2013 Season Review: Kalamazoo

2013:  8-17,  5-9  6th place
2012:  8-17,  3-11  7th place

win that made you raise an eyebrow:  Albion 78-71, at Albion 78-76
loss that made you raise an eyebrow:  none

Seniors:  Eric Fishman, Joshua Haney

Eric Dougle took over the reins in Kalamazoo late last summer.  Expectations were pretty low coming into to 2013 and despite the train wreck in Olivet the coaches voted Kalamazoo to finish 8th.  Coaches should stop doing that because Kalamazoo never actually finishes 8th in the league when picked to finish there.  So please stop doing it.

The non-conference portion of the season went about as expected with wins over Earlham, Oberlin and York, Pa.  The most challenging parts of their schedule saw them mostly manhandled by North Central, DePauw, Case Western and Definace.  There really wasn't too many other opportunities for wins that would have 'raised an eyebrow' or expectations for the MIAA.

Within the MIAA the Hornets were at least decent at home against everyone not named Hope or Calvin, on the road they were just another of the 1-6 road teams that litter the bottom of the MIAA standings.  In four of those road games they weren't very competitive, losing by 26+ in all of them and turning in a 42 point shellacking at Calvin.  Kalamazoo finished the season strong pulling off 3 straight wins over Albion, Adrian and Alma which averted the possible last place finish and even vaulted them to 6th which I guarantee no one picked.  In the end 8-17 pretty much hits Kalamazoo's decade average for wins and losses, considering some of the huge deficits against all of the good teams the Hornets faced, this record and league finish almost feels like some kind of magic trick.

They pulled off grey, I didn't hate them

Statistics Corner

If you are expecting me to come up with some kind of statistical reason that Kalamazoo finished 6th and not 8th you won't find it here.  From an efficiency point of view Kalamazoo was the worst team in the league.  They played 6 games in the league that were close, they won 4 of those.  I can't explain it, other than to say on those particular days they were better than their opponents down the stretch when they needed to be.

Thing they did better than anyone in the league:  wear grey
Thing they did worse than anyone in the league:  scoring margin, FG%, 3pt FG%, FT%

Of the 'things they did worse than anyone' you might notice 3 of those directly involve the rate at which you put the ball in the basket.  That's not a very good recipe for success in a game where putting the ball in the basket is important.  Their NCAA stats rankings are gruesome.  They were in the bottom quarter for pretty much every statistic on offense and bottom half for everything else.  The only good statistic was turnover's per game which ranked #114, that was only 6th best in the MIAA.

Efficiency:

Offense:  91.56   Defense:  106.64   Total Eff Rating:  184.92

Team rank out of the last 10 years:  #8
League rank out of the last 10 years:  #72

I could have stared at these for a long time trying to figure out how they pulled off 5 league wins and a 6th place finish.  I just can't, its not in the efficiency numbers.  These are not horrible but they aren't very good either, actually they are looking up at not very good.  In the last 10 years there have only been 6 other teams perform at a lower level on offense in the league.  From looking at box scores and efficiency all I can really decipher is that when Kalamazoo was bad, they were really bad, when they weren't bad, they were capable of beating teams at home not named Hope or Calvin or destined for the NCAA tournament.

A bright spot on Kalamazoo's season was Jr. guard Mark Ghafari.  Mark finished second in the league in scoring at just a shade over 18 points per game finishing behind only Ian Jackson.  While his shooting percentages weren't amazing he did put the ball in the basket at a far better rate than anyone on his team and in the league made 41 3-point shots, 5 more than Calvin's Bryan Powell.   A similar season of scoring next year is going to put Mark in Kzoo's top 5 for all-time scoring.  


2013-2014

Key Returnees:  Mark Ghafari, Aaron Schoenfeldt, Adam Peters, Grant Carey, Carter Goetz and 9 others

Mark Ghafari

It is hard to tell exactly what kind of program Eric Dougle is going to develop at Kalamazoo.  He really came in to the job a little late in the game to do any kind of successful recruiting and honestly its recruiting that's going to be the biggest challenge ahead anyway.   On the court I only saw them play Hope.   Hope crushed them in games that were much to frantic and much too sloppy to tell what was going on other than one team was significantly better than the other.  So I really didn't learn much about them this year.

Kalamazoo's been a pretty young program for a couple years.  This year 11 guys were underclassmen, next year they transition to being a 'veteran' program with 9 guys as Juniors or Seniors.  Beyond Mark Ghafari and the departing Eric Fishman though this is a team full of guys who just really don't stand out.  Ghafari and Eric Fishman combined to be just about 50% of Kalamazoo's offensive output, only Trine with Ian Jackson and Scott Rogers relied on two players more.  They lose one half of the dynamic duo that probably kept them afloat this year with no really clear obvious #2 guy in the wings.  Adam Peters and Aaron Shoenfeldt will be pretty key if they can 'take their game to the next level'.  Offensively they lose almost 1/4 of their production from one of the lowest rated offenses in the last decade and I didn't see much on defense to make me think any big improvement on either side of the floor is right around the corner.

Range of finish:   7th or 8th, with the slight chance at 5th or 6th if Eric Dougle knows more magic tricks.  Like everyone in the bottom half of the league though there is opportunity to move up, but I just can't see this team improving on an already improbable 6th place finish. 

2013 Season Review: Alma

2013:  9-16,  4-10  7th place
2012:  9-16,  5-9  6th place

win that made you raise an eyebrow:  Baldwin-Wallace 75-73,   Spring Arbor 74-69 OT
loss that made you raise an eyebrow:  really don't see one

Seniors:  Greg Silverthorn, Brian Sheridan, Chris Williamson, Dustin DeShais, Caleb Van Timmeran

Year two of the Sam Hargraves era in Alma began with a very challenging non-conference schedule. After a couple early drubbings the Scots settled in and had a near handful of successive good performances highlighted with a win over OAC 2nd place Baldwin-Wallace and a good overtime win over NAIA Spring Arbor.  Alma entered MIAA play at 5-6 and a noted optimism.

Like most teams in this league however going on the road proved to be their undoing, Alma recorded just one road win at Albion late in the season.  A near miss upset at Adrian and a close four point loss at Olivet probably kept Alma from being that #5 team challenging for the final MIAA Tournament spot.  Final margins say Alma wasn't all that competitive with Calvin or Hope but were probably in most of their other league games.  Alma had some injury problems here and there that  prevented them from fielding the team that performed well in the middle of their non-conference.  On the whole though Alma's ledger of close wins and close losses probably balanced and the Scots finished about where they should have.  Last springs preview was pretty accurate.  Alma was a better team this year, its just not reflected in the wins and losses.

Statistics Corner

Defense just isn't Alma's thing of late and that didn't change much this year.   The Scots gave up 80 or more points in 12 of their 25 games, including 8 times within the MIAA.  In a league with a lot of pretty average offenses, that's not very good.  NCAA stats confirm what we probably suspected, Alma was not good at defense finishing in the bottom quarter of all defensive stats.

Thing they did better than anyone in the league:  nothing
Thing they did worse than everybody in the league:  allowed most points per game, highest shooting percentage allowed and fewest offensive rebounds

Alma didn't put up much resistance on defense allowing opponents to shoot nearly 50% from the floor.  That's just tough to overcome on any night, let alone an entire season.  Rebounding was an issue as well where they were out-rebounded in the majority of their games and offensive rebounding was particularly poor.  One and done probably described their offense for most of the year.

Efficiency:

Offense:  98.58   Defense:  106.75   Total Eff Rating:  191.82

Team rank out of the last 10 years:  #4
League rank out of the last 10 years:  #61

Offensively Alma really stumbled down the home stretch a possible sign the second time through the league teams figured out how to defend them.  Otherwise Alma's offense was heading for an above 100 rating.  Defensively they were good on only a few occasions, much of the season though teams scored at a fairly high rate.  Two or three really bad performance might have skewed this a little but overall its probably a fair representation of their defense.

Efficiency says they weren't quite as good as last year but I think this years schedule was overall much more difficult.  Last year their 4 non-conference wins were over UM-Dearborn, Kuyper, IU-Northwest and Finlandia.  This year:  Heidelberg, Baldwin-Wallace, Oberlin, Spring Arbor and Chicago.  That's quite an upgrade in quality of wins, so I'm calling them better.

2013-2014

Key Returnees: Isiah Law, DJ Beckman, Brandon Krause, Jacob Marawske, Charlie Helmer(?) and a host of others.

Underrated PG Brandon Krause

The most significant losses to graduation are Silverthorn, Sheridan and Williamson but it feels a little less than what they lost from last year.  The biggest problem for Alma next year is the word big, they have none.  Lack of height is a serious issue for Alma and at least on the immediate roster there doesn't appear to be an answer.  Sam Hargraves landed a couple pretty good recruits last summer in DJ Beckman and junior college transfer Isiah Law.  A similar success rate next year could really give the Scots a nice boost.

Alma played around 13 guys most of the season, 8 of them return and 5 that should make-up a pretty decent if small starting 5.  Alma's a competitive program now and it doesn't feel like they are that far from making a serious splash.  If next years schedule is similar I'd expect a similar kind of season.  The trick of picking teams in the bottom half of the current MIAA is that they are so similar it feels like one good player is enough to lift a team from 8th to 5th or maybe better.  Alma will be back in the blender again next season but the prospects seem a little better for a couple more wins within the league.  Having a better non-league season could be more tricky.

Range of Finish:  I see the same kind of season for Alma next year which results in a similar kind of prospect for next year.  5th, 6th, 7th or 8th.  I would shade this towards 5th or 6th before 7th or 8th though. 

2013 Season Review: Albion

2013:  6-19, 2-12  8th place
2012:  11-15, 7-7  5th place

Win that made you raise an eyebrow:  Trine 73-68 OT
Loss that made you raise an eyebrow:  @ Olivet 81-54

Seniors:  Anthony Wash, Chris Hutton, Mike Smith, Leonard Wernette-leff

I sounded the warnings on Albion's 2013 season sometime last spring when I wrote their review, here.  Sometime between then and November I became hilariously optimistic about Albion basketball and actually picked them to finish 4th in the MIAA.  There was what I thought was sound reasoning behind that pick and many things I couldn't have predicted happened that resulted in Albion having one of its most disappointing seasons in their history.  Fewest wins since 1970-71 which is 3 years before Mike Turner coached his first game at Albion.  It broke a string of 37 consecutive years of double-digit wins, which is actually quite impressive.

A lot of things went into Albion's bad season starting with the suspension of all-league returning Sr. Kolin Kazen.  This suspension was reportedly only for 8 games but he never suited up for the Britons this season.  About the time Kazen was supposed to return 3 more Britons received the ban-hammer, Lawrence Ridgell, Adam Zavadil and Alex Harville.  Three potential starters and a solid bench guy gone.  This is where Albion's season trajectory took a steep turn south.  A mid-season 10 game losing streak foretold bad things to come, Olivet thrashed them by 27 to start the MIAA season, solid performances against Hope and Calvin at home raised hopes.   A series of close losses wasn't much to be excited about and Albion finished the first half of the MIAA winless and in last place.  By the time the Britons rolled into Holland they looked beaten up and worn out and were a far cry from the competitive teams against Hope and Calvin earlier in January.  Tough close losses to Kzoo and Alma meant the Brits were heading for 8th place in the league.  I'll be honest and say I'd never thought I'd see this.

Statistics Corner

Defensively Albion wasn't a very good team this year and that bares itself in them being ranked in the bottom half of every defensive stat category the NCAA keeps.  For a program that has always seemed to pride themselves on defensive effort that has to hurt a little.  Offensively they end up being the 4th best offense in the league, I'm not sure that's saying much.

Thing they did better than anyone in the league:  3pt shooting %
Thing they did worse than anyone in the league:  turnover margin

One of the things I've admired about Jody May coached teams is how well they move the ball around and end up with wide open three's.  Despite not having the fire power they thought they'd have the Britons still led the league in 3 point percentage.  Offensively this team proved to be competent and on nights when they were able to play competently on defense they were able to compete with the best teams in the league.  Albion was very young and young teams do things like turn the ball over a lot and give inconsistent efforts on defense and thus you lose close games.  Probably pegs this Briton team pretty well. 

Efficiency:

Offense: 99.57   Defense: 106.63    Total Eff Rating: 192.94

Team rank out of the last 10 years:  #10
League rank out of the last 10 years:   #58

So if you felt like you were watching one of the worst Albion teams in awhile here's the statistical or at least efficiency proof that yes it was.  The number to focus on here is the defensive rating.  In the last 10 years this is Albion's lowest rating(or worst), the next lowest for them was last year.  Until this number starts to go down significantly its going to be hard for Albion to crack the top 4 again in this league.

2013-2014

Key returnees:  Jordan Herron, Eric Evans, Zach Hurth, Ryan Watson, Carter Elliot, Justin Beal

Jordan Herron

At least one of the players who were suspended mid-season can return next year and that would certainly help.  However, the Britons lose almost half the minutes of a team that turned out to be not very good.  For the first time in a couple decades Albion failed to have a first-team All-MIAA player and its probably been even longer since they hadn't had a 2nd team player.  Albion ended up being pretty close to the youngest team in the league if not the youngest with 8 Fr. and 3 So. on the end of season roster.

For the second year in a row the most positive thing to take from Albion's season is they had the chance to play a lot of young players and gain valuable experience.  There were times in the final weeks of the season when Albion's best lineups consisted of mostly Fr.   At some point that experience has to start paying dividends but that may not come for a year or two.  One thing to notice is that when the season ended two of their three leading scorers were Freshmen in Herron and Evans.  Herron certainly impressed me and I think he'll be a good interior player down the line if he isn't already.  Evans and Watson look like capable scorers.  Not much help will be coming from the junior varsity because by mid-December the junior varsity was on the varsity.  So what you saw from Albion is what will be returning in 2014.

There's pretty clear evidence Albion is in a downswing period, it remains to be seen if 2013 was a bottom or if there's more pain to come.  Even with a good Freshmen class that leaves Albion with a team still mostly full of Fr. and So's. 

Range of finish:  The MIAA's pretty tightly packed from 5 to 8, it wouldn't take a lot for Albion to compete for a league tournament spot as early as next season.  Five of this years league losses were by less than 5 points, turning those around is 7 wins.  That's right in the thick of a top 4 finish.  But I'm erring on the side of caution here, a 6th, 7th or 8th place seems more likely.

Hitting a wall and returning to the beginning.

Its been almost 4 weeks since I saw a basketball game in anger.   I had every intention of sitting down and doing all the post-season wrap-up shenanigans and 2014 previews and getting those out of the way early.  But, wham-o, this dude hit a wall of exhaustion and illness.  Yes, I've been literally physically ill since the day before the MIAA Championship game.  It is and has been the worst head cold in modern human history.  Doc says its cool though, and it will just run its course.  That is probably a lot easier to tell someone when A) you don't have the worst head cold in history and B) you're making bank like a doctor.

So I really haven't felt up to writing much of anything or really doing much of anything.  The only basketball related thing I've done this month was watch the Hope women beat Ohio Northern and I took in a high school district championship game, mostly out of curiosity. 


Returning to the where it all began

Back in 1982, I was 11 going on 12.  Some of my first basketball watching memories were of our high school team that year.  They were then and probably still are today one of the best teams that school has ever had.  I can still name the starting 5, Dave Beechler, Joe Jecks, Jim Blood, Mike Warner and Tony Nichols (Nichols went on to play at Albion).  At some point in the year Eaton Rapids was ranked in the top 10 in Class B.  The number one team that year was defending Class B Champion Okemos who also happened to be in the same conference and unfortunately the same district.

The two teams beat each other by 2 or 3 points on each others floor so when the two were paired together in the district semi-final it was a pretty big deal.  It was my first experience of this wonderful thing called March Madness.  District '36' was in Charlotte (shar-lot) that year, only about 9 miles away and at the time probably the 2nd largest high school gym in the Lansing Area.  Even well into the 90's it was well regarded and even hosted some state quarterfinal games.

All I really remember was it was standing room only, it was a heck of a game with lots of screaming and yelling and Eaton Rapids lost a heart breaker by 3 or 4 points.  That game was on a Monday and even after losing me and a neighbor friend made it over to each session the rest of the week.  Okemos went on to win the rest of their games in the tournament by 20 or more points and won a second consecutive Class B Championship.

That particular Charlotte gym has had a prominent place in my basketball watching memory and just plain memory.  Just a year or two later I saw Terry Mills' Romulus team play a quarterfinal game there.  I saw all of the local rival Eaton Rapids and Charlotte games.  My Freshmen year in high school our wrestling team won a state championship in that gym, and for some reason I was there along with half the town.  In the last couple years of my high school years ER was good at basketball again and Charlotte had a future Michigan recruit by the name of Jason Bossard.  Those were some pretty good and heated clashes.  Later in life I worked with a woman who was a cheerleader at Charlotte at those same games.

 Jason Bossard is #22, best weight lifter in the Fab 5 era

The last game I saw at Charlotte was in 1991, Detroit Country Day and Chris Weber against Charlotte.  Webber tried to dunk over a 6-6 kid.  He ended up doing some kung-fu looking kick on a fast break and the bottom of his Nike's hit the kid in the forehead.  He dunked it, it was spectacular, it brought everyone off their seat and it was also a charge. 

Charlotte's gym is a dump now, or at least it looks like it to me.  I wish it had some catchy name like 'Oriole Dome' or something but it has no name and it looks quite a bit like Holland High's 'Dutch Dome'.  The place was built in the early 70's, a quarter of its bleachers have been replaced by an ugly iron gate that houses the weight room in one balcony.  Bleachers have been removed from one end completely and downsized at the other.  Its wooden bleachers replaced by the horrible modern plastic variety.  I bet it holds half the number of people it did in its hay day.  At one end hung the same faded and torn 1970's era girls golf state championship banner that was faded and torn in the 80's.  Needless to say its long been surpassed in quality by many suburban Lansing area gymnasiums that have been built in the last 20 years, but this year it was once again Charlotte's turn to host District '36'.

Schools have moved in and out of this district quite a bit over the years, but its always been the Class B schools in Lansing and South of Lansing.  This year it was Eaton Rapids, Charlotte, Leslie, Olivet, Jackson Northwest and Parma-Jackson County Western.  What made this year particularly intriguing was that none of these 6 teams had a winning record.  6-16, 3-18, 7-14, 10-13, 4-17 and 10-10.  A combined 40-88, a .312 winning percentage.......and I'm guessing some very poor efficiency numbers.   

What often happens when you pit teams of equal competency or incompetency together is you get very entertaining games.  Of the six games 4 were decided by 10 points or less with one buzzer beater and two games where one team had a chance to tie on their last possession.  In the final Olivet met Eaton Rapids.  So I went to watch out of a sense of former community pride but also morbid curiosity.  It would be the first and probably only high school game I'll watch this year and I kind of wanted to see the old gym again. The game turned out to be pretty entertaining.  I'd estimate the pace at about 85 points, the fact that the final score was 48-44 probably points to the fact that it wasn't a very well played game.  Lots of up and down action with nothing much but missed shots happening.


Neither team led by more than 8 and only for a brief minute or two, and most of the 4th quarter was spent with both teams having numerous opportunities to seize the game but failing in some spectacular and 'losing record high school team' ways.  With the score tied Eaton Rapids had the ball and was probably attempting to hold for the last shot, but somehow their best player found himself absolutely wide open on the baseline from 10 feet, so he took the shot with about 30 seconds left.  Unfortunately it missed and it was rebounded by Olivet's 6-8 moose of a center.  I learned this because the Olivet fans would howl 'mooooose' every time he touched the ball.

Mooooose!  a.k.a.  Quentin Harris

The big moose ended up laying one in on the other end to put the Eagles (not comets) up 2.  ER had one more chance though and with the clock winding down their best player drove the lane as a mass of Olivet humanity collapsed on him, he went flying one way and his errant shot flew off into big moose's hands.  Could have easily been called a foul but wasn't.  Moose hit 2 ft's that sealed the victory. 

Has nothing to do with any of  this, but its from 1982...and awesome

   

  
When an ACL tear is not an ACL tear

Part of Olivet's poor record can be explained by the absence of the moose the last 8 games of the season, the Eagles went 1-7.  Quentin was told he had a torn ACL, which somehow turned out to be just a deep tissue bruise.  So Quentin was able to suit up again in time for the state tournament.  He was obviously still hobbled by it but Q-moose did two things really well.  1) Keep the ball away from shrimpy high school basketball players and 2) make free-throws, so Olivet won.  In case you were wondering moose will be playing basketball up with the moose at Michigan Tech.

Olivet's big prize for winning what might have been the state's worst district was a trip to the Regional's at Jackson Lumen Christi, where they would play Jackson Lumen Christi and lose by 47!!!


My March Madness With a Twist

It was good to be back in that gym, see some old faces in the Eaton Rapids crowd I hadn't in a long time.   One face in particular kept grabbing my attention.  There was a guy photographing the game, obviously a professional and obviously someone I knew or had once known.  After the game as he was snapping photos of the Olivet team and I asked him if he was such and such and if he went to Hope College.  I already knew the answer but it was good to hear him confirm it anyway.  As it turns out he and I lived on the same floor of the same dorm my Sophomore year at Hope.  He's quite an accomplished photographer and does freelance work that is frequently published in the Lansing State Journal.  Such as big Q-Moose above.

You never know what will happen or who'll you'll see at these things, sometimes its madness........like two student sections sitting next to each other and doing the 'harlem shake'.

Olivet and Eaton Rapids share a 'harlem shake'

Weeks in Review: Week 14 and 15

MIAA

After a kind of crazy finish which saw Olivet actually having a chance to make the MIAA Tournament we ended up with the four teams probably most of us thought would be in the semi-finals.  Calvin, Hope, Trine, Adrian.

Standings
Calvin        13-1
Hope          12-2
Trine          7-7
Adrian         7-7

I imagine most of the season Calvin fans were kind of dreading and I'm sure rooting against Adrian as their semi-final opponent.  In the previous two meetings Adrian hung tough losing by 6 in Grand Rapids, and losing on what amounted to a last second three at home.  A late season injury to forward Adam Meier meant an already short-handed and short-benched Adrian squad was really short-handed against the Knights.  The white flag went up early in this one as Calvin rolled the Bulldogs 71-44.  It matched the margin for the most lopsided semi-final in the last 15 years by Hope in 2009.

In the other one Hope took care of a game Trine squad that really played an excellent first-half but couldn't sustain their success for the full 40 minutes.  A late rally gave the Thunder a chance but maybe a little nerves and some good Flying Dutchmen execution put the game away.  It was the third time they'd met this season and the third time I felt like I had watched the best played game of the year.

So in the final, which is kind of becoming an annual thing after an entire decade of almost never happening, Hope met Calvin.  I suppose all year long the 'numbers' and eye witness observations were saying the same things, that Calvin was the best team in the league and it wasn't really close.  The game in Holland at least gave reason to believe Hope could give them a challenge and maybe sneak out of there with a win.  Didn't quite happen  Calvin went out and proved they were the best team in the league against a Hope team that just wasn't up to the challenge of elevating their game vs a tough opponent.  For the weekend Calvin ended up dominating the tournament matching the second best point margins in the tournaments history of 47.

So Calvin received the auto-bid which breaks a 6 year string of not playing in the NCAA's, also ends a streak of 7 years where Hope ended their season.  I actually feel relief for them (but not that much relief).

That was the only bid for the league which shouldn't really come as a surprise, after the Olivet loss I think it was pretty much certain Hope had to win the AQ to gain a bid. Hope actually wasn't that far off, which I may or may not get into in a latter post.

On Tuesday the league released its all-league teams and choice of MVP, you can find them here.   I can't say I disagree with many of selections.  I probably would have flipped Powell and Rogers, and I probably would have chosen Garner Small instead of Brandon Krause.  You would have known this but a terrible cold has kept me from really wanting to do this blog thing.  MVP was interesting if only because its the 4th time in 5 years the league has chosen an MVP who didn't win the league after decades of almost only naming MVP's who won the title.  Maybe that says more about the league's recent champions?

My personal congratulations to Ian Jackson of Trine who did some great things in his four years, unfortunately due some great Hope defense on him I never got to see the player most of the other teams in the league did see.

MIAA Efficiency

	Off Eff		Def Eff	Total	change
Calvin	111.01		85.36	225.65	-0.33
Hope	106.18		97.77	208.41	-0.29
Adrian	95.47		87.58	207.89	-2.55
Trine	103.61		98.67	204.94	-2.01
Olivet	98.80		102.52	196.28	-2.58
Albion	99.57		106.63	192.94	-1
Alma	98.58		106.75	191.82	-0.03
Kzoo	91.56		106.54	184.92	2.54

Really odd that the only team that improved over the two weeks was Kzoo.  Everyone else declined in performance though a couple only slightly.  Didn't exactly hit the finish line in full stride I guess.  Or maybe we did and it was all at the defensive end of the floor.  The differences in positioning relative to the final standings is going to come from the non-conference portions of the schedules.  For instance Adrian had an excellent non-conference compared to Trine, thus they end up still rated higher by efficiency at the end even though they truthfully were probably not a better team.

*give Hope about 4 more points if you want to include that infernal internet school game that shouldn't count.  It's right in the manual.

Bottom line, efficiency says it wasn't close. 

(Change of format this week, since I'll probably do a review of each team anyway I'll skip the individual team reviews for this 2 weeks.)


The Neighbors

Ohio Athletic Conference

Not too much drama to close out the OAC season.  Capital snuck by winless in the league Muskingum and then on Saturday clinched the title by beating Ohio Northern.  Losing wouldn't have mattered because Marietta lost to John Carroll.  Baldwin-Wallace closed out its season to finish tied for third and I'm sure want to burn their President's house down for not permitting them to play in the post-season.

Standings
Capital           16-2
Marietta         14-4
B-W               14-4
Wilmington      10-8

The tournament however was a different story, the top four seeds met in the semi-final.  Mt. Union led Capital for most of the game and hung on at the end to pull the big upset and effectively end Capital's season.  Wilmington and Marietta played an epic 3 OT thriller which saw Marietta hit game tying shots twice to extend the game and a highly, highly controversial foul on Wilmington extended it a third time.  In the end Marietta won out 111-106.  Maybe the game of the post-season.

In the Championship game Marietta came from 20 points down and then watched Mt. Union tie the game and send it to overtime.  Marietta won the overtime to win two of the wildest back-to-back conference tournament games you might find.


North Coast Athletic Conference

Wooster had already clinched the NCAC title going into the final week so their loss on the seasons final day was inconsequential to them but maybe a sign of things to come.  The rest of the league jockeyed and jostled for playoff positioning in such convoluted ways I won't even begin to tackle it.

Standings
Wooster           16-2
Ohio Wes.         14-4
Wittenberg        9-7
DePauw            9-7
Kenyon             9-7

Somehow Kenyon ended up the 3rd seed which meant that when round 1 went chalk, Wooster met Witt in the semi-'s with Kenyon meeting OWU.  Both Wooster and Wesleyan won their semi-finals without too much trouble to set up a third meeting between clearly the two best teams in the NCAC.  The first time OWU lost by 6, second time lost in OT, so it shouldn't have been much surprise that the third time they got it right and knocked off the Scots 76-66.  Only the 2nd time since 1998 when Wittenberg or Wooster didn't win the tournamet title.  Come to think of it, that's what the MIAA looks like too.


Presidents  Athletic Conference

The whole of the PAC season came to down the final day of the season with St. Vincent hosting Thomas More.  Of course it went to overtime when Thomas More tied it up with perhaps the most boring comeback in history by sinking 5 free-throws in the final 2 minutes.  St. Vincent won the thing in overtime securing their first PAC Championship since moving to D3.

Standings
St. Vincent        15-1
Thomas More      14-2
Bethany            10-6
Thiel                 10-6

Thomas More and St. Vincent met in the title game one week latter with St. Vincent winning a less dramatic game 86-74 and earning their first ever bid to the big dance.  Thomas More ended up being this years odd man out and was likely the last Great Lakes Region team 'on the table' on decision Sunday.


Region Rankings

Again just my thoughts, not based on silly NCAA criteria.

1.  Calvin
2.  Wooster
3.  Ohio Wesleyan
4.  Marietta
5.  St. Vincent

Four that almost made it:  Hope, Thomas More, Capital, Baldwin-Wallace

Marietta and St. Vincent are pretty weak 4's and5's here.  I do think the top 3 are clearly the best 3 teams in the region.


Great Lakes Efficiency

Straight Efficiency

1.  Calvin
2.  Wooster
3.  Bethany
4.  PSU-Behrend
5.  Ohio Wesleyan
6.  Baldwin-Wallace
7.  DePauw
8.  Thomas More
9.  Marietta
10.  Capital

11.  Hope
12.  Adrian
15.  Trine
28.  Olivet
32.  Albion
33.  Alma
38.  Kalamazoo

Italics and bold are the teams that made the 62 team NCAA tournament field.  Included the rest of the MIAA just for a look, this is out of 42 teams. Hope would be #8 if I counted the College of Faith game, without it they're #11.  With Wooster losing a couple in the last two weeks, it really isn't close between them and Calvin.

Strength of Schedule Adjustment

1.  Calvin
2.  Wooster
3.  Ohio Wesleyan
4.  Baldwin-Wallace
5.  DePauw
6.  Hope
7.  Capital
8.  Bethany
9.  Marietta
10.  Adrian

15.  Trine
25.  Olivet
27.  Alma
30.  Albion
37.  Kalamazoo

Hope would be  #4 if I counted the College of Faith game.  Baldwin-Wallace really did finish their season strong at 16-2 and 3 of their losses on the year by just 2 points.

An even higher emphasis on strength of schedule

1.  Calvin
2.  Wooster
3.  Ohio Wesleyan
4.  Hope
5.  Capital
6.  DePauw
7.  Wittenberg
8.  Baldwin-Wallace
9.  Adrian
10.  Wilmington

13.  Trine
17.  Alma
23.  Olivet
30.  Albion
33.  Kalamazoo

Hope came in at #3 here with my favorite internet game.  There's not much difference from #5 to #11.


The bottom 5 in straight efficiency just for kicks

38.  Kalamazoo
39.  Oberlin
40.  Geneva
41.  Muskingum
42.  Franciscan

Franciscan significantly improved over last year, not enough to get a win.  A similar improvement next year would not get them out of the bottom 5, that's kind of how bad they are and they've lost 51 in a row now.   Kzoo is comfortably out of the bottom when schedule strength is taken into consideration.  5 of the bottom 6 become PAC schools.


Region News

In case you missed it, D3 is reorganizing its regional set-up.  The part that affects the MIAA is the Allegheny Mountain Conference becoming part of the Great Lakes starting next year.  This adds 7 teams to the region and would allow the Great Lakes to rank 8 teams.  This is the most important part of this change because having two more ranking slots should increase the number of teams in and out of the rankings, and thus increase the number 'once ranked always ranked teams' and thus increase your chances of picking up an RRO (regionally ranked oppostion) game or two.  This is not insignificant for future Pool C considerations.

In 2015 it might get even better as its been proposed the Heartland Conference also move to the Great Lakes where they already are in some sports.  This would add yet another ranking slot and would put the Great Lakes on par with most of the other regions.  Overall its a good move and is a welcome adjustment to the D3 landscape in my opinion.

From a basketball point of view the AMCC really doesn't bring much to the party that should cause excitement.  The AMCC is pretty terrible, Massey ratings has them 5th from last.  It's kind of like adding a couple Trine's, an Olivet, an Alma and 3 Kalamazoo's to the region.  If I placed them on my efficiency chart using the strongest schedule adjustment, 5 AMCC schools would occupy the bottom 8 spots.  The highest ranked teams would be 34 and 35.

As far as the opportunity to schedule these teams, here's the travel distance from Holland.....

Medaille, Buffalo, NY            410 miles
D'Youville, Buffalo, NY          410 miles
LaRoche, Pittsburgh, PA        426 miles
Hilbert, Hamburg, NY            491 miles
Mt. Aloysius, Cresson, PA      502 miles
Pitt-Bradford, Bradford, PA     520 miles
PSU-Altoona, Altoona, PA      520 miles

For reference
Des Moines, IA         467 miles
St. Louis, MO            418 miles
Minneapolis, MN       560 miles

We are never playing these dudes!

From a competition standpoint, possibly adding the Heartland in 2015 is a much bigger deal.  The Heartland is much like the OAC to me,  a large competitive conference within itself that should be better than they have been.  No Heartland school has advanced past the 2nd round since 2006.  They've sent two teams to the dance 4 years in a row now and 5 of the last 6.  Six different HCAC programs have made the NCAA tournament in the last few years, kind of impressive.  Every year the Heartland should have one or two really good teams that will be vying for ranking positions.

Hopefully once they become an official Great Lakes conference the incentive will be there for more MIAA/HCAC match-ups.  Travel distance is still an issue as most of these trips back and forth are still on the long end and just over that threshold of getting home at a decent hour.  Chicago is still closer and easier for just about everyone, hopefully though we start to see more HCAC schools on the schedules.

Calvin 77 Hope 57 MIAA Championship

Box Score

Hope started Gardner, Seiler, Eidson, Snuggerud, VanArendonk.  Bench minutes went primarily to Neil, DeMaagd and McMahon.  Brock Benson's minutes were cut by foul trouble, Holwerda filled those minutes.  Snuggerud played over 30 minutes for only the 3rd time this year and on a bad ankle, he was a warrior in his last game.


Game Recap:

It wouldn't be too hard to just copy and paste the first meeting at Calvin in this space and basically be correct.  Each of these 3 games has looked very similar, about half-way through the first half Calvin begins to tighten the defensive screws and Hope flounders around looking for offense desperately trying to stay in the game.  In Holland they were able to do that and ended up pulling out a close game late.  In the other two, including last night, they weren't able to score often enough or stop Calvin often enough and the game just simply got away from them to a point there was no coming back.

Hope's been good since the week of that first Calvin game but last night many of the same shots they've been hitting just stayed out.  Calvin's defense was very good and a big reason why the offensive struggles were there but I think Hope made themselves a lot easier to defend than they had been in recent games.  I don't think its much of a secret that Ben Gardner has been a big reason why Hope's offense has improved so much the last 3 or 4 weeks.  For long stretches of this one Dave Rietema's defense effectively took him out of the offense, if it hadn't been for a late basket w/foul he would have been shut-out of the first half scoring.

They were fortunate to only be down 8 at the half and really needed to have a strong start to the second half.  The most disappointing part of the game for me was here when Hope turned it over 4 times in the first 5 minutes of the half, most of it just sloppy.  By that 5 minutes in mark nothing had really changed, Calvin still led by 11.  Five minutes later after nothing but ft's and no defensive stops the deficit was 20 and it was pretty much over.

Hope needed to be a lot better than they were last night to beat a good team on their floor.  It was disappointing to watch them be outworked for rebounds and loose balls in a game that meant so much.  A review of the film will show several times a Hope player in position for a rebound and having it knocked out of their hands, or in position to retrieve a loose ball and being out-hustled by the other guy, the 'want' was on the other side. 

In the end it was much like their season, not enough to get the rewards they were looking for.


 Pool C?  Hope's out.  I think Hope's going to end up in a better position than people think, but its not going to be enough to grab a bid.  They still have a good winning %, and a strong strength of schedule, numbers that have received bids in the past.  Working against them is a Pool C crop that seems a bit stronger than in years past and a regional committee that thinks Thomas More should be ranked ahead of them.  Thomas More's ranking will block Hope from ever being discussed and the Saints aren't likely to receive a C bid themselves with a mediocre strength of schedule vs the schools they'll be compared against.  If you want a game to curse and shake your fists at the sky it was the loss at Olivet. With that win Hope might have had enough to be ranked ahead of Thomas More and thus be 'on the table' for Pool C discussion.  They still might not have received a bid but at least they'd be there.  One bad week of basketball and you're sitting at home, that's pretty much the division 3 season.

20 win seasons  With 18 wins a streak of seven years winning 20 games comes to an end.  They only started playing something over 20 game seasons that made 20 win seasons realistic and more frequent in the early 80's.  Prior to these past 7 years Hope's longest previous streak had been 4 years.

Hope's 4 Freshmen combined to go just 4-19 on the night.  I think when the season began I was hopeful these guys could step in and contribute to what should have been a pretty decent core group of guys returning.  Never would I have guessed Gardner, Eidson, Benson had to become such prominent figures in Hope's season.  All of them had ups and downs but on the whole the ups outweighed the downs.  When you start to look at next years depth chart you start to realize its really going to be their team, their program for the next 3 years.  This year will turnout invaluable in their learning process.  Nothing should stoke the competitive fires like getting your butt kicked at your rival twice in one season.


Scoring and Interesting Stats:

Not many stats are interesting when you play like Hope did, 10 first half turnovers and 4 more in the first 5 minutes of the second half is 14 in 25 minutes, its sloppy and too sloppy to stay competitive with a team like Calvin.

3-point shooting:   1-14 last night, bad night to have your worst night of the season.  1-10 against Trine Thursday meant 2-24 on the week.  Woof

Nate Snuggerud:  17 pts, 7 rbs.......uncharacteristic night at the ft line otherwise this was a terrific final performance.

Nate VanArendonk:  9 pts, 5 rbs.....Calvin did a nice job pushing him away from the basket

Ben Gardner:  7 pts, 2 rbs.....just a tough night shooting the ball, shots that went in the last 4 weeks just didn't for him last night.


Efficiency:

Estimated number of possessions:  Hope 70 Calvin 68

Normal as can be normal

Offensive Efficiency:  81.2

Woof again. Both halves looked like that.  Calvin's been doing this to ordinary offensive teams all season long, Hope's not an ordinary offensive team but Calvin made them look like an ordinary offensive team last night and again in early January.

Defensive Efficiency:  112.12

There wasn't much 'stop' in Hope defense, 105 first half, 122 second.  The only thing that kept the second half from being something gigantic was Calvin getting sloppy when the game was out of reach. 


I guess if you really wanted to analyze it in simple terms;  one team elevated their game at both ends of the floor, one did not.

Rebounding Efficiency:

Hope:  28% of available offensive rebounds
Calvin:  43.3% of available offensive rebounds

Second chance points was 15-5 in Calvin's favor, again I point to the number of times Hope was in position and just got out battled for the ball.  This needed to be a lot better to even have a chance.


Moments or Keys to the Game:

Early second half was the difference, Hope was still in it and needed a strong start but didn't get it.  Calvin put the ball in Tom Snikkers hands and he went hard to the basket 3 or 4 times in a row and either scored or was fouled.  Not much longer after that the deficit was insurmountable.

Bryan Powell, was clearly not 100% in Holland but looked much more like himself last night.  His overall season was a big reason Calvin was able to get over their 'hump' (which was mostly themselves)


My Game Ball Goes To:

Nate Snuggerud was Hope's best player on a night when they needed their best player to be good.  Only Nate knows how uncomfortable he was out on the floor this season and on Thursday he picked up a sprained ankle for good measure.

Standings
Snuggerud - 7
Overway - 4
Gardner - 3
VanArendonk -  2
Eidson - 2
Seiler - 2
Benson - 2
Byers - 1
DeMaagd - 1   
Neil -1
Everyone -1

Going Forward:

Unfortunately there is no forward as this loss puts an end to Hope's season.  The immediate aftermath of last night is not a good feeling.  Hope didn't go down playing its best basketball, Calvin's to be given credit for making Hope look the way they did. 

On the night of January 19th though even having a last night didn't seem very likely.  Since then Hope strung together a strong stretch of play going 9-1 while losing your Senior starting point guard and included turning around a 26 point loss in the rivalry game into an improbable win.  It didn't turn out to bad.  

Up Next:  Stiff drink
  

Hope 76 Trine 73 MIAA Semi-Final

 Box Score

Hope started Gardner, Seiler, Eidson, Snuggerud, VanArendonk.  It's the post-season so this isn't going to change much between now and Saturday is it?  Grant Neil logged 22 followed by Denham, DeMaagd, Byers, McMahon, Benson around 9-14.  Denham logged a couple extra when Gardner picked up his 4th foul.  Josh Holwerda, Chris Ray and Colton Overway made one final appearance before the clock ticked zero in this one.

Game Recap:

I've done a terrible job preparing myself for this weekend, its hard to reconcile that this season has gone by so quickly.  But the reality is it could all be over this weekend and that's what about 350 D3 programs face, the end of their season.  It was just getting fun to, and so just like every year its time for my love/hate relationship with late February/March basketball, its good.  Unfortunately just when it gets good, just when everything you've seen over the past 4 months starts to make sense, starts to gel into this thing you can explain, appreciate and look forward to, it ends.

But that is part of what makes this weekend fun, the prospect of 30 guys playing each other in a game that might be their last this year.  For some it might be their last organized game forever.  That prospect is always real, always seems a little harsh but the desperate nature adds to the flavor that is post-season basketball.  Yesterday it happened twice, Saturday it will happen again.  It used to happen in one gym, now its 2, now its only half the fun or half the aggravation.

Trine came to Holland to play last night and they were pretty good.  An early stretch of good shooting, including making 5 jump shots in a row, gave the Thunder an early 6 point lead, at the same time Hope was a little less than good on their end of the offensive floor. Between Saturday and last night Hope forgot how much trouble Trine had with their interior, the ball didn't go inside enough and when it did, it didn't find its way to the bottom of the net often enough.

Ben Gardner kept Hope's offense from being completely dead, there was a real chance Trine could have built a double-digit first half lead had things continued to be the way they were going, but the wonder kid from Indiana just kind of took things into his own hands and ended up with 14 first half points, his previous career high for a game was 18.  He set that this past Saturday.  I tried really hard to think of Hope individual performance in the MIAA tournament like that in one half, the only names I could come up with were Cramer, Holstege, Muhlenberg, VanderHeide etc. But yeah, he was kind of good last night.

By the end of the first you could sense Hope had gained some control of the game, they were leading even though it had felt like Trine had played a really good first half, and they had, shooting the ball at 50% with most of those being mid-range jump-shots.  Defensively Hope was denying Ian Jackson anything, and if not for two ft's in the final dying seconds of the half he would have been shut-out.  In the end Jackson finished with 12, most of those he had to work very hard for.

In the second half it was again Ben Gardner seeming to spark the Hope offense along with a healthy dose of Nate Snuggerud.  By the 5 minutes played mark, back-to-back Gardner baskets had put Hope up 10.  The game floated right in the 6-13 point range until Trine, at almost the exact same point in the game as Saturday rallied with a 9-2 run to cut it to 6.   Hope steadied things, even doing so through adversity with Gardner picking up his 4th foul, and outperformed Trine in the final minutes with baskets or points every time they needed them.  Trine meanwhile kind of wilted under the pressure, a couple airballed ft's, and numerous other shots well off the mark kept their desperate rally from succeeding.

Survive and advance, all that matters now.


Ben Gardner!  All Ben has done in his last six games is establish and break his career high 3 times.  Against Trine he's scored 15, 18, 24.  Matt Neil may want to consider scheduling more Indiana schools.  What Ben has done in the last 4 weeks since Colton Overway's injury is one of the more impressive things I think I've seen from any Hope player in my time watching and there have been some pretty impressive things.

Ian Jackson only really had one big game against Hope, that came in his Sophomore season.  Starting with his Fr. year his scoring line against Hope reads (11, 18, 17)-- (23, 9)-- (4, 8)-- (14, 10, 12.).  For his career against Hope Jackson shot 50-130 for 38%, I'm sure that's below his average and the points average of 12.6 is well below his career average.  Defense is always a team game but Hope's had some pretty good individual stoppers, one of them is Billy Seiler who's drawn the Jackson assignment.  He has simply been in Jackson's jersey the last couple years.  Jackson has been one of the most prolific scorers in recent MIAA history and one of the 5 or 6 best in all of Trine's great history.

Streaks?  This win takes Hope's streak to 22 over Trine now, 20 since Trine joined the league.  The other streak and the more important one is 8 straight appearances in the MIAA Championship game.  Hope will be going for their 6th straight tournament title Saturday.


Scoring and Interesting Stats:

Free-throws:  Perception is everything sometimes, during the game it felt like Hope was really putting on a clank-fest, in reality they were 23-31 which is a perfectly acceptable 74%.  Inside that number though is that everyone not named Nate Snuggerud or Ben Gardner went 10-18, a not so acceptable number.  Trine missed some big ones down the stretch going just 1-6 in the final 3 minutes, different finish with those points.  Overall just 10-19 from a team that shoots 75% from the line normally.  Win by 13 with 13-13 from the stripe from 2 guys.  Practice your ft's kids.

(Also a pretty boring stat sheet like Saturday's)

Ben Gardner:  24 points, 6 rebounds.....4th career high in the last 6 games.  I just don't even know what to say about this kid anymore.

Nate Snuggerud:  20 points, 7 rebounds.........the other guy Trine really couldn't stop, in contrast to Jackson, I think Nate had a very good career vs Trine.  

Nate VanArendonk:  6 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks, 2 steals........seemed to be a frustrating kind of night for him at least offensively, this is better than it looked


Efficiency:

Estimated number of possessions:  Hope 71  Trine 68

Only slightly higher paced than the first two, if you can tell the difference watching congratulations

Offensive Efficiency:  107.46

Not as good as the previous two Trine games, my perceptions must have been all screwy last night because I thought the 2nd half was better than the first, but it was the other way around.  Four of the six halves played between these two Hope was over a 110 scoring rate. 

Defensive Efficiency:  92.61

The difference between these two teams right now seems to be this.  Trine hasn't been able to stop Hope this year while Hope has been able to stop Trine in at least 1 half of all 3 games.   Last night it was a second half scoring rate of just 79 that did Trine in after a 108 in the first half.  The good half/bad half thing for Hope has held steady through most of the season.

Rebounding Efficiency:

Hope:  45.9% of available offensive rebounds
Trine:  33.3% of available offensive rebounds

If there's another glaring difference between the two teams its also rebounding.  Hope's just been so much better on their own glass.  This particular game Trine did just a touch better keeping Hope off the glass, but not much.   Second chance points was only 14-11


Moments or Key to the Game:

Staying composed in the face of a Trine team that played awfully well in the first half.  It would have been easy to start pressing or forcing things but Hope really didn't do that.

Nick Tatu hit a 3 to bring Trine within 6 to cap a mini-run of 9-2.  Trine really had a chance to rally at that point but it just didn't happen for them, prior to that it looked like Hope might walk away with it easily.

Any time Ben Gardner touched the basketball, not true, but it felt like it.


My Game Ball Goes To:

Guesses?  Ben Gardner, he was just outstanding last night.  A close second would have been Snuggerud.

Standings
Snuggerud - 6
Overway - 4
Gardner - 3
VanArendonk -  2
Eidson - 2
Seiler - 2
Benson - 2
Byers - 1
DeMaagd - 1   
Neil -1
Everyone -1


Going Forward:

Last night Hope was good enough to advance in a game that has looked like a lot of MIAA semi-finals recently, one team just not having enough in the tank to fight to the bitter end.  MIAA seasons have turned into long grinds for the middle of the league.  The parity from anywhere outside Holland and Grand Rapids has been evident, there isn't a lot of difference between 3 thru 8.  Its how 8 beats 3 and 7 beats 4 in the final two weeks of the season.  Two more MIAA semi-finalists fell victim to the season that Hope and Calvin really don't face (save for Calvin last year).  So once again we end up with this for the title, Hope vs Calvin.

Seasons are peaks and valleys and Saturday is another daunting and appropriate peak.  The league champion, in their gym, who also happens to be your arch rival.  Would you want anything else?  So far we've seen a historic blow-out and a game where Hope did absolutely everything they needed to win and won by just 3.  This is their shot, its all you can ask for.

There is no tomorrow without a win.

Up Next:  Me vs. finding some kind of zen state of mind for Saturday

Saturday, February 23  Hope at Calvin, VanNoord Arena,  MIAA Tournament Championship