Hall of Fame Review

I watched a football game.  Hope basketball was the furthest thing from my mind.

Yep. You and me both Devin.

Hope  69  Aquinas  67
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Hope registered their first win with a 7-point come from behind rally in the last 6 minutes of this game on Friday.  Hope trailed for most it, struggled to shoot the ball well for all but about 2 minutes of it.  Aquinas really only had one chance to push the lead higher than 8, most of it was played in the less than 5 point range.   Both teams made plays down the stretch and the likely difference was AQ's three turnovers in the last few 4 minutes.  One allowed Hope to close a 4 point gap to 1, one allowed Hope to take the lead, one thwarted a last chance to win.   Critical miscue's or great plays in a close game.

click for the math

Four Things

This was part of a larger project I had in mind that I scraped a couple times over the summer.  I believe these are 4 areas that kept Hope from being a little better team a year ago. 


Four Things To Watch:

Starting 5:

A year ago Hope used 11 different starters not counting 2 more for Senior Day, 8 different combinations and only using the same lineup consecutively 6 times in a 27 game schedule.  Only one player logged more than 20 starts.  You could say continuity was a problem.  Some was injury or illness related, some performance and a lot of it was sorting through a lineup that seemed to refuse to separate itself.  Hope really never found a consistency here until almost February then had to start over when Colton Overway went down to injury.

In the Grand Valley exhibition two weeks ago Hope used Gardner, McMahon, Eidsen, Blackledge, VanArendonk.  I would be perfectly content with this lineup all year.  Most likely Caleb Byers will return in Blackledge's place and unless Nate VanArendonk can stay out of foul trouble I wouldn't be too surprised if Benson took over the starting spot at some point.

I've never been too convinced that a starting 5 is really all that important as opposed to finding a best 5 overall, best 5 offense, best 5 defense.  But having a consistent starting 5 certainly would lead you to believe there's a consistency to the lineups, substitutions and rotations.  If you're constantly juggling your starting 5, you probably aren't very sure of the rest of your lineup either.


Fouls:

Hope likes to foul.  There its been said.  Last year Hope racked up 536 personal fouls, that was good for #357 in D3 out of 406 teams.  The previous two years Hope ranked 268 and 267.  Well above the D3 average in all 3 years.  Its hard to quantify this in wins and losses terms and it may not make a difference at all.  For Hope its been the stubborness, in a good way, of being reluctant to give up easy shots in the paint.  Hope seems perfectly content to make you earn it from the stripe.

I think this is a fine philosophy as long as your team is getting its fair share of fouls and free-throws at the other end.  Last year they totaled 703 attempts, or 124 more than opponents, nearly 6 more per game.  That was the most attempts since 1998 and on a per game basis probably the most in at least 2 or 3 decades.  The NCAA doesn't keep stats or rankings on how many FT's you give up but it was 579 attempts for Hope opponents.  I'm sure that would be up there.  When Hope's propensity to foul could hurt them is if these frequencies flip and Hope shoots fewer ft's than their opponents, that's only happened once in the last 13 seasons and 3 in the last 20.

With this years rule changes we'll probably see more fouls and more free-throws.  I think with Hope's seemingly increased front line depth and a PG that enjoys driving the lane the FT advantage should still be comfortably in Hope's favor.  More than likely though, Hope's going to be facing foul trouble for someone in nearly every game.

Actual FT Percentage:

Hope had 10 games last year where they shot below the D3 average at the line.  Shooting the D3 average probably nets you one more win and an overtime game with Wheaton.

Last year Hope shot 70.7%, this is above average......and repeat that 100 times.  Hope was a good FT shooting team last year, good, not great, just good.  I'm reasonably optimistic Hope will be a very good FT shooting team this winter.  Of the guys who return from last years team they collectively shot 83%, even taking into account the addition of the new players I think this still stays well above 70%.


Turnovers:

Last year Hope was #8 in the MIAA in turnovers per game, on the national level that was tied for #220 or right about in the middle of D3.  For whatever reason MIAA teams really don't turn the ball over  with 7 of 8 teams ranked in the top half of D3.   Within its league, Hope could be better but it might have only resulted in one more win last year.

One thing Hope has always seemed to be good at is creating turnovers.  Unfortunately the NCAA doesn't keep track of your opponents turnovers.    All we have is turnover margin where Hope was a +1.59 per game which was good for #103 in D3.  More than likely Hope was a top 75 or better turnover creating team. 

Even taking into consideration pace of play, Hope's turnovers rate was 20% or 1 in 5 possessions resulted in a turnover.  I think that's a little high.  Trine had the best turnover rate in the league at 15% or 1 in 6.  I'm not sure how much improvement is necessary to move the win needle, but I'd like to see Hope close that 5% gap between themselves and Trine.


3 point shooting:

The elephant in the room.  Hope was not a good 3-point shooting team last season.  They ranked solidly in the bottom half of D3 in both number of 3's made and percentage.  Their 32.4% from beyond the line was the teams lowest since the introduction of the shot in 1987.  Their 129 made 3's was the 2nd fewest since the early 90's when teams were much more selective in the 3-point attempts.  Hope's two fewest 3-points shots made years have come in the last two years.

The 3-point shot has been at its current length since 2009, certainly part of the decline can be attributed to that.  But even moving the line back another foot has only resulted in a 1/2 made 3 decline per game across D3.  Hope's been under the 6.3 made 3's average now two years running, after years of being above it.

Last season Hope had 10 games where they shot below 30% from beyond the arc.  Collectively those 10 games resulted in shooting 18%.  Dreadful!  Hope was a pretty solid 41.1% in its other games.  I'm sure most teams break down to something similar, but I think even shooting a still below average 30% in those other ten games gets you 3 more wins.

The other side of this coin is 3-point shooting defense.  Hope wasn't very good there either giving up the 3 at a 37.3% clip.  That ranked #374 in D3 out of 406 teams, slightly ahead of Finlandia.  The resulting difference on offense and defense was a margin of -39 3-point shots, almost 120 points on the season.

I think Hope has more options from beyond the arc than last year.  Blackledge, Stuive and Brushwyler are all capable 3-point shooters.  Those are tall guys that can shoot the 3 and Hope hasn't really had that in their arsenal for a few years now.  The guards Gardner, McMahon, Eidsen, Otto and Denham have to improve on their collective 31.5% average from last season.  What might be more important is Hope improving their perimeter defense and closing that -39 margin to something positive.

The Wisconsin Double

Hope tackled one of the toughest road trips you could even think up this weekend traveling to Wisconsin for games with UW-Whitewater and UW-Stevens Point on back-to-back nights.  Both of those teams are nationally ranked, and will probably remain so through the season.  They were certainly heavy underdogs on both nights and the final scores probably played out about as you would expect.

Whitewater 83  Hope 70
Stevens Point 82  Hope 62

In both cases Hope played good, maybe even great first halves.  As the second halves played out both nights the Dutchmen seemed to crumble under the weight of little things like foul trouble, rebounding, turnovers at the wrong times and probably a healthy lack of defense.  Both games featured a short spurt of time in which the opponent asserted themselves and grabbed what turned into insurmountable leads.  Against Whitewater it was a 4 point deficit at 6 minutes that was 11 less than 3 minutes later.  Against Point it was a 6 point game with 14 to play that 2 minutes later was 12, and a further 2 minutes was 18.  In each case Hope wasn't able to mount any kind of comeback once control had been established.

One of the things I learned last year doing this blog is that its really hard to write a game recap on a game you didn't see and only marginally easier for one you saw on video.  So this is all I have for the game rundown.

for efficiencies and stuff, click

GVSU 90 Hope 84

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First Impressions:

Looking at rosters and concocting all sorts of crazy ways to measure a teams youth and experience is one thing,  but there is no substitute for seeing first hand just how young of a team Hope really is.  It should be stated the Dutchmen played this one without two Sr's where at least one would likely start and contribute significant chunks of minutes and a third Sr. spent 27 of 40 sitting on the bench with foul trouble, and actually 9 of those 13 played in foul trouble.  It was Jr. Corey McMahon and his merry bunch of underclassmen going toe to toe with a pretty decent if not good D2 squad.  Afterwards they had a juice box, cookies and a long nap.

Putting youth aside for a minute, the Dutchmen can play or at least they can on nights when they shoot the ball well like this one.  If you bother to read the local sports write-ups or watch Allan Babbit's post-game interview (a nice addition to the Hope website) you'll hear Coach Neil say some form of the word compete about a half-dozen times.  Compete they did, and fight to the bitter end.

If you walked in on this game without knowing it was Nov 14 or that it was an exhibition you would swear you were watching a mid-season contest.  It played with that kind of energy and intensity and substitution wise, exactly like you'd expect a regular season game to play out, from both sides.  I could come up with all sorts of tidbits to drive that point home but nothing does it more for me than GVSU's best player Ryan Sabin logging 39 minutes.  That doesn't happen in a normal exhibition.

This isn't to say this was a barn burner all the way, far from it.  GVSU had a couple of opportunities to lay the hammer blow down but failed to do so.  Twice they squandered big leads letting Hope back into the contest, which not by coincidence happen to be the moments Hope played their best at both ends of the floor.  In the end I think 6 points is a little bit of a blushing score for Hope, it didn't feel that close, or look that close.  Hope made some steals and shots down the stretch to narrow the margin.  But........

..with 5 minutes left down 6, Ben Gardner launches a 3 from the right wing that looks good all the way and rattles out, GVSU comes down runs their offense and PG Rob Woodson nails a 3 from just about the same spot on the floor, then the Lakers steal the ball on Hope's next possession and after a timeout run a simple play for an easy 2.  In a little over a minute a game heading for 3 points went to 11.    So yes there was a small chance for something special.

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2014 MIAA Schedules

A look at this years MIAA schedules

A couple things to note.  Asterisks represent "in-region" games as defined by Great Lakes Region teams, Administrative Region or the 200 mile rule.

The point scale is using massey ratings from last year and a super secret weighting system I cannot divulge.  Its the same as I used last year and is open to the flawed logic of applying last years results to this years teams.   Its not meant to be accurate, just give a general idea of schedule strength.


Adrian

Nov 15  vs John Carroll* @ Allegheny
Nov 16  @ Allegheny*
Nov 20  @ Franklin*
Nov 26  Siena Heights
Nov 30  Marygrove
Dec  1   @ UM-Dearborn
Dec  7   Carnegie Mellon*
Dec 18  @ Concordia, MI
Dec 21  Lawrence Tech
Dec 28  @ Mount Union*
Dec 29  vs Hiram* at Mt. Union

Best Opponent and Why:  Mt. Union, the Purple Raiders are coming off a 11-15 season that saw them come a heartbreaking loss away from winning the OAC Tournament Championship.  They would do well to crack the OAC top 4 and are probably the posh pick to do so.  They may not live up to those expectations but should still be within the middle few places of the OAC.  A close second here would be John Carroll who have similar expectations to Mt. Union.

Worst Opponent and Why:  Lawrence Tech.  The Blue Devils went 3-27 last year in their first year back from 40 years of non-existence.  This year they have 11 players on the roster all of them underclassmen and are choosing to red-shirt their only 2 returning Sr's.   Believe it or not UM-Dearborn is picked below LTU in the WHAC poll.  I find that hard to believe so I've gone with the Blue Devils, but really you could pick any of Adrian's WHAClicious opponents and probably be in the ballpark.

Overall impression:  This schedule isn't much different than last season minus a top program like Wooster.  None of these teams will win their conference or make their respective national post-season tournaments unless lightning strikes and they win their AQ.  JCU, Franklin, Mt. Union, Hiram have been no better than middle of their conference programs the last couple years with Allegheny, Carnegie solidly in the bottom of theirs.  For the second year in a row Adrian is going to tackle the likely bottom four teams from the WHAC and receive not much of a challenge in doing so. Regardless of graduation losses or attrition this is a schedule Adrian should do well against, its just probably not going to tell you much about them as a team.  Very weak and to me not befitting of a program with Adrian's ambitions.

On my scale of 100,  43.6
2013:  52.7
2012:  58

click read more to read more

Hope Roster Reveal

Hope revealed its 2013-14 roster on Thursday:
http://athletics.hope.edu/sports/mbkb/2013-14/roster

There were 6 roster spots open from graduation and a chance that a couple of others wouldn't return, which left the Dutchmen up to 8 spots to fill.   They chose to leave 2 potential spots open which could mean 1 of 2 things.  1)  There is still competition for the final two spots among a couple of the JV players  2)  Hope opts for a smaller bench which isn't a bad thing considering the difficulty they had sorting out last years bench.  I tend to think #1 is the answer, though I have nothing to back that up.

The "Knowns":

G  Ben Gardner--captain
G  Alex Eidsen
G  Jordan Denham
G  Corey McMahon
F  Grant Neil--captain
F  Caleb Byers--captain
C  Nate VanArendonk--captain
C  Brock Bensen

Collectively this group makes up 6 of last years top 9 in the rotation.  The exceptions are Denhem and McMahon who saw minutes in spots but really never became parts of the regular rotations.  Both saw increased minutes after Colton Overway's injury, but I think there isn't much body of work between them to make any guesses on their contributions this season.  For now I think the 6 of Gardner, Eidsen, Neil, Byers, VanArendonk, Bensen will make up the core of this team. 

The "Unknowns":

G  Chad Carlson
G  Cody Campbell
F  Sam Otto
F  Cody Stuive
F  Keith Brushwyler
F  Harrison Blackledge

Sam Otto, from about 2 years ago

Hope brings in 5 guys new to the varsity this season which is actually 2 less first year players than a year ago.  I've got Cody Campbell here since he wasn't on last years team and played so little on the 2012 team.  Sam Otto comes up from the JV and its here that I really wish I could offer up some observation other than he's your prototypical long, lean Hope guard (even though he's listed as a F).

Keith Brushwyler

Chad Carlson, who I will likely call Jeff at least a hundred times

Chad Carlson and Keith Brushwyler were both fairly highly rated high school Sr's within the State of Michigan and if you believe the recruiting rumors both were getting attention from schools that hand out scholarships.  Both were a part of high school teams that played for State Championships in different divisions as high school Juniors.   Carlson in Class A, Brushwyler in Class B.  Both earned all-state honors as Seniors.

Harrison Blackledge

Harrison Blackledge is Hope's first Ohio varsity player in a couple decades, he was Third Team All-Ohio in Division I and First Team All-Ohio in academics.  The equivalent basketball award in Michigan would be Third Team Class A, I'm not sure there's ever been an MIAA player with that honor from Class A.  Cody Stuive is a somewhat unknown to me from Hudsonville but looks to be your typical long, lean West Michigan Dutch kid, and according to the roster has grown a couple inches this summer.


Who didn't return:

G  Matt Parisi, JR --  Matt was one of the 3 guys vying for playing time last season at the 2 guard spot.  Early in the year he played some but that quickly dwindled once Eidsen established himself and saw very few minutes in league play

G/F  Steve Wittenbach, JR --  Steve was getting quite a bit of hype last fall and then suffered a severe ankle sprain before the season began.  He never fully recovered and his minutes were spotty at best as the team struggled to find themselves.  However his absence is still a surprise.

Surprise addition:

G  Cody Campbell, SR --  Cody played JV his Freshmen year and made the varsity squad in 2012 appearing in 16 games, mostly in mop up minutes.  I don't recall exactly but injury or illness played a part in both his low playing time in 2012 and absence from last years team.

Surprise JV'ers:

F Ryan Skowronek and G Sasha Yonov --  both were JV players last year and are again listed on the JV this year along with 2 other Sophomores who are new to Hope.  These two with Otto seemed the most likely to get a look at varsity and with the other 2 Sophomores on the JV roster it gives me reason to think maybe there's still some competition for a final spot or two.  But again I have nothing but my instincts to base that on.  I think there's a chance one of these two will sit on the bench for various varsity games.


Arm Twisting Starting 5 and depth chart:

Starting 5 would likely be Gardner, Eidsen, Neil, Byers, VanArendonk.  I am 100% positive it will not be that. This "depth chart" is really just guesses since I haven't actually seen many of these guys play yet.

Point Guards:  Gardner, Denham, Carlson, Campbell
I'm not sure about Campbell here and honestly Denham and Gardner can both play the 2.  Either Denham, Carlson or Campbell could see extended PG minutes if Hope uses a lot of 3 guard sets and moves Gardner over.

Two Guards:  Eidsen, McMahon, Otto
Even though Otto is listed as a F, he could play here as a big guard or the 3 in my estimation.  Hope will certainly utilize Gardner as the two guard at times and I think Denham could probably play here a little as well.  This is the greatest position of production need, particularly from behind the arc.

Three:   Neil, Eidsen, Otto maybe McMahon
Neil probably starts here with the interchange likely being between he and Otto.  Eidsen plays here in 3 guard looks.  I could see Hope going real small and moving either Otto or Neil to the four with both on the floor or in the 3 guard sets.

Four:  Byers, Brushwyler, Blackledge, Stuive.  Small lineups include Neil and Otto here.
While lacking in experience its nice to see good depth here.  Not enough info to know how versatile any of these guys can be but if both Van Arendonk and Bensen can't go at the 5, Brushwyler or Blackledge could slide down.  It would be wonderful if one of these guys could play the 3 and Hope go with a "big" lineup.

Five:  VanArendonk, Bensen
Its pretty much these two or go "small", but most likely one of these two is on the floor for 25 to 30 minutes between them.

Freshmen:

Below is all of the Freshmen who've made Hope's varsity roster since 1993.  You might notice a high concentration within the last couple years.  Hope is carrying 8 varsity Freshmen over these two years the most at any time in the last 20+ years by a lot.

14  Blackledge, Brushwyler, Carlson, Stuive
13  Benson, Gardner, Eidsen, Denham
12  Wittenbach
11  ---
10  Snugeruud, Holwerda, Mysliwiec

09  Krombeen, King
08  Bowser, Tanis, Carter, Sharples
07  Kratz
06  Reimink
05  ---
04  Cramer, Richardson, P. Overbeek
03  J. Carlson, Phillips
02  Griffeth, Immink, Veldt, Spaman, Kleersnyder
01  Taylor
00  C. Carlson, Bauman, Hoogewind

99  Doty
98  Sporck
97  Canaan, Bray
96  Davelaar, Stegeman, Vander Slice
95  Holstege
94  Whitford, Brown, Gortsema, Muhlenberg
93  Bosma

How Young?

Pretty young.  Nine underclassmen.  There are 11 guys on this team with 1 year or less of varsity college basketball.   

There a several ways to represent the age or experience of your squad.  I'll use 4 different ways here:

Average class

This is simply assigning a numerical value to class.  4=Sr.  3=Jr  2=So  1=Fr and dividing by the number of roster players.  This years Hope team comes in at 2.36

As you'll see below this lands the 2014 Dutchmen as Hope's youngest team by class in the last decade.  The years in bold were regular season MIAA Championship teams.  I'll carry that through on all the charts below.  For the record I have the 2014 team as the 2nd youngest by this measure in the last 20 years behind only Hope's 2002 team which averaged out at 2.21

2014	2.36
2010	2.43
2009	2.53
2013	2.69
2006	2.75
2008	2.80
2005	2.81
2011	2.87
2012	2.87
2007	2.93

Average number of letters returning

This is the total number of letters won by returning players divided by the roster.  For instance Grant Neil has 2 letters, Brock Benson 1 and so on.  This 2014 team returns 11 total letters won for an average of .787

2009	0.67
2010	0.71
2014	0.79
2007	0.87
2008	0.93
2006	0.94
2013	1.06
2012	1.20
2011	1.27
2005	1.31

Its not the least experienced, but its right there with the '09 and '10 teams.  The least experience in terms of letters returning in the last 20 years was again the 2002 team with just 9 letters won on a roster of 14.

Percentage of the roster with letters

This is the number of players who've earned a letter divided by total number on the roster.  The 2014 team has 9 players or .643 of the team has a letter

2006	0.438
2009	0.467
2013	0.563
2010	0.571
2007	0.600
2008	0.600
2005	0.625
2014	0.643
2012	0.667
2011	0.733

Despite the overall youth of the team it has a relatively high number of players with varsity experience.  I would consider that a positive.  The team at the top of this list strangely had the lowest percentage of varsity players with letters.  You might remember despite being very good the '06 team had a number of transfers.  I only counted letters won at Hope, that was certainly a more experienced team than these numbers represent.


Percentage of underclassmen

Number of underclassmen divided by roster size.  This 2014 team has 9 underclassmen for a percentage of .643

2014	0.643
2009	0.533
2005	0.500
2010	0.500
2011	0.467
2006	0.438
2013	0.438
2008	0.353
2012	0.333
2007	0.267

2014 is also the second highest number in the last 20 years.  Only the 2001 team that had 10 underclassmen had a higher ratio.

Conclusion to draw:

By just about any measure not related to varsity experience its a young team, one you might even be able to categorize as very young.  For its overall youth though it does return a high level of varsity experience that most teams of equal youth probably wouldn't have.  But, you have my permission to call the 2014 Dutchmen a very young basketball team and one of its youngest in the last couple decades. 

Everything in perspective though, this probably won't even be the youngest team in this years MIAA.

First Week

Where are we?

A wonderful summertime destination

The appropriate snarky answer to this is always 'Earth', the more immediate and subject matter relevant answer is about 2 days into a new season of basketball.  Since I left you last spring I haven't done much or really felt like doing much with this blog.  I tried writing a couple things but they ended up virtually crumpled up in the virtual waste basket.  When I started this idea about 18 months ago I really was only committing to trying it for one year.  I did that, it went ok.  What I've found is a new level of respect for people who do this on a daily basis.  It can be, and was at times, pretty draining even to the point where you wonder if what you're doing is really worth the efforts.

I am not a writer by trade or education, it is something I found along the way that made it easier for me to both organize my thoughts and remember them.  I am actually not very good at either of those things, a picture of my brain might look something like this:

that could be my monitor, sadly I am not exaggerating

Writing this blog revealed a few things about me that I didn't particularly like.  One is the number of just ridiculously simple spelling and grammatical errors I catch myself making.  It is often times something I can't control or stop from happening, it is simply the continued deterioration of a brain I will have to learn to deal with.  Believe me I don't enjoy editing something 4 times and still finding errors that I didn't see the first 4 times anymore than you like finding them (unless you're a Calvin grad then you probably do like finding them).


None of the many things I can think of sound like a good enough reason to just shut things down completely.  I do like having a place to compose thoughts and other non-sense away from the clutter of what is a less and less enjoyable message board experience.

Where are we going? 

setting course in a general...that way direction

I'm not sure I've completely decided how I will handle this year on this blog.  By the end of last season I was pretty tired and worn out, I don't necessarily blame blogging for that but it was probably a contributing factor given some extra games attended and some later nights that otherwise wouldn't have been.  I'd like to avoid the affects of my annual 'spring crash' as much as possible.

In the meantime I'll put out a schedule analysis sometime soon and a couple other things before the season starts.  From there I'll just contribute when and where I can, I really have no desire to see and write about as many games as I did a year ago.

First practice picture of the year comes to us from the Hope women's team:

If I lived closer you'd hear about them more

It's really here already isn't it.