MIAA Semi-Final: Hope 55 Trine 44

The most cliche title I can think of:  Survive and Advance
Hope 55 Trine 44
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Recap

Hope just needed to win last night and it really didn't matter how.  Play pretty, look pretty, play ugly, look ugly.  Irrelevant.  Have more points than the other guys and you move on.  Hope did, all night long.

If you were asking to set a tone on the road in front of pretty nice sized student section waiting for any reason to lift their team, Hope painted the perfect scenario.   Establish your post, play tough defense, rebound early and run out to a 10-0 lead.  By the middle of the half Hope led by as many as 16 and threatened to dominate in front of a rather quiet crowd.

But like good teams do, Trine found their legs, started hunkering down on defense themselves and for about 30 minutes the two teams played to pretty much a stalemate.  It was simply a 10 point hole Trine just couldn't overcome.

For Hope's part they had a team full of contributions on the defensive end that stymied Trine into a 29% shooting night and forced one of the better ball-handling teams in D3 into crucial turnovers.  All of it enough to give Hope a chance to win.

The scene from Angola

Efficiency:

Hope  98.17   Trine  77.09

Two really good teams played a great defensive game.  If you'd asked Brooks Miller before hand if he would take holding Hope to 55 points I think he would have taken it in a heartbeat.  You can maybe argue Trine had a bad night shooting but I really thought Hope was in their jersey's all night long.  Trine didn't get many easy looks.  No matter how you choose to look at this given the opponent this is Hope's best defensive effort of the year by a mile and probably one of their best in several seasons.


Pace:

56-57  Very slow I thought but not boring at all.  This pace even included some transition baskets.  Both teams used the shot clock to its fullest.

 
Rebounding:
Hope 35  Trine 28

Hope had 38% of available offensive rebounds
Trine had 32% of available offensive rebounds

A very minimal difference on the boards.  If anything Trine was better at taking rebounds away that Hope looked to have corralled.  2nd chance points was 7-7, almost all the offensive rebounds ended up in resetting offenses.

Turnovers:
Hope 14  Trine 12

Call me crazy but that's a win for Hope.  In the first two games the turnovers were Hope 17 Trine 8, and Hope 15 Trine 7, but more importantly points off turnovers was -5, -6 to Trine.  Last night Hope turned that around to +4.  That's almost your entire difference in scoring margin.


Up Next:

MIAA Tournament Championship
vs Calvin
February 27  7:30pm
Van Noord Arena at Calvin College

Week in Review: Kalamazoo, Adrian

I tried to limit my travels a little this year which meant cutting out a couple MIAA games I would normally see.  Adrian and Kzoo to finish the season seemed appropriate so I didn't make it to either of these games.


Easy to Forget
Hope 67  Kalamazoo 55
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Recap

Unless I'm forgetting something this is probably the first Hope game in awhile I neither followed online or listened to on the radio.  It was such a big day I've even forgotten what else I was doing.

After the loss to Alma, Hope just needed to get back in the win column this week and begin piecing together their strategies for the MIAA Tournament next week.  With the MIAA title out of reach and Pool C bid becoming the longest of longshots there really wasn't much else to focus on for the Dutchmen.

So Wednesday it nice to hear they shed most of the disappointment from Saturday by beating the Hornets without a lot of fuss.  Kzoo stayed around for awhile, but a strong first 10 minutes of the second half put this one away and Hope coasted to a 12 point win.

Week in Review: Olivet, Alma

Nope, not interested

Hope 108  Olivet 72
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The last time these two teams played it was a terrific game that was played in the single-digit margins for 39 minutes before Olivet quit hitting ever shot they put up and Hope pulled away to win by 10.  Despite the previous entertainment value of that one I could find little interest in watching this game with a couple other games on the internet worth watching.  So I saw the tip, a few random plays as I checked on things, and then watched the first half the next morning.  So I don't have much intimate knowledge of this one or much patience to really delve into this game.  Hope was way better than Olivet and that's about all that mattered.

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Week in Review: Calvin, Albion

Its About Time

Calvin 83 Hope 77
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Recap

Recent Hope/Calvin games have been anything but what most of us have come to expect from these games.  In the previous 7 games these two have played, 5 had been decided by double-digits with the lowest of those being 18.  Very un-Hope/Calvin like.  On Wednesday the duel was more familiar and frankly refreshing.

For a little over 3/4's of this game both teams were shooting over 50% from the floor and both hovered around 50% from the 3-point line.  Much of the evening was a lot of back-and-forth with both teams seeming to top each others great shots typically right after the other.  Neither team could ever get a big lead with the largest being Hope by 5, Calvin by 7.  This one was played in a pretty tight range of margin which made it very enjoyable to watch.

In a game such as this some might think the defense was poor but I didn't think so, I thought it was really good.  For the most part it took a lot of effort for either team to score, its just that the game was played at such a high level offensively for such a long time.  Ultimately though it was defense that carried the Knights to this win.

From 6:21 mark to 1:27 Hope had zero field goals.  A 3-point lead became a 6-point deficit.  All Hope could manage was a couple of missed 3-point attempts and two large empty trips to the FT line.  On the other end Jordan Brink completed a 3-point play which was some kind of mess of shot that went in that put Calvin up 3, their first lead in nearly 20 minutes of game time.  It was a lead the Knights wouldn't give up.

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Week in Review: Adrian, Trine

Always a Nice Drive

Hope 68  Adrian 58
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Recap

Wednesday night Hope traveled to Adrian in a game no one thought would involve two MIAA top 4 teams about a month ago.  The Bulldogs have turned things around and heading into this game had the only win that was keeping Trine from leading the league undefeated.

Early on the Bulldogs shot the ball very well making their first 3 three-point attempts and when Ricky Jackson made his third consecutive layup Adrian led 23-14.  It was Brock Benson who gave Hope a spark when they needed it most with some great hustle plays at both ends of the court and fighting for loose balls.

For the next 10 minutes Hope played its best and longest stretch of defense this year holding Adrian to two ft's and zero fg's turning a 9 point deficit into a 6 point halftime lead.  Hope's bench finished the half strong with Corey McMahon and Steve Wittenbach providing key points.

Hope continued its strong play into the 2nd half, when Sam Otto's 3 dropped in with 12 minutes to play Hope led by 16 and had outscored the Bulldogs 36-10 in the middle 18 minutes of the game.  Adrian didn't quit and made a couple nice runs to close the gap to 10.  They were able to get the score to single digits and even down to 6 before Alex Eidson hit a big 3 off a curl to put Hope up 9 again and that was basically the end.

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