Hope 96 Aurora 85

Box Score

Hope started Overway, Seiler, Eidson, Byers, Benson for the second straight game.  Snuggerud, DeMaagd, Gardner and Wittenbach grabbed between 10-15 minutes each, Neil and VanArendonk  a little less.  Wittenbach played his most minutes since returning from his injury, his hair was perfect, and he played just fine, thanks.  This is exactly how I thought this team would look 10 weeks ago.  Unicorns are also real.

Game Recap:

Rocks from various Michigan beaches.

The pile of rocks you see sits on my desk, they've been collected gradually over the last maybe two years.  They come from various beaches along our coastlines from Pt. Betsie all the way to the Lake Superior shoreline.  I can't leave one of those beaches without taking a rock, its like a tangible little reminder of places I've been.  Plus the geologic nerd in me just thinks they're cool.

There's nothing particularly special about these rocks until you give them a chance to shine.

Purely coincidence my hand looks like the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Alex Eidson is a rock.

I don't live in West Michigan anymore so the name Alex Eidson really didn't mean anything to me and when it was learned he would attend Hope I sought out opinions on what people thought of him.  They ranged from he'll be a star to he'll never play for Hope and everything in between.  So for me the usual sources of knowledge were not so helpful.

When I first saw Alex back in the November scrimmage I was kind of sort of convinced he could help the team, if they had room.  I really figured he'd be a JV guy and this is where you understand how terrible I am at evaluating individual talent.  Due to injuries and some ineffective play, Alex was given a chance and like my metaphor suggests, he's shined.

I certainly never thought he'd be starting this year or that by game 11 of his career he'd set the bar on his career high scoring at 26 points.  But here we are.  At halftime I probably looked up at the scoreboard and saw he had 11 and thought he was playing well.  Then he came out the second half and scored 11 more points in the first four minutes giving Hope its biggest second half lead at 11.  Its not going to be like that every night, but it was sure fun to watch last night.

That 11 point lead sort of dwindled as the half progressed eventually leading to only 1 point with a couple minutes to play.  Hope was able to  make a couple defensive stops, convert them into points and pull away to an 11 point victory in what I think was a really entertaining game.  It was a good win against a pretty good team that will probably make a strong push to win the NathCon and make the NCAA Tournament. 


Yep I really did write a game review using rocks.  Why?  Because I have no clue what to think about where this Hope team is right now or what to write about this game.


Attendance was 2,915.  That's about 2,800 more than any game I watched on video over this Christmas break.  Geez we have it good.  Hope fans are a well schooled basketball knowledgeable crowd but last night it was kind of quiet and uneasy in DeVos. I think Hope fans are being pretty patient with this group as they should be.  This might be one of those weird seasons where when its over you think it was the best roller coaster you've ever been on or you just never quite get what you thought you might.   The basketball cortex of my brain kind of tingles at that thought, but that might be nausea.  Either way, hang on!

The 2/3 guard.   Back in the first week of the season I told a former MIAA coach that I thought Hope's season would hinge on how well the 2/3 guard position developed and that it might be a problem all year.  The front-line was going to have to carry the team.   Pure comedy now.  Hope's frontline is in total flux, save for Brock Benson who would be my rock metaphor if not for Eidson.  So here we are on the doorstep of another MIAA season and Hope's front-line is now the bigger question mark.  I'm just not sure what Hope has going here.  This roller coaster has loopdy loops.

If you can remember the last time 2 Hope Freshmen led the team in scoring and set career highs on the same night, congratulations on not being dead.   I would actually be shocked if this had ever happened but I really have no idea.

Hope averted its first 4 game losing streak since 1979.   Whoah!


Scoring and Interesting Stats:

I don't think anything is more interesting than a team going 29-35 from the FT line 9 days after going 6-17.  More hair pulling, but thanks for making them last night.

3 Point shooting:  Funny but my inner thought process during the game was telling me Hope was having the better night shooting the 3 ball, when in-fact Aurora shot it better and Hope missed twice as many as they made.  7 for each was a wash.

Turnovers:  26 for Aurora, 20 for Hope.  Even with the high number of possessions probably a touch high for both teams.  Hope's scoring advantage off the turnovers was only 4.

Alex Eidson 26 points.....in 27 minutes, Career high.

Brock Benson 17 points.......almost a perfect night 6-6 from the floor, 5-6 from the line.  Career high.

Steve Wittenbach 13 points.......looked good, most he's played so far.  Very encouraging.

Colton Overway 10 points, 6 assists.......kind of an off-night until the end, difficult defensive assignment, difficult defender on him........but came up with 6 important points in the games final plays.



Efficiency:

Estimated Number of Possessions:  Hope 82  Aurora 88

Yeah, it was a lot.  The difference here is in the FT's and is math related.  40 more trips up and down the floor than the IWU game.

Offensive Efficiency:  117.61

This is Hope's best non-College of Faith game performance of the season.  Hope did a nice job working the ball low, frequently rewarded with points or trips to the foul line.  For all my gripes about the defense lately its actually been the offense that's let them down in 4 of their losses.


Defensive Efficiency:  96.98

I really didn't expect something this low.  Aurora came into this game somewhere around 109 on offense.  It was just a little bit harder for Aurora to score and that ended up being the difference.   Also the constant jump shots vs fewer layups helped this number.


Rebounding Efficiency:

Hope:  51.6% of available offensive rebounds
Aurora:  41.2% of available offensive rebounds

Its a nice advantage that turned into a 23-13 points advantage to Hope.


Moments or Keys to the Game:

Hope jumped to an early 11-2 lead, nice to see after the tough losses in Florida.  I thought it set a nice tone for the night.

Alex Eidson scoring 11 points in the first 4 minutes of the second half gave Hope an 11 point lead.

With the game down to 1 point, Hope scored points on its final 6 trips on offense to pull away while forcing Aurora into a couple costly turnovers on defense and allowing only 1 FG.  12-2 game ending run.


My gameball goes to:

On any other night I probably would have given this to Caleb Byers who seemed to be hustling and fighting for rebounds and loose balls better than anyone.  Can't ignore a Fr. going for 26 though, Alex Eidson it is.

I feel like I've ignored Brock Benson's great night.

Standings
Overway - 3
Eidson - 2
Byers - 1
DeMaagd - 1   
VanArendonk - 1 
Seiler - 1 
Snuggerud - 1  


Going Forward:

Sometimes teams just need to have something positive happen for them in order to turn corners.  Maybe Hope did last night, maybe not.  But given the choice between entering conference play on a loss or a win, I'd take the win every time.

Hope opens with Alma next Thursday, in what will be a very similar style of game I imagine.  Probably good to assume the squad and minutes distribution from last night will be pretty close to what we'll see next week.  Steve Wittenbach's return was welcomed and his absence mattered and in a weird way it opened the door for Alex Eidson to step through.   Now he's battling Eidson for minutes, because of course he is.

The MIAA season should be an interesting one, we may even see something historical.  The real question as far as Hope is concerned is will we see Hope compete for the title.  Right now we're banking on the difficult schedule  (and it was a little crazy kind of difficult) paying dividends and this team finding itself in the middle of a conference title race.  Hard thing to do.


Up Next:   Me vs New Year's Day football watching, junk food induced coma.  Beat the Cocks!
Thursday Jan 3:  Alma at Hope

Wheaton 79 Hope 75

Box Score
this link isn't working, I'll fix it when it becomes available.  You can view the boxscore by going here and choosing it in the game results from Saturday

Hope started Overway, Seiler, DeMaagd, Snuggerud, VanArendonk.  Third time Hope's used this starting 5.  Gardner and Byers were first off the bench, Eidson and Benson followed about 1 minute later.  Nine guys saw the most action.  Once again the substitutions and lineups felt a little more settled.  We're getting there, until Whittenbach comes back then we can blow everything up again.  Btw, Whittenbach was dressed but didn't play.  Still next week?  (fingers crossed)

Game Recap: 

(sorry about the extra line spacing, if I could fix it I would)
 
Except for the part about falling behind by 15 I think this one went about as expected.  I was pretty impressed with what Wheaton has going for a basketball team.  Last year I felt Wheaton was the best D3 team I saw, they nearly and maybe should have won the CCIW and I'm not so sure I wasn't watching this years CCIW champion yesterday -on video.  We'll see of course but they looked pretty good.

Hope fell behind 6-0 early before gathering themselves after a timeout and rolled off 8 points of their own.  It was a pretty good early stretch of basketball for both teams.  Hope made 6 or 7 shots in a row and scored points on 9 straight possessions by my quick count.  It was enough to build a mini 3 or 4 point lead for a few minutes.  Right about the time it felt like Hope was taking a bit of control Wheaton hit 3's on 3 of 4 possessions in succession, 12 of their next 13 points came from behind the arc and a 5 point lead was a 2 point deficit.

Wheaton went in the locker room up 40-36 in a very entertaining and well played first half.  Once again Hope had to deal with some foul trouble, this time Nate Van Arendonk picked up two early fouls.  Hope's been working around this pretty ok thus far but I'd really, really, really like to see them make it a half without someone having to sit.  Just to see what a difference it makes, I think they're 0-5 in the non-first half foul trouble category.

Early in the second half Wheaton imposed their defensive will and it seemed to become more and more difficult for Hope to find open shots.  The deficit found its way to 9 before a couple big back-to-back threes put Wheaton up by 15 at 65-50 with a little over 9 to play.  Then all of the sudden the defensive light bulb went on.  Hope really started pressuring the ball and were rewarded with an incredible 4 straight steals which they converted to points.  Wheaton's prolific FT shooting kept Hope at bay however, Hope did a great job fighting back into this one and even had several other chances to cut the deficit further but just couldn't make the key shot.   

Overall I thought Hope played really well and played through some adversity, its good to do those kinds of things early.  I don't know where the sudden defensive energy came from at the end but bottle it up and bring it back as much as possible.  It was a stunning couple minutes that took a team from pretty much dead to suddenly right in the thing.  Wheaton ended with just 1 FG in the last 9 minutes, granted on only 3 shots because of trips to the line, but still, that's awesome.


random things

The last 3 Hope/Wheaton games have been pretty excellent. 

• 2011  Hope 80 Wheaton 74
• 2012  Hope 79 Wheaton 78
• 2013  Wheaton 79 Hope 75 

This one was a lot like last year, a frantic comeback at the end that falls a little short.......without the absolute theft of the game by the winner this year.



One quarter of Hope's minutes were logged by the Freshmen Gardner, Eidson and Benson.  So far each has had nice moments and some tough ones.  Today was a little tough for Gardner and Eidson, pretty good for Benson.  It should be pretty clear by now these 3 figure prominently in the plans so some inconsistency should be expected.  I think the next couple weeks of games is pretty important for them to gain some confidence.  Hope's going to need these guys.

In-region record troubles?     Possibly, I think what this loss does besides making them 0-2 in-region is it really makes the upcoming Covenant, Mississippi College and Aurora games must haves.  To be a really viable at-large candidate you need to have no more than 6-7 in-region losses.  If you are an at-large candidate it means you likely lost a few league games along the way.  I would feel a lot better if they could get to the conference portion of the schedule 3-2 in-region.  The MIAA is going to be a pretty interesting race this year with some fun games I think.  The upside is Hope's in-region strength of schedule should be crazy good.  Long way to go for that stuff.

 
 
Scoring and Interesting Stats:

Hope ended up taking 17 more FG attempts than Wheaton, the two primary reasons were Hope's advantage of 8 turnovers and Wheaton spending the last 9 minutes of the game mostly at the FT line.  They only attempted 16 second-half shots and only 3 in the last 9 minutes.  A little unusual.

Billy Seiler  18 points, 3 steals........the kind of game you like to see from a Senior, was really aggressive early and his defense was part of the catalyst for the big comeback. 

Coltan Overway: 14 points, 5 assists.....13 assists for the weekend, we're getting to a point where I'm comfortable enough to say his bench production from the last two years is translating nicely to a starting role.  Never had a doubt actually.

Nate Snuggerud  13 points, 7 rebounds......Wheaton didn't give him much room and really pressured him.  Looked visibly upset at some no calls a few times.  Just needs to get used to it.

Brock Benson  12 points, 5 rebounds....after one point Friday comes back with this vs a better team.

For the weekend 8 guys reached double figures at least once, for the year 9.  Spreading the wealth has always been a Hope offensive staple.  It's good to see this happen a little early in the year, perhaps a little earlier than last even.

Efficiency:

Estimated Possessions:  Hope 73  Wheaton 73

Normal, at times the game had a really nice flow and pace to it.  At other times there were many successive trips with FT's that slowed things down a little.  This is also about 6 or 7 possessions higher than Wheaton had been playing per game.

Offensive  Efficiency:   102.11
Against a team that has seemed to play pretty good defense on the year so far, this isn't too bad and its the best anyone's done against the Thunder.  Hope was actually a touch more efficient in the second half, I'm sure mostly due to that frantic last 10 minutes. 

75 points was more than anyone's scored against Wheaton by 12 and 25 over their season average.


Deffensive Efficiency:  107.00
After this weekend this is 1 point under Wheaton's offensive avg for the year.  I don't think Hope played a bad defensive game just not great and not quite as good as Wheaton's.  If there was one thing that hurt it was maybe not getting out or recognizing the 3-point shooters quick enough.  I thought they were better at that in the 2nd half.


Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 32.4% of available offensive rebounds
Carthage: 30.8% of available offensive rebounds

Both teams did a good job keeping the other off the offensive boards, however for the game Hope managed a 17-10 advantage in second chance points.

Moments or Plays of the game:

Middle of the first half when Hope had a 5 point lead Wheaton hit 4 three's on 5 straight possessions at a point when it looked like Hope might start to control the game a little.  It was a quick swing and ultimately led to a 20 point swing over the middle portion of the game.

 

With Hope rallying Peter Smith hit a three with about 6 minutes to play to push the margin back to 9 points.  This was Wheaton's only FG in the last 9 minutes of play.  Hope never got closer than 4 but this shot probably prevented those FT's from being a little more tension filled.

 

With the game on the line Wheaton made their last 10 FT's late in the game. 

My game ball goes to:

Billy Seiler, I really liked how aggressive Billy started this one.  He set a nice tone early after Hope had fallen behind.  It was also his defensive play that started the rally from 15 down.  He had a really good day

Standings
Byers - 1 
Overway - 1
DeMaagd - 1   
VanArendonk - 1 
Seiler - 1 


Going Forward:

Hope's played probably the two best CCIW teams and lost both games which were still in doubt with 5 minutes to play, both on the road.  They've really challenged themselves early with a team that experience wise just isn't quite ready to compete at that level.  The good news is they've done well given the circumstances and these games will hopefully pay off for them in the long run.  For the weekend Hope gets out of Illinois with a win and a loss, something they hadn't done on two other trips to Wheaton in this event with similar kinds of teams.

Next week the schedule eases up quite a bit with Covenant on Friday and likely Spring Arbor on Saturday.  Since Covenant is considered in-region that's the game that matters most and is a must win for post-season purposes.  Spring Arbor strikes me as something between Aquinas and Cornerstone but maybe a little closer to Cornertstone.  Its the kind of game they should win but they'll have to play well to do so.

Up Next:  Friday,  Dec 7 vs Covenant College at DeVos Fieldhouse

Hope 82 Carthage 70

Box Score

Hope started Overway, Seiler, DeMaagd, Snuggerud, VanArendonk.   Second time Hope's used this starting 5.  Alex Eidson was first off the bench, followed by Byers and Gardner.   For the most part Hope used 10 players, its the first time its felt like there was any stability to the rotations and substitutions.  Steve Whittenbach dressed but did not participate, I would doubt he plays Saturday vs Wheaton, still a target return of next weekend for me.

Game Recap:

Well that went well.

I don't how else to describe it but Hope's first half was a torrid one, so much so I had to do an efficiency calculation just out of curiosity, it was an insane 139 and change.  Yes please, more of that and thank you.  Hope really didn't establish a controlling lead until late in the half, it was really pretty back and forth throughout.  Of greatest concern was Nate Snuggerud picking up his 2nd foul around the 14 minute mark, predictably Hope didn't risk a third foul this time and left him on the bench.  Lessons are hard sometimes but fruitful.

Hope outscored Carthage 17-6 in the final 5 minutes of the half taking a pretty nice 13 point lead into the break.   Interesting to me is that the Fr. Gardner and Eidson were on the floor for part of this little run.

The second half was nowhere near as offensively spectacular as the first, by the 10 minute mark Hope had built a nice comfortable 20+ point lead. It stayed around there for much of the remaining time until Carthage outscored Hope 10-3 over the final two minutes to close the gap to 12.  I'm not sure this was really that close.


Carthage picked up a couple key injuries in this one, enough to maybe think twice about this being the dominant Hope win it looks like.  Marlon Senior their 6-5 F and Steve Jaskulske a 6-7 F left the game with injuries late in the first half, that's two of their top 7 or 8 players.  It was 33-30 or so around the time this happened and I don't think its surprising that's about when Hope started to control this one.  Nobody is very good when you lose 2 of your top 7 or 8, even more so in the middle a game.

I also thought it interesting Carthage's most dangerous sounding player was 6-2 G Reese Herth.  He scored 15 first half points, his last first half FG made it 33-30 and he didn't make another FG until there was only just under 7 minutes to play.  About 20 minutes of game time, by then Hope had built a 25 point lead.  Despite finishing with 23, only about 15 of those were really relevant and Carthage seemed to spend a lot of the game without much offensive punch. 

So Hope wins comfortably on a night Nate Snuggerud scores 6 points and plays only 20 minutes, I'll take it.  Amazingly, Hope becomes the first team in this little get-together to win a game on the road on Friday night. 

depth chart stuff

Very interesting to have Alex Eidson be the first off the bench in this one.   Before we tipped the season it kind of looked like Eidson would be the odd man out in the 2-3 guard competition but Whittenbach's injury kept Eidson practicing with the varsity and now he's out there playing a lot in game 4.   I'd say at this point the 2-3 spot (other than Seiler/Whittenbach) is still in flux and will be for awhile but at the moment it looks like Eidson has moved ahead of Parisi and McMahon, and since starting the first game McMahon really hasn't seen the floor much.

Chase DeMaagd has really stepped up his game thus far, a guy I had tabbed for spotty minutes has started two in a row and is starting to fill his scoreline with good stuff.  Easy kid to root for and simply works and plays harder than most on the floor.  Plus at 21 he's more of an adult than me, which is another story all-together.  If he keeps this up its going to be hard to not play him.

Josh Holwerda and Chris Ray played a little again, I still think its the injury recovery for both.  Brock Benson only played 9 tonight due to foul troubles, another reminder that being a Fr. isn't easy sometimes.

 
Scoring and Interesting Stats:

Not much difference in the stats between the two teams or anything glaringly obvious other than the FG%.  When you shoot 60% in one half you should have a nice lead....check.  When you shoot 53% to 37% you should win.....check.  Really, the 16-6 run to end the first half was pretty much the margin.

Nate Van Arendonk:  12 points, 5 rebounds........a couple moves that wow'd the radio guys and my imagination.  Once again asked to keep himself on the floor with foul trouble to Snuggerud, and did so.

Coltan Overway: 11 points, 8 assists.....not sure you can ask for more from your PG.  Great to get him a little extra rest with the big score and Gardner's good play

Caleb Byers:  11 points, 8 rebounds......I believe this is Caleb's first big rebounding day.  Nice bounce-back after a rough Hall of Fame classic.

Ben Gardner:  11 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists.......really seemed to be aggressive getting to the basket tonight.

Alex Eidson: 11 points....given an opportunity and seized on it

Efficiency:

Estimated Possessions:  Hope 73  Carthage 72

Healthy pace, believe it or not the second half had one more possession than the first.

Offensive  Efficiency:  112.44
I'd take this all year.  Obviously Hope came way down from their first half 139 efficiency.   There were a couple two or three minute stretches of not so good ball in the 2nd half.   I think this is 3 times now Hope's shot well over 55% in one half of basketball.

Deffensive Efficiency:  96.69
So far this appears to be right in the range Hope will play at this season which is fine as long as the offense comes through like tonight.  I'd prefer it lower though and it will get lower as soon as they stop playing CCIW teams or really good offensive teams.  Both teams might have tightened the defensive screw a little in the second half.


Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 44.4% of available offensive rebounds
Carthage: 42.8% of available offensive rebounds

Even steven except I think this one might lie a little a lot.  Twice Carthage grabbed 3 O-rebounds on one trip and the second chance points was 18-7 to Hope.  Those offensive rebounds for Carthage really didn't really help them.  This was more like 40-30

Moment or Play of the game:

I'm not sure any one single play did it, but the last 5 minutes of the first half and first 10 of the second seemed to be Hope's best stretch of basketball.

My game ball goes to:

I finally settled on Van Arendonk, 11 points, 5 rebounds and I think a tough ask to defend Luke Johnson who likes to play outside more than inside (at least I think he did, damn you no internet video).  This is really one I think I needed to see to be sure but its just for fun so lets role with it.

Standings
Snuggerud - 1
Byers - 1 
Overway - 1
DeMaagd - 1   
VanArendonk - 1 

I don't mind seeing 5 different guys through 4 games, I might have to rescind Snuggerud's because I'm not counting the Faith game.

Going Forward:

Hope got by this one and it sure sounded like their best performance of the year in several areas.  The Hope/Carthage boxscore looks a lot like the Whitewater/Carthage boxscore.  I'm pretty ok with this as long as its remembered Carthage lost a couple pretty important guys midway through this game and it went pretty far South for them soon after.

Early season games are so difficult to diagnose because you just can't be certain what kind of team you're playing.  Carthage could finish 6th in the CCIW  or 2nd, we just don't know how this win will look in February.

After Wheaton defensively manhandled Calvin Friday night Hope's facing a totally different animal Saturday afternoon than they've face thus far.  I'd say a combination between North Central and Cornerstone's offense with the ability to play some very good defense.  Defense I'm not sure Hope has really faced so far.  This is going to be a really tough game to win.

But its nice to have a confidence boosting win going in and feeling good about yourselves versus the alternative.  Its a good positive step tonight for a still relatively young and inexperienced team that tonight saw a couple Fr. step up and play their best games.

Up Next:  Saturday Dec 1. @ Wheaton

MIAA/CCIW Challenge and weekend preview

Year 9!

Nov 30/Dec 1
MIAA/CCIW Challenge, King Arena, Wheaton College
Hope, Calvin, Wheaton, Carthage
Hope plays at 6pm CST Fri vs Carthage/3pm CST Sat vs Wheaton

This challenge was put together a full decade ago now and its gone so well we're starting a third rotation through the four schools and by 2015 it will be 12 years that Hope, Calvin, Wheaton and Carthage have met on the first weekend in December.  It's been good.  We've played 32 games now and 18 of those have been decided by a single-digit margin, including 9 of the last 12.  Only 8 games over 20 points, Hope owns 4 of those wins.

Here's the results: courtesy hope.edu
MIAA: 14-18
CCIW: 18-14
Wheaton: 10-6
Carthage: 8-8
Hope: 8-8
Calvin: 6-10
The full MIAA/CCIW Challenge history

The only reason this thing isn't closer is because Calvin can't beat Wheaton for some reason, 1-7 in the series, lost 6 in a row.

Calvin/Wheaton 1-7
Calvin/Carthage 5-3
Hope/Wheaton 5-3
Hope/Carthage 3-5

One pattern that has emerged after these 8 seasons is that the host conferences have owned their own gyms. 
Home sweet home:
CCIW at Wheaton 7-1
CCIW at Carthage 7-1
MIAA at Hope 6-2
MIAA at Calvin 6-2

I'm not sure there's any great reason for this.  To me its always felt like the years Wheaton/Carthage were better they happened to be hosting, the years Hope/Calvin were better they were hosting.  It's been kind of an odd thing that way.  Which brings us to this year.

Carthage 3-2

Buena Vista 63-56
Carroll 74-75
Lake Forest 69-57
Iowa Wesleyan 85-73
Wis-Whitewater 69-74

Carthage has played two teams that went to last year's NCAA tournament including the big enchilada winner and lost both games by 1 and 5 points.  I really don't know much about the other teams, Buena Vista and Lake Forest have been at least equals recently, Iowa Wesleyan is transitioning to D3 where they'll join the SLIAC.

Carthage will start:
G Donte Logan 5-11 So.
G Reese Herth 6-2 So.
F Marlon Senior 6-5 Jr.
F Tyler Pierce 6-5 Sr.
C Luke Johnson 6-9 Jr.

Johnson, Logan and Herth are the leading scorers.  I'll be honest I don't recognize most of the names on their roster, Logan, Herth and Senior came off the bench last year, two of them barely played in last years Hope game, which was a Carthage debacle.  The biggest name missing is Malcolm Kelly, he was a CCIW MVP type player, without him this is a vastly different team.  At least so far it doesn't appear to have affected them much, the long haul will probably be much different.  Obviously the most impressive thing they've done thus far is lose to two NCAA teams in close games.  (which is actually kind of what Hope's done)

When they play Hope
Carthage will shoot a lot of three's as they always have, expect lots of inside outside passes to the open shooters.  Luke Johnson had 17 points in 24 minutes vs Hope last year,  he and Malcolm Kelly are the only two Red Men who could even be mildly pleased with their performances.  Last years game was pretty ugly and kept getting worse before the buzzer finally sounded on a 30 point Hope win.  At that point in the season, Carthage was just out of their league last year.

Carthage doesn't have a lot of height and this area appears to be a clear advantage to Hope, how well the Red Men compete on the inside will probably dictate how this game plays out.  Thus far they've competed just fine with two of last year's NCAA teams.  If Hope has the advantage and gets some easy baskets, it could be a long afternoon for Carthage.  If Carthage is going to beat Hope they'll need a big day from Johnson and a big scoring day from their guards.

This one should be close, or at least much, much closer than last years game.  Carthage has played 5 pretty close games and stood up well to a couple of last years good teams.  I imagine they'll stick right with Hope for the 40 minutes and it will be won or lost in the last 5 minutes.

Here's a fun fact for you:  Hope has not beaten Carthage on the other side of Lake Michigan.  Its one of those quirky things in this challenge but I think its relevant since this Hope squad feels a little like the 2005 and 2009 Hope teams coming off big years and having to replace good chunks of their previous years teams.   Both of those teams lost to Carthage in Wheaton's gym.

Wheaton  4-0

Its been an impressive start to the season for Wheaton.  For the second straight year they enter this little get-together unbeaten. 

Capital 80-45
Alma 76-49
Loras 90-63
Chicago 64-52

Beating demolishing Capital, the OAC favorite, in the opening game was pretty impressive.  Capital has gone on to lose to Wittenberg and Ohio Wesleyan by 'only' 12.  Alma we know about, they'll be battling for the 5th or 6th spot in the MIAA.  Wheaton always beats Loras.....usually bad.  Chicago is pretty young and maybe heading for a top half UAA season.  The biggest thing is they're 4-0 and have apparently been impressive in doing it.  At the least Wheaton appears to be a top 40 quality team and much better than anticipated by some.

Wheaton will start:
G  Brayden Teuscher  6-3 So.
G  Tyler Peters 6-4 Jr
F  Peter Smith 6-6 So.
F  Nathan Haynes 6-6 Jr.
F  Michael Berg  6-6 Fr.*
* Berg has started the last two games

Hope will be looking at a team who's guards look more Hope-like than themselves.  Tyler Peters was an impressive looking Sophomore last year and this year he appears to have taken his game up a notch.  He's scored 24 and 32 in the last two games and leading them in scoring.  Brayden Teuscher tranferred in from Washington-St. Louis and is the second leading scorer.  Guard Michael Kvam is coming off the bench as the third leading scorer.  Through these 4 games Wheaton is getting over half its points from the guard spots.

When they play Hope
Neither one of these teams has really played enough games to establish any interesting trends or statistical analysis.  So far Wheaton's played what looks like good defense in its games while Hope's been reasonably good twice and really bad once. Offensively Wheaton has been outstanding but haven't been challenged by their opponents the way Hope has in two of its three games.

I'm not sure comparing these teams to last year is fair or even relevant, both lost a lot of good players.  I think most felt this was probably a little bigger rebuilding job for Wheaton but it certainly looks and feels like its Hope struggling with its roster changes a little more.  But a lot like last year this looks like a game where the guard play will dictate the outcome.  Obviously Hope will need good defensive efforts from Overway, Seiler and Parisi.  It will be interesting to see what happens when both teams go to 3 guard sets, last year that was probably Hope's advantage, this year maybe not.

Wheaton seems like they have a lot of guys they can throw at Hope's frontline, how well they stay with Hope on the glass might dictate the outcome.  Hope should have an advantage, but it seems like sometimes they need to be reminded that they're tall.  These have traditionally been good battles in the past. 

Another fun fact:   Hope has not won a basketball game played at Wheaton since 1998, and in the last 20 years have only won two games at Wheaton, 1992 and 1998.  No surprise because those were two of Hope best squads in the last 20 years.  Its a small sample of about 5 games including a ridiculous miss-seeded NCAA game with UW-Platteville, but still.....yeesh!

Conclusion or prediction?

I wish I had a better idea of where Hope is right now, this is not like last year at all where it took about 5 minutes of watching them vs Spring Arbor to see they were more than a legit top 10 team.  Last weekend didn't do anything for me to say Hope's got their answers, I think they're still looking and still figuring out what exactly they have.  That's not the greatest place to be when you're playing solid programs like Carthage and Wheaton.  They can be a good team and I think they'll get there eventually and this is one of those weekends where they may find out just how good they are or how good they need to be.

It gnaws at me that Hope has had so much trouble winning on the road in this challenge, but that's how these have gone.  I think Hope might be the slight favorite against Carthage but I think I'd make them the underdog vs Wheaton at Wheaton.  A 1-1 weekend wouldn't be too untolerable, 0-2 wouldn't surprise me and would make me sigh heavily repeatedly.  A 2-0 would obviously be reason to feel pretty good.  In short it would be a good year to get that win in Wheaton's gym, any win.  I'm kind of leaning towards 1-1.


and Calvin?

There's quit a bit of evidence that Calvin's a pretty good team, defensively they've been very good in all 6 of their games.  I'm not crazy about their schedule, so far they've played one team that will even sniff the post-season in Cornerstone, they won that game.  I really feel good about have accepted Calvin's chances of winning both games this weekend.  They kind of need to make a statement and this weekend is really their best chance before the MIAA season ramps up.


Big League Weekend

This weekend's seven in-region games:
North Central @ Trine
Hope @ Wheaton
Adrian @ Carnegie-Mellon
Chicago @ Kalamazoo
Baldwin-Wallace @ Alma
Elmhurst @ Albion
North Central @ Kalamazoo

Probably only Adrian is a favorite with Albion/Elmhurst a probably toss-up but Elmhurst beat them by double-digits last year.  So far the league is 12-11 in these games.  I'm figuring on a 1-6 weekend which takes the in-region record to 13-17.  Its still possible to get above .500 and really important since strength of schedule is an important component of getting an at-large birth.  Right now Adrian and Calvin should have great in-region records, Hope might get there but I think its pretty likely the league will have at least one really good looking Pool C candidate this year.  The better the in-region record the better that teams chances.

You can go ahead and beat Wheaton, it would help.