box score
If I haven't mentioned this before, Calvin games deserve their own space. Monday's game vs Kalamazoo will appear along with the Albion game after the weekend.
Game summed up in one photo, of the two players in this photo, you're not looking at Van Arendonk
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| Frightening |
Emotion can be an incredible thing sometimes. In High School basketball the kids are too young to understand what emotion can do for them. You'll find flashes of it every now and then but very rarely do you see kids able to fully harness and understand the concept of emotional lifts. In the pros the athletes are too concerned with being 'professional', keeping emotions in check, they're almost walking zombies of efficiency and purpose but there's rarely any 'fun' in the game. But put 18-22 year old college kids on a court with a few thousand people, a rival, and something to play for and things can boil over quickly into something that can be difficult to understand. It is the reason college basketball is the most exciting brand of basketball played.
Last night emotion made a coach call a timeout 2 minutes in to this game that sent a Sophomore guard into a dancing, celebratory aneurism. Hope harnessed its endless supply of emotional lifts to overwhelm their opponent, to collectively play defense in a way I'm not sure I've seen a Hope team do in several years. The scoreboard didn't lie with 8:26 to play, Hope 72 Calvin 42. This was domination in a way no one could have expected.
Before going to deep into the emotional explanation of what that was last night, this young Hope team has become pretty good at this game. There comes a point in every season when young players, Freshmen especially, stop looking like young players, are no longer indecisive or timid. They just go out and do what they've been coached to do. Hope might still be young, still throwing 7 Fr. and Soph's out into the D3 world but they aren't playing like a young team anymore, at least they didn't last night.
Receive and you shall give:
A year ago Hope was on the receiving end of two of these kinds of beatings. Calvin 75 Hope 49, Calvin 77 Hope 57. Those memories tend to stick with you and the guys returning this year certainly thought about those games all summer. Its been hard not to notice that in the two games thus far everyone who has played significant minutes for Hope has been able to come up with a memorable play in both games. They have certainly looked 'dialed in'.
Since Alma:
I've made a lot, maybe too much, of Hope's 3-point shooting struggles. Since the Alma game, or really the 2nd half of that game Hope has been 40-86 from beyond the arc or 46.5%. If I take out the first half of that Alma game Hope is 39-79 or 49% from beyond the arc. D3's leading 3-point shooting team is St. Norbert at 46%. So for the last roughly 3 weeks, Hope's been shooting 3's like one of the best teams in D3.
That's a big improvement for a team that was languishing around the 30% mark for most of this season. That doesn't happen by accident. Shot selection seems to be part of this improvement, though I'm sure many extra shooting sessions probably factored in here.
Efficiency:
Estimated number of possessions: Hope 74 Calvin 76
That's a pretty high paced game for Hope/Calvin. I can't imagine this is the kind of game Calvin wants to play. Maybe there's a reason Matt Neil is constantly encouraging his guys up the court.
Offensively Efficiency: 114.05
This is a really solid efficiency against a team that's been pretty good on defense for most of the season, and very good since the last time Hope/Calvin played. Hope's first half was only 98, that 16 point lead could have been so much more. When given the opportunity Hope buried the Knights with a second half efficiency of 125 and that was with much inefficiency at the end of the game.
Defensive Efficiency: 81.95
For the game this is impressive by itself. The real impressive part was the first half defensive efficiency of just 51. Calvin was getting 1/2 of a point every time down the floor. That's a little insane especially when you consider Calvin had been the most efficient offense within the Great Lakes Region. My offensive ineptness qualifier applies, but still holding this level of opponent to that? Whoa! Stunning first half defensive performance.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 40.7% of available offensive rebounds
Calvin: 30.3% of available offensive rebounds
2nd Chance points: Hope 13 Calvin 8
This is twice Hope's won this battle and rather convincingly. +8 up at Calvin, +10 last night. If there's one major surprise in the two meetings, its this.
Other Interesting Stats:
Free-throws:
How often does a winning team get out-shot at the line by 11 attempts. Especially in a game that lopsided. Calvin attempted 25, Hope 14
Assist Rate:
Calvin's assist rate on the year is around 60%. In the two Hope games its only been 35%. Hope might be forcing Calvin into being a little more of a jump shooting team than they're comfortable being.
Going Forward:
Obviously this gives Hope a big upper hand in the MIAA standings and at the moment the cushion of having the tie-breaker over Calvin. More immediate thoughts dwell on the satisfaction of having turned around what were two dominating performances by Calvin a year ago into two pretty much dominating performances this season.
We're back where we were 3 weeks ago and that's wondering how Hope reacts to success against a team like Albion. It didn't go well on the road and hopefully can go better this time around. In the bigger picture its a very important game with some pretty big post-season implications if it comes down to an at-large selection for Hope.
Up Next:
Me vs hubris
Saturday Jan 8. Albion at Hope DeVos Fieldhouse
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