Calvin Preview

The what and where:

Calvin at Hope
3 p.m.  DeVos Fieldhouse  Holland, Michigan

This is the big satellite beaming game, it will be broadcast on WGVU and World Harvest Television.  There are many gatherings around the country, I've heard these are a good time.  You can find locations here.

It will probably look something like this inside, which is not what about 200 other D3 locations will  look like Saturday.  Probably.

Best home game of the year, always

Calvin sits atop the MIAA at 11-0, 2 games clear of Hope with a magic number of 1.  They can clinch the MIAA Championship Saturday.  Hope has clinched an MIAA Tournament spot and are 2 games clear of Trine, a win Saturday almost clinches the 2 seed and raises the hopes on tying for the title.  A win also validates my efforts to follow this team more than I probably should.

Last meeting:

Very close to the view from my seat

Calvin 75, Hope 49
box score

So what the hell happened?

Calvin's kind of good.  One of the really unique things that has developed in this rivalry in the past decade is that these two teams spend a lot of time in the same gym watching each other or competing against each other.  It affords an opportunity to watch the other guys more than you would any other opponent.  This is basically the same Calvin team as the last couple years with additions and subtractions here and there, but the main characters are primarily the same.  At no point in the last couple years had I seen Calvin play with such a focus and energy as that Wed. night in Grand Rapids.  They were pretty close to unbeatable.  From the moment the first basket went in the net to the final buzzer it was really all Calvin and they weren't going to lose that night. 

What went well:

From my seat it looked as if everyone was able to get their jersey's on properly and all of their shoes were tied, hopefully without help.  The bus didn't crash on the way to or from the game.  But otherwise really nothing went well for Hope that night.

Offense vs Calvin:

It might actually look that that.

Calvin is tall.  I haven't actually looked into it but I would guess Calvin is one of the top 5 or 10 tallest teams in D3 and they play like it.  Its been really hard for teams to score against them because you don't get much of anything close to the basket and very few second chances.  Unless you are bombing jump shots in at a 60% clip or you can compete with them on the interior you probably aren't going to find much offensive success.

That's where these 3 guys come in:  Nate Snuggerud, Nate VanArendonk, Brock Benson.  The 3 of these guys combined for 5 points and 6 rebounds the last time they played, I called it embarrassing then and......well, yeah.  Doubling this production would still be embarrassing.  Simply put these 3 guys need to produce or it will probably be another long day.

Since the last game the two Nate's have re-entered the starting 5 and there isn't much doubt that Hope has had a much more pronounced focus of getting the ball in the paint to these 3 guys.  If you've followed this blog or watched the games you've noticed Hope's been shooting the ball consistently over 50%, mostly because it isn't hard to do so when you take a lot of shots from 2 feet.  Putting pressure on the interior has opened up the rest of the floor.  Calvin will counter this by doubling the post which makes interior passing and passing out of the interior, critical.

Along with being tall, Calvin is also very long, those interior passes have a much narrower window.  Passing has been somewhat hit or miss for Hope this year, they've had great passing games and terrible passing games.  Lately its been good, but bad habits crept into the last game at Kzoo resulting in several poor turnovers.  Hope has to protect the ball, the margin of error vs this team is pretty small you can't waste opportunities and help them out defensively.

Guard play.  Hope got smoked here last time.  Colton Overway did his very best super-hero effort to keep Hope in the last game.  Colton was the guy in the movie who yells charge with the sword in hand and runs through the smokey forest only to get into the clearing and look behind him and no one followed him.  He'll be in street clothes Saturday, which isn't a great thing.  Since his injury Ben Gardner has been really good in his place so this is less of a scary thing than 2 weeks ago.  Hope will be using 2 Freshmen point guards in the rivalry game, its at this point that I recommend increasing your charitable gift giving and hopefully the right basketball gods will take note.

Combined last time Seiler, Gardner and Eidson scored 8 points while just two of their opposing counterparts, Brink and Powell, combined for 29.  That's a pretty large chunk of the final margin. If you want to add Tom Snikkers who's part guard mostly forward it was 42 points and that is your margin plus some.

Summary:

Cracking the 60 point barrier would be a pretty good target I think, that's happened 9 times for Calvin opponents but only 3 times in competitive games.  They are 2-1 in those competitive games.   That also might be somewhat of a pipe dream if Hope has trouble scoring on the interior.
 

Defense v Calvin:

I recommend it.

Not actually a picture of Hope's defense, it only felt like that

If you take anything even remotely positive from the last game which is excruciatingly difficult to do its that Hope was at least somewhat competent defensively in that last game.  Now in order to believe that you have to believe that being somewhat competent meant holding a team to a relatively defensively decent 37% shooting in the second half of a game that really was not all that competitive.

That's it, that's all I have.

Brink, Snikkers, Powell.  These are the 3 guys  Hope should key on because the last game was Hope 49 these guys 42.  In order for Hope to have a chance to win they're going to have to keep at least one of these guys in single figures.  When that's happened this year, Tyler Kruis, Tyler Dykstra, Mickey DeVries and others have stepped in to fill that void and provided the missing offense.  So they can't fall asleep in other areas.  These guys are tough to stop if you provide little resistance.

Hope's been hit or miss defensively this year with most games being one good half, one bad half.  The good half has to be incredibly good and the bad half has to be not so bad Saturday.  I think the defense has improved a little bit though still vulnerable to some spectacular breakdowns.  So far Calvin has had only 4 league games where they were controlled by their opponent.  Twice vs Adrian who can play solid defense, once at Albion because of their Kresg mojo, and once at Trine because Trine really is a pretty decent defensive team.  You might note 3 of those happened on the road. Calvin won all of those games because its a lot harder to stop them than it is for them to stop you.  When Hope's good they're somewhere in between Adrian and those other two's good efforts, when they're bad they're hanging out with Alma.


Summary:

Hope must keep Calvin in the low 60's at minimum, anything above that and the probabilities of being able to score that many points on them really starts to decline.  This is going to take nothing short of one of Hope's best defensive efforts of the year to do that.  Anything above 60 and you start getting into having to have an unbelievable offensive day to beat them.


Rebounding:

These are the two best rebounding teams in the league, Calvin is one of the best rebounding teams in D3.  Hope's not going to win this battle but they sure as heck have to be better than last time to have any chance.   I'd recommend boxing out Mickey DeVries who grabbed 11 in the last game.  Like all good teams it seems, Calvin's guards also find their way into some rebounds.  Gardner and Eidson have been better at this lately, but keeping those guys from helping out could be key.  Also need more than 6 from Hope's big guys, like a lot more than 6.  Keeping this something less than a definitive win for Calvin would be good.

Intangibles:

If ever there was a game where home court environment had to play a part, this is probably it.  The kids in this picture haven't had much to cheer about this year, most of them are on break this weekend.  The Dew Crew up in Grand Rapids was like watching a litter of puppies getting a bath wondering what they had done wrong.  'A' game required, if this bunch even has an 'a' game


Summary, summary:

If you look at the MIAA standings this game has some important meaning, Calvin can clinch the outright MIAA championship with a win Saturday.  If you have any competitive spark in your soul as a player you don't want that to happen on your home floor.  A Hope win would at least make the final week of league play somewhat interesting and put some pressure on those other guys.  Pressure they probably haven't felt.

The bigger picture would be a win changing the perspective on what's been a disappointing and kind of crazy season.  A win validates the improvement, sets the stage for the league tournament, a loss just adds to the pile of disappointment.

Massey predicts a 71-70 win for Calvin.  Kenneth nor his formula saw the first game.  The result of that game should have been embarrassment enough for Hope to have a better more focused effort on  Saturday.   Yet there is a chance this one looks much like the last one, especially if Hope doesn't get better interior play and better defensive guard play.

I think I'd be happy here if Hope were in a position to win late in the game.  A loss, well a loss to these guys always hurts, but it wouldn't be the worst thing to happen, it only closes the book for good on the MIAA Championship.  Hope's NCAA Tournament chances are slim at best and are probably going to ride on winning the MIAA Tournament.  A competitive close game would be ideal, win or lose.