2013 Season Review: Kalamazoo

2013:  8-17,  5-9  6th place
2012:  8-17,  3-11  7th place

win that made you raise an eyebrow:  Albion 78-71, at Albion 78-76
loss that made you raise an eyebrow:  none

Seniors:  Eric Fishman, Joshua Haney

Eric Dougle took over the reins in Kalamazoo late last summer.  Expectations were pretty low coming into to 2013 and despite the train wreck in Olivet the coaches voted Kalamazoo to finish 8th.  Coaches should stop doing that because Kalamazoo never actually finishes 8th in the league when picked to finish there.  So please stop doing it.

The non-conference portion of the season went about as expected with wins over Earlham, Oberlin and York, Pa.  The most challenging parts of their schedule saw them mostly manhandled by North Central, DePauw, Case Western and Definace.  There really wasn't too many other opportunities for wins that would have 'raised an eyebrow' or expectations for the MIAA.

Within the MIAA the Hornets were at least decent at home against everyone not named Hope or Calvin, on the road they were just another of the 1-6 road teams that litter the bottom of the MIAA standings.  In four of those road games they weren't very competitive, losing by 26+ in all of them and turning in a 42 point shellacking at Calvin.  Kalamazoo finished the season strong pulling off 3 straight wins over Albion, Adrian and Alma which averted the possible last place finish and even vaulted them to 6th which I guarantee no one picked.  In the end 8-17 pretty much hits Kalamazoo's decade average for wins and losses, considering some of the huge deficits against all of the good teams the Hornets faced, this record and league finish almost feels like some kind of magic trick.

They pulled off grey, I didn't hate them

Statistics Corner

If you are expecting me to come up with some kind of statistical reason that Kalamazoo finished 6th and not 8th you won't find it here.  From an efficiency point of view Kalamazoo was the worst team in the league.  They played 6 games in the league that were close, they won 4 of those.  I can't explain it, other than to say on those particular days they were better than their opponents down the stretch when they needed to be.

Thing they did better than anyone in the league:  wear grey
Thing they did worse than anyone in the league:  scoring margin, FG%, 3pt FG%, FT%

Of the 'things they did worse than anyone' you might notice 3 of those directly involve the rate at which you put the ball in the basket.  That's not a very good recipe for success in a game where putting the ball in the basket is important.  Their NCAA stats rankings are gruesome.  They were in the bottom quarter for pretty much every statistic on offense and bottom half for everything else.  The only good statistic was turnover's per game which ranked #114, that was only 6th best in the MIAA.

Efficiency:

Offense:  91.56   Defense:  106.64   Total Eff Rating:  184.92

Team rank out of the last 10 years:  #8
League rank out of the last 10 years:  #72

I could have stared at these for a long time trying to figure out how they pulled off 5 league wins and a 6th place finish.  I just can't, its not in the efficiency numbers.  These are not horrible but they aren't very good either, actually they are looking up at not very good.  In the last 10 years there have only been 6 other teams perform at a lower level on offense in the league.  From looking at box scores and efficiency all I can really decipher is that when Kalamazoo was bad, they were really bad, when they weren't bad, they were capable of beating teams at home not named Hope or Calvin or destined for the NCAA tournament.

A bright spot on Kalamazoo's season was Jr. guard Mark Ghafari.  Mark finished second in the league in scoring at just a shade over 18 points per game finishing behind only Ian Jackson.  While his shooting percentages weren't amazing he did put the ball in the basket at a far better rate than anyone on his team and in the league made 41 3-point shots, 5 more than Calvin's Bryan Powell.   A similar season of scoring next year is going to put Mark in Kzoo's top 5 for all-time scoring.  


2013-2014

Key Returnees:  Mark Ghafari, Aaron Schoenfeldt, Adam Peters, Grant Carey, Carter Goetz and 9 others

Mark Ghafari

It is hard to tell exactly what kind of program Eric Dougle is going to develop at Kalamazoo.  He really came in to the job a little late in the game to do any kind of successful recruiting and honestly its recruiting that's going to be the biggest challenge ahead anyway.   On the court I only saw them play Hope.   Hope crushed them in games that were much to frantic and much too sloppy to tell what was going on other than one team was significantly better than the other.  So I really didn't learn much about them this year.

Kalamazoo's been a pretty young program for a couple years.  This year 11 guys were underclassmen, next year they transition to being a 'veteran' program with 9 guys as Juniors or Seniors.  Beyond Mark Ghafari and the departing Eric Fishman though this is a team full of guys who just really don't stand out.  Ghafari and Eric Fishman combined to be just about 50% of Kalamazoo's offensive output, only Trine with Ian Jackson and Scott Rogers relied on two players more.  They lose one half of the dynamic duo that probably kept them afloat this year with no really clear obvious #2 guy in the wings.  Adam Peters and Aaron Shoenfeldt will be pretty key if they can 'take their game to the next level'.  Offensively they lose almost 1/4 of their production from one of the lowest rated offenses in the last decade and I didn't see much on defense to make me think any big improvement on either side of the floor is right around the corner.

Range of finish:   7th or 8th, with the slight chance at 5th or 6th if Eric Dougle knows more magic tricks.  Like everyone in the bottom half of the league though there is opportunity to move up, but I just can't see this team improving on an already improbable 6th place finish. 

2013 Season Review: Alma

2013:  9-16,  4-10  7th place
2012:  9-16,  5-9  6th place

win that made you raise an eyebrow:  Baldwin-Wallace 75-73,   Spring Arbor 74-69 OT
loss that made you raise an eyebrow:  really don't see one

Seniors:  Greg Silverthorn, Brian Sheridan, Chris Williamson, Dustin DeShais, Caleb Van Timmeran

Year two of the Sam Hargraves era in Alma began with a very challenging non-conference schedule. After a couple early drubbings the Scots settled in and had a near handful of successive good performances highlighted with a win over OAC 2nd place Baldwin-Wallace and a good overtime win over NAIA Spring Arbor.  Alma entered MIAA play at 5-6 and a noted optimism.

Like most teams in this league however going on the road proved to be their undoing, Alma recorded just one road win at Albion late in the season.  A near miss upset at Adrian and a close four point loss at Olivet probably kept Alma from being that #5 team challenging for the final MIAA Tournament spot.  Final margins say Alma wasn't all that competitive with Calvin or Hope but were probably in most of their other league games.  Alma had some injury problems here and there that  prevented them from fielding the team that performed well in the middle of their non-conference.  On the whole though Alma's ledger of close wins and close losses probably balanced and the Scots finished about where they should have.  Last springs preview was pretty accurate.  Alma was a better team this year, its just not reflected in the wins and losses.

Statistics Corner

Defense just isn't Alma's thing of late and that didn't change much this year.   The Scots gave up 80 or more points in 12 of their 25 games, including 8 times within the MIAA.  In a league with a lot of pretty average offenses, that's not very good.  NCAA stats confirm what we probably suspected, Alma was not good at defense finishing in the bottom quarter of all defensive stats.

Thing they did better than anyone in the league:  nothing
Thing they did worse than everybody in the league:  allowed most points per game, highest shooting percentage allowed and fewest offensive rebounds

Alma didn't put up much resistance on defense allowing opponents to shoot nearly 50% from the floor.  That's just tough to overcome on any night, let alone an entire season.  Rebounding was an issue as well where they were out-rebounded in the majority of their games and offensive rebounding was particularly poor.  One and done probably described their offense for most of the year.

Efficiency:

Offense:  98.58   Defense:  106.75   Total Eff Rating:  191.82

Team rank out of the last 10 years:  #4
League rank out of the last 10 years:  #61

Offensively Alma really stumbled down the home stretch a possible sign the second time through the league teams figured out how to defend them.  Otherwise Alma's offense was heading for an above 100 rating.  Defensively they were good on only a few occasions, much of the season though teams scored at a fairly high rate.  Two or three really bad performance might have skewed this a little but overall its probably a fair representation of their defense.

Efficiency says they weren't quite as good as last year but I think this years schedule was overall much more difficult.  Last year their 4 non-conference wins were over UM-Dearborn, Kuyper, IU-Northwest and Finlandia.  This year:  Heidelberg, Baldwin-Wallace, Oberlin, Spring Arbor and Chicago.  That's quite an upgrade in quality of wins, so I'm calling them better.

2013-2014

Key Returnees: Isiah Law, DJ Beckman, Brandon Krause, Jacob Marawske, Charlie Helmer(?) and a host of others.

Underrated PG Brandon Krause

The most significant losses to graduation are Silverthorn, Sheridan and Williamson but it feels a little less than what they lost from last year.  The biggest problem for Alma next year is the word big, they have none.  Lack of height is a serious issue for Alma and at least on the immediate roster there doesn't appear to be an answer.  Sam Hargraves landed a couple pretty good recruits last summer in DJ Beckman and junior college transfer Isiah Law.  A similar success rate next year could really give the Scots a nice boost.

Alma played around 13 guys most of the season, 8 of them return and 5 that should make-up a pretty decent if small starting 5.  Alma's a competitive program now and it doesn't feel like they are that far from making a serious splash.  If next years schedule is similar I'd expect a similar kind of season.  The trick of picking teams in the bottom half of the current MIAA is that they are so similar it feels like one good player is enough to lift a team from 8th to 5th or maybe better.  Alma will be back in the blender again next season but the prospects seem a little better for a couple more wins within the league.  Having a better non-league season could be more tricky.

Range of Finish:  I see the same kind of season for Alma next year which results in a similar kind of prospect for next year.  5th, 6th, 7th or 8th.  I would shade this towards 5th or 6th before 7th or 8th though. 

2013 Season Review: Albion

2013:  6-19, 2-12  8th place
2012:  11-15, 7-7  5th place

Win that made you raise an eyebrow:  Trine 73-68 OT
Loss that made you raise an eyebrow:  @ Olivet 81-54

Seniors:  Anthony Wash, Chris Hutton, Mike Smith, Leonard Wernette-leff

I sounded the warnings on Albion's 2013 season sometime last spring when I wrote their review, here.  Sometime between then and November I became hilariously optimistic about Albion basketball and actually picked them to finish 4th in the MIAA.  There was what I thought was sound reasoning behind that pick and many things I couldn't have predicted happened that resulted in Albion having one of its most disappointing seasons in their history.  Fewest wins since 1970-71 which is 3 years before Mike Turner coached his first game at Albion.  It broke a string of 37 consecutive years of double-digit wins, which is actually quite impressive.

A lot of things went into Albion's bad season starting with the suspension of all-league returning Sr. Kolin Kazen.  This suspension was reportedly only for 8 games but he never suited up for the Britons this season.  About the time Kazen was supposed to return 3 more Britons received the ban-hammer, Lawrence Ridgell, Adam Zavadil and Alex Harville.  Three potential starters and a solid bench guy gone.  This is where Albion's season trajectory took a steep turn south.  A mid-season 10 game losing streak foretold bad things to come, Olivet thrashed them by 27 to start the MIAA season, solid performances against Hope and Calvin at home raised hopes.   A series of close losses wasn't much to be excited about and Albion finished the first half of the MIAA winless and in last place.  By the time the Britons rolled into Holland they looked beaten up and worn out and were a far cry from the competitive teams against Hope and Calvin earlier in January.  Tough close losses to Kzoo and Alma meant the Brits were heading for 8th place in the league.  I'll be honest and say I'd never thought I'd see this.

Statistics Corner

Defensively Albion wasn't a very good team this year and that bares itself in them being ranked in the bottom half of every defensive stat category the NCAA keeps.  For a program that has always seemed to pride themselves on defensive effort that has to hurt a little.  Offensively they end up being the 4th best offense in the league, I'm not sure that's saying much.

Thing they did better than anyone in the league:  3pt shooting %
Thing they did worse than anyone in the league:  turnover margin

One of the things I've admired about Jody May coached teams is how well they move the ball around and end up with wide open three's.  Despite not having the fire power they thought they'd have the Britons still led the league in 3 point percentage.  Offensively this team proved to be competent and on nights when they were able to play competently on defense they were able to compete with the best teams in the league.  Albion was very young and young teams do things like turn the ball over a lot and give inconsistent efforts on defense and thus you lose close games.  Probably pegs this Briton team pretty well. 

Efficiency:

Offense: 99.57   Defense: 106.63    Total Eff Rating: 192.94

Team rank out of the last 10 years:  #10
League rank out of the last 10 years:   #58

So if you felt like you were watching one of the worst Albion teams in awhile here's the statistical or at least efficiency proof that yes it was.  The number to focus on here is the defensive rating.  In the last 10 years this is Albion's lowest rating(or worst), the next lowest for them was last year.  Until this number starts to go down significantly its going to be hard for Albion to crack the top 4 again in this league.

2013-2014

Key returnees:  Jordan Herron, Eric Evans, Zach Hurth, Ryan Watson, Carter Elliot, Justin Beal

Jordan Herron

At least one of the players who were suspended mid-season can return next year and that would certainly help.  However, the Britons lose almost half the minutes of a team that turned out to be not very good.  For the first time in a couple decades Albion failed to have a first-team All-MIAA player and its probably been even longer since they hadn't had a 2nd team player.  Albion ended up being pretty close to the youngest team in the league if not the youngest with 8 Fr. and 3 So. on the end of season roster.

For the second year in a row the most positive thing to take from Albion's season is they had the chance to play a lot of young players and gain valuable experience.  There were times in the final weeks of the season when Albion's best lineups consisted of mostly Fr.   At some point that experience has to start paying dividends but that may not come for a year or two.  One thing to notice is that when the season ended two of their three leading scorers were Freshmen in Herron and Evans.  Herron certainly impressed me and I think he'll be a good interior player down the line if he isn't already.  Evans and Watson look like capable scorers.  Not much help will be coming from the junior varsity because by mid-December the junior varsity was on the varsity.  So what you saw from Albion is what will be returning in 2014.

There's pretty clear evidence Albion is in a downswing period, it remains to be seen if 2013 was a bottom or if there's more pain to come.  Even with a good Freshmen class that leaves Albion with a team still mostly full of Fr. and So's. 

Range of finish:  The MIAA's pretty tightly packed from 5 to 8, it wouldn't take a lot for Albion to compete for a league tournament spot as early as next season.  Five of this years league losses were by less than 5 points, turning those around is 7 wins.  That's right in the thick of a top 4 finish.  But I'm erring on the side of caution here, a 6th, 7th or 8th place seems more likely.

Hitting a wall and returning to the beginning.

Its been almost 4 weeks since I saw a basketball game in anger.   I had every intention of sitting down and doing all the post-season wrap-up shenanigans and 2014 previews and getting those out of the way early.  But, wham-o, this dude hit a wall of exhaustion and illness.  Yes, I've been literally physically ill since the day before the MIAA Championship game.  It is and has been the worst head cold in modern human history.  Doc says its cool though, and it will just run its course.  That is probably a lot easier to tell someone when A) you don't have the worst head cold in history and B) you're making bank like a doctor.

So I really haven't felt up to writing much of anything or really doing much of anything.  The only basketball related thing I've done this month was watch the Hope women beat Ohio Northern and I took in a high school district championship game, mostly out of curiosity. 


Returning to the where it all began

Back in 1982, I was 11 going on 12.  Some of my first basketball watching memories were of our high school team that year.  They were then and probably still are today one of the best teams that school has ever had.  I can still name the starting 5, Dave Beechler, Joe Jecks, Jim Blood, Mike Warner and Tony Nichols (Nichols went on to play at Albion).  At some point in the year Eaton Rapids was ranked in the top 10 in Class B.  The number one team that year was defending Class B Champion Okemos who also happened to be in the same conference and unfortunately the same district.

The two teams beat each other by 2 or 3 points on each others floor so when the two were paired together in the district semi-final it was a pretty big deal.  It was my first experience of this wonderful thing called March Madness.  District '36' was in Charlotte (shar-lot) that year, only about 9 miles away and at the time probably the 2nd largest high school gym in the Lansing Area.  Even well into the 90's it was well regarded and even hosted some state quarterfinal games.

All I really remember was it was standing room only, it was a heck of a game with lots of screaming and yelling and Eaton Rapids lost a heart breaker by 3 or 4 points.  That game was on a Monday and even after losing me and a neighbor friend made it over to each session the rest of the week.  Okemos went on to win the rest of their games in the tournament by 20 or more points and won a second consecutive Class B Championship.

That particular Charlotte gym has had a prominent place in my basketball watching memory and just plain memory.  Just a year or two later I saw Terry Mills' Romulus team play a quarterfinal game there.  I saw all of the local rival Eaton Rapids and Charlotte games.  My Freshmen year in high school our wrestling team won a state championship in that gym, and for some reason I was there along with half the town.  In the last couple years of my high school years ER was good at basketball again and Charlotte had a future Michigan recruit by the name of Jason Bossard.  Those were some pretty good and heated clashes.  Later in life I worked with a woman who was a cheerleader at Charlotte at those same games.

 Jason Bossard is #22, best weight lifter in the Fab 5 era

The last game I saw at Charlotte was in 1991, Detroit Country Day and Chris Weber against Charlotte.  Webber tried to dunk over a 6-6 kid.  He ended up doing some kung-fu looking kick on a fast break and the bottom of his Nike's hit the kid in the forehead.  He dunked it, it was spectacular, it brought everyone off their seat and it was also a charge. 

Charlotte's gym is a dump now, or at least it looks like it to me.  I wish it had some catchy name like 'Oriole Dome' or something but it has no name and it looks quite a bit like Holland High's 'Dutch Dome'.  The place was built in the early 70's, a quarter of its bleachers have been replaced by an ugly iron gate that houses the weight room in one balcony.  Bleachers have been removed from one end completely and downsized at the other.  Its wooden bleachers replaced by the horrible modern plastic variety.  I bet it holds half the number of people it did in its hay day.  At one end hung the same faded and torn 1970's era girls golf state championship banner that was faded and torn in the 80's.  Needless to say its long been surpassed in quality by many suburban Lansing area gymnasiums that have been built in the last 20 years, but this year it was once again Charlotte's turn to host District '36'.

Schools have moved in and out of this district quite a bit over the years, but its always been the Class B schools in Lansing and South of Lansing.  This year it was Eaton Rapids, Charlotte, Leslie, Olivet, Jackson Northwest and Parma-Jackson County Western.  What made this year particularly intriguing was that none of these 6 teams had a winning record.  6-16, 3-18, 7-14, 10-13, 4-17 and 10-10.  A combined 40-88, a .312 winning percentage.......and I'm guessing some very poor efficiency numbers.   

What often happens when you pit teams of equal competency or incompetency together is you get very entertaining games.  Of the six games 4 were decided by 10 points or less with one buzzer beater and two games where one team had a chance to tie on their last possession.  In the final Olivet met Eaton Rapids.  So I went to watch out of a sense of former community pride but also morbid curiosity.  It would be the first and probably only high school game I'll watch this year and I kind of wanted to see the old gym again. The game turned out to be pretty entertaining.  I'd estimate the pace at about 85 points, the fact that the final score was 48-44 probably points to the fact that it wasn't a very well played game.  Lots of up and down action with nothing much but missed shots happening.


Neither team led by more than 8 and only for a brief minute or two, and most of the 4th quarter was spent with both teams having numerous opportunities to seize the game but failing in some spectacular and 'losing record high school team' ways.  With the score tied Eaton Rapids had the ball and was probably attempting to hold for the last shot, but somehow their best player found himself absolutely wide open on the baseline from 10 feet, so he took the shot with about 30 seconds left.  Unfortunately it missed and it was rebounded by Olivet's 6-8 moose of a center.  I learned this because the Olivet fans would howl 'mooooose' every time he touched the ball.

Mooooose!  a.k.a.  Quentin Harris

The big moose ended up laying one in on the other end to put the Eagles (not comets) up 2.  ER had one more chance though and with the clock winding down their best player drove the lane as a mass of Olivet humanity collapsed on him, he went flying one way and his errant shot flew off into big moose's hands.  Could have easily been called a foul but wasn't.  Moose hit 2 ft's that sealed the victory. 

Has nothing to do with any of  this, but its from 1982...and awesome

   

  
When an ACL tear is not an ACL tear

Part of Olivet's poor record can be explained by the absence of the moose the last 8 games of the season, the Eagles went 1-7.  Quentin was told he had a torn ACL, which somehow turned out to be just a deep tissue bruise.  So Quentin was able to suit up again in time for the state tournament.  He was obviously still hobbled by it but Q-moose did two things really well.  1) Keep the ball away from shrimpy high school basketball players and 2) make free-throws, so Olivet won.  In case you were wondering moose will be playing basketball up with the moose at Michigan Tech.

Olivet's big prize for winning what might have been the state's worst district was a trip to the Regional's at Jackson Lumen Christi, where they would play Jackson Lumen Christi and lose by 47!!!


My March Madness With a Twist

It was good to be back in that gym, see some old faces in the Eaton Rapids crowd I hadn't in a long time.   One face in particular kept grabbing my attention.  There was a guy photographing the game, obviously a professional and obviously someone I knew or had once known.  After the game as he was snapping photos of the Olivet team and I asked him if he was such and such and if he went to Hope College.  I already knew the answer but it was good to hear him confirm it anyway.  As it turns out he and I lived on the same floor of the same dorm my Sophomore year at Hope.  He's quite an accomplished photographer and does freelance work that is frequently published in the Lansing State Journal.  Such as big Q-Moose above.

You never know what will happen or who'll you'll see at these things, sometimes its madness........like two student sections sitting next to each other and doing the 'harlem shake'.

Olivet and Eaton Rapids share a 'harlem shake'