Hope Tournament Review

Chaos

My only plan for watching the Hope Tournament was to head over to Holland if Illinois Wesleyan were to play Hope.  The best laid plans were thrown aside when a winter storm blew through the Great Lakes and made travel around me pretty dangerous or at least risky.  NOAA gives names to its winter storms now and I have no idea what this one was called but around me it might have been  "damn the power is out again".  I live near what turned out to be the northern fringes of the heaviest of the freezing rain and icing.  I spent my Saturday night listening to the forest in the back yard crash to the ground and watching the man made lightning show of power transformers blowing up light up the sky.   I and a few dozen of my neighbors were the lucky ones who really didn't lose power except for a brief 30 minutes on Sunday as they "untangled some lines" as I was told.

The affects on me personally were pretty minimal in the greater scope of what has been going on around me for the past week other than missing a much anticipated basketball game.  I still have power and most importantly heat.  Others as close as within a very short walking distance have been without power and heat for the entire weak.   Simple things like going to the store, restaurant or even crossing town became epic adventures of chaos and patience.  The usual long lines, frayed nerves of the last few days before Christmas were compounded by last weekends storm.  Its the worst I can recall since my early childhood and that's what the local "experts" are saying as well.

The result of all of the icy mess is I've spent a week neglecting to finish these write-ups, if you want to call them that.   By now most of my immediate thoughts following those games have disappeared from my head so this 'review' will be mostly of the stats variety.  (heads-up:  a lot of them will be like that this year)


Friday:  Hope 78  Lake Forest 66

Lake Forest came into this weekend 3-4 on the season with wins over 0-10 Dominican, 5-3 Ripon and 1-9 Monmouth.  They are at least as young or younger than Hope.

Efficiency:

Estimated number of possessions:  Hope 69  Lake Forest 71


Offensively Efficiency:  112.47

I would take this all year. 

Defensive Efficiency:  93.25

I would also take this.  Keeping in mind Lake Forest hit two pretty meaningless 3's in the games waning moments, without those this would be under 90, which is excellent.  Lake Forest is no world beater, probably heading to the bottom half of the Midwest Conference but isn't this exactly what you would expect a good Hope team to do against this kind of opponent?

Rebounding Efficiency:

Hope:  40.5% of available offensive rebounds
Lake Forest: 28.1% of available offensive rebounds

A pretty significant advantage and led to an 11-4 advantage on the scoreboard in 2nd chance points.  Without looking I think this is Hope's best effort of the year.

Game Score:

3rd star-  Jordan Gipson, Lake Forest 9.0

2nd star-  Grant Neil, Hope 9.1
Early second half scoring was the catalyst to Hope building a commanding lead

1st star-   Josh Irving, Lake Forest  16.4

In all, this was not a game in which individual efforts stood out especially from Hope's side which turned in a very balanced scoring sheet.  I would like to have been there to see if my personal observation meshed with this statistical one.   Hope's McMahon, Eidson, Blackledge, Benson and Lake Forest's Torey Davis score just over 8's.



Saturday:  Illinois Wesleyan 91  Hope 83

Illinois Wesleyan came into this one 8-1 with a whole slew of convincing wins and just the one curious road loss at Loras.  The Titans were ranked #3 in the latest D3hoops.com poll.  Prior to this one the closest win IWU had had was 9 points the night before over Wilmington.

Efficiency:

Estimated number of possessions:  Hope 76  Illinois Wesleyan 74

This was a pretty uptempo game, at least as far as number of possessions is concerned

Offensively Efficiency:  108.64

Considering the opponent I think this is pretty good.  I neglected to check what IWU had allowed prior to this game on a game-by-game basis.  From the score alone it was probably pretty close to the highest.  I think Hope has played 5 really good teams so far, UWSP, UWW, Cornerstone, Wheaton, IWU.  This was Hope's best offensive performance thus far against these 5 teams.

Defensive Efficiency:  122.72

Eventually to beat teams of IWU's caliber you have to be better at providing defensive resistance.  Against those same 5 teams as above this is actually right in the middle of the 5 performances but its well over the 90-95 you get from the best defensive teams, getting this down to 100 gives you a chance to win these games.  IWU is a very good shooting team at over 50% from the floor for the season.  Typically those kinds of teams have very strong front lines that kind of pad the numbers a bit with a lot of easy layups, in IWU's case its just a team full of guys who can shoot the basketball very well.  Their 12-26 performance from the arc testifies to that and against Hope's 3-15 effort was the clearest difference in the game.

Rebounding Efficiency:

Hope:  26.3% of available offensive rebounds
Lake Forest: 23.1% of available offensive rebounds

Pretty even on the glass with regards to offensive rebounding with Hope holding an 8-3 second chance points advantage.  For the game IWU was +5 in rebounding overall mostly because Hope took 17 more shots from the floor.  But, at halftime Hope was +5 in rebounding which means IWU enjoyed a substantial +10 on the glass in the second half, no doubt a big reason a tie game at halftime went to a one time 11 point lead for the Titans.

Game Score:

3rd star-  Victor Davis, Illinois Wesleyan 13.7

2nd star-  Ben Gardner, Hope 14.4

1st star-   Andrew Ziemik, Illinois Wesleyan  21.6
21 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists.  No player in the game had a bigger influence.

Hope's Caleb Byers saw his first real significant action of the season contributing 14 points in a very good effort.  Hopefully Caleb has recovered enough from his foot injury that this kind of production becomes consistent.  I think Hope's missed him a little more than we might think.  Look for Caleb to possibly crack into the starting 5 before the MIAA season begins with Blackledge becoming one of the first subs.

Going Forward: 

With 8 games in the books Hope is 3-5 with 5 losses to teams that about 95% of Division 3 would also have 5 losses against.  It gets significantly easier from here though with the only ranked opponents remaining being Calvin and possibly at some point Centre.   What we do know is that Hope isn't one of D3's elite and that's probably not a shocker.  We also know a very young Hope team has shown it can compete with some of D3's best for the majority of games......and that gets you a 3-5 record.  After these 8 games you'd like to see some improvement and I think its there, it just might be difficult to see.

Hope heads to Crestview Hills, KY on Monday/Tuesday to play Centre and Thomas More.  Centre is a fringe top 25 program with numerous tournament appearances over the years.  This year they look like that same kind of program and will face Hope with a 6-2 record against teams I know little about.  Thomas More you may remember from last year as having a sparkling record and being the team that blocked others with better resumes from being considered for the D3 tournament.  Thomas More has a new coach and new scheduling idea that has pitted them against some of the best programs in the Great Lakes Region.  They are 2-7 and probably just as good as last year.

In the grand scheme of NCAA tournament selection things, these are must win games for Hope.  In the grander scheme of Hope becoming a better team and program these are also the kinds of games you'd like to see Hope win and pick up a little momentum for the MIAA season.

Up Next:   Me vs I spent my holidays with power and heat guilt

Dec 30  vs Centre College at Thomas More, KY
Dec 31  @ Thomas More, KY

A peak at Efficiencies

(it occurred to me later I never mentioned this was a look at just the Great Lake Region teams.)

We're just about a quarter of the way through the regular season already so I thought I'd bust out the efficiency calculations.  There is some 'noise' in these numbers for a few more weeks.  The 'noise' referring to teams that have played fewer games than others, teams that have played significantly tough or weak schedules, huge blowouts tend to inflate numbers a bit more early in the season etc.

Top 5 offensive teams:
1.  Calvin                    121.14
2.  Wittenberg             120.19
3.  Marietta                 117.71
4.  St. Vincent             115.04
5.  Kalamazoo              113.75

These will come down some as the season progresses.   MIAA fans might be interested to know Adrian ranks dead last in the region and its not even close.  Adrian's current 82.94 offensive efficiency rating would be the lowest in the last 11 years of data from the league.  More on them later.


Top 5 defensive teams:
1.  Bethany                   88.12
2.  DePauw                   90.2
3.  PSU-Behrend            90.64
4.  Carnegie-Mellon        90.70
5.  Wooster                   91.93

I'm not sure I totally buy these.  Bethany, Behrend and Carnegie have played pretty weak schedules.  I can sort of buy DePauw but they've lost to 3 of the 4 good teams they've played.  I don't think these numbers are truly representative of those 4 teams.

more ratings after you click read more

MIAA/CCIW Challenge: and the challenge to make sense of it all

Friday:
Wheaton 80  Hope 61
Carthage 74  Calvin  68

....then the world turned upside down, water flowed uphill, hot was cold, left was right, Michigan State went to the Rose Bowl

Saturday:
Hope 80  Carthage 58
Calvin 78  Wheaton 51

We've done this 10 times now and I think in most years all 4 of these squads came in with some question marks and in most years we left with a pretty clear or at least a more clear understanding where they all stood.  This year, I don't know, did we really learn anything other than if you play well you win, if you don't, you lose?

This same kind of 4 way split happened in 2009-10, those games were quite a bit closer with only one decided by more than a few possessions.  I don't remember what the overall conclusion was but it couldn't have been as perplexing as this past weekend.

What I think I saw was 4 pretty talented basketball teams in various stages of development.  Two of these teams had disappointing efforts on Friday and came out determined to play better on Saturday.  Two of these teams are probably going to the post-season without much trouble. Two others will spend large parts of this year with the dreaded "lots of potential" tag that at some point they'd like to reach.  None of these teams should have blown anyone out but 3 of them did, none of them should have been blown out but 3 of them were.  None of them should have worn 8 year old uniforms but one of them did.   

The MIAA fanboy in me can't help but feel a little relieved that something was salvaged from what was looking like a pretty rough weekend that definitively was saying to the league, 'you guys suck'.  We might still suck as a league, but it sure feels a lot better after Saturday than it might have.

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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.

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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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