Box Score
Hope started Overway, Seiler, Eidson, Byers, Benson. Byers and Benson struggled some with foul trouble which reduced their minutes. Snuggerud, DeMaagd and Neil played around 20 minutes each. Gardner saw significant action down the stretch run, Van Arendonk played 13 including a nice stretch late in the game, Wittenbach 8, Ray and Holwerda made brief appearances. Overway had to soldier out 38 minutes last night. DeMaagd took a hard fall in this one and left the game with an injury.
Game Recap:
Yay Basketball
That was the sign the girl held up in the far end of Kresge Gymnasium Wednesday night. Not many places typify what basketball should be than that gym. Its old, intimate, kind of loud sometimes, it breathes basketball. It never seems easy to come out of there with a win, last night was no exception.
This Albion team is a mere shadow of the one I'd figure we'd see this year. They had lost 5 in a row including a close 3 point loss just days ago to Calvin. But somehow you just knew it would be tough, because it always is. Hope/Albion games will never win any beauty contests, they're physical, some times messy, ugly games. They're hard to officiate, hard to coach and sometimes hard to watch. The hard to watch part is the beauty of it all. Its just one of the many on the list of tests an MIAA Champion has to pass it seems. Calvin got their passing grade Saturday, Hope Wednesday, passing is all that matters, or maybe escaping is a better way to put it.
There's a certain resignation with games like these, early in this one Hope fell behind and I sighed heavily looked over at the Hope fans and I could tell they knew it to, this was going to be another one of those games. The hardest part of that resignation is knowing that no matter how well your guys play the guys on the other side will compete just as hard, maybe even harder because they have to and it will make the game a long, long brutal march to a finish you're not sure you really want to deal with. That's exactly what this game was about.
Hope was down for most of this one, after leading 2-0 it was quickly 2-7 and before you really knew it the deficit was 12. Yep this sucks. The game would waver between Hope runs and Albion runs, Hope would get close to taking control of the game and Albion would push back. Down 4 with 10 or so to play the big momentum plays finally came when Colton Overway made back-to-back steals converting on a way to easy dunk then layup and the game was finally tied. It was hard not to notice the Albion heads sag a little.
The Britons regained their composure enough to battle for the next 6 minutes regaining the lead every time Hope tied it. Three more times in fact. Hope's big breakthrough finally came off a Ben Gardner steal with under 5 to play, the subsequent foul and ft's gave Hope its first lead since that early 2-0 lead which felt hours ago. With the lead in hand Hope turned up the defense and with 2 big blocks by VanArendonk and Snuggerud turned that lead to 6 points and the final minute became about holding off the Britons. Colton Overway did just that stroking all four of his ft's beautifully into the bottom of the net.
You can smile Hope fans, exhale, wipe that brow, they got out alive again. Yay Basketball !!!
My uncle coached and played some high school games at Kresge. My dad played a game in high school at Kresge, coached by his brother. I inherited my moms leaping ability so I played tennis at Kresge when it rained on the Albion College tennis camp I attended in high school. So all of my basketball experiences in that old building are fan related. Most of those times seeing the same thing over and over and over. Lots of things have varied over the last 23 years, including but not limited to my hair line and the attendance. Albion's effort has never wavered and there is passion from both sides in these games that simply can't be quantified, you just have to witness it.
Albion is still on winter break, there were less than 200 in Kresge and its a totally different atmosphere when full. For the second straight game Hope catches a huge break with a game on the road and no students to harass them in the last 10 minutes. I'm sorry to say their first chance at that will be next Wednesday at that place in Grand Rapids.
Four in a row at Albion now, Hope hadn't done that since their nice run of good teams in the mid 90's. Hope won at Albion from 1994 to 1998. For as difficult as it can be to get wins there the Dutchmen have won on 7 of their last 10 trips.
Scoring and Interesting Stats:
Free-throw shooting: Albion did everything right to win this game except make their ft's. 13-28 is of course atrocious and they actually made their last 4 attempts. On the flip side was Hope making 28-36, well over their season average. Hope lost a game just 3 weeks ago shooting under 40% from the line, we've been there.
3 point shooting: Hope struggled from the arc in this one making just 2 on 15 attempts. It was the fewest made and the lowest percentage of the season. This really hadn't been the problem I thought it might be coming into this year. I think I'll chalk this one up to just being a part of the mix of things that happen in these kinds of games. A lot of these looked good and just rattled out.
Turnovers: 18 for Hope, 20 for Albion. Both teams pressured the ball well and did a good job getting in the passing lanes. Just that kind of game but if either team had done better they win this one easily. Hope's making about 4 more per game than they did in the non-conference.
Colton Overway: 16 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists......struggled to shoot the ball a little and probably had a couple turnovers he'd like back. Overall though he was the best guard on the floor and made a couple big plays when Hope needed them.
Nate Snuggerud: 13 points, 7 rebounds.....competed well out there with an Albion front-line that really came to play hard.
Billy Seiler: 8 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals.....doesn't seem like much but it really was in this kind of a game.
Ben Gardner: 8 points......most of the good things he did in this game didn't show up in the box-score, his hustle and tenacity down the stretch was really key for this team.
Efficiency:
Estimated number of possessions: Hope 70 Albion 72
Not many shots for this many possessions.
Offensive Efficiency: 97.00
Hope has had 6 games where they've been under 100, they lost 4 of those. The other win was Aquinas in a very similar type of game. Hope's second half was a 109, this was one of those games where the game does a 180 degree turn at halftime.
Defensive Efficiency: 88.52
I think quite a bit of this is the horrendous Ft shooting, Hope was good on defense in the second half but maybe not this good. Visually it looked like a draw. This turns out to be Hope's "best defensive performance of the season". I think I should put that in quotes because it didn't feel like it.
The mathematical evidence is suggesting Albion isn't a very good offensive team since their roster changes. They had to make this one an ugly defensive game and Hope was able to respond, matching that defensive play in the second half.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 44.8% of available offensive rebounds
Albion: 34.6% of available offensive rebounds
This led to a 14-9 second chance points advantage.
Hope's been winning these battles since Florida, probably like they should. It struck me watching the game that most of the offensive boards they give up are the long ones which aren't easy to put right back up.
Moments or Key to the Game:
Albion's good start meant this was going to be a grinding up hill battle to turn it around. It took Hope all of 30+ minutes of game time to finally grab the lead and take control.
Hope was down 10 with about 4 to play in the first half and actually cut it down to 3 briefly. But overall cutting that lead in half going to halftime was pretty big I thought.
Colton Overway's back-to-back steals which lead to 4 quick points really seemed to ignite the Hope bench. It was a big momentum moment, although Albion rebounded there was a definite "we can do this" vibe after that.
Ben Gardner's steal and subsequent ft's gave Hope its first lead, he then rebounded the next Albion miss which led to another ft and on the next possession made a beauty of an assist to Snuggerud for another basket. 5 points he had a hand in to give Hope the lead they wouldn't relinquish in just over 1 minute.
Colton's 4 ft's to seal it, those weren't easy, not one bit, but he made them look easy. He did the same thing in last years game at Albion.
My Game Ball Goes To:
Really hard one, but Ben Gardner's play in the last few minutes really stood out to me. Steal, rebound, assist, points in the crucial moments of a tie game late, all of it turned into a Hope win. Much of what he did really didn't make the box-score.
Standings
Overway - 3
Eidson - 2
Snuggerud - 2
Byers - 1
DeMaagd - 1
VanArendonk - 1
Seiler - 1
Benson - 1
Gardner - 1
Going Forward:
Well that's out of the way. Albion games are difficult to digest exactly whats happened and what you've seen. There's to much emotion to make judgements about the teams or players. Neither team is probably as bad as they looked or as good as they looked.
This is the 2nd double-digit deficit game they've faced in the league already, both times they turned it around with better defensive play. Both times you wonder if the dividends of playing a difficult schedule are starting to pay off. The good news of course is they won those games, the bad news is that they were in that position at all. Isn't league play fun.
Saturday Hope gets a home game with Kalamazoo who got smashed by Calvin last night. Kalamazoo has one win in Holland since 1978, that came 15 years ago. Good luck with that.
Up Next: Me vs attempts to jinx every and any long streak Hope has going.
Saturday Jan. 12 vs Kalamazoo
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