Hope started Overway, Seiler, Eidson, Byers, Benson. Snuggerud came off the bench for 27. Neil, Gardner a little over 15, VanArendonk 11, Holwerda and Wittenbach about 7, Ray and DeMaagd played briefly. Noted at halftime was Nate Snuggerud replacing Byers and VanArendonk playing 10 of his 11 minutes in the 2nd half.
Garner Small did not play for Olivet, this was a significant loss since he's their and one of the MIAA's leading scorers. It did not matter.
Game Recap:
Chris Coles has Olivet playing well, they're getting better. I saw this team beat Adrian a couple weeks ago. My inner monologue leaving the Cutler Center that night was sh*t, they can beat Hope. Last spring this program was nearly a tire fire inside a dumpster fire, a well liked veteran Olivet graduate head coach was out the door. Players left, a coaching search was something it maybe wasn't with four public finalists. Coles wasn't one of them but he's the man on the sidelines now.
I don't think many people thought Olivet would be very competitive this year, not without some transfers or freshmen. Coles got both, transfers Garner Small, DaunTrell Hill, freshmen TJ Vondette, Jeff Cain. All four start. Without these guys I'm not sure Olivet has even one win. They're competitive.
I won't say Olivet jumped all over Hope because they didn't, but they were the better team for most of the first half. They led from the tip and frankly outplayed Hope at both ends of the floor. Without Garner Small I was really unsure what Olivet could do offensively but TJ Vondette filled in admirably with 15 first half points, all of them jumpers of varying lengths including 3-3 from the arc. Hope struggled offensively to find anything consistent, Snuggerud was the only Dutchmen with more than 1 fg. When the teams sprinted off to the locker room it felt pretty fortunate to only be down 6.
Hope started the 2nd half with a bigger effort to pound the ball inside which they did with much better and frequent success. Colton Overway made some tougher shots and it looked and felt like Hope was taking over the game and would probably pull it out somehow. But, Olivet just kept hitting those 3's, every time it felt like Hope made a move a 3 ball went up and in for Olivet. Including the final two of the game both with under a minute to play by Krum and Hill.
For a neutral it was probably a pretty entertaining game with a few 2nd half ties and lead changes and the clutch shots at the end. The disappointing part was the turnovers especially late in the game, either could have won the game by simply taking care of the ball. For a Hope fan there isn't much to be happy about in this one, they did some things ok like defend on the interior and rebound. Hope's offense spent most of the day standing in quicksand, they didn't move well, the spacing didn't look good and the passing was kind of atrocious at times. Defensively they were what they've been all year, bad at defending the three's and Olivet capitalized on that.
Olivet really deserved to win and that's the hard part to take.
Sometimes it feels like teams hit a wall in late January early February. It usually lasts about two weeks but its a time when teams just don't seem to play very well. Some teams can pull through it with little damage others are not so lucky, it always feels like these next 2 or 3 weeks are full of upsets around the country. Its possible Hope has hit their wall a little early, they've looked really poor offensively for two games in a row now. Hope needs a really good effort Wednesday against Trine or this could go South really, really fast.
Hope played without a lot of energy yesterday, that's somewhat understandable after Wednesday but this league is too good with too many good coaches now to come into another gym and give the lacks effort Hope gave to start this game. Hope let Olivet dictate everything early without much push back and that hurt to see. Four out of 6 league games now Hope's fallen behind early, dangerous trend.
This was Hope's first loss at Olivet since 2005, that was in the old gym so its their first loss in Cutler. Hope went 15-12 that year. That team never came together and faced a little more adversity than this one. I still think this team has potential to be good, but more urgency needed. In case you were wondering Hope also lost to Olivet in 2010, that one at DeVos.
Desire: verb \di-ˈzī(-ə)r, dē-\
: to long or hope for : exhibit or feel desire for (desire success);
Passion: noun \ˈpa-shən\
: intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction
Just a thought or two.
Scoring and Interesting Stats:
3 point shooting: Hope just got bombed yesterday. 12-25 for Olivet, its what they do well and Hope was powerless to stop it. Hope was 1-12 and little threat from behind the arc and missed their first 9 attempts. This was the game.
Turnovers: 25, In the big preview I mentioned Olivet games are messy in the turnover department, they are, and it was. The ones at the end bothered me the most, those last 5 in the last 5 minutes were the critical ones. Too many were the results of bad, sloppy passes, Hope teams have typically been good passing teams. Not this week.
Nate Snuggerud: 18 points, 5 rebounds.....most minutes since the Spring Arbor game, I'd like to think we'll see this the rest of the way but I really don't know.
Colton Overway: 12 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist.....the one assist probably points out the job Olivet did making Colton give up the ball, also probably reflects Hope's terrible movement and no fast-breaks. Sometimes he looked alone out there
Billy Seiler: 8 points, 3 rebounds.......changed his FT approach and stroked all 4 beautifully.
Nate VanArendonk: 7 points, 5 rebounds...... played well and needed, opened space a couple times for others. Call me a homer if you want but I honestly do not understand some of the foul calls this kid gets against him. Being big is not a foul.
Efficiency:
Estimated number of possessions: Hope 81 Olivet 80
Really did not feel like that at all. In fact zero fast-break points for either team, and I saw something I've never seen, a Hope fast-break stop 2 feet short of the basket and the ball cycle back out to the arc. I believe Jeff Cain showed great hustle to get back into that play but wow! High number of possessions probably why the turnovers really didn't bother me.
Offensive Efficiency: 80.78
Yeah, not efficient. I don't know why but Olivet has been outstanding on defense at home but mediocre on the road. It wasn't good either half and I'll leave it at that. Hope's been under 100 7 times, 5 of those losses, 3 of those they defended well enough to get the win. This loss is squarely on Hope's offense.
Defensive Efficiency: 84.81
Hard one to make sense of, on the one hand this should be good enough to win every time. On the other, Olivet didn't challenge the interior at all and that is where most teams get their efficiency so it should look low. It was this low for both halves, also one of the lowest numbers you'll see from a winning team.
So what we have is two terrible efficiency numbers, one got there by missing 92% of the 3's they took, one got there by making 48% of the 3's they took. Yeah, strange.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 38.2% of available offensive rebounds
Olivet: 9.1% of available offensive rebounds
Second chance points was 10-5 to Hope so they got very little advantage from this massive difference. Olivet had 3 offensive rebounds the entire game. This isn't as dominating as it looks because Olivet almost completely abandoned even going after offensive rebounds to get back on defense, they made it easy for Hope.
Moment or Keys to the Game:
TJ Vondette had his best game of his young career. His early shooting gave Olivet the advantage that they hung onto for 22 minutes.
Every 3-point shot Olivet made.
Olivet's Blake Krum hit a 3 to put Olivet up 2 at 58 seconds.
Billy Seiler made a layup off a well designed play to tie the game with 29 seconds left
Olivet's DaunTrell Hill made a 3 with 1 second left to win the game.
My Game Ball Goes To:
Nate Snuggerud showed flashes of his old self yesterday and that was good to see. Hope ran quite a bit of offense with him as the intended target and he delivered for the most part. Honestly without him this might not have been close.
Standings
Overway - 4
Snuggerud - 3
Eidson - 2
Seiler - 2
Byers - 1
DeMaagd - 1
VanArendonk - 1
Benson - 1
Gardner - 1
Going Forward:
This loss opens a gap now to Calvin that truthfully will probably not be closed. Its hard to say whats happened to this team offensively but they've been really easy to defend the last two games, combined with some really awful passing decisions they've been pretty poor. It was for all purposes a disaster of a week.
Next week is Trine at home and at Alma, they could win or lose both of those and that's the reality of this team right now. I don't like it and I'm sure the players and coaches don't like it. I'm not a coach and not at practices, what I see from my seat is a lot of little things adding up to some much bigger things. Some of those things can be fixed, like communication, some probably won't be. The team I saw play with energy and enthusiasm at Albion wasn't there this week and its confusing why that is.
That energy and enthusiasm needs to be found and found quickly, inconsistent efforts and performances need to be replaced with constant effort and performance, preferably good. But that's the trick isn't it. 5 weeks left is all that's guaranteed in this season, 4 if this team doesn't start playing better. That's where they are.
(Crap, Olivet has become a good team that has improved all season they deserve much more credit than I've given them in this.)
Up Next: me and my forehead vs my desk < sigh > I told you so, I told you so, I told you so
Wednesday, January 23 vs Trine at DeVos Fieldhouse
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