MIAA Championship Review

Wrong in Every Way

Box
Recap
Video---game archive, I don't know how long it will remain up.  Its worth the watch as this was probably one of the best rivalry game endings of the last few years.


There isn't much I'm going to say that will be what people want me to say.  I sat in the East end of Van Noord Arena and if you did, you saw what I saw, and you didn't hear what I didn't hear.  So your opinion is probably pretty close to mine.

I can not tell you how disheartening it is to hear people who never, ever, complain about officiating, who spend hours of their personal time working with young men, people who have sat in the same stands as me and never say a word negative about anything, all have the same look of disbelief.  Each saying the same things, 'I'd sure like an explanation for some of the no calls.'

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The afters:

My drive home is probably longer than others.  It gives me time to reflect, even compose some of my thoughts that used to lead to things I wrote on the d3hoops.com message boards or here.  Saturday night my thoughts continued to flash back to the court rush and how very, very bad that all could have been.  My inner monologue was basically this  'I wonder if Hope and Calvin would be willing to take the lead nationally on this and set the right example'.  'How could I make that happen'.  So despite my intense desire to sleep after a pretty exhausting 3 or 4 days I sat down at my computer and typed out this on the message board.

I hope this reaches the right people, and I'm asking for help of fellow posters and anyone else who might have been at the game tonight.

Hope and Calvin are in a position to be leaders on an issue that is getting more and more national attention.  As silly as it sounds, court rushes.  What happened at the end of this game was extremely dangerous.  I care too much about what goes on in this game to see it marred permanently by something that can be prevented.

I'm asking those of you in attendance tonight to let both the Hope and Calvin AD's know that you'd like a copy of the video sent to ESPN about what could potentially go wrong at the end of a game.  We were way, way to close to something very serious happening and its just not worth it.

It does not take much for a person to be crushed and seriously or permanently injured. 

Thanks.

My hope was that maybe Hope/Calvin could provide an angle no one talks about, that court rushes are potentially dangerous even in relatively small environments.  That Ryan Schooveld and Jim Timmer might want to be part of the national discussion about this potentially serious issue.  I was trying to turn something negative into a positive.

For this I was almost immediately ridiculed and eventually called a hypocrite because I didn't bring up something I didn't even know about.  The reaction to what I presented was frankly vile and appalling.  Its only confirmed what I've known for a very long time, that what I write on that board is read with so much angst and people reading between lines that aren't there, its just not worth my time or efforts anymore.

Every year come March that board turns into a gong show,  the inaction of the people who can control it is just condoning and encouraging that behavior and they're even a willing participant.  No one likes negative feedback and that's all I receive for my efforts these days, so to the degree I used to contribute, that's done.


Sportsmanship Must Become Front and Center
I'd like to think the MIAA has always been at the forefront of sportsmanship.  In hind site it was a bigger part of my Hope golf experience than I'm willing to concede or sadly, willing to put into practice back then.   Every event that I've been to with spectators the MIAA policy on sportsmanship is read aloud by the PA announcer.  More and more that seems to be becoming lip service more than practice.

I was one of the last of the Hope contingent to leave Van Noord Arena.  I walked out with Hope's Event Manager Anne Bakker.  It might surprise people that one of the things we talked about was the Hope students chanting and singling out Calvin's Jordan Daley.  That's not supposed to happen, yet its happened every game for 3 years.  Several years ago a student in the Adrian section held up a very large easily readable sign in the front row calling a Hope player a 'flamer'.  At Kalamazoo students held up a sign that was so disgusting directed at a player its not worth repeating.  At Alma the students singled out Hope's diminutive point guard Chad Carlson.  At Olivet they singled out Chase DeMaagd, a bench players for reasons I cannot even comprehend.  As a person who views more MIAA games as a neutral more than others (sadly not this year) there have been many other things I've noticed that just aren't meeting the standard that this league is supposed to set.   Not once has anyone stepped in to say that's not appropriate.  I've witnessed more and more taunting by students (and players frankly) that goes unchecked.  The 'see no evil, hear no evil' mentality of today's administrators has to end.

Once upon a time, administrators, security and event staff  at all MIAA locations were visible and active.  These day's you're lucky if you even see a security guard.

I think everyone who reads this is adult enough to realize you can't really tell 19 year olds what they can and can't do, because they won't hear it anyway.  But somewhere down the line they'll remember when you tapped them on the shoulder and said 'that's not right', and they'll be a better person for it.  That needs to happen more often.


Jordan Brink

When I think of the best MIAA players of the last 10 years so, two go right to top of the list.  Hope's Stephen Cramer and Calvin's Jordan Brink.  Each had those special careers and special moments that don't seem to come around very often.  Both handled themselves in such quiet yet very loud ways, letting their games speak for themselves.

Shortly before the end of the season I compiled the MIAA only career records of each:

Brink     665 points, 200 rbs, 126 assists, 82 turnovers, 53 blocks, 16 steals.  
               44.1% FG, 42.3% 3-FG, 92.2 FT%

Cramer  597 points, 147 rbs, 77 assists, 81 turnovers, 40 blocks, 16 steals
              51.9% FG, 36% 3-FG,  70.7FT%

Jordan had two advantages over Cramer.  1)  Cramer played on teams with no less than 7 other players who reached the 1,000 point milestone.  I don't know about Brink, but it wasn't 7.  2)  Brink effectively had two Sr. seasons where his body and mind were simply far superior to most on the floor.

Two of the best to ever play in this league for sure.



Efficiency:

Hope  121.01   Calvin  118.05

Its very rare to out efficiency someone and lose, if that happens it usually happens in single-point games.  The halves flipped around  143-104 for Hope, 85-160.  Calvin's second half was a giant statistical rarity, at halftime you probably said that's what it would take

Pace:

57-58  Standard for the last 2 weeks of the MIAA season.  1 possession game.

 
Rebounding:
Hope 23  Calvin 31

Hope had 21.7% of available offensive rebounds
Calvin had 41.9% of available offensive rebounds

This is the game right here.  Second chance points 14-4.



Up Next:

Hope finishes 18-9 after a brutal schedule that included 22 opponents that won at least 10 and 14 of those that won 15 and 9 of those that won 20 and a season of getting just about zero luck.  Hope was easily one of the best teams to not make the NCAA field.

In the past I've written fairly detailed season reviews for each team.  I haven't decided what I want to do this year if anything at all.  I'll have some kind of deeper review of Hope's season which might have to wait until all the NCAA stats are final.  I'll do something, I just don't know what.


As I said earlier this year I wasn't really going to do this this year, and I feel like the last runner in the marathon huffing and puffing his way across the finish line after everyone's gone home.  It wasn't very good or in depth like I would like it to be but at least I finished.  Maybe someday I can explain why that was such an amazing accomplishment.

Hold your fire
Keep it burning bright
Hold the flame 'til the dream ignites