MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Mr. Ypsi]

This is the first thing that comes up in a GIS for "evil side pond":

Wait, which one is the mustard?

Silly David, ketchup is obviously red.

(Though I think I would pass on blue mustard. )

[GoKnights68]

I think KS is right about Calvin being largely a perimeter team on offense. I think that identity will remain until Tyler Kruis develops into that low post scorer Calvin needs him to be. Adam DeYoung offers a strong post presence on defense and the boards but he will never be a go-to guy when the Knights have the ball.

Stating the obvious here, but I think they are really going to miss Mantel this year.  There will be a few games that they lose this year because they go cold from outside (not that discussion again   ).

I was always surprised at how much (unfair) grumbling Mantel induced out of the Van Noord crowd. It seems he was never the player that they expected him to be (mainly Shaq in his prime if he also shot 100% from the line), but what he was what he was, and that was a darn good D3 player. They didn't hand out trips to the senior all-star game to everyone. It's my understanding that those types of players don't come around too often. I hope the complainers realize what they had.

I agree.  He really did improve tremendously from his junior to his senior year, just going by myself personally observing almost every home game of Calvins.  He definitely closed out his personal career (not team) on a high note with 29 points in the MIAA tourney finals. 

[sac]

Also "missing" from Albion's roster is 6-7 C Jake Robison.  As a Freshmen he started Albion's first 9 games before being sat down the second half of year to hit the books harder by the Albion staff.

Albion might have been a much different team with him in the middle the whole season considering the overall lack of big's around the league.  In his short time, he averaged just about 6 points and 20 minutes, but his 5.2 rebound avg. was enough to still lead the team for the season.  Surely as the season went on he would have earned more playing time.

I was hoping he'd come back this season.

[Knight2Day]

I watched the majority of that scrimmage and KVS didn't really have much of a subbing rotation and didn't seem to play the freshmen much to speak of. He seemed more bent on attempting to iron out wrinkles in the offense/defensive scheme rather than trying to figure out rotations and see players make a name for themselves.

And when it comes to Mantel, great guy and was a darn good player, but one has to think of what COULD have been if he would have truly invested in hoops the way other players who lack natural gifts do. Scary to think of the player he could have been and I know I'll probably end up ruffling a few feathers with that sort of talk. Not sayin I'm no thankful for the player he was, just wish I could have seen the player he could have been.

KnightSlappy has been blogging about Calvin basketball and I think it's worth reading for those of you interested in Calvin hoops. He attended Saturday's scrimmage against the JV and included this bit:


The freshmen didn't really make much of an impact, but they didn't play poorly either. Mitch Vallie showed some nice touch on his shot.

The Knights still need to find an offensive presence in the post. DeYoung was active, but he still doesn't seem like a polished offensive player. In general, the team wasn't able to finish many shots in traffic. That won't always be the case, but I'm getting the feeling that they'll live and die with their mid-range and longer shooting.


I think KS is right about Calvin being largely a perimeter team on offense. I think that identity will remain until Tyler Kruis develops into that low post scorer Calvin needs him to be. Adam DeYoung offers a strong post presence on defense and the boards but he will never be a go-to guy when the Knights have the ball.

[KnightSlappy]

KnightSlappy has been blogging about Calvin basketball and I think it's worth reading for those of you interested in Calvin hoops. He attended Saturday's scrimmage against the JV and included this bit:


The freshmen didn't really make much of an impact, but they didn't play poorly either. Mitch Vallie showed some nice touch on his shot.

The Knights still need to find an offensive presence in the post. DeYoung was active, but he still doesn't seem like a polished offensive player. In general, the team wasn't able to finish many shots in traffic. That won't always be the case, but I'm getting the feeling that they'll live and die with their mid-range and longer shooting.


I think KS is right about Calvin being largely a perimeter team on offense. I think that identity will remain until Tyler Kruis develops into that low post scorer Calvin needs him to be. Adam DeYoung offers a strong post presence on defense and the boards but he will never be a go-to guy when the Knights have the ball.

Ziggy's going to be working on the blog too; he just put up his first post today about the Spencer Jennings ACC rumor (spoiler alert: it is Wake Forest).

[KnightSlappy]

Also "missing" from Albion's roster is 6-7 C Jake Robison.  As a Freshmen he started Albion's first 9 games before being sat down the second half of year to hit the books harder by the Albion staff.

Albion might have been a much different team with him in the middle the whole season considering the overall lack of big's around the league.  In his short time, he averaged just about 6 points and 20 minutes, but his 5.2 rebound avg. was enough to still lead the team for the season.  Surely as the season went on he would have earned more playing time.

I was hoping he'd come back this season.

I've learned never to count out the Brits, but they're seriously lacking size.

[sac]

http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/

Hope comes in at #17

Calvin received 3 poll points.  #48t.

[realist]

As a Calvin fan I sure hope KVS is not approaching this season like some posters are, namely, thinking about replacing Mantel and Veltema.  It appears this is a much different team, and hopefully KVS is going to work his magic to get the best possible rotations.  
Last year J. Mantel averaged 14.5 ppg.  He had 5 games of 20+.  (23 Lake Forest, 24 Carthage, 21 Wheaton, 20 Trine saving the best 29 for last versus Hope).  At least 3 of those 20+ performances were against quality programs.   John had 7 games when he scored less than 10 points.  The lows being 5 against Alma, and 6 against Olivet.  In 3 games against Alma he went 5, 9, & 16 to average 10 ppg against them for the season.  As dominant as John was against Carthage,  and the last Hope game it is hard to understand his performances against the Scots.

Matt Veltema averaged 12.5 ppg. last season and had 4 20+ games. ( 20 Trinity, 22 Lewis and Clark, 21 Albion, and 24 Alma).  Matt had 9 games when he scored fewer than 10 points with the low being 2 against Wheaton.  Against Wheaton he played 30 minutes, went 0-2, made 2 ft's, and had 1 rebound.  In the last 2 games against Hope he scored 7, and ending his career with a whimper made 5 points.

I am not knocking either John or Matt just think it important to look at their entire body of work.  

[Happy Calvin Guy]

As a Calvin fan I sure hope KVS is not approaching this season like some posters are, namely, thinking about replacing Mantel and Veltema.  It appears this is a much different team, and hopefully KVS is going to work his magic to get the best possible rotations.  
Last year J. Mantel averaged 14.5 ppg.  He had 5 games of 20+.  (23 Lake Forest, 24 Carthage, 21 Wheaton, 20 Trine saving the best 29 for last versus Hope).  At least 3 of those 20+ performances were against quality programs.   John had 7 games when he scored less than 10 points.  The lows being 5 against Alma, and 6 against Olivet.  In 3 games against Alma he went 5, 9, & 16 to average 10 ppg against them for the season.  As dominant as John was against Carthage,  and the last Hope game it is hard to understand his performances against the Scots.

Matt Veltema averaged 12.5 ppg. last season and had 4 20+ games. ( 20 Trinity, 22 Lewis and Clark, 21 Albion, and 24 Alma).  Matt had 9 games when he scored fewer than 10 points with the low being 2 against Wheaton.  Against Wheaton he played 30 minutes, went 0-2, made 2 ft's, and had 1 rebound.  In the last 2 games against Hope he scored 7, and ending his career with a whimper made 5 points.

I am not knocking either John or Matt just think it important to look at their entire body of work.  

I've been a big fan of both Mantel and Veltema, seemingly great guys who gave 4 yrs to the Calvin program and had a good degree of success.  Mantel was definitely an all-conference quality post player who many of us wanted to grow into MVP potential.  Veltema is one of the better pure shooters I've seen at this level. 

However, their styles seemed to be best suited to the half court game, and I felt that both slowed down ball movement and offensive flow.  Neither had quick moves to the rim or could be considered a slasher type.  And neither was an elite passer, so the offense came to a bit of a standstill when either of them got the ball.  I'm excited to see what I feel will be a more wide open, active offense for Calvin this year.  There seems to be better top-to-bottom team speed and athleticism and hopefully that can translate into better point production. 

I agree with realist, I hope that KVS doesn't merely try to replace the pieces and run the same style of offense.  And it's my hope that while we remember fondly the great careers of both John and Matt, that we don't have to spend too much time longing for them while watching the 2010-11 version of the Knights.

As for Hope being #17 and Calvin being #48 in the preseason poll, I don't mind starting from the underdog's seat.  We'll see if the Dutchmen can handle the high preseason expectations this year. 

[KnightSlappy]

The lows being 6 against Alma, and 6 against Olivet.  In 3 games against Alma he went 6, 9, & 16 to average 10.3 ppg against them for the season.  As dominant as John was against Carthage,  and the last Hope game it is hard to understand his performances against the Scots.

John averaged 14.5 ppg for the year with a standard deviation of 5.7 points. Two of three games (66.7%) against Alma were inside of one standard deviation from the mean. We would expect that 68% percent of his games would fall within one standard deviation, so it looks like he performed pretty much as expected against Alma.

It's also interesting to note that Alma's slow down style of offense probably cost John one shot per game. (Calvin averaged 54.9 shots per game during the season, but only 49.3 average versus Alma), and John took 17.5% of the team's shots). This would add a point to his average against Alma, bringing him closer to his season average.

[Happy Calvin Guy]

The lows being 6 against Alma, and 6 against Olivet.  In 3 games against Alma he went 6, 9, & 16 to average 10.3 ppg against them for the season.  As dominant as John was against Carthage,  and the last Hope game it is hard to understand his performances against the Scots.

John averaged 14.5 ppg for the year with a standard deviation of 5.7 points. Two of three games (66.7%) against Alma were inside of one standard deviation from the mean. We would expect that 68% percent of his games would fall within one standard deviation, so it looks like he performed pretty much as expected against Alma.

Your use of standard deviation to derive probability assumes that a player's point output follows a normal distribution (this may not be true since different games have multiple factors, like foul trouble, pace of opponent, etc).  Technically, to determine if the difference in John's performance vs Alma was statistically signficant from the rest of his season, I believe that a T-test comparing the two averages (10.3 ppg and 14.5 ppg) should be used.  Frankly I don't remember exactly how to run this test but my guess is that the extremely small sample size (3 games against Alma) would eliminate any major conclusions that one could draw about Mantel not bringing his A-game against the Scots last year. 

In related news, I noticed that little brother Jake Mantel is on the Calvin JV roster, listed as a 2nd year freshman since he didn't play last year as a true freshman.  We as Calvin fans should be so lucky that four years from now we could break down his career stats like those of his often-criticized older brother.

[wiz]

...one standard deviation from the mean...

Oh, boy, here we go again.  I hate to bring up a sore subject but is punching someone in the face a standard deviation from mean?  Just curious.

[realist]

KS:  Thanks for correcting my error, as John did score 6 against Alma.  Why didn't you note that the 5 point game was against Olivet?    
Don't you find it the least bit interesting that he "performed beyond statistical expectations" [my words] against 3 of the better teams Calvin played while he "performed pretty much as expected against Alma"? Wouldn't "normal expectations" have been that John would perform better against weaker opponents?  
I give much of the credit for the results of the Alma games to the Alma coach who had the good sense to simply run his game plan against what KVS was likely to do.  That is the one thing I don't expect will change this year.

[Gregory Sager]

...one standard deviation from the mean...

Oh, boy, here we go again.  I hate to bring up a sore subject but is punching someone in the face a standard deviation from mean?

No, it's just plain mean.

[Mr. Ypsi]

...one standard deviation from the mean...

Oh, boy, here we go again.  I hate to bring up a sore subject but is punching someone in the face a standard deviation from mean?

No, it's just plain mean.

In some cases, a mean action by a 'standard' deviate.