| Yep. You and me both Devin. |
Hope 69 Aquinas 67
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Hope registered their first win with a 7-point come from behind rally in the last 6 minutes of this game on Friday. Hope trailed for most it, struggled to shoot the ball well for all but about 2 minutes of it. Aquinas really only had one chance to push the lead higher than 8, most of it was played in the less than 5 point range. Both teams made plays down the stretch and the likely difference was AQ's three turnovers in the last few 4 minutes. One allowed Hope to close a 4 point gap to 1, one allowed Hope to take the lead, one thwarted a last chance to win. Critical miscue's or great plays in a close game.
click for the math
Efficiency:
Estimated number of possessions: Hope 73 Aquinas 68
Normal paced game
Offensively Efficiency: 94.55
Almost exactly like Hope's first two games. Aquinas came into this one allowing under a point per possession or under 100 on my scale. Pretty close to their average.
Defensive Efficiency: 97.67
I don't know how rare but I'm betting its pretty rare for a team to lose a game they were more efficient at scoring.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 27.8% of available offensive rebounds
AQ: 20.7% of available offensive rebounds
Neither team should be happy with their results on the offensive glass. Second chance points was only 6 to 7.
Everything about that box score says close, even game decided by one play.
Game Score:
3rd star- Jake Bullock, Aquinas 13.7
Strong second half, maybe kept his team in it.
2nd star- Kolin Kazen, Aquinas 15.9
Always seemed to play well against Hope at Albion. Same here. Hit the shot of the game if Hope didn't win this
1st star- Ben Gardner, Hope 16.8
There's little doubt he's been Hope's best player thus far. Something tells me this won't be the last game winner he hits at Hope.
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Cornerstone 79 Hope 73
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It looks an awful lot like the first 3 games Hope's played. Close, but trail for most it, it gets away a little in the second half, rally falls a little short. Except for the Aquinas finish its exactly like their other games.
Efficiency:
Estimated number of possessions: Hope 68 Cornerstone 70
Normal
Offensively Efficiency: 107.31
Of the first four games this is Hope's best offensive performance. This is well above Cornerstone's season average for what they had allowed.
Defensive Efficiency: 112.46
This is pretty much Cornerstone's average. They're just a really good offensive team that's tough to stop.
Between these two numbers I think we can say Hope played a little above what you might have expected going into the game. They aren't there defensively yet to expect them to slow down good offensive teams and they've played 3 really good ones.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 47.4% of available offensive rebounds
C'stone: 41.7% of available offensive rebounds
Must have been quite a battle for rebounds. Second chance points was 21-22, that's a lot of second chances.
Game Score:
3rd star- Anthony Allen, Cornerstone 13.9
2nd star- Jake Plite, Cornerstone 14.5
1st star- Nate VanArendonk, Hope 17.7
By all accounts, Hope's best player on the night.
This was the first game where every Hope player that played recorded a positive 'Game Score'. The team cumulative game scores have gone 36.9, 31.7, 50, 54.5. That's positive progress and pretty clearly Hope had a better weekend than last week.
Going Forward:
With their first win, that pressure is off. I envisioned a 1-3 start and was hopeful of a close game that maybe they had a chance of stealing somewhere in there. Cumulatively they've started about as you might have imagined given the youth and strong opponents. So far the two main offensive concerns seem to be 3-point shooting and foul troubles. They've started slow from behind the arc and have faced foul trouble in all 4 games. One of those probably won't change much but they'll need to start hitting those 3's to make life a lot easier on themselves. The defense will come along it will just be hard to see progress given the difficulty of their schedule.
Next week two more tough opponents with Wheaton and Carthage. We probably expected Wheaton to be a tough challenge but with Carthage knocking off previously top 10 Washington-St. Louis last week that game probably takes on a higher level of difficulty as well. Hope/Calvin have done well in this challenge on this side of the lake, but I think its going to take 4 great efforts to get wins this weekend.
Up Next: Me vs long off-seasons of dread and despair
Friday vs Wheaton, Saturday vs Carthage at that other gym in West Michigan again.
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