Box Score
Hope started Gardner, Seiler, Eidson, Snuggerud, VanArendonk. Grant Neil and Brock Benson saw the majority of bench minutes, the importance of Benson's play cannot be understated. Denham had a nice short stint giving Gardner a rest, Ray, McMahon, Holwerda, Byers, DeMaagd all had short appearances on the floor.
Game Recap:
This game had a lot of the things you like to see in late season basketball. Two teams with something to play for, a nice size crowd, and frankly some pretty darn good high quality play from the guys on the court in a close game that goes down to the last few minutes.
There were a lot of similarities in this one to the first encounter with Trine back in Holland. Long segments of this game were played where both teams seemed pretty even in their play and neither could get much of an upper hand on the other. Hope ended up leading for most of the first half but never by more than a basket or two. On the defensive side of things Hope really bottled up Ian Jackson pretty good, for the last 32 minutes of this game Ian had one made fg. It was Seiler and Neil doing most of the tough work, Hope just didn't really give him much space to operate.
Todd Watkins of Trine really made a positive impression on me today, he was aggressive on offense in the place of Scott Rogers. Without Watkins' excellent first half play Trine could have been in some trouble but he helped keep his team close and gave Hope something to worry about on the interior, he was a little bit of a difficult match-up for Hope yesterday.
Hope's first half lead was five and early in the second ran into some trouble right off the first play with Nate VanArendonk picking up his 3rd foul. In stepped Brock Benson who went out there and had a hand in the next four Hope scoring opportunities with a basket +foul, assist on the next, drawing another foul w/ft's and finally another basket. Scored 7 quick points and accounted for 2 more with a pretty pass from the 3-point line to the post that 6-8 D3 Fr. Centers shouldn't be able to make.
Brock's play really seemed to spark Hope and over the next couple minutes they had some great transition baskets led by Gardner who provided a couple laser accurate passes. Within a brief window the lead had ballooned to 15, much like the game in Holland it was just a brief moment where Hope was able to go on a little scoring run to seize control of the game.
Trine didn't go away though as Nick Tatu got just enough space to launch a couple three's that splashed the bottom of the net, his shots seemed to spark the Thunder as they came roaring back and quickly cut down that lead to just 2 again and this battle was on. The rest of this game really seemed to become an interior slugfest. Hope continued to pound it inside to its big guys and were rewarded with either easy layups or trips to the ft line. Trine used Holmquist as their go to guy in the post with other drives to the basket by their guards or Todd Watkins.
In the end it was Hope's ability to convert all its offensive trips at the end of the game into points except 1 possession, while Trine missed a couple of opportunities and maybe had a bad shot selection trip or two which ended up costing them. Hope wins this highly entertaining and competitive game, while neither team actually had many defensive stops there was still some very good defense played, including 2 5 second counts and a couple shot clock violations by both teams. Both teams seemed to be very good at breaking the other down and getting high quality shots.
See you Friday? Wait, Friday? Despite the Trine students insistence that they'll see us Friday, Hope will meet Trine Thursday night in Holland. I highly recommend attending this game, for my money these two meetings have been very well played offensive games with some good defense sprinkled within. Having seen Trine twice now I'm pretty confused on how they're just 7-7 in the league, too many good players on that team for that to have happened. Trine should be back to full health with Sr. Scott Rogers presumably at 100%, he definitely was not yesterday despite playing some. Add in the do or die nature of tournament basketball and it seems like it should be a pretty good game.
Trine has lost 4 in a row and still gains the 3rd seed in the tournament. You probably just don't see that too often, certainly unusual. This is Trine's second straight year finishing 3rd. Tough to replace Jackson and Rogers but it certainly feels like Trine's going to be in this position more often than not as long as Brooks Miller is around.
Scoring and Interesting Stats:
Free-throws: 39 attempts, that's a lot. Hope is doing a great job attacking the basket. With 640 attempts this year they've eclipsed last season's total by over 250 attempts, that's pretty incredible when you think about it, almost 10 more per game. Only a couple of the last half dozen Hope teams attempted more.
(It's actually a boring box score)
Ben Gardner: 18 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds......sets career high in first trip back to his home state. feels like Ben stopped being a freshmen and started being a junior about 3 weeks ago.
Brock Benson: 14 points, 7 rebounds......pretty outstanding day and much needed when NVA left the game with foul trouble.
Nate VanArendonk: 10 points, 5 rebounds......despite the limited minutes Nate was productive and a difficult match-up for Trine. Only gets credit for 1 block but altered at least 2 others.
Billy Seiler: 9 points........spent most of the day chasing Ian Jackson, he and Grant Neil did a terrific job on him
Nate Snuggerud: 8 points, 5 rebounds.......when I look at it now he had a pretty rough day shooting the ball from the floor and the line, drew a lot of defensive attention.
(let me take a second to reflect on the thought of two freshmen leading Hope in scoring in the last game of the regular season and how absurd that thought would have been back in November.)
Efficiency:
Estimated number of possessions: Hope 65 Trine 64
I won't call this slow just slowish. Lots of points for that kind of game.
Offensively Efficiency: 125.53
By now you should be able to guess that a low possession game with 80 points would equal a high efficiency, and so it was. More remarkable was that both halves were nearly identical in Hope's scoring rate. It was evident late in the game Trine didn't have much answer in the post but to foul, fortunately Hope converted those chances. Ends up being Hope's 3rd best performance of the year.
Defensive Efficiency: 113.39
Trine was good yesterday and its part of what made this a pretty entertaining game to watch. Trine made themselves difficult to defend with Jackson drawing attention, Watkins and Holquist playing so well in the post and a couple other guys sprinkling in shots here and there. This ends up being Hope 2nd worst defensive performance of the year, which is conflicting because I actually really liked Hope's efforts on the defensive end.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 54.5% of available offensive rebounds
Trine: 32.1% of available offensive rebounds
Hope was better on the boards though it only resulted in a 14-10 2nd chance points advantage. This is almost dead-on exactly like the first meeting.
Moments or Keys to the Game:
Brock Benson stepping in for Nate VanArendonk's foul trouble and performing very well. All 14 of his points came in the 2nd half and really seemed to lift his team.
Trine hit 4 straight 3's attempted at a point when they were down 15, it was part of an 18-5 stretch and completely changed the complexion of the last 7 or 8 minutes.
Hope being strong in the paint and at the line in the last few minutes. Trine had little answer.
My Game Ball Goes To:
I'm crazy to not give this to Ben Gardner, who was absolutely terrific on the day. But, I thought Brock Benson's 2nd half ended up being the difference in the game. With Nate VanArendonk having to sit with 3 fouls Hope needed Brock to come in and influence the game and he certainly did that as Hope jumped out to a 15 point lead.
Standings
Snuggerud - 6
Overway - 4
VanArendonk - 2
Eidson - 2
Seiler - 2
Gardner - 2
Benson - 2
Byers - 1
DeMaagd - 1
Neil -1
Everyone -1
Going Forward:
So this concludes the regular season, Hope ends up 17-8 riding an 8 game winning streak. There's not much doubt Hope is playing better basketball and I think all of their performances back that up. The time for gnashing teeth about losses that shouldn't have happen can come latter, for now we get to look forward to the MIAA's half-tournament. It sounds completely and utterly absurd to say you're the 5 time defending champion at anything but that is exactly what Hope is, the 5 time defending MIAA Tournament Champion. This annoys people.
Thursday night Hope sees this same Trine squad and they had probably prepare themselves for quite a battle. Between the 80 minutes in the two meetings, about 60 of those were pretty dead even. If Hope wants any shot at a post-season that involves the letters 'NCAA' they simply have to win this tournament because it probably isn't coming any other way and they should expect Trine's best swings Thursday night.
Up Next: Me vs I really should write something about Hope's excellent women's team but I really wouldn't know what to write besides 'woo we beat Calvin'.
Thursday February 21, MIAA Tournament Semi-Final: Trine vs Hope, DeVos Fieldhouse
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