MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[realist]

KVS  post game:  "It was a struggle.  We retreated."  [no s...]   News flash:  "We were ready on the bus ride over"  
Everything.but admitting he was out coached.  

[NW Hope Fan]

KVS  post game:  "It was a struggle.  We retreated."  [no s...]   News flash:  We were ready on the bus ride over" 
Everything.but admitting he was out coached.   

3-19 from 3 didn't help... Cut the guy a little slack.

[realist]

KVS  post game:  "It was a struggle.  We retreated."  [no s...]   News flash:  We were ready on the bus ride over" 
Everything.but admitting he was out coached.   

3-19 from 3 didn't help... Cut the guy a little slack.

We've done that for the last 5 years.

[NW Hope Fan]

KVS  post game:  "It was a struggle.  We retreated."  [no s...]   News flash:  We were ready on the bus ride over" 
Everything.but admitting he was out coached.   

3-19 from 3 didn't help... Cut the guy a little slack.

We've done that for the last 5 years.

OK... OK... I will not win here, but you may not either.

[calalum]

Congratulations to Hope on a great season and a fine game tonight.

[AndersDY]

Well if you get the 1 that was more critical under the circumstances, I guess 1 out of 2 ain't bad. My family made the double trip today and both were great games with pretty good comebacks (though Calvin's men didn't get a lead, they definitely got back in the game from 16 down).

I was going to react before going to stats and say that it felt like the keys for Hope were that they rebounded much better than they have against Calvin previously and had the better 3-point shooting game, which had a lot to do with them doing much better defending the outside shots. I do see someone said Calvin was 3-19, I had not realized they put up that many attempts.

I still worry when Hope is nursing a lead as we seem to fall in love with the clock and forget to keep working for quality shots along with using up time. They gave Calvin a chance to get dangerously close tonight. Colton seemed to be a very key player to help us maintain at the end with the way he ran the floor and hit key FTs. That fly route bomb from Krombeen to Colton made for probably the highlight of the game, but I was reminded of the manager from Major League: "that was great... now never do it again."

[calvin_grad]

The teams had the same number of made FGs, made FTs, and turnovers.  Calvin outrebounds Hope.  Hope just hit a few more shots worth 3 points.

The result feels like "same old..same old".  And yes, it's getting old...   

[almcguirejr]

Kooiker

I think the Kooiker thing is overblown.  He's a good ref.  Stop looking for excuses before the game even starts.  Hope beat Calvin tonight.  It wasn't the refs or anyone else.

Calvin got outworked, outhustled, and outplayed.  How they even had a slim chance at the end I do not know.

[wwjjdd]

I did see that correctly, didn't I? 

Final score

Calvin's women's team 67

Hope women's team  65.

Since the lady Knights had beaten Hope once before, it had to be possibility, but that is a big surprise!

m&g, you missed all the excitement.  Calvin up by 21 early in the first half, only to lose the lead, then get the ball back with less than 10 seconds, to drive the length of the court and win on a 3-pointer at the buzzer!

Actually, it was in the 2nd half:

[GOOD! JUMPER by Ally Wolffis [PNT]              17:37  45-25]

The Hope comeback was fueled mainly by the 2nd unit.  (Probably more appropriate for the other board, but since it was brought up here.)

[almcguirejr]

Kooiker had 2 big rivalry games today.  He had GVSU/Ferris and Calvin/Hope.  He obviously must get decent ratings to get consistently get big games.

[gohope]

Dancin.

Sweet Dreams everyone! 

[HopeConvert]

Quite a game tonight at the DeVos Fieldhouse. The hero of the game, in my judgment, was Ty Tanis, who played well on both ends of the floor and kept Hope from ever going into a dry spell. May have been his finest game in a Hope uniform. It's amazing to me how much this team has grown defensively over the course of the year. They were in Calvin's shorts all night. I was surprised Calvin had 8 3-point attempts in the first half. It didn't seem like they had that many attempts. And, frankly, I'm not sure how Calvin scored 67. I thought Hope did an outstanding defensive job tonight, despite the fact that Tom Snikkers cannot be guarded one-on-one by anyone in the MIAA. Calvin did a better job protecting the ball in the second half. 12 turnovers for the game isn't bad. And they again outrebounded Hope. Calvin was sharper from the line. That said, I thought Hope played a whale of a game defensively, and I'm not quite sure where Calvin's points came from.

Now we see if the Dutchmen host next weekend. We'll keep our fingers crossed. I'm feeling pretty good that there will be basketball of some kind at the DeVos next weekend.

[Erm Schmigget]

Dancin.

Sweet Dreams everyone! 

...now to sleep the sleep of the just.   

[oldknight]

Congratulations to Hope. Tonight's game was a micocosm of the two teams' conference seasons. Hope has achieved a level of consistency that Calvin does not yet possess, with the Flying Dutchmen playing to their strengths on offense and showing more discipline on defense. Hope shot better from the arc than Calvin (8-18 vs. 3-19) but the quality of Hope's shots from that territory was better too. I agree with HC and almcquirejr: Tanis was the difference maker for Hope, and Calvin was generally outworked. Not all the Knight players were healthy which may explain the often listless play Calvin demonstrated, but no excuses, Hope was the better team tonight. We would be remiss in noting that Calvin never quit. They did a remarkable job of getting back into the game in the last four minutes and if Rodts could have gotten his open three ball to drop when Hope was up five, the final 30 seconds might have played out differently.

On the subject of having the losing team hang around to watch presentation of the trophy, I have no problem with the losing team leaving the floor before that happens. The two teams line up at the end of the game, the losers congratulate the winners, and then go home. Calvin's men did that tonight and I assume the Hope women did that this afternoon. That's all that's necessary. It seems to me the award ceremony that follows is for the winning team and their fans, not the losers.

[sac]

Hope played a heck of game tonight and its to Calvin's credit that Hope needed to play that well.  I kept looking up at the scoreboard wondering how it was as close as it was numerous times.

For a change.....Hope started out hot, which goes against what Hope has done for most of the MIAA season where they trailed in the first half of nearly every game.  I thought maybe that caught Calvin by surprise a little.   Playing with a lead is a lot more fun than playing from behind in these rivalry games.  So much of this game just felt like Hope holding off Calvin.....the second half clock moved very slow for me.  Hope came close but just couldn't quite blow the game open for good.

A very big key for me at least was I never felt Calvin put together a big momentum building rally.  Something that would force Hope to call a timeout (at least I don't remember one).  Even when Calvin did make 2 or 3 baskets in a row it seemed to take several possessions and it just never really felt like Calvin had momentum except perhaps right at the end when Rodts' three missed and was followed by Haverdink's 2 to cut the lead to 3 and 3,000+ suddenly felt knots in their stomachs.  At least twice Hope killed brief 6 point Calvin rally's with 3's of their own, mentally that's tough when it happens a few times.


Hope's 3 seniors really stepped up tonight, Bowser, Tanis and Dickerson combined to go 18-30 from the floor for 48 points.  Bowser and Tanis combined to go 8-13 from three.  To top it off I thought all 3 of them played very well on the defensive end.   I saw Bowser on Rodts quite a bit, and Rodts never really got going tonight and didn't score until very late in the first half.



It has been a great journey for this team, one that I'm happy gets to continue for at least another week.  Maybe its a journey only the guys in that locker room can truly understand, but from afar it appears they had to overcome an awful lot to get to where they are tonight, they certainly grew a lot on the basketball court. 

Will Bowser and Ty Tanis join a pretty nice list of Hope players that can say they played in the NCAA tournament all four years.   Maybe more importantly they are the only 2 guys for anyone who can say they won 4 MIAA Tournament Championships.



I'm happiest for Coaches Neil, Davelaar, and Carlson.  I can't imagine what its like to succeed someone who meant so much to Hope basketball and all the inherent pressure, questions and such that have come with being the new guys(even though ya'know they aren't exactly new).  Whether those questions were silent or loud, they were there and I'm sure they had their moments of doubt no matter how strong and confident they might have appeared. 

They inherited a team that was maybe expected to do a lot, yet they never got to coach that team.  Not a single game.  All of their years of experience were put to the test this year probably in ways that few of us will ever truly understand or comprehend. 


In the end the 2011 Flying Dutchmen are the MIAA regular season and tournament Champions, to me I'm not sure those words have ever sounded sweeter.