over Goshen and a solid margin victory against Purdue Calumet. Other than that double digit losses to all other opponents including the former MIAA star's team Bethel College.

http://www.bethelcollege.edu/sports/Mens/Basketball/Box/?articleID=3209

Interesting to note: Tony Benford has not had any minutes yet with Bethel who are currently ranked number 2 in NAIA D2.

Seems like tomorrow nights game should not be a problem for the Dutchmen. As this will be one of the few times where we will appear to be the bigger and more athletic team. You never know though they have already had 7 games experience to Hope's 0. We will see. Should be fun, season is finally about to start... HALLELUJAH!!!

True  Goshen and Purdue-Calumet were their first two "unimpressive wins" and I have nothing to dispute that.

But the rest of their schedule is pretty dang tough.

Indiana Wesleyan pre-season WHAC favorite (C'stone, AQ) and ranked #14 in NAIA-II pre-season

Bethel is the MCC favorite, which is the premier league in NAIA-II, and ranked #2 in NAIA II

MeKendrie is an NAIA-I team ranked #9 in the pre-season

Pikeville went 22-9 last season and finished 4th in their conference which featured 3 of the best teams in all of NAIA-I, they were receiving votes

Grace is another NAIA-II team, also from the MCC, but not ranked nor receiving votes.


I think its pretty big to win vs a team a level above you thats played 7 games already.  I have  no idea where IUSB will finish, but out the gate this win should feel good.

[Gregory Sager]

I don't recognize IUSB - am I correct in guessing that that is Indiana U - South Bend?

Yes. The Titans are in Division One of the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference, alongside St. Xavier, St. Francis, IIT, Olivet Nazarene, and Robert Morris (Chicago).

[Hopester]

There is no denying on my part that there schedule is tough, but none of the games had been close to that point. My point being that I realized the difficulty, the teams they had played were having good year up to this point. All of them have only lost 0 times or 1 time, except maybe the other team at the Mckendree Classic. IUSB doesnt show who that was on their sight. I stand by my statement that it should have been easier. Way to many turnovers in this game kept it close.

IUSB is a very young team and at times looked like they have some potential talent, but they are a year or two away. IUSB would be in the bottom half of the MIAA, if they were in this conference. This game brought back memories of Aquinas a year ago. For the first game, a solid victory but they need to be improvement. I was very disturbed at times with how stagnant the offense was.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Thoughts from the game at the DeVos tonight...

- IUSB is a good team, and would be a tough win for most MIAA teams.  They reminded me a bit of an Albion team - relentless, but maybe not quite as intense on D as the Brits usually are.

- Jesse Reimink finished with a pretty quiet 30, despite the fact that he was typically double teamed, and was clearly the focus of the IUSB defense. Inside, outside, 9 boards, 5 steals, and great D.  An all around great game.  I look for great things from him this year.

- Every guy but Venema played significant minutes in the first half.  And some really quality minutes from Kevin Warren, Doug Sharples, David Krombeen, and Dan Cox.

- Hope played two very different halves of ball.   First half was a full throttle offense and tought D, leading to a pretty comfortable lead, that shrunk just a bit before halftime.  Second half, Hope came out really tight.  I've seen this exact same reaction by most Hope teams in their first few games over the last few years.  IUSB really put the pressure on, and it was a tight game the entire second half.  Hope seemed to "come to" about 6 or 7 minutes into the half, and played pretty well from there.

- Despite the strain on my poor heart, this is the perfect kind of game for a young team to play.  A win - yet you had to work really hard for it, and you proved you can take control the last couple minutes.

Lastly - Hope shot around 30% from 3 tonight, making 7.  Last year (not a bad year) Hope averaged 8.6 3's per game and shot 39.5%.  Their right on track to do what this offense is designed to do.

[AndersDY]

Hi again everyone. I was not able to check out the game tonight, but hearing that Hope was playing reminded me I should check back in here for the winter. Good to hear we got a win to start off with.

Also, the way this week is going, perhaps I need to jump to bball season 2 days early this year. Since I probably won't get to say it Saturday:

It's great, to be, a Michigan Wolverine!

[sac]

Two items to clear up

Sometimes all these records and trying to keep track of them make me want to pull my hair out.............and its just a simple misphrasing.

Jesse Reimink did not tie the DeVos Fieldhouse record for points, that belongs to Kent Raymond, Wheaton with 47 last spring vs Whitworth

He did break the Hope record for points by a Hope player, besting Steve Cramers 28 point effort.

He also tied the record for points in a game involving Hope, if that makes sense.  Jeff Jayson, Aquinas had 30 vs Hope
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IU-South Bend is the first NAIA-1 school Hope's beaten since 1997, which encompasses 1 other meeting.  On my cheat sheet that only goes back to 1995, the only other NAIA-1 I can find is St. Xavier.  That was a loss.

I do have Hope with two other wins over IUSB in 95 and 96, but I have them listed as NAIA-II.  That may or may not be accurate.

In 1997 Hope beat  David Lipscomb who I think were NAIA-1 at the time.  That might be the only other win vs an NAIA-I program, unless we go back into the 80's.   Lipscomb dropped the 'David' and is now just Lipscomb and now plays D-1.   Just a bit of late night trivia.

[MItwoA]

Thank you sac...I was coming on here to say the same exact thing!  I can't believe how many times they said that on the radio as well.  I believe another kid had 43 in the DeVos, not against Hope tho!

[MItwoA]

Hope is going to need to find an inside game if they are going to be competitive this year!  Way too many three pointers!  I can't imagine Glenn VanWieren will be happy with that! 
Sounds like Hope just needed to get the gitters out from the first game!  Need to work on taking care of the ball!!!

hmmm....sounds like what everyone said last year...lack of an inside presence will kill them....I think GVW would take another final four trip right now.

but way too many 3-pointers???  have you watched Hope play in the last couple of years? 

Yea...I actually played for them!

[Flying Dutch Fan]

- IUSB is a good team, and would be a tough win for most MIAA teams.  

I'm curious to know which MIAA teams this would not be a tough win for?

Sorry - I was a bit tired when I wrote that, what I meant to say was they would be a tough win for most MIAA teams on most nights. 

I am basing this on one game, but I would put them battling for 3rd or 4th in the MIAA.

[hope_hoops1]

Big opening night win for the Dutchmen last night.  Jesse Reimink was the hero for Hope and is my pick to win conference MVP.  Yes, defenses will be geared to stop him, but his versatility and tenacity will make that tough.  As a team, it's obvious they have a lot of things to work on, but pulling out a tight win against a quality opponent (much better than advertised) is always better than losing.  Offensively, they went through some long cold spells, mainly because everyone was running around too much and eliminating any sort of spacing.  Defensively, the first guy helping was almost always in the right place at the right time, but the 2nd and 3rd rotations were a little slow which lead to a lot of 3's.  All in all, I left the game feeling pretty good about the Dutchmen.  It's not last year's team, but hopefully they will have a quick learning curve with all of the young talent out there.

I'm nervous about Saturday's game against the Trolls.  Trinity is always up to play Hope, and hopefully the same will be said for the opposite.

[Knightmare]

Admittedly not being a Hope fan this didn't hold as much interest to me as it may to others but their are some interesting observations on Stephen Bell's MLive blog of the Hope JV vs. Glen Oaks CC bball game.  Here is the link, also the weblog is a great place to follow high school players and recruiting.

http://blog.mlive.com/highschoolbasketball/

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Looking back at the play-by-play stats from last night really pointed out ot me how big Jesse stepped up to finish the game. 

With 1:38 left in the game, Hope trailed 68-67.  His stats for the remainder of the game were:

1 3pt
2 FT
2 steals
1 assist
1 block
1 foul

That's great senior leadership!

[hoopdreams]

I seem to recall someone making a post earlier this fall about Jesse Reimink being an MVP canidate, and having multiple people reply that the notion was, unrealitic and farfetched. Oh wait.... the person making that post was me ( is that a grammar error, me or I?).  One game doesn't make a season, but if he stays out of foul trouble....

I thought the intensity to start the game was outstanding, and subsequent substitutions ruined that for the next 30 minutes.  The lack of flow was due to the lack of practice and some very strange and unsuccessful combos on the floor- krombeen, cox, warren, sharples??? The main difference was IU's ability to penetrate, pick up tons of fouls or kick out for clean looks.

Curiousity also arose watching who was given long leashes in regards to playing through mistakes and who was not. Some mistakes, a few huge ones, most minute were overlooked, some were not.

Hope started 0-1 last season with a lot more prep time and was senior led.  A W to start the season, pretty or not, is a good way to start things off

[wiz]

Sounds like Hope just needed to get the gitters out from the first game!  

Did someone come and take their gitter out?  Yuck!!!

[KnightSlappy]

everyone was running around too much.

Calvin has not had this problem in recent years and many Calvin fans would see this problem as offensive improvement for the Knights.