Tuesday, March 3, 2015

MIAA Championship Review

Wrong in Every Way

Box
Recap
Video---game archive, I don't know how long it will remain up.  Its worth the watch as this was probably one of the best rivalry game endings of the last few years.


There isn't much I'm going to say that will be what people want me to say.  I sat in the East end of Van Noord Arena and if you did, you saw what I saw, and you didn't hear what I didn't hear.  So your opinion is probably pretty close to mine.

I can not tell you how disheartening it is to hear people who never, ever, complain about officiating, who spend hours of their personal time working with young men, people who have sat in the same stands as me and never say a word negative about anything, all have the same look of disbelief.  Each saying the same things, 'I'd sure like an explanation for some of the no calls.'

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Friday, February 27, 2015

MIAA Semi-Final: Hope 55 Trine 44

The most cliche title I can think of:  Survive and Advance
Hope 55 Trine 44
Box
Recap

Hope just needed to win last night and it really didn't matter how.  Play pretty, look pretty, play ugly, look ugly.  Irrelevant.  Have more points than the other guys and you move on.  Hope did, all night long.

If you were asking to set a tone on the road in front of pretty nice sized student section waiting for any reason to lift their team, Hope painted the perfect scenario.   Establish your post, play tough defense, rebound early and run out to a 10-0 lead.  By the middle of the half Hope led by as many as 16 and threatened to dominate in front of a rather quiet crowd.

But like good teams do, Trine found their legs, started hunkering down on defense themselves and for about 30 minutes the two teams played to pretty much a stalemate.  It was simply a 10 point hole Trine just couldn't overcome.

For Hope's part they had a team full of contributions on the defensive end that stymied Trine into a 29% shooting night and forced one of the better ball-handling teams in D3 into crucial turnovers.  All of it enough to give Hope a chance to win.

The scene from Angola


Efficiency:

Hope  98.17   Trine  77.09

Two really good teams played a great defensive game.  If you'd asked Brooks Miller before hand if he would take holding Hope to 55 points I think he would have taken it in a heartbeat.  You can maybe argue Trine had a bad night shooting but I really thought Hope was in their jersey's all night long.  Trine didn't get many easy looks.  No matter how you choose to look at this given the opponent this is Hope's best defensive effort of the year by a mile and probably one of their best in several seasons.


Pace:

56-57  Very slow I thought but not boring at all.  This pace even included some transition baskets.  Both teams used the shot clock to its fullest.

 
Rebounding:
Hope 35  Trine 28

Hope had 38% of available offensive rebounds
Trine had 32% of available offensive rebounds

A very minimal difference on the boards.  If anything Trine was better at taking rebounds away that Hope looked to have corralled.  2nd chance points was 7-7, almost all the offensive rebounds ended up in resetting offenses.

Turnovers:
Hope 14  Trine 12

Call me crazy but that's a win for Hope.  In the first two games the turnovers were Hope 17 Trine 8, and Hope 15 Trine 7, but more importantly points off turnovers was -5, -6 to Trine.  Last night Hope turned that around to +4.  That's almost your entire difference in scoring margin.


Up Next:

MIAA Tournament Championship
vs Calvin
February 27  7:30pm
Van Noord Arena at Calvin College




Monday, February 23, 2015

Week in Review: Kalamazoo, Adrian


I tried to limit my travels a little this year which meant cutting out a couple MIAA games I would normally see.  Adrian and Kzoo to finish the season seemed appropriate so I didn't make it to either of these games.


Easy to Forget
Hope 67  Kalamazoo 55
Box
Recap

Unless I'm forgetting something this is probably the first Hope game in awhile I neither followed online or listened to on the radio.  It was such a big day I've even forgotten what else I was doing.

After the loss to Alma, Hope just needed to get back in the win column this week and begin piecing together their strategies for the MIAA Tournament next week.  With the MIAA title out of reach and Pool C bid becoming the longest of longshots there really wasn't much else to focus on for the Dutchmen.

So Wednesday it nice to hear they shed most of the disappointment from Saturday by beating the Hornets without a lot of fuss.  Kzoo stayed around for awhile, but a strong first 10 minutes of the second half put this one away and Hope coasted to a 12 point win.



Sunday, February 15, 2015

Week in Review: Olivet, Alma

Nope, not interested

Hope 108  Olivet 72
Box
Recap

The last time these two teams played it was a terrific game that was played in the single-digit margins for 39 minutes before Olivet quit hitting ever shot they put up and Hope pulled away to win by 10.  Despite the previous entertainment value of that one I could find little interest in watching this game with a couple other games on the internet worth watching.  So I saw the tip, a few random plays as I checked on things, and then watched the first half the next morning.  So I don't have much intimate knowledge of this one or much patience to really delve into this game.  Hope was way better than Olivet and that's about all that mattered.

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Monday, February 9, 2015

Week in Review: Calvin, Albion

Its About Time

Calvin 83 Hope 77
Box
Recap

Recent Hope/Calvin games have been anything but what most of us have come to expect from these games.  In the previous 7 games these two have played, 5 had been decided by double-digits with the lowest of those being 18.  Very un-Hope/Calvin like.  On Wednesday the duel was more familiar and frankly refreshing.

For a little over 3/4's of this game both teams were shooting over 50% from the floor and both hovered around 50% from the 3-point line.  Much of the evening was a lot of back-and-forth with both teams seeming to top each others great shots typically right after the other.  Neither team could ever get a big lead with the largest being Hope by 5, Calvin by 7.  This one was played in a pretty tight range of margin which made it very enjoyable to watch.

In a game such as this some might think the defense was poor but I didn't think so, I thought it was really good.  For the most part it took a lot of effort for either team to score, its just that the game was played at such a high level offensively for such a long time.  Ultimately though it was defense that carried the Knights to this win.

From 6:21 mark to 1:27 Hope had zero field goals.  A 3-point lead became a 6-point deficit.  All Hope could manage was a couple of missed 3-point attempts and two large empty trips to the FT line.  On the other end Jordan Brink completed a 3-point play which was some kind of mess of shot that went in that put Calvin up 3, their first lead in nearly 20 minutes of game time.  It was a lead the Knights wouldn't give up.

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Monday, February 2, 2015

Week in Review: Adrian, Trine

Always a Nice Drive

Hope 68  Adrian 58
Box
Recap

Wednesday night Hope traveled to Adrian in a game no one thought would involve two MIAA top 4 teams about a month ago.  The Bulldogs have turned things around and heading into this game had the only win that was keeping Trine from leading the league undefeated.

Early on the Bulldogs shot the ball very well making their first 3 three-point attempts and when Ricky Jackson made his third consecutive layup Adrian led 23-14.  It was Brock Benson who gave Hope a spark when they needed it most with some great hustle plays at both ends of the court and fighting for loose balls.

For the next 10 minutes Hope played its best and longest stretch of defense this year holding Adrian to two ft's and zero fg's turning a 9 point deficit into a 6 point halftime lead.  Hope's bench finished the half strong with Corey McMahon and Steve Wittenbach providing key points.

Hope continued its strong play into the 2nd half, when Sam Otto's 3 dropped in with 12 minutes to play Hope led by 16 and had outscored the Bulldogs 36-10 in the middle 18 minutes of the game.  Adrian didn't quit and made a couple nice runs to close the gap to 10.  They were able to get the score to single digits and even down to 6 before Alex Eidson hit a big 3 off a curl to put Hope up 9 again and that was basically the end.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Preview: Adrian

Up Next:

Wednesday Jan 28
Hope @ Adrian, 7:30 pm
Merillat Gymnasium

One is a good dog, the other a bad dog

Starting with the bad, the Bulldogs went just 2-9 in the non-conference portion of their schedule which included one gruesome and one baffling losses to Lawrence Tech and UM-Dearborn.  In their rivalry game with Siena Heights they got whipped by 23.  Their two wins were over 6-13 USCAA outfit PSU-Lehigh Valley and 4-13 Franklin.  They stayed close with Case Western, Elmhurst and North Central but there wasn't much here to woof  home about.  The good has been the Bulldogs 4-2 start to the MIAA season which included saddling Trine with their only loss.  Your guess is as good as mine about which team Hope sees Wednesday.

Hope and Adrian have one common non-conference opponent.  Mt. Union beat Adrian by 28, Hope beat Mt. Union by 8.  A month ago and pretty useless.

Roster
Stats
Probable Lineup:
G  Curtis Gordon  5-11  Sr.
G  Jamison Webster  6-2  Jr.
G  Rickie Jackson  6-3  Jr.
F  Ben Rodak  6-4  Jr.
F  Justin Webster  6-5  So
----------------------------------
G  Jordan Denham  6-0  Jr.
G  Earl Swift  6-3  So.
G  Joey Lesniak  6-4  Fr.
F  Anton Horton  6-3  Fr.

That's the starting five I would expect but Mark White isn't shy about sticking someone else in there for no good reason.  Anton Horton started the last game and played 5 whole minutes.  White would like his starters to give him 30+ minutes and once you get past  Denham and Swift he's reaching into Freshmen and Freshmen who haven't played much.  Both Denham and Swift have given 20+ off the bench, but this is not a very deep team.  If it goes for Adrian against Hope the same way it has for Olivet, Alma and Kzoo who couldn't defend the post without fouling and got in foul trouble early you might see Adrian reach pretty deep just to try and steal some minutes.

Ricky Jackson has become a pretty good MIAA scorer averaging 14.8 per game and shooting at nice steady 45% clip.   Curtis Gordan isn't a big threat to score and is struggling with his outside shot but is still averaging around 8 per game.  I don't know much about either of the Webster brothers but Justin has become the third point on the usual Adrian triangle of scoring.  Ben Rodak will pull you outside and is a pretty good 3-point shooter, though maybe streaky.  Denham and Swift won't provide a lot in scoring but expect many minutes from them.

Offensively the Bulldogs have struggled this year shooting below 40% as a team and a pretty woeful 30% from 3.  Jackson and Rodak are hovering around 35% from 3,  the rest combined we probably shouldn't speak about.  This is mostly a team that will drive the basket and take the occasional mid-range jumper.   They're an average FT shooting team and haven't rebounded as well as recent teams.  Adrian takes good care of the ball and is more likely to be on the positive side of the turnover game.  They are able to generate a decent number of steals and that should perk your ears to my past Hope turnover complaints.

Adrian is all about defense and as poor as some of their offensive numbers look their defensive numbers tell the story.  Opponents are shooting just 42% against them and only 32% from three.  They've allowed only 63 points per game and an even stingier 53 in league play holding 3 teams under 50 points and a paltry 35% shooting.

Efficiency is a little useless with Adrian but their season numbers are 95 on offense, 99 on defense.  But they've held 4 of 6 league opponents below 90 and Calvin has been the only team to crack 100 at 102 in the league.  Pace wise the Bulldogs are average at 65 on the year but its either very slow or slight faster than average with them and nothing really in between.  Four of their league contests have been Bo Ryan specials with possessions falling in the 50's.  Expect Adrian to do everything they can to make this a slow, alley fight.

Masseyratings.com rates Adrian #204 this week and gives Hope an 85% chance at a win by 11 points, 71-60.  I'd shade the points down a little and a double-digit win would certainly feel satisfying on the road.  This won't be pretty.

Final thought.  You may print everything I've written and burn it.  The only part that will matter is the following section......

cut here-------------------------------------------------------------------------------cut here

Case Western 67  Adrian 60
Elmhurst 62  Adrian 58
North Central 75  Adrian 69
Adrian 54  Trine 44
Calvin 61  Adrian 49---3pt game with 4 1/2 to play

All of these opponents have an eye towards the post-season.  Adrian played well against all of them and that should have your attention enough.  Adrian has played well against good teams.