Calvin 83, Trinity 63 (box score)
What does a 20 point win over Trinity mean? It's hard to say. They're certainly not a good team (I went over their lack of credentials in the preview post), but 20 points is a significant margin. I threw down three success benchmarks before the game. They were:
Check. Check. Check.
- Win
- Score 80 points or more
- Allow 72 points or fewer
They won the game, but more importantly, they won the game while putting up impressive offensive and defensive totals. It comes down to this: they beat a team they should beat may a margin in which they should beat them.
No, we can't point to this win and figure that Calvin has turned a major corner, but at the same time, there's nothing from this game that should cause major concern. It was a good, solid win.
They took care of the ball, they matched our expectations with respect to their rebounding advantage, and they shot a reasonable percentage. All this while playing teriffic defense (Trinity connected on fewer than one-third of their shots).
Bullets
- I'm really falling in love with Matt DeBoer's jump hook. It's become a deadly accurate shot, and it should prove to be wicked hard to defend.
- Jordan Mast appears to be much more comfortable firing up three point shots. He launched seven of them on Saturday, hitting three (.429). On the year, he's shooting .476 from long range.
- 11 assists and only one turnover from the Rietema/Powell combination. Matt DeBoer also chipped in with five assists.
- The only real "problem" they had with turnovers was Mitch Vallie's three. At least two were the result of traveling calls in which he shuffled his shoes after finding himself "too open". He'll find it.
- Tyler Kruis is still wearing the big knee brace, but I didn't notice it hampering him as much in this game. Maybe it's just because everyone else was scoring. Hopefully he'll get a chance to fully recover over the long break; Calvin will sorely need him when they face Whitworth.
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