North Central 60 Hope 49

Box Score

Hope started Overway, Parisi, Snuggerud, Byers, Van Arendonk.  Most likely this lineup was used to counter the very formidable NCC frontline.  As far as minutes distribution Byers and Van Arendonk logged a few extra because of foul trouble.  Parisi maybe because of defense.   Billy Seiler was questionable going in, but was inserted into the rotation midway-ish through the first half, unlikely 100%.  Chris Ray didn't play and is probably not ready to play in a game like this one yet.

Game Recap:

Hey guess what, its really hard to write a recap about a game you didn't see.   

The bottom line about this game for both teams was this was a tough ask this early in the season.  I think if you had quizzed both coaches and they were honest they'd say they would rather play this game 3 weeks from now.  No question 3 months from now both teams will look quite different.

The talking point of this one probably centers around Nate Snuggerud picking up 4 first half fouls, very little doubt this impacted the game.   Matt Neil gambled that his all-american candidate, Sr. forward could keep himself out of trouble when he re-inserted him midway through the first half sitting on two fouls.  Unfortunately Matt lost that gamble this time, one of dozens of decisions a coach has to make on the fly during a game.  It was simply incredible miss-fortune Nate picks up foul #4 with his sub at the table.  In twenty plus years of watching games at his level, I bet I've seen that one other time.  I imagine given the reports of the physical nature of the game, Matt felt he needed him out there, so he rolled the dice.  Two things probably come out of this 1) Hope will be more careful with foul trouble in the future  2) Nate Snuggerud will learn a very good and very hard early lesson.  Better now than latter. 

Meanwhile what I think what might be missed is how well Hope competed without their best player for three-quarters of the game.  Picture this roster without Caleb Byers and Brock Benson......now sit Snuggerud.  Hope has a big problem vs North Central then, right?  Caleb Byers' and Brock Bensons' value to this team showed up in its very first (real) game.  Hope could start bigger to combat NCC's front line and when Snuggerud had to sit, Hope could still compete with NCC, otherwise they were probably a sitting duck. 

Derek Raridon and Landon Gamble, NCC's all-american forwards, played 39 and 25 minutes, Hope's all-american Nate Snuggerud played 10.....and Hope lost by 11.  It was a 5 point game with a little under 5 to play.  Yeah, it mattered.

As far as the game itself, it seemed to get off to a torrid pace and then grind to a standstill.  Listening to the last few minutes was like watching kids throw darts at each other, I cringed every time a shot was missed but I knew eventually someone was going to get hurt...unfortunately it was Hope when Derek Raridon hit a 3 with about 6 minutes remaining to put NCC up 8.  It was as good as a dagger(dart?). 

A couple concerns popped up in this one.

Between Parisi, Seiler and McMahon, Hope was 1-16 from the floor and 0-10 from triple for 8 points from the 2/3 guard spot.  Yikes!  One day after not worrying its hard not to.  To be fair, it was an awful night for everyone shooting 3's, combined  the two teams went 5-33 and a mind numbing 1-23 in the second half.  Had I seen this in person, I might have desired poking my eyes out.  Matt Parisi may never go 0-8 again from 3 again in his career.  Inconsistency might be the norm from out there and it might cost them a game or two along the way.

Free-Throws:  This is where you picture me being the zookeeper burying his head in the bushes at the 1:24 mark (awesome movie by the way, Scavenger Hunt(1979))...

The internet is one awesome place sometimes

 

Sometimes its not that you miss free throws as much as when you miss them.  Down 8 with 6 minutes to play, Hope holds NCC 3 straight posessions and gets FT's at the other end.  Hope makes one, misses one each time, make them all and its a 2 point game with 4:42 to play, totally different game ending, instead of a parade of FT's you make NCC have to score, which given the way the last 10 minutes played out was not a certainty for either team.  We've been down this road too many times, in too many important situations.

So that was it, a tough opening night loss to what will probably be a very good CCIW team that by the end of the year will be looking at winning trophies and making March travel plans.  Hardly something to be too worried about.  I was hoping Hope would compete and maybe be in a position late to take the win, and really I think you can say they were.  Its a tough loss but I wouldn't call it a bad loss or even one to feel bad about, only its circumstances.
 


Scoring and Interesting Stats:

All the stats were close to even across the board.  Hope was a little light on the assists, but then they were a little light on the FG's.  Second half shooting for both teams was, well, atrocious.

When you shoot 18.5% for a half you really don't deserve to win, on the other hand they held a team to 26.9% at the same time.  Its either knock-out defense or terrible offense, most likely a little of both.

Coltan Overway: 12 points, 7 rebounds......played 36 minutes which might be the most he's played in his career.  In a foul-fest game he stayed out of that trouble.

Nate Snuggerud:  9 points......10 minutes

Caleb Byers:  8 points........33 minutes, all valuable cover for Nate's foul trouble

Nate Van Arendonk:  7 points, 7 rebounds........managed to stay out of foul trouble himself which was important as were his 31 minutes.

Efficiency:

Estimated Possessions:  Hope 61  NCC 64

That's a slow grinding paced game, and considering how quickly it started, the last 30 minutes of this thing was probably played in the 50's.  Hello Wisconsin!

Offensive  Efficiency:  80.49
This isn't efficient, not at all.  In the previous 'games' write-up I mentioned anything under 85 starts to measure offensive ineptness.  Yeah, that.  But North Central surely played some outstanding defense to get there.

Deffensive Efficiency:  94.01
This is pretty good vs what will likely prove to be a good team.  The only bad thing is you held a good team to this number and you didn't win because you were being held to an even lower number.


Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 24.1% of available offensive rebounds
NCC: 33.3% of available offensive rebounds

The difference is 3 offensive rebounds for NCC on one possession which resulted in a turnover, take away those 3 and this battle was dead even.  Ideally both teams would like this to be in the high 30's or better.  In the end both teams probably did a good job rebounding all those misses or to put it another way, the advantage in this one didn't come from rebounding.

Moment or Play of the game:

Nate Snuggerud picking up foul #4 at the 10:25 mark of the first half. You can manage a player having 3 with 30 minutes to play but 4 is another story.  That really changed everything.   I also remember a long NCC possession midway through the 2nd half where they rebounded 3 or 4 misses in a row, it ended up being a long defensive possession.  Also Derek Raridon's  three with 6 or so to play, essentially iced the game, but not quite.

My game ball goes to:

I thought the re-cap was hard.  Shot in the dark and I'll go with Caleb Byers.  I heard his name a lot and he stepped in for Snuggerud's absense and apparently did very well.

Standings
Snuggerud - 1
Byers - 1

Going Forward:

Hope challenged itself right off the bat with the two-time defending CCIW champs and Sweet 16 team from a year ago on the road.  They didn't win, and that's about it.  I know of no other NCAA tournament team that did that.   Its great competition to start the season and there will be just a ton of coachable moments from this one and compared to other teams who have yet to play schools with a pulse, they know where they are and where they have to go.

Up Next:  Friday Nov 23, vs Cornerstone at DeVos Fieldhouse

Hope hosts the Hall of Fame Classic with Calvin, Aquinas and Cornerstone this year.  Cornerstone will be a good test again.

Hope 118 College of Faith 20

Box Score

Hope played without starters Billy Seiler and Stephen Whittenbach.  Hope went with Overway, McMahon, DeMaagd, Snuggerud, Van Arendonk as the starting 5 and substituted liberally resulting in everyone playing double-digit minutes and only Matt Parisi eeking out 20.

The opening tip went to Coltan Overway, he dunked it, and that was pretty much it.  This one shouldn't count anyway so the game recap is this.....

Game Recap: Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• Chopped pecans and fresh raspberries or strawberries, for garnish

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with cupcake papers.
In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins about 2/3 filled. Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.  Garnish with chopped pecans and a fresh raspberry or strawberry.

Cook's Note: Frost the cupcakes with a butter knife or pipe it on with a big star tip.


Scoring and Interesting Stats:

Hope won every statistical category possible, even FT shooting.  Everyone was awesome!

Nate Snuggerud:  29 points,  11 rebounds, 13-13 from the floor, leading 3-point shooter with 2-2 (this can't happen often).....he did this in 17 minutes of action, did he even sweat?

Caleb Byers: 19 points on 8-9 shooting, he did this in 12 minutes....I might have a man crush problem this year

Coltan Overway: 11 points, 7 assists, 5 blocks......leading the team in blocks probably says it all

Matt Parisi:  10 points, hopefully some quality minutes.

For the game College of Faith had zero assists, not even one by accident.  Points in the paint was an absurd 72-2 advantage to Hope.

One thing I pointed to before this game was the 3 point shooting, Hope went 7-16, not bad but there's no knowledge of the actual difficulty of these shots.  Corey McMahon went 0-4 in a tough night shooting it, so the rest of the team went 7-12.  I don't think this is going to be the problem I thought, just individually streaky.  All the wrong streaky's coming together on the same night could be a problem.

Efficiency:

Estimated Possessions:  Hope 91  CofF 86

This is a lot of possessions and will be the fastest paced game Hope plays this year, probably by a lot.  A typical game will be somewhat just above 140 combined, this was 37 over that.

Offensive  Efficiency:  129.63
This isn't astronomical but its up there, I genuinely think Hope made a strong effort to keep the scoring down.  Hope hovered around shooting 60 to 70 percent from the floor the whole game.

Deffensive Efficiency:  23.15
This looks like a number I made up because I was too lazy to figure it out, but its not, its real.  In about 10 years of doing this I've come to expect under 85 to be a pretty bad number at this level.  Ever seeing a number this low just never crossed my mind.  Nobody really plays defense at a level below the high eighties consistently, anything below that starts measuring offensive ineptness.  Hope's not this good on defense, really they aren't.

Moment or Play of the game:

I don't know, the tip maybe?  Keeping it under 100?

My game ball goes to:

It has to be Nate Snuggerud, he put up video game numbers in 17 minutes, even taking into account the level of competition that is game ball material.

Going Forward:

I guess we wait on official word if this game even counts, as it stands it really shouldn't so Hope's either 1-0 or 0-0.  The real game is tomorrow night.

I don't think you can take anything from this game, except maybe all the extra minutes some of the first year players played, good experience.....maybe.   This really was nothing like any game Hope will play this year or has played in probably many decades.   Hopefully Hope will never play an opponent so over-matched as this one.