Box Score
Hope started all Sr's, Seiler, DeMaagd, Ray, Snuggerud, Holwerda. Minutes distribution in this one became pretty inconsequential early in the 2nd half. Short nights for a number of guys. Every one who could, played.
Game Recap:
(Feeling pretty cruddy today so this won't be much of an effort)
Quite a contrast from the road trip to Olivet 3 1/2 weeks ago. The early part of the first half of this looked a little bit too much like that one from a defensive side of things as Hope left Olivet a lot of wide open 3's. 9 of Olivet's first 11 shots from the floor were 3-point attempts, this is what Olivet does well and they have all season so it was a little aggravating to me that Hope made it so easy for them to launch away.
By a little past midway point of the half Hope went a little smaller and started to control the game better, Gardner, Seiler, Eidson and Snuggerud combined numerous times as Hope began to pull away and led by 10 at the break.
Early in the second half Hope put this one to rest with some very good play from the starting 5 again and by the 5 minutes mark had built the lead to about 20 points. Hope did a better job protecting the 3-point line and seemed willing to give Olivet the easier two's while forcing the pace of the game up to a level Olivet just wasn't going to be able to keep up with.
Hope's bench continued the good play and the margin was over 30 before Olivet cut into that in the last 3 minutes to make this one a 22 point game, but it really wasn't even that close.
Olivet's road woes continued, they now drop to 0-6 away from Cutler in the league with double-digit losses in all of them. I think for me the difference at home and away has been their commitment to defense. At home they've been good at controlling the game with a big difference in defensive effort, most of their road games have been played at too high of a scoring pace for them to succeed. In order for them to win Saturday at Calvin they have to compete better on defense and make some kind of effort to rebound.
Rue the day. In this now 8 year stretch of years that Hope has won the MIAA or finished just 1 game back of first place its been a loss outside of the big rivalry with Calvin that ultimately cost them the title. In '06 it was losing at Albion where Calvin beat them, in '09 it was losing at Albion by 3, and in 2010 it was losing at Olivet by 3. Elsewhere I've made the comparison between this team and the 2010 team, and so it will be for this team that they'll rue their trip to Olivet that cost them a piece of the MIAA Championship. The loss at Olivet may prove even bigger however because without that Hope might even be regionally ranked right now, and would be sitting a heck of a lot better come selection day had they won that game. Ultimately that one game may cost Hope a lot.
Scoring and Interesting Stats:
3 point shooting: Olivet attempted 28 in this one to go with the 25 they put up back in January. Tonight it didn't matter much because Hope was so much better on the offensive end of the floor, there was little Olivet would be able to do to keep up.
Defense: Obviously not a stat, but Hope held DaunTrell Hill to zero points and Garner Small just 2. These two guys are important parts of Olivet's offensive success. Small has struggled to score his last 3 games
Points in the paint: Hope dominated it outscoring the Comets 56-18 and is about a 20 point improvement over last time, which also happens to be about the to improvement in final margin.
Nate Snuggerud: 23 points, 11 rebounds.......there was a point or two in this game where it looked like Nate would just take over and dominate. Olivet had no one to defend him.
Billy Seiler: 12 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists.....had some really good minutes and like Nate played with a determination that's hard to measure
Ben Gardner: 12 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists..... had some really impressive passes last night. He's good.
Efficiency:
Estimated number of possessions: Hope 74 Olivet 74
This ends up being a slower pace than the game at Olivet which was very sloppy from a turnovers perspective and had more FT attempts. This one sure felt faster than this.
Offensive Efficiency: 117.61
Night and day to the first meeting where Hope struggled to reach an 80 eff. Both halves were very good with the second being a little higher.
Defensive Efficiency: 87.69
This is good of course and very similar to what Hope did to them down at Olivet and only serves to illustrate how God awful Hope was on offense that day to be able to lose that game. Both halves were solid.
Rebounding Efficiency:
Hope: 73.3% of available offensive rebounds
Olivet: 23.3% of available offensive rebounds
I'm actually laughing at these numbers. Olivet just didn't compete on the boards at all, on their offensive end they were so concerned with getting back on defense or had 5 guys outside the arc that it was pretty easy for Hope. Sad thing is this is quite an improvement from the first game where they had 3 offensive rebounds. Hope dominated its own glass with a number that looks fake. Second chance points was 21-4, that's not fake and was a major reason Olivet couldn't keep up.
Moment of Keys to the Game:
Putting this one away early in the second half, it was a strong 5 minutes that removed all doubt that Hope would win last night. Olivet had no chance after those first 5 minutes.
Strong interior play against a team that frankly Hope should dominate inside. Not being able to do so at Olivet cost them that game.
Adjusting the defense to go smaller and force Olivet to put 2 point shots up rather than 3's. When that happened the Hope lead started expanding.
My Game Ball Goes To:
Nate Snuggerud played about as well as he has this year, it was his paint area last night and Olivet was mostly powerless to stop him.
Standings
Snuggerud - 6
Overway - 4
VanArendonk - 2
Eidson - 2
Seiler - 2
Gardner - 2
Byers - 1
DeMaagd - 1
Benson - 1
Neil -1
Everyone -1
Going Forward:
Hope's week of redemption went well, reversing two previous losses with wins on their home court. Those previous two losses were two of the weaker performances I can remember in recent Hope basketball history. What's different? Just about everything but the primary reason is the two Nate's re-entering the starting line-up. Hope's been a better team because they've made it easier for themselves to score while still maintaining and maybe improving the level of defense.
Saturday Hope heads to Angola. Trine is still playing for a lot including the final home game for a couple of good Sr's in Ian Jackson and Scott Rogers. The game last time with Trine was about 25 minutes of even play and 15 minutes of Hope runs. I suspect this will be a pretty difficult game. What Hope is playing for is still the tiny shreds of hope they can win a share of the MIAA or gain an at-large NCAA bid. Both pretty big longshots, but at least its there.
Up Next: Me vs whatever illness decided between yesterday morning and this morning to take over my body and throw a party.
Saturday February 16, Hope at Trine
Showing posts with label Olivet College Basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olivet College Basketball. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Spring Arbor 71 Olivet 69
or, killing two birds with one stone.
Every year I set a goal of seeing every MIAA team at least once before the conference season. I never actually reach this goal but it at least gets me looking at schedules and trying to find games I can attend. Last night it was too obvious I should be at the Olivet/Spring Arbor game since Hope will likely play the Cougars on Saturday in their own tournament and Olivet is obvious. Olivet becomes MIAA team #5 thus far, the chances of seeing Trine, Alma or Kalamazoo are pretty slim so this may be it.
First, this was the coldest gym I can remember in a long, long time. If you can remember coming back from winter breaks and how cold your high school hallways or gym was back then it was a lot like that. There were 2 or 3 people who wore their winter coats the entire game. I actually considered going to my car at halftime for my winter cap. I'd like to say I'm exaggerating but I don't think so.
The game itself turned out to be a good one. Olivet came out guns blazing and knocked down most of their early shots led by the tall, lanky and silky smooth shooting Garner Small. Small made his first 4 attempts from the floor and had all 10 of the Comets points in the first 3 minutes. Olivet and Spring Arbor both played a zone defense for the entire first half, I can honestly say its been a long time since I've seen that. The MIAA has always been primarily man-to-man, I'm kind of interested to see if Chris Coles employs that strategy all season.
Olivet led throughout most of this game, for Spring Arbor it was periods of good plays followed by fits of turnovers. Two or three times the Cougars would make a little run only to turn the ball over and find themselves down double digits again. They definitely had trouble with Olivet's zone which nearly rendered the 6-8 Matt Howe useless but as the game wore on they seemed to start picking it apart led by guards Rob Hogans and Chris Bellamy who had excellent second halves.
Both teams switched to man-to-man in the 2nd half, after 5 points in two trips for SAU, Olivet went back to zone and stayed there. Spring Arbor was much more active on the defensive end, creating turnovers, blocking shots and most importantly denying Garner Small open looks. Olivet couldn't create enough offense without Small scoring and thus the lead continued to dwindle.
Spring Arbor finally grabbed their first lead with 5 minutes to play and what had been a very subdued, and cold, crowd suddenly came to life. Over the next couple minutes it looked pretty likely SAU was going to pull this out but with 1:30 left Olivet's Marquis Childers hit a 3 to tie the game up again. SAU hit a layup to lead by 2 with :30 seconds left and then the strategizing began. SAU had only racked up 3 fouls so they had plenty to give. On Olivet's first attempt to win SAU fouled as soon as the play went to the basket which wasted 10 seconds off the clock. I was sure SAU would foul again and again but I think SAU's coach probably figured putting Olivet in a desperate shot situation was inviting a 3 point shot to beat you. So they opted not to foul and let the play happen, which ended up being a foul on a shot but left 9 seconds to play. Blake Krum knocked down both ft's which set up SAU's game winning shot which was Chris Bellamy taking the in-bounds and driving the length of the court and his running right hand'er from the lane bouncing around the rim before dropping as the buzzer sounded.
Thoughts on Olivet:
I probably need a little more data and would definitely like to see how Spring Arbor does this weekend vs Hope but my initial impression is this Olivet team is at least as good as last year, which might not be saying much. However I'm not sure this particular game is a good one to judge a teams abilities, for whatever reason Olivet plays well vs Spring Arbor, also losing last years game on a last second shot. That MIAA season didn't go well for the Comets.
Garner Small is a nice revelation, he could play and probably start for just about everyone in the MIAA. Its going to be really hard to keep him off the all-miaa team I think. Fr. Jeff Cain is built solid, he played for Lansing Sexton's great high school teams I believe backing up Iowa's Anthony Clemmons. He's well coached and I thought he played well. DaunTrell Hill simply has the best beard in the history of the MIAA, this cannot be disputed.
Chris Coles had his team playing with a purpose, there were less moments of complete disarray I've seen in recent years, and less poor shot selection. Three or four really well drawn-up in-bounds passes. The 38 minutes of zone was kind of different, I'm terrible at x's and o's but it seemed to morph between a straight up 2-3 zone and a match-up zone. I did note that Garner Small played the first half on the left side (looking towards the basket) and on the right the second half. Coles is asking his guards to be pretty active. The quick switch and abandonment of man-to-man was noted, Olivet hasn't been a very good defense for a long time perhaps zone is their safest route.
This team may go as Garner Small goes, there was a clear difference in their scoring rate when Small had a more difficult time getting shots in the second half. Most of the players on this squad seem more like complimentary players rather than big scoring threats. The going thought might be stop Garner, and if that happens Olivet will have trouble scoring.
Thoughts on Spring Arbor:
I asked an SAU fan why Chris Bellamy didn't start, he's clearly their best player, apparently he's been in the coaches doghouse the last 2 or 3 games. On the year Ryan Cottingham has started 9 different guys, this felt like a team really searching for things. He got almost nothing from his front-line in this game and really only played 4 guys 6-5 or taller. This is a heavily guard oriented team and at one point had 4 guards in the game.
Those guards are pretty good ones led by Chris Bellamy, Rob Hogans and Matt VanPelt along with Fr. Greg Hamilton. Between them they took 40 of their 50 shots and scored 61 of their 71 points. Wow. I'm not sure they're on the same level as Cornerstone, they just don't have the same firepower from behind the arc. They did nothing to make Olivet come out of its zone and only put up 12 shots from out there, on the year they're a paltry 31%. These guards spent most of this game trying to get in the lane and to the basket.
For Saturday
If Spring Arbor takes care of Grace Bible like they probably should they'll match-up with Hope Saturday afternoon. Or rather, they'll have a very difficult time matching up with Hope. Matt Howe and Matt Carden are big wide guys but I think Hope just has more depth on the interior. The guards will certainly give Hope troubles at times and a good shooting day could keep them in touch for most of it. But I think Hope is too deep, too much more athletic to have much trouble with the Cougars.
It will be an interesting comparison with last nights game though.
Every year I set a goal of seeing every MIAA team at least once before the conference season. I never actually reach this goal but it at least gets me looking at schedules and trying to find games I can attend. Last night it was too obvious I should be at the Olivet/Spring Arbor game since Hope will likely play the Cougars on Saturday in their own tournament and Olivet is obvious. Olivet becomes MIAA team #5 thus far, the chances of seeing Trine, Alma or Kalamazoo are pretty slim so this may be it.
First, this was the coldest gym I can remember in a long, long time. If you can remember coming back from winter breaks and how cold your high school hallways or gym was back then it was a lot like that. There were 2 or 3 people who wore their winter coats the entire game. I actually considered going to my car at halftime for my winter cap. I'd like to say I'm exaggerating but I don't think so.
The game itself turned out to be a good one. Olivet came out guns blazing and knocked down most of their early shots led by the tall, lanky and silky smooth shooting Garner Small. Small made his first 4 attempts from the floor and had all 10 of the Comets points in the first 3 minutes. Olivet and Spring Arbor both played a zone defense for the entire first half, I can honestly say its been a long time since I've seen that. The MIAA has always been primarily man-to-man, I'm kind of interested to see if Chris Coles employs that strategy all season.
Olivet led throughout most of this game, for Spring Arbor it was periods of good plays followed by fits of turnovers. Two or three times the Cougars would make a little run only to turn the ball over and find themselves down double digits again. They definitely had trouble with Olivet's zone which nearly rendered the 6-8 Matt Howe useless but as the game wore on they seemed to start picking it apart led by guards Rob Hogans and Chris Bellamy who had excellent second halves.
Both teams switched to man-to-man in the 2nd half, after 5 points in two trips for SAU, Olivet went back to zone and stayed there. Spring Arbor was much more active on the defensive end, creating turnovers, blocking shots and most importantly denying Garner Small open looks. Olivet couldn't create enough offense without Small scoring and thus the lead continued to dwindle.
Spring Arbor finally grabbed their first lead with 5 minutes to play and what had been a very subdued, and cold, crowd suddenly came to life. Over the next couple minutes it looked pretty likely SAU was going to pull this out but with 1:30 left Olivet's Marquis Childers hit a 3 to tie the game up again. SAU hit a layup to lead by 2 with :30 seconds left and then the strategizing began. SAU had only racked up 3 fouls so they had plenty to give. On Olivet's first attempt to win SAU fouled as soon as the play went to the basket which wasted 10 seconds off the clock. I was sure SAU would foul again and again but I think SAU's coach probably figured putting Olivet in a desperate shot situation was inviting a 3 point shot to beat you. So they opted not to foul and let the play happen, which ended up being a foul on a shot but left 9 seconds to play. Blake Krum knocked down both ft's which set up SAU's game winning shot which was Chris Bellamy taking the in-bounds and driving the length of the court and his running right hand'er from the lane bouncing around the rim before dropping as the buzzer sounded.
Thoughts on Olivet:
I probably need a little more data and would definitely like to see how Spring Arbor does this weekend vs Hope but my initial impression is this Olivet team is at least as good as last year, which might not be saying much. However I'm not sure this particular game is a good one to judge a teams abilities, for whatever reason Olivet plays well vs Spring Arbor, also losing last years game on a last second shot. That MIAA season didn't go well for the Comets.
Garner Small is a nice revelation, he could play and probably start for just about everyone in the MIAA. Its going to be really hard to keep him off the all-miaa team I think. Fr. Jeff Cain is built solid, he played for Lansing Sexton's great high school teams I believe backing up Iowa's Anthony Clemmons. He's well coached and I thought he played well. DaunTrell Hill simply has the best beard in the history of the MIAA, this cannot be disputed.
Chris Coles had his team playing with a purpose, there were less moments of complete disarray I've seen in recent years, and less poor shot selection. Three or four really well drawn-up in-bounds passes. The 38 minutes of zone was kind of different, I'm terrible at x's and o's but it seemed to morph between a straight up 2-3 zone and a match-up zone. I did note that Garner Small played the first half on the left side (looking towards the basket) and on the right the second half. Coles is asking his guards to be pretty active. The quick switch and abandonment of man-to-man was noted, Olivet hasn't been a very good defense for a long time perhaps zone is their safest route.
This team may go as Garner Small goes, there was a clear difference in their scoring rate when Small had a more difficult time getting shots in the second half. Most of the players on this squad seem more like complimentary players rather than big scoring threats. The going thought might be stop Garner, and if that happens Olivet will have trouble scoring.
Thoughts on Spring Arbor:
I asked an SAU fan why Chris Bellamy didn't start, he's clearly their best player, apparently he's been in the coaches doghouse the last 2 or 3 games. On the year Ryan Cottingham has started 9 different guys, this felt like a team really searching for things. He got almost nothing from his front-line in this game and really only played 4 guys 6-5 or taller. This is a heavily guard oriented team and at one point had 4 guards in the game.
Those guards are pretty good ones led by Chris Bellamy, Rob Hogans and Matt VanPelt along with Fr. Greg Hamilton. Between them they took 40 of their 50 shots and scored 61 of their 71 points. Wow. I'm not sure they're on the same level as Cornerstone, they just don't have the same firepower from behind the arc. They did nothing to make Olivet come out of its zone and only put up 12 shots from out there, on the year they're a paltry 31%. These guards spent most of this game trying to get in the lane and to the basket.
For Saturday
If Spring Arbor takes care of Grace Bible like they probably should they'll match-up with Hope Saturday afternoon. Or rather, they'll have a very difficult time matching up with Hope. Matt Howe and Matt Carden are big wide guys but I think Hope just has more depth on the interior. The guards will certainly give Hope troubles at times and a good shooting day could keep them in touch for most of it. But I think Hope is too deep, too much more athletic to have much trouble with the Cougars.
It will be an interesting comparison with last nights game though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)