Hope started Overway, Seiler, Snuggerud, Byers, Van Arendonk. Seiler returns to the starting 5, Byers is probably the starter until Whittenbach is ready to go (maybe see some minutes next weekend?). Hope ended up playing everyone available, including the odd inclusion of 4 guys into the second half who hadn't played in the first half, in the middle of a competitive game. Not sure what exactly but the Hope staff was searching for something, as you'll see later, probably defense.
Game Recap:
Of the 3 games I've had a chance to see this year this was easily the most well played and entertaining, also the first involving Hope. Cornerstone has a very good team and I suspect when the dust settles on 2013 their season probably comes to an end sometime in the NAIA Tournament in Branson, Missouri. Coming off a close 6 point loss to Davenport on Tuesday it was pretty clear the Eagles were ready to play some good basketball this weekend.
Cornerstone pressed for most of the game though it was mostly passive, attacking the in-bounds before dropping off. Unfortunately Hope made a couple too many careless passes which led to easy points for the Eagles, ultimately those points proved costly. Otherwise the entire first half was played to a margin of under 5 points, mostly under 4 actually with the teams trading baskets and the lead a few times. Neither team had much of an obvious advantage and it was statistically pretty much a draw, so the 40-38 halftime score seemed very appropriate.
Early in the 2nd half Hope subbed in Matt Parisi for Caleb Byers, I can only believe this was to counter a smaller Cornerstone lineup. Soon after Billy Seiler picked up two quick fouls sending him to the bench, on came Alex Eidson for his first action. For the most part I think Hope stuck with 3 guards in the second half.
The half itself was pretty much like the first, back and forth with lots of good offensive play. With about 10 1/2 minutes to play Cornerstone finally broke the 5 point barrier to grab a very brief 6 point lead. Hope came right back and brought it back to one point. But over the next 2 minutes Cornerstone hit 3 straight three's from Wes Hudson, Alex Lyle and Hudson again to take a 1 point game to 9, a couple of those were pretty long ones.
Hope stayed in it though getting the ball inside on its next several possessions closing the lead to 1 point again before Cornerstone turned to its big man Jake Plight who hit two big shots in close in the final moments to keep the Eagles in command. They finally iced the game at the line. In the end it was a very good game with lots of key moments to ponder but what a deceptive score. For the whole game I think there was something just under 2 minutes played with a margin of more than 6 points.
Given the quality of play and the date on the calender it was hard be irritated with this one. Both teams will be left with some frustrations about defense but in the end I think both teams played a great offensive game, sometimes you just can't stop the other guy.
It would be easy to be frustrated or get down on Hope's 0-2 record (not counting Faith, nor will I) but you have to remember Hope still has a lineup full of the first year players and they're still getting their feet under them and they've played two very good small college basketball teams. It was pretty obvious given the substitutions in this game and some of the weird minutes that Hope is still searching for the right lineups or trying different things out. This will probably continue for most of the non-conference season.
Scoring and Interesting Stats:
I haven't been handed too many boxscores as perplexing and confusing as this one. When you shoot 57% to the other guys 50% you should win, especially when you shoot 64% in one half. But that didn't happen. Ultimately the difference was those handful of back-court turnovers resulting in easy points, and as you'll see Hope did a pretty poor job on the boards.
Coltan Overway: 16 points, 7 assists......pretty good all-around game from Coltan, you'll be pretty hard pressed to find an opponent left on Hope's schedule with guards as good as Cornerstone's.
Nate Snuggerud: 19 points......probably needed to be more active on the boards, he sure looks nearly unstoppable sometimes.
After that the scoring was really spread out and no one really stood out, a lot of the team had some really good minutes mixed with some bad ones as well. The biggest culprit for being subbed out was defense or turnovers.
Efficiency:
Estimated Possessions: Hope 70 Cornerstone 69
That's as normal as normal gets.
Offensive Efficiency: 114.0
That's pretty good, well above average for most D3 teams. For the most part Hope maximized its possessions, strip out the back-court turnovers and convert those to offensive points at the same rate and Hope probably wins this one.
Defensive Efficiency: 125.63
After mulling over the boxscore and not finding many answers I decided it must be in the efficiency and here it is. This is awful, awful, awful. The worst two games Hope played last year were 113's, Western Michigan and Illinois Wesleyan. One of the more frustrating parts was Hope not being able to play defense without fouling leading to the substantial FT advantage. There just weren't many times down the floor Cornerstone didn't get something for their trouble.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 30.5% of available offensive rebounds
C'stone: 45.2% of available offensive rebounds
I'd prefer if those number were flipped. I don't have second chance points but I bet it was enough in Cornerstone's favor to cover the margin. There weren't a lot of misses in this one and any offensive rebound was big, giving up 14 was just way too many.
Backcourt turnovers and offensive rebounds, that was enough, and more, to make up for Hope's slightly better FG%. A little frustrating to lose a game that way against a really good team.
Moment or Play of the game:
The two minute stretch with about 9 minutes to play where Cornerstone hit 3 straight 3 point shots. I felt Hope might be turning the game at that point, than all of the sudden the margin was its biggest as it had been. Hope was still able to climb back to 1 again but one or two of those shots really changed the momentum.
My game ball goes to:
Coltan Overway, played a really solid game against good guards. He hit two or three pretty big shots at key points to stem some Cornerstone momentum. Played kind of like you expect a Sr. point guard to play.
Standings
Snuggerud - 1
Byers - 1
Overway - 1
DeMaagd - 1 (see below)
Some thoughts on the whole weekend:
I watched the Calvin/Aquinas game Friday. I figured like most Calvin would cruise to an easy win but it was anything but easy. In what will probably be one of the most passive defensive games I see this year that ends up being a defensive score, Calvin scored just enough points to beat a game Aquinas team 58-55. Calvin plays some good defense, just not very physical and mostly because they really don't give up anything easy, also tallness. There can be little doubt the 3 guys who missed most of last season make them a better team. Calvin will enter MIAA play a very good team with a very good record, next week is just as big for them as it is for Hope (except for that in-region game nonsense).
On Saturday Calvin beat Cornerstone in a game that was much more defensive than the Hope/C'stone game (actually a lot more). Calvin led by just over 5 points most of the game but had to hold off an Eagle rally at the end to win it. Between Hope/Calvin/Cornerstone there doesn't appear to be much difference in overall talent and ability, for now the difference is in execution.
Once upon a time I knew Aquinas' rosters almost as good as most MIAA ones but not anymore. Aquinas left this weekend 1-8 on the season after Hope pulled out a 66-63 game on Saturday. It makes no sense of course but that seems to be the Aquinas we see in this tournament most years. I guess you just have give AQ some credit for playing as well as they did on the weekend. A second look at their season results shows most of their games have been close losses. I really think they're heading for a tough year in the WHAC, we'll see.
Hope 66 Aquinas 63
I had family over Saturday so I wasn't able to follow much of the Hope/Aquinas game. I pretty much knew it would be closer than it should be because aren't they always. I tuned in just in time to hear Chase DeMaagd rescue the Dutchmen with 2 three's, 2 big rebounds and a couple of clutch FT's to give Hope the win in the last 6 minutes. So Chase gets the mythical game ball.
Estimated possessions: Hope 67 Aquinas 66
A little below average but not bad
Offensive Efficiency: 98.54
Given that Aquinas did pretty much the same thing to Calvin you have to maybe tip your hat to the Saints defense on the weekend or maybe their ability to slow down the pace of play to something they can manage.
Defensive Efficiency: 95.49
Quite a turnaround from the night before, even if Aquinas is a significant step down from Cornerstone in offensive ability this had to be a better effort. It couldn't have been worse.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 37.8% of available offensive rebounds
Aquinas: 13.8% of available offensive rebounds
<ahem>, I think this may have talked about a little after the Cornerstone game. Probably the primary reason Hope had 20 more shots than Aquinas. For the day the offense wasn't as sharp as it appeared to be the day before. After losing the game on the glass against Cornerstone, they probably won this one on the glass.
Going Forward:
Hope lost a tough close game with a good Cornerstone team and eeked out a close win over an Aquinas program I will never, ever understand. The team is still getting its legs under them, still working on finding the right combinations, still putting their collective skills together. Its a puzzle with a lot of pieces still laying around. Its been a couple years since Hope's had to build a team like this so it probably feels weird, for now the caution tape is still flapping in the wind around DeVos Fieldhouse. Next week will be two more good challenges with Carthage and Wheaton
Up Next: Friday Nov 30, vs Carthage at Wheaton College
Saturday Dec 1, @ Wheaton
We start the third rotation (year 9) of the MIAA/CCIW Challenge with Hope, Calvin, Wheaton, Carthage.
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