or, killing two birds with one stone.
Every year I set a goal of seeing every MIAA team at least once before the conference season. I never actually reach this goal but it at least gets me looking at schedules and trying to find games I can attend. Last night it was too obvious I should be at the Olivet/Spring Arbor game since Hope will likely play the Cougars on Saturday in their own tournament and Olivet is obvious. Olivet becomes MIAA team #5 thus far, the chances of seeing Trine, Alma or Kalamazoo are pretty slim so this may be it.
First, this was the coldest gym I can remember in a long, long time. If you can remember coming back from winter breaks and how cold your high school hallways or gym was back then it was a lot like that. There were 2 or 3 people who wore their winter coats the entire game. I actually considered going to my car at halftime for my winter cap. I'd like to say I'm exaggerating but I don't think so.
The game itself turned out to be a good one. Olivet came out guns blazing and knocked down most of their early shots led by the tall, lanky and silky smooth shooting Garner Small. Small made his first 4 attempts from the floor and had all 10 of the Comets points in the first 3 minutes. Olivet and Spring Arbor both played a zone defense for the entire first half, I can honestly say its been a long time since I've seen that. The MIAA has always been primarily man-to-man, I'm kind of interested to see if Chris Coles employs that strategy all season.
Olivet led throughout most of this game, for Spring Arbor it was periods of good plays followed by fits of turnovers. Two or three times the Cougars would make a little run only to turn the ball over and find themselves down double digits again. They definitely had trouble with Olivet's zone which nearly rendered the 6-8 Matt Howe useless but as the game wore on they seemed to start picking it apart led by guards Rob Hogans and Chris Bellamy who had excellent second halves.
Both teams switched to man-to-man in the 2nd half, after 5 points in two trips for SAU, Olivet went back to zone and stayed there. Spring Arbor was much more active on the defensive end, creating turnovers, blocking shots and most importantly denying Garner Small open looks. Olivet couldn't create enough offense without Small scoring and thus the lead continued to dwindle.
Spring Arbor finally grabbed their first lead with 5 minutes to play and what had been a very subdued, and cold, crowd suddenly came to life. Over the next couple minutes it looked pretty likely SAU was going to pull this out but with 1:30 left Olivet's Marquis Childers hit a 3 to tie the game up again. SAU hit a layup to lead by 2 with :30 seconds left and then the strategizing began. SAU had only racked up 3 fouls so they had plenty to give. On Olivet's first attempt to win SAU fouled as soon as the play went to the basket which wasted 10 seconds off the clock. I was sure SAU would foul again and again but I think SAU's coach probably figured putting Olivet in a desperate shot situation was inviting a 3 point shot to beat you. So they opted not to foul and let the play happen, which ended up being a foul on a shot but left 9 seconds to play. Blake Krum knocked down both ft's which set up SAU's game winning shot which was Chris Bellamy taking the in-bounds and driving the length of the court and his running right hand'er from the lane bouncing around the rim before dropping as the buzzer sounded.
Thoughts on Olivet:
I probably need a little more data and would definitely like to see how Spring Arbor does this weekend vs Hope but my initial impression is this Olivet team is at least as good as last year, which might not be saying much. However I'm not sure this particular game is a good one to judge a teams abilities, for whatever reason Olivet plays well vs Spring Arbor, also losing last years game on a last second shot. That MIAA season didn't go well for the Comets.
Garner Small is a nice revelation, he could play and probably start for just about everyone in the MIAA. Its going to be really hard to keep him off the all-miaa team I think. Fr. Jeff Cain is built solid, he played for Lansing Sexton's great high school teams I believe backing up Iowa's Anthony Clemmons. He's well coached and I thought he played well. DaunTrell Hill simply has the best beard in the history of the MIAA, this cannot be disputed.
Chris Coles had his team playing with a purpose, there were less moments of complete disarray I've seen in recent years, and less poor shot selection. Three or four really well drawn-up in-bounds passes. The 38 minutes of zone was kind of different, I'm terrible at x's and o's but it seemed to morph between a straight up 2-3 zone and a match-up zone. I did note that Garner Small played the first half on the left side (looking towards the basket) and on the right the second half. Coles is asking his guards to be pretty active. The quick switch and abandonment of man-to-man was noted, Olivet hasn't been a very good defense for a long time perhaps zone is their safest route.
This team may go as Garner Small goes, there was a clear difference in their scoring rate when Small had a more difficult time getting shots in the second half. Most of the players on this squad seem more like complimentary players rather than big scoring threats. The going thought might be stop Garner, and if that happens Olivet will have trouble scoring.
Thoughts on Spring Arbor:
I asked an SAU fan why Chris Bellamy didn't start, he's clearly their best player, apparently he's been in the coaches doghouse the last 2 or 3 games. On the year Ryan Cottingham has started 9 different guys, this felt like a team really searching for things. He got almost nothing from his front-line in this game and really only played 4 guys 6-5 or taller. This is a heavily guard oriented team and at one point had 4 guards in the game.
Those guards are pretty good ones led by Chris Bellamy, Rob Hogans and Matt VanPelt along with Fr. Greg Hamilton. Between them they took 40 of their 50 shots and scored 61 of their 71 points. Wow. I'm not sure they're on the same level as Cornerstone, they just don't have the same firepower from behind the arc. They did nothing to make Olivet come out of its zone and only put up 12 shots from out there, on the year they're a paltry 31%. These guards spent most of this game trying to get in the lane and to the basket.
For Saturday
If Spring Arbor takes care of Grace Bible like they probably should they'll match-up with Hope Saturday afternoon. Or rather, they'll have a very difficult time matching up with Hope. Matt Howe and Matt Carden are big wide guys but I think Hope just has more depth on the interior. The guards will certainly give Hope troubles at times and a good shooting day could keep them in touch for most of it. But I think Hope is too deep, too much more athletic to have much trouble with the Cougars.
It will be an interesting comparison with last nights game though.
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