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| Woooooo! Maybe too much of an inside joke |
Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run
Hope 121 Pitt-Greensburg 73
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Once or twice a season Hope takes an opponent behind the woodshed. Greensburg was the victim Friday and it was spectacular. I wasn't at this game or able to watch on video (because its DeVos) and there isn't much point in rambling on about this one. It was never a close game.
Efficiency:
Hope 139.76 Pitt-Greensburg 84.52
That's pretty much what a woodshed looks like. I was filling in the numbers during timeouts and Hope was over 140 and Greensburg under 80 the entire game until the last few minutes. These are two teams on opposite ends of my efficiency charts and the game played out that way.
Pace:
87-87 Very fast. In the preview of this weekend I pointed out Pitt-Greensburg games were averaging 77 possessions though it was difficult to tell if that was them or their opponents. Turns out it was them. Two coaching changes in 5 years yet it remains a poor idea to try and run with Hope when you don't have those kinds of horses.
Rebounding:
Hope 44 Greensburg 28
(slight change to my calculation on this, numbers will look lower to past numbers)
Hope had 26% of available offensive rebounds
Greensburg had 21% of available offensive rebounds
About as important as the shot-clock in this game.
Mt.Union and more
This is Not Football
Hope 79 Mt. Union 71
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| obvious, if Charlie Brown were awesome at football |
Games like these are sometimes difficult to tell if the better team won. I can certainly envision circumstances where Mt. Union would beat Hope. On a neutral court this match-up is probably pretty even, in Alliance this probably swings the other way. Hope was a little bit better than Mt. Union for most of this one, enough to come away with the 8-point win. Its the third time it felt like an NCAA tournament game this year.
Mt. Union closed within 3 points with just under 4 minutes to go, Hope drew a foul by pounding the ball into Brock Benson who converted one of two FT's, Alex Eidson followed with a nifty steal. The resulting possession led to a great pass to Chad Carlson by Harrison Blackledge for a layup. Mt. Union followed with a careless turnover and Hope went for the dagger when Alex Eidson launched a 3 that missed after running 30 seconds off the clock. The rebound careened off Mt. Union and Hope ran another 30 seconds before Ben Gardner's jumper put Hope up 8. Harrison Blackledge blocked a Mt. Union shot in the lane finishing off the most important 3 minutes of the game without allowing Mt. Union to even get a shot on the rim and all 5 guys on the court making big plays.
This one played out and felt a lot like the Wheaton game minus the zone defense. While Hope never looked spectacular on offense they were good enough to maintain a decent margin for much of the game with a brief moment or two of threatening to blow the game open. Like Wheaton the Raiders made one or two runs to close the gap but could never quite get over the hump. In game minutes, Hope led for just under 38 and by +5 or more for most of those.
Efficiency:
Hope 108.63 Mt. Union 95.05
These aren't spectacular by themselves just solid, in the proper context though they might be pretty impressive. The previous best against Mt. Union on offense was Wooster's 104.3. So this was the best anyone's been against them offensively this year. In their previous two losses both Wooster and St. Vincent held Mt. Union to eff's of 95.7 and 93.4. All of their other games were 104 and above with 3 games in the 120's. Its still really early but this is a pretty solid performance.
I left the game feeling Hope still has a lot of room to grow on both ends of the court which is pretty exciting.
Pace:
73-75 Uptempo. This was almost dead on Mt. Union's average pace coming in. Hope played two games this weekend at the pace of their opponents and won both. Through 8 games I haven't seen anything that suggests Hope is better or worse in a fast or slow game. That's a good thing.
Rebounding:
Hope 41 Mt. Union 38
Hope had 26.3% of available offensive rebounds
Mt. Union had 24.3% of available offensive rebounds
The margin difference was pretty close and every rebound became vitally important the later this game went as Mount tried to cut into Hope's lead. Neither team had much of an advantage but Mount was gaining the advantage as the 2nd half wore on. Harrison Blackledge was in beast mode grabbing 12 rebounds, double anyone else on the floor including 8 in the first half. All of his rebounds came on the defensive end of the floor.
Random Thoughts:
Dante Hawkins: Showed more signs he's going to be a very exciting player to watch. He's starting to make one or two plays every game that can swing a game in his teams favor. Unfortunately Saturday Dante had two great defensive steals that he couldn't convert for points, one a missed layup, one a bad pass that ended up being 8 point turnarounds as Mt. Union took the missed opportunities and scored at the other end. His quickness and ball handling seemed to neutralize Mt. Union's early 2nd half aggression and made their pseudo 3/4 court defense pretty useless.
Brock Benson: Played one of his stronger games in a Hope uniform and it started right off the first play as Hope ran a set play between he and Gardner and Brock's thunderous dunk and primal scream got the game going. Mount kept him off the boards fairly well but it seemed like every time Hope really needed a bucket they dumped it into Brock and he delivered going 8-9 and drawing 3 trips to the line. For the game Hope was around +17 points when Brock was on the floor.
Can't Beat Ohio Teams: I used to hear this a lot back when I was a student. With this win over Mt. Union Hope is now 9-1 against OAC teams since 1990. The first 4 were in 1990 and 1991 all on the road, the rest in Holland either at the Civic, Dow or DeVos.
When Hope goes to Wooster next week it will be Hope's first regular season game in Ohio in over 20 years. I think the first regular season game with an NCAC team since Wittenberg in 1994.
I'm glad this is changing and kind of embarrassed it hasn't before now.
As kind as I can be:
Saturday I drove over early to catch the Greesnburg/Olivet game which I thought would be competitive and interesting. It was competitive and Olivet won 73-70 in a game that at halftime I thought would probably reach 80 or 90 points. It didn't.
Olivet's heading for 8th place in the MIAA, or a terrific battle with Adrian for that honor. I noted this morning Chris Coles only has 4 players on his entire squadron of 22 players who have played in every game. Three years ago they fired Gene Gifford primarily because of the turnover in the program. Maybe its not the coach?
Up Next:
Christmas. Hope heads home for a few days and then back at it next weekend as they get ready for another great trip this time to Wooster, Ohio. Monday night Dec. 29th they'll play Spalding University from the SLIAC, on Tuesday they'll play either UW-LaCrosse or Wooster.
I'll take a look at those teams later this week or next weekend.
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| Cutest National Anthem Ever! |
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