MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

Blue and Orange tends to bother people FDF. 

[David Collinge]

Great Lakes teams in top 100 QoWI, and my prediction for this week's regional rankings:

1. (6th nationally) Carnegie Mellon    10.938    13-3
2. (11) Wooster    10.737    18-1
3. (14) Wittenberg    10.667    16-2
4. (19) Baldwin-Wallace    10.333    19-2
5. (21) Hope    10.267    13-2
6. (26) Calvin    10.200    9-1
7. (41) Albion    9.833    10-2
8. (74) Lake Erie    9.278    15-3
9. (77) Bethany    9.250    16-4

Projected rankings:
1. Wooster
2. Wittenberg
3. Baldwin-Wallace
4. Carnegie Mellon
5. Hope
6. Calvin

Actually, 2-6 looks like a crap shoot to me, and any/all of them could be tied.

[NW Hope Fan]

All good points.........plus none of us know what guidelines GVW laid out to DVS 6 weeks ago.   Perhaps he's met them?

Kinda like Coach Carter... GVW to DVS: " 1000 suicides and 2000 push-ups by the Adrian game... and you can play."  

[realist]

kakaty:  RE: The big bucks:  Hasn't anyone ever tugged on one of your legs before?   Sac:  The over application of blue and orange is received about as well as an over application of maroon and gold or scarlet and gray or green and white, etc. would be.  
If the orange and blue buttons weren't quite so geo centric it wouldn't be as much fun pushing them!

[Stinger]

FDF, I would doubt the captain's of Hope would agree to this without some nudging from the coaching staff. I would be very surprised if they have full buy in....

but,  what the heck do I know....

What a huge week for the Hornets. On the road at Olivet tomorrow and to Calvin on Saturday. Id love to see a sweep.  First things first, at the dungeon on wednesday.

[KnightSlappy]

I know that this has been brought up before but I hope we dont see the 200 mile rule hurt Calvin in the upcoming regional rankings.  Hope sits at 13-2, Calvin at 9-1 (in region).  Hope's record includes wins against Wheaton and Carthage.  Calvin also beat those teams and if included would have made Calvin's regional record 11-1 which compares better to Hope's 13-2.  I would hate to see the MIAA regular season championship go to Hope because of the two wins counting for them and not for Calvin.

[albinomascot19]

I think it is highly unlikely that Kalamazoo Hornets beating Calvin.  I mean come on, Kalamazoo and Calvin are on two different wavelengths.  Sure, they hung with Albion twice, and almost beat them both times, but this is Calvin we're talking about.  Right now the Knights are playing some incredible basketball, and I think it would be pretty hard for them to have a let down against Kalamazoo at this juncture.   

[Flying Dutch Fan]

I know that this has been brought up before but I hope we dont see the 200 mile rule hurt Calvin in the upcoming regional rankings.  Hope sits at 13-2, Calvin at 9-1 (in region).  Hope's record includes wins against Wheaton and Carthage.  Calvin also beat those teams and if included would have made Calvin's regional record 11-1 which compares better to Hope's 13-2.  I would hate to see the MIAA regular season championship go to Hope because of the two wins counting for them and not for Calvin.

Just remember that the only thing the regional rankings would affect is the seeding in the MIAA tournament.  If that comes into play - we have co-champions

[ziggy]

I know that this has been brought up before but I hope we dont see the 200 mile rule hurt Calvin in the upcoming regional rankings.  Hope sits at 13-2, Calvin at 9-1 (in region).  Hope's record includes wins against Wheaton and Carthage.  Calvin also beat those teams and if included would have made Calvin's regional record 11-1 which compares better to Hope's 13-2.  I would hate to see the MIAA regular season championship go to Hope because of the two wins counting for them and not for Calvin.

Just remember that the only thing the regional rankings would affect is the seeding in the MIAA tournament.  If that comes into play - we have co-champions

Thats pretty big when hosting the semis and finals is on the line

[kcrest]

FDF, I don't think people are bothered by it.  If you're asking people not to talk about it then that's pretty unrealistic.  A d1 transfer comes to Hope, sits on the bench in street clothes, sits on the bench in uniform and then plays this weekend with three games left and you don't think that'll be a topic of conversation on this board?  Come on.  What else should we be talking about?  Olivet's swim team.  :-)  Kudos to the Comets BTW.  And to Calvin's women who won their second straight MIAA title.

Two of the earliest posts on DVS came from AlMcGuireJr and NW Hope Fan and they were probably the two strongest posts.  Most people since then have simply reacted to those posts.  Like I said in my earlier post, it doesn't bother me if DVS plays for Hope.  But, if I was a Hope fan I'm not sure how I would feel about it.  Looks to me like some Hope fans like it so far and some don't.  Guess that's not too big a surprise.

Also, Sac, if you're implying that DVS called Calvin and asked to transfer in that's not what I heard.  So, you may want to check your sources.  Having said that I can tell you that DVS probably looked at the situation like FDF did and figured he wanted to go somewhere he could play *this* year.  I can't blame him for that.  But not every MIAA school would fit the bill on that count.

In addition Sac let's be honest:  this isn't about a guy playing eight minutes a game.  By the MIAA tourney he'll be at 15+ mpg.  I think most people who have posted on this topic have done so b/c they figure DVS will be a significant player on a nationally ranked team, not b/c they figure he's an 8-minute-per-game guy.  No doubt if Hope was lousy this would be less significant.  I would imagine some other teams around the region and the country are paying attention too.  :-)

[Capt. Okangaro]

Here's a question from an occasional reader and first time poster who just waded through the posts about the VanSolkema transfer.

My recollection is that in Hope's national runner-up season (96?) Hope lost in the final game to a school stacked with transfers from scholarship programs, and that subsequently some rule changes were made re: transfers.  Is this accurate?

Obviously, Hope's current batch of D1/2 transfers must not be disallowed by these rules, but could someone explain how all this works?

[kcrest]

Here's a question from an occasional reader and first time poster who just waded through the posts about the VanSolkema transfer.

My recollection is that in Hope's national runner-up season (96?) Hope lost in the final game to a school stacked with transfers from scholarship programs, and that subsequently some rule changes were made re: transfers.  Is this accurate?

Obviously, Hope's current batch of D1/2 transfers must not be disallowed by these rules, but could someone explain how all this works?

Back then there was a crappy little loophole that allowed D1 transfers who sat out a year because of Propostion 48 to transfer to D3 and get their fourth year of eligibility.  That loophole put a couple of kids on Rowan's team for their "senior" year after they played three years of D1 ball and used up their D1 eligibility (basically Prop 48 meant that some freshmen who didn't get the required ACT score (or maybe it was SAT) had to sit out their freshman year and they lost that year of eligibility). I'm not sure  whatever happened to Prop 48 (I think the coaches got it overturned - John Thompson at Georgetown was heavy in that fight) but the Rowan rule got closed soon after 1996. 

The current situation with Hope is completely different.  D1 kids have always been able to move down to D3 and not lose a year or sit out a year (it doesn't work that way if kids go from D3 to D2 or D1).  I can remember as a Calvin student when Randy Morrison transferred from Michigan State to Olivet to play for his dad Gary.  Olivet got pretty good when he made the switch!

[Mr. Ypsi]

kcrest,

I'm pretty sure prop 48 is still in force, but now a student can 'earn back' that 4th year of eligibility if they meet certain academic standards (don't know the specifics); the previous rule was hardly an incentive to study!

[oldknight]

I think kcrest's post has it about right. And I'm pretty surprised that Hope posters aren't expressing more reservations about VanSolkema's entry on the team, its potential negative impact (both this year and beyond) and the ethical considerations of allowing DVS to play this year. At last year's Final Four I heard Aaron Winkle say that in his experience in basketball the players who have the greatest impact on the success or failure of a basketball team are those who play the least. If that's true I would be concerned about the potential for a negative impact on the team.

Part of our problem in assessing this issue (or nonissue) is the fact that as outsiders to the team we simply don't know how accepted Derek's presence on the Dutch really is. Publicly all the right things are being said right now and maybe they reflect reality. But knowing human nature as I do I have this nagging feeling that one or more players (especially bench players) are less than thrilled with VanSolkema's presence. Glenn now has 16 players on his roster and I have to believe one or more of these guys feels betrayed.
These guys knew they had a team that could compete for a championship without VanSolkems and now they still are a team that can compete for a championship--but at the cost of accomodating an outsider.

Rightly or wrongly, the players who started the season had certain expectations of the role they could be expected to fill for the 2005-06 season. These expectations were created in part by what the coaches said to each player (the contents of which we don't know) and in part
by the team that was chosen in the fall. Now everything has changed with the addition of a player who is potentially a stud player at the D3 level. That fact may make the fan in the stands happy but that doesn't necessarily translate into team satisfaction.

In my opinion what Glenn is doing is both risky and wrong. It's not like he
started with a 12 man team and lost a couple of guys to injuries and grades. If that happened the argument would be different because he would need at least one extra body and the team would understand and accept the need for an additional player. But under normal circumstances a coach should keep his commitment to the team he began with and the Hope coaching staff isn't doing that.

How this plays out is anyone's guess. Maybe after all is said and done Hope will get that banner they are looking for and we will all agree that DVS put them over the top. But what's happening is still wrong. VandeStreek would never do this and he would be right to hold DVS out of this year's team even
though we all know Derek would help Calvin tremendously if he had decided to go to Calvin.

[sac]

DC--Ya think the regional commitee will take the high road and put Hope and Calvin in a tie?  Since it could ultimately influence the MIAA tournament.  Interesting to watch , esp if Albion should win Wed.  Calvin win and it s moot.


Knight Slappy---the 200 mile rule won't hurt Calvin as much as the 18 point loss back in Jan to Hope.  Thats still a little bit of a trump card to go with the slightly better regional record and QOWI.

I'm putting even money on a regional ranking tie.