Forever Faithful (to maroon and gold) | A Calvin Knights Fan Blog

Adrian Preview

2012-01-27T22:17:00.000-05:00

	Game Nineteen (9-9, 4-3)
Who	Adrian Bulldogs (12-5, 5-2)
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Wednesday, January 28 -- 3:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Stretch Internet, MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

When We Last Met
Calvin lost by seven out in Adrian in this season's MIAA opener. It was the first game the Knights played without Mickey DeVries, and just the third game following Mitch Vallie's injury. Both teams shot under 40% for the game, but Adrian lead pretty much the whole way. The real killer for the Knights was their 3-17 performance on three point field goals.

The Bulldogs currently hold a three game winning streak over Calvin, whose last win in the series came back in February of 2010. Freshmen Tom Snikkers and Bryan Powell combined for ten points.

About Adrian
The Bulldogs are all about defense. On Wednesday, they held Albion (admittedly not known for their offense) to just 12 first half points. The Britons did manage 36 points in the second half, but I think the dogs had been called off well before Albion made their mini scoring run.

Offensively, Adrian has a lot in common with Calvin. They don't usually shoot at a very high percentage, their not exceptional at getting to the free throw line, and they'll hold their own on the offensive glass. They usually do a good job at taking care of the ball though, and so their offense rates a few points better than Calvin (although Calvin has been a few points better than the Bulldogs since MIAA play began).

'Four Factors'

This graph is probably about as even as they come. It's going to be small differences that win this game. A couple of rebounds, a turnover, a missed free throw, anything and everything could play a big role in deciding this game.

Predictions and Whatnot
No matter how I figure this game, whether it's by figuring efficiency margins or using the Massey ratings, or whatever, I can't see this game being more than one possession either way.

By using season total efficiency ratings, I come up with Adrian by three points. The Massey Ratings prediction for the game is Calvin by one point. Using efficiency ratings for the MIAA season, I figure Calvin should win by two. Long story short: it should be a close one.

My 'official' prediction is Calvin by two with the scores staying in the low 60's. It's definitely a good game. Hopefully the students and community come out to support the Knights who have a big opportunity to make this game a turning point.

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Stats-and-More Versus Olivet

2012-01-27T15:14:00.000-05:00

Win Expectancy

Calvin’s win expectancy jumped from 50% (where all games start) to 71% just ten seconds into the game as Calvin took a 2-0 lead on a Tom Snikkers field goal. It wouldn’t dip below 70% for the rest of the game.

This was a textbook wire-to-wire beat down, with the win effectively secured with five minutes still to play in the first half. There was really no point in this game in which Olivet made an actual run at competitiveness. Their best stretch of multi-possession sustained play might have been keeping the Calvin lead right around seven from the 13:09 mark to the 9:44 mark in the first half.

Game Chart

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar	TOr	Rb%	eff
Rietema	0.63	0.08	0.333	0.67	0.00	0.33	0.08	0.19	-
Haverdink	0.50	0.13	0.750	1.50	0.00	0.25	0.00	0.06	-
Snikkers	0.53	0.37	0.750	1.53	0.42	0.40	0.13	0.20	-
Kruis	0.55	0.21	0.571	1.31	0.43	0.06	0.00	0.11	-
DeBoer	0.60	0.27	0.450	1.01	0.40	0.06	0.07	0.03	-
Powell	0.58	0.29	0.800	1.64	0.20	0.08	0.14	0.03	-
Dykstra	0.43	0.23	0.500	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.13	0.11	-
Stout	0.40	0.04	0.000	1.03	4.00	0.07	0.00	0.15	-
Van Eck	0.38	0.26	0.500	1.08	0.50	0.00	0.11	0.04	-
DeYoung	0.08	0.00	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.00	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!	#DIV/0!
Mast	0.35	0.09	1.250	2.50	0.00	0.09	0.00	0.09	-
Calvin	1.00	1.00	0.623	1.31	0.34	0.56	0.12	0.53	127.4
Olivet	1.00	1.00	0.410	0.92	0.33	0.46	0.17	0.47	92.2

It’s excellent news that Calvin’s best two shooting games of the year have been their last two. Versus Trine they effectively shot .644, and here they effectively shot .623.
The game’s 127.4 offensive efficiency rating was also the best we’ve seen this year, and one of the top two even going back to last season. Only last year’s 116-65 win over Alma rated as a more efficient offensive day.
Caveat that this game was against Olivet who is really, really terrible on defense.
I’m slightly disappointed that Calvin didn’t hold Olivet below their season average offensive efficiency rating (they nailed it at 92), but considering the extra time given to guys like Stout, Van Eck, and even Dykstra, it’s not so bad. The starters sat a lot in the second half.
He’s not shooting the ball a lot, but it’s great to see Brian Haverdink getting his offensive groove on. He’s effectively shooting .500 in conference play (.409 from long range!). Haverdink isn’t a guy that will take over and score in bunches, but he’s hitting his open looks.
I don’t know what’s up with Jordan Mast’s minutes. After starting for several games (getting 20-25 minutes), he’s only seen about 13 minutes for the last three games. He’s only missed three shots in the last five games; he’s effectively shooting .896 (!!!!!) on 24 shot attempts in conference play (7-12 on three point field goals).
What can opposing teams do when Tom Snikkers and Bryan Powell combine to go 17 of 22 from the field? Absolutely nothing.
Look down the list at those PPWS numbers. LOOK AT THEM. The only “inefficient” scorer was David Rietema who was 1-3, but he had 7 assists (18 assists in the last two games).

First Half Wrap Up

All things considered, I’m happy with where Calvin is at. Actually, to clarify, I’m happy with how they’ve been playing since the MIAA season began. The home loss to Albion is looking like a killer, but, overall, they’ve really stepped up their level of play. This was a team that once lost to Anderson by 13 and only beat Willamette and Finlandia by single digits, but now they’ve four of five, with three of the wins coming by 21 points or more.

The second half of conference play holds four road games, but the two toughest games (Adrian and Hope) are at home. It’s not unfathomable for Calvin to go 4-0 on the road against Trine, Kalamazoo, Albion, and Olivet, so 10-4 looks like a real possibility. Even dropping two more games would give them a 9-5 record, which was where they ended up last year. Obviously not what we’d like to see, but perhaps it’s acceptable considering the injury situation.

I’d like to hold onto hope of a Pool C tournament bid, but it doesn’t look good. Best case scenario for Pool C would be winning out before losing to Hope in the MIAA Tournament Championship game, but according to my preliminary number crunching, they’d be probably looking at a “last four out/next four out” scenario. Maybe 25-40% chance that they could get in if they finish 8-1 (which isn’t likely in the first place) depending what the other teams do. The team’s sights (with respect to the NCAA Tournament) need to be on finishing #2 in the league to get the home game for the first round and then winning a tough road game at Hope.

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And Boom Goes the Dynamite

2012-01-25T23:24:00.000-05:00

Calvin 93, Olivet 65 (box score)

The storyline for this game was that Olivet was indeed quite bad. I would have loved to see Calvin's defense lock down Olivet in the second half instead of allowing 38 points, but Coach Vande Streek was clearly spreading the minutes around, so it's definitely understandable.

It was a wonderful opportunity for Daniel Stout (16 minutes) and Tyler Dykstra (17 minutes) to get some extended playing time. I particularly enjoyed seeing Dykstra, Stout, and Tyler Kruis all on the court at the same time. That's a combination that could cause some havoc in this league for a good couple of years. We also saw some nice things out of Nate Van Eck, who chipped in eight points in a rare display of scoring touch.

It's really hard to glean a whole heck of a lot out of a 28 point win over a clearly inferior opponent, but it was wonderful to see Calvin "play the right way" for all 40 minutes -- especially on the offensive end. I'm sure it's easy to get lazy and start jacking up three pointers and early jump shots when you're up by 15+, but the Knights didn't fall into that trap. Even as they extended their lead, tThey continued to try to get the ball inside to the big men (center-ish players combined for 22 points), make the extra pass, and wait for a good shot opportunity. I'm searching for a "yeah but", but there's just no way I could complain about anything on the stat sheet.

Bullets

Is there some sort of a way that this version of Tom Snikkers can be forever frozen? Tom eschewed the jumper tonight in favor of getting to the hoop. I just went back and quickly counted 12 points in the paint for Snikkers, plus 4 points at the line after drawing contact near the hoop. This is the version of Tom that is nearly impossible to stop.
Bryan Powell is now the Bryan Powell that we expected out of Wyoming Park High School. Tonight's masterful 8-10 shooting performance has lifted Bryan's effective field goal percentage to .489 on the year. His points per weighted shot is up to 1.03. He's become a deadly assassin in the mid-range game.
I'd still like to see more three point opportunities for Jordan Mast. The dude's shooting 47% from beyond the arc so just feed him the ball.
I'm really starting to enjoy the brief flashes we get from Tyler Dykstra. He blends in a little bit more than perhaps a 6-8 player should, but he gave us a preview of some future scoring abilities this evening. He slipped free underneath the basket and was rewarded with the ball for an easy two handed slam, and also knocked down a couple of medium range jump shots. I really like the easy athleticism that he brings to the team -- he's seems to get more comfortable using it each game.
Calvin's last three home games have all been 20+ point victories. I didn't expect that after seeing the team lose at home to Albion in the second conference game of the season.

Olivet Preview

2012-01-25T12:06:00.000-05:00

	Game Eighteen (8-9, 3-3)
Who	Olivet Comets (3-14, 1-5)
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Wednesday, January 25 -- 8:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Stretch Internet, MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

When We Last Met
Olivet (un)officially ended Calvin’s hopes for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid last year with a 71-69 victory over the Knights at the Cutler Events Center in lovely Olivet, Michigan in early February. Calvin allowed Olivet to mount a nine point lead with six or seven minutes left in the game, and although the Knights fought to cut the lead to a single possession a couple of times in the final minute, they never possessed the ball with an opportunity to tie or take the lead.

Michael McClary lead the Comets with 29 points and 9 rebounds. Tom Snikkers and Danny Rodts each recorded a double-double for Calvin with 19-and-10 and 18-and-10 (points-and-rebounds) respectively. As a team, the Knights made just 3 of their 18 three point attempts.

About Olivet
Fortunately for Calvin (and the rest of the MIAA), Michael McClary’s eligibility is all used up so he’s with the team strictly as a coach this season. The loss of last year’s seniors, McClary, Joe Post, and Nathan Jennings (and Andre Evans earlier last seaon), along with an injury or two and/or a player or two leaving the program, means that Olivet currently has an empty cupboard. Or, at least, they nearly do.

Junior (transfer) guard Alvino Ashley appears to be a fine player, but after that they really have only a handful of role players and another handful of players that shouldn’t really be on an MIAA roster.

I received the following message last Saturday night from a Hope fan after the Dutchmen rolled over Olivet 84-53 at DeVos Fieldhouse:

Calvin will annihilate Olivet… they've just got nothing left.

Matt El and Erick Mack both averaged nearly 29 minutes per game during the first half of the season, but they’re both off the roster. Bench players Ray Johnson and Paul Koviak are also no longer listed on the roster. Jaren Edsall, a senior who’s started all 14 games he’s played in, has been out for the last three games (apparently he’s injured). Remaining in the starting lineup (assuming Edsall is still out) are the Comets lone three players of nominal value: Ashley, Dakotah Ellis, and (freshman) Paul Lombard, along with (freshman) Marquis Childers and (freshman) Dylan Roe.

With the possible exception of Lombard, these freshmen aren’t playing because they’re good, they’re playing because they have to. I knew Olivet would be bad this year, but I had no idea they’d be this bad. It’s sad to see after they had built such a competitive program.

’Four Factors’

I've only been retaining my pre-game stats since the Finlandia game (what was that, the fourth game of the year?), and this is the first time that Calvin will enter the game with better shooting numbers than their opponent. That's really unfathomable for Calvin, who's historically a very good shooting team.

Olivet is about league average when it comes to turnovers, but they're a terrible shooting team, and they don't get to the line. They've been pretty good on the offensive glass, but Calvin has been the best defensive rebounding team in the MIAA. The only way the Comets stay in this game is if they out-work Calvin on the glass for second chance points.

Team	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	ORb%	Rb%	Ar	TOr	Blk%	Stl%	OEff	DEff	POS	POS/40
Calvin	0.460	0.99	0.31	0.35	0.54	0.60	0.20	0.13	0.10	96.6	97.8	1237	72.3
Olivet	0.415	0.88	0.23	0.34	0.48	0.46	0.19	0.09	0.08	90.1	110.1	1220	71.0

Olivet's efficiency numbers are terrible. The OEff and DEff numbers in the table above are both league worsts.

Predictions and Whatnot

I'm hoping this is another confidence building game for the Knights. Massey predicts Calvin to win by 15, but I'm willing to go bigger than that. I'll predict that the final margin is closer to 25. It could be an opportunity to give freshmen Tyler Dykstra, Ryan Nadeua, Daniel Stout, and TJ Huizenga quality minutes, so maybe they don't win by that much, but Calvin's not in a position to drop a bad game, so we very well may see KVS play the regular rotation to stay safe.

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While I Was Out

2012-01-24T22:44:00.000-05:00

So it was a little bit of a busy week at work and at home, and, consequently, I neglected this blog. But let's take a few moments to catch up on the happenings with the Calvin Knights.

There was a 16 point loss to Hope.

Unfortunately, this was entirely expected. I went into the day calm and cool (usually my stomach does gymnastics the entire day leading up to a Rivalry game), but I was a wreck at halftime. Never in my wildest dreams did I allow myself to hope for the type of shooting performance that Calvin displayed in the first half. I knew they would have to play a perfect 40 minutes to pull out a win, and here they were with (pretty much) a perfect 20 under their belts.

So I allowed myself that a floundering, depleted Calvin team could upset a top-ten team on the road. Obviously things didn't work out that way. The "hot" shooting disappeared and the lead evaporated about six minutes into the second half. Looking at that game as a whole, the Knights performed as well (or even slightly better) than was expected of them. It wasn't so much a second half collapse as it was a first half overperform followed by a return to normalcy.

Then there was the 27 point shellacking of Trine

The Thunder have been good this year so this result was a surprise. Not a surprise that Calvin won, but a surprise that they utterly dominated the game and were able to impose their will with little resistance. That's something we've rarely seen this year. I don't think Trine is as good as their 11-6 overall record indicates (they played a fairly soft non-conference schedule), but they're probably belong in the top half of the league -- at they very least they belong in the #3/#4 seed conversation with Albion and Calvin.

Trine had been prone to offensive explosions -- efficiency-wise they're the second best offense in the MIAA, behind Hope -- but the Knights locked them down completely. Calvin is developing an identity around defense -- something they'll need if they want to make a serious run at the number two spot and, potentially, a conference tournament title.

With only one game remaining in the first round of the double-round-robin MIAA schedule (against Olivet, the worst offense in the league), Calvin rates as the third best defense in the conference (allowing less than 0.89 points per opponent possession). Calvin also leads the league -- tied with Adrian -- in field goal percentage defense in MIAA play. Things are still lagging a bit on the offensive end of things, but I'm loving the defense. They played with a special level of intensity on Saturday. If they keep that up, there's no reason why they couldn't beat Olivet by 25+ on Wednesday.

Women's Regional Rankings 1/24/2012

2012-01-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

These regional rankings are not official. All data comes via d3hoops.com.

The attempt of these rankings is to get an early estimate of what the NCAA’s official rankings will be when they’re released later on in the year (the first official set come out in early February). These rankings are 100% computer based – I don’t adjust them at all.

The base of the ranking system is two of the primary criteria: in-region winning percentage and strength of schedule. For now, I’m combining these two in a strict 50-50 sense. For the men, I apply a few adjustments to attempt to adjust for games versus regionally ranked opponents and whatnot, but I don’t yet have a feel for how the women’s committee compares the various criteria so I’ve decided to just use the basics for now and build up later.

So for now these rankings are literally 0.5 x WP + 0.5 x SOS. This doesn’t include head-to-head play or results versus common opponents, so feel free to adjust the rankings in your head if you see a spot where that may be an issue.

All of my data comes from d3hoops.com. Occasionally games are incorrectly listed as in-region (or not listed as in-region) or scores are reported late. If you notice something is wrong (numbers-wise) with my data set, it’s probably because there is some data missing on d3hoops.

Through (most) games of 1/23/2012

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
NE	1	Amherst	NESCAC	1.000	0.599	0.799	1	A	C	13-0	17-0	0-0	17-0
NE	2	Tufts	NESCAC	0.882	0.629	0.755	8	C	3	15-2	15-3	0-0	15-3
NE	3	Williams	NESCAC	0.875	0.632	0.754	10	C	5	14-2	15-2	0-0	16-2
NE	4	Babson	NEWMAC	0.867	0.563	0.715	22	A	wC	13-2	14-2	0-0	14-2
NE	5	Rhode Island College	LEC	0.875	0.505	0.690	33	C	13	14-2	14-2	0-0	14-2
NE	6	University of New England	CCC	0.813	0.556	0.684	37	A	wC	13-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
NE	7	Emmanuel	GNAC	0.786	0.574	0.680	41	A	wC	11-3	12-4	0-0	12-4
NE	8	Colby	NESCAC	0.800	0.555	0.677	44	C	18	12-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
NE	9	Connecticut College	NESCAC	0.800	0.555	0.677	45	C	19	12-3	12-3	0-0	13-3
NE	10	Bowdoin	NESCAC	0.750	0.593	0.672	49	C	22	12-4	12-5	0-0	12-5
NE	11	Southern Maine	LEC	0.750	0.580	0.665	55	A	wC	12-4	12-4	0-0	13-4
NE	12	Western Connecticut	LEC	0.765	0.534	0.649	63	C	32	13-4	13-4	0-0	13-4
NE	13	Regis (Mass.)	NECC	0.846	0.447	0.647	69	A	wC	11-2	12-3	0-0	12-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
EA	1	Rochester	UAA	1.000	0.585	0.793	2	A	C	15-0	15-0	0-0	16-0
EA	2	Ithaca	E8	0.929	0.603	0.766	6	A	C	13-1	13-2	0-0	14-3
EA	3	Hartwick	E8	0.857	0.530	0.694	30	C	11	12-2	13-3	0-0	13-3
EA	4	St. Lawrence	LL	0.786	0.578	0.682	39	A	wC	11-3	11-4	0-0	11-4
EA	5	SUNYIT	NEAC	0.917	0.446	0.681	40	A	wC	11-1	11-2	0-0	13-2
EA	6	Oneonta State	SUNYAC	0.769	0.568	0.668	52	A	wC	10-3	10-5	0-0	10-5
EA	7	Buffalo State	SUNYAC	0.857	0.478	0.668	54	C	25	12-2	14-2	0-0	14-2
EA	8	Skidmore	LL	0.769	0.509	0.639	79	C	45	10-3	10-3	0-0	11-3
EA	9	Medaille	AMCC	0.750	0.512	0.631	87	A	bub	12-4	13-4	0-0	13-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
AT	1	William Paterson	NJAC	0.938	0.615	0.776	5	C	2	15-1	16-1	0-0	17-1
AT	2	Kean	NJAC	0.882	0.636	0.759	7	A	C	15-2	15-3	0-0	16-3
AT	3	Mary Washington	CAC	1.000	0.504	0.752	11	A	C	16-0	18-0	0-0	18-0
AT	4	Mount St. Mary	SKY	0.867	0.574	0.721	20	A	C	13-2	14-2	0-0	15-2
AT	5	York (Pa.)	CAC	0.824	0.556	0.690	32	C	12	14-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
AT	6	New Jersey	NJAC	0.706	0.573	0.640	77	C	43	12-5	13-6	0-0	13-6
AT	7	Rutgers-Newark	NJAC	0.706	0.567	0.636	82	C	47	12-5	12-5	0-0	13-5
AT	8	Montclair State	NJAC	0.667	0.585	0.626	91	C	54	12-6	13-6	0-0	13-6
AT	9	Catholic	LAND	0.733	0.499	0.616	96	C	58	11-4	12-4	0-0	13-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MA	1	Juniata	LAND	0.941	0.529	0.735	17	A	C	16-1	17-1	0-0	17-1
MA	2	Kings	MACF	0.857	0.542	0.699	26	A	wC	12-2	13-3	0-0	14-3
MA	3	Johns Hopkins	CC	0.867	0.516	0.691	31	A	wC	13-2	15-2	0-0	15-2
MA	4	Muhlenberg	CC	0.867	0.509	0.688	34	C	14	13-2	13-2	0-0	14-2
MA	5	Lebanon Valley	MACC	0.875	0.499	0.687	35	C	15	14-2	15-2	0-0	15-2
MA	6	Messiah	MACC	0.813	0.545	0.679	43	A	wC	13-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
MA	7	Eastern	MACF	0.750	0.510	0.630	88	C	51	9-3	11-4	0-0	12-4
MA	8	Franklin and Marshall	CC	0.688	0.507	0.597	107	C	68	11-5	12-5	0-0	12-5
MA	9	Delaware Valley	MACF	0.667	0.515	0.591	110	C	71	8-4	9-4	0-0	11-6
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
SO	1	Louisiana College	ASC	0.933	0.545	0.739	15	A	C	14-1	14-1	0-0	14-2
SO	2	Centre	SCAC	0.933	0.504	0.719	21	A	C	14-1	15-1	0-0	15-1
SO	3	Eastern Mennonite	ODAC	0.923	0.480	0.702	25	C	10	12-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
SO	4	Howard Payne	ASC	0.875	0.484	0.680	42	C	17	14-2	14-2	0-0	15-2
SO	5	Millsaps	SCAC	0.875	0.476	0.676	46	C	20	14-2	15-2	0-0	16-2
SO	6	Christopher Newport	USAC	0.813	0.513	0.663	56	C	26	13-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
SO	7	Emory	UAA	0.813	0.513	0.663	57	C	27	13-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
SO	8	Virginia Wesleyan	ODAC	0.846	0.478	0.662	58	A	wC	11-2	12-3	0-0	13-3
SO	9	Ferrum	USAC	0.786	0.528	0.657	60	C	29	11-3	12-3	0-0	13-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
GL	1	Mount Union	OAC	0.933	0.566	0.750	12	A	C	14-1	16-1	0-0	16-1
GL	2	DePauw	NCAC	0.933	0.565	0.749	13	A	C	14-1	15-1	0-0	15-1
GL	3	Calvin	MIAA	1.000	0.494	0.747	14	A	C	11-0	13-0	0-0	17-0
GL	4	St. Vincent	PrAC	0.875	0.521	0.698	27	A	wC	14-2	14-3	0-0	14-3
GL	5	Franklin	HCAC	0.938	0.452	0.695	28	A	wC	15-1	15-1	0-0	16-1
GL	6	Ohio Northern	OAC	0.824	0.546	0.685	36	C	16	14-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
GL	7	Thomas More	PrAC	0.857	0.487	0.672	48	C	21	12-2	12-4	0-0	13-4
GL	8	Hanover	HCAC	0.813	0.484	0.648	67	C	35	13-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
GL	9	Otterbein	OAC	0.765	0.525	0.645	71	C	38	13-4	13-4	0-0	13-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
CE	1	Chicago	UAA	1.000	0.568	0.784	3	C	1	16-0	16-0	0-0	16-0
CE	2	Washington U.	UAA	0.929	0.581	0.755	9	C	4	13-1	14-2	0-0	14-2
CE	3	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	0.875	0.595	0.735	18	C	6	14-2	15-2	0-0	15-3
CE	4	UW-Eau Claire	WIAC	0.882	0.570	0.726	19	C	7	15-2	15-2	0-0	15-3
CE	5	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.765	0.623	0.694	29	A	wC	13-4	14-4	0-0	14-4
CE	6	Westminster (Mo.)	SLIAC	0.900	0.466	0.683	38	A	wC	9-1	11-1	0-0	14-2
CE	7	Illinois Wesleyan	CCIW	0.714	0.637	0.675	47	A	wC	10-4	11-4	0-0	13-4
CE	8	Wisconsin Lutheran	NATHC	0.846	0.496	0.671	50	A	wC	11-2	12-2	0-0	13-3
CE	9	UW-Whitewater	WIAC	0.778	0.562	0.670	51	C	23	14-4	14-4	0-0	14-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
WE	1	George Fox	NWC	1.000	0.555	0.778	4	A	C	12-0	14-0	0-0	17-0
WE	2	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.938	0.536	0.737	16	A	C	15-1	15-1	0-0	15-1
WE	3	Gustavus Adolphus	MIAC	0.875	0.543	0.709	23	C	8	14-2	14-2	0-0	14-2
WE	4	Lewis and Clark	NWC	0.900	0.512	0.706	24	C	9	9-1	11-1	0-0	16-1
WE	5	Whitman	NWC	0.778	0.519	0.649	65	C	33	7-2	9-3	0-0	10-7
WE	6	St. Olaf	MIAC	0.750	0.541	0.646	70	C	37	12-4	12-4	0-0	12-4
WE	7	Coe	IIAC	0.765	0.515	0.640	76	C	42	13-4	13-4	0-0	13-5
WE	8	Occidental	SCIAC	0.833	0.438	0.636	83	A	wC	10-2	13-3	0-0	13-3
WE	9	Wartburg	IIAC	0.722	0.545	0.633	84	C	48	13-5	13-5	0-0	13-5

Here’s how to read the chart, starting with the far left:

Obviously the first column is simply the region designation. The second column is the rank in the region. I like to rank three more teams than the NCAA does (I think they’ve done 10 in the NE and six everywhere else in the past, correct me if I’m wrong there). From there we get to see the teams and the conference followed by the beginning of the numbers.

The ‘WP’ column is the team’s in-region winning percentage, and ‘SOS’ is their in-region strength of schedule. From there I calculate what I call ‘RPI50’. This is .5 x WP + .5 x SOS. I am ranking teams according to this number. It’s simple, and obviously incomplete, but it will probably get us 70% of the way to the ‘real’ rankings.

Next are just a few items of interest. The ‘Nat.’ column shows each ranked team’s national ranking (of RPI50). The ‘Pool’ column projects which NCAA selection pool each team would be eligible for. The team in each AQ conference with the best RPI among all of their D3 games (number not shown) gets designated with Pool A. I don’t use the actual standings because these bids are (nine and a half times out of ten) handed out after a conference tournament. I designate one team for Pool B by simply taking the highest ranked team of the eligible group (independent teams). The rest of the teams are designated as being eligible for ‘Pool C’.

The ‘Status’ column is an indication of where each team stands within their projected pool. Pool B and C teams show a number that corresponds to their ranked position within the pool. One Pool B team will make the tournament, and 20 Pool C teams will make the tournament. Pool A teams are designated with symbols. A ‘C’ indicates that the team is currently one of the top 20 teams in the nation (according to RPI50), this would mean that a loss in a conference tourney would likely result in a very safe Pool C berth. A ‘wC’ means that the team is currently ranked inside of the range set by the top 20 Pool C teams. If a ‘Pool A, wC’ team lost in a conference tournament, they would have a very good chance of receiving a Pool C berth. A ‘bub’ designation indicates that the Pool A team would be on the bubble if they were lumped in with the Pool C crowd. I’m calling the bubble as the range defined by the “next ten” teams (Pool C teams ranked from 21 to 30).

Following the ‘Status’ column are four sets of team records: regional record, record versus D3 teams, record versus regionally ranked teams, and overall record.

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Regional Rankings 1/24/2012

2012-01-24T15:07:00.000-05:00

These regional rankings are not official. I use my own formula (heavily based on RPI). All data comes via d3hoops.com.

A few notes:

This is not a 'top-25 'poll or power poll. The point of these rankings is not to determine who I actually think are the best teams, but to approximate the NCAA's official regional rankings that are released starting in early February.
These rankings attempt to account for in-region winning percentage (primary criterion), in-region strength of schedule (primary), results versus regionally ranked teams (primary), division III winning percentage (secondary criterion), and division III strength of schedule (secondary). It does not currently account for head-to-head matchups or results versus common opponents (both primary criteria), so feel free to ‘adjust’ the rankings accordingly.
I have changed the way I 'award' the Pool A bid. I'm now giving it to the team with the best conference record. In the case of a tie, it goes to the team with the higher RPI (versus all D-III teams).
The pre-championship manual has been released, and the home/away multipliers are still in effect, but this year they carry a different (better) weight. For away games, a multiplier of 1.25 is being applied to SOS, and for home games, a multiplier of 0.75 is used.

Through games of 1/23/2012

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
NE	1	Middlebury	NESCAC	1.000	0.577	0.683	1	A	C	14-0	15-0	0-0	16-0
NE	2	Rhode Island College	LEC	0.875	0.573	0.648	7	C	1	14-2	14-2	0-0	14-2
NE	3	Eastern Connecticut	LEC	0.933	0.507	0.614	8	A	C	14-1	14-1	0-0	14-1
NE	4	Amherst	NESCAC	0.867	0.568	0.642	9	C	2	13-2	15-2	0-0	15-2
NE	5	WPI	NEWMAC	0.824	0.607	0.661	10	A	C	14-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
NE	6	MIT	NEWMAC	0.941	0.480	0.595	11	C	3	16-1	16-1	0-0	16-1
NE	7	Western Connecticut	LEC	0.824	0.588	0.647	16	C	5	14-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
NE	8	Albertus Magnus	GNAC	0.933	0.429	0.555	29	A	wC	14-1	14-1	0-0	14-1
NE	9	Keene State	LEC	0.786	0.547	0.607	42	C	17	11-3	12-3	0-0	12-4
NE	10	Williams	NESCAC	0.813	0.495	0.574	49	C	22	13-3	15-3	0-0	15-3
NE	11	Wesleyan	NESCAC	0.778	0.527	0.590	53	C	24	14-4	14-5	0-0	14-5
NE	12	St. Josephs (Maine)	GNAC	0.733	0.553	0.598	62	C	29	11-4	11-4	0-0	11-4
NE	13	Tufts	NESCAC	0.706	0.579	0.611	63	C	30	12-5	12-5	0-0	12-5
NE	14	Becker	NECC	0.733	0.536	0.586	65	A		11-4	11-4	0-0	11-4
NE	15	Springfield	NEWMAC	0.667	0.550	0.579	79	C	43	10-5	12-5	0-0	12-5
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
EA	1	New York University	UAA	0.933	0.483	0.595	13	A	C	14-1	14-1	0-0	14-1
EA	2	Hartwick	E8	0.882	0.477	0.578	32	C	12	15-2	15-2	0-0	15-2
EA	3	Hobart	LL	0.857	0.490	0.582	37	A	wC	12-2	13-2	0-0	13-2
EA	4	Nazareth	E8	0.733	0.584	0.621	48	C	21	11-4	11-5	0-0	11-6
EA	5	Oswego State	SUNYAC	0.857	0.438	0.542	56	A	bub	12-2	12-2	0-0	12-3
EA	6	Medaille	AMCC	0.882	0.413	0.530	58	A	bub	15-2	15-2	0-0	16-2
EA	7	Rochester	UAA	0.688	0.582	0.608	66	C	31	11-5	11-5	0-0	11-5
EA	8	Stevens	E8	0.786	0.429	0.519	81	A		11-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
EA	9	Skidmore	LL	0.714	0.476	0.536	94	C	56	10-4	10-4	0-0	10-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
AT	1	St. Josephs (L.I.)	SKY	0.923	0.499	0.605	12	A	C	12-1	12-1	0-0	13-2
AT	2	William Paterson	NJAC	0.889	0.489	0.589	22	A	wC	16-2	16-2	0-0	16-2
AT	3	Staten Island	CUNYAC	0.867	0.507	0.597	26	A	wC	13-2	13-4	0-0	14-4
AT	4	New Jersey City	NJAC	0.800	0.533	0.600	43	C	18	12-3	13-4	0-0	14-4
AT	5	Ramapo	NJAC	0.722	0.531	0.579	69	C	33	13-5	13-5	0-0	13-5
AT	6	Montclair State	NJAC	0.750	0.498	0.561	72	C	36	12-4	13-4	0-0	15-4
AT	7	Richard Stockton	NJAC	0.688	0.537	0.574	76	C	40	11-5	12-6	0-0	12-6
AT	8	Mount St. Mary	SKY	0.769	0.437	0.520	89	C	51	10-3	11-4	0-0	12-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MA	1	Cabrini	CSAC	1.000	0.457	0.592	6	A	C	16-0	16-1	0-0	16-1
MA	2	Lycoming	MACC	0.867	0.534	0.617	17	A	C	13-2	14-2	0-0	15-2
MA	3	Franklin and Marshall	CC	0.938	0.444	0.567	21	A	wC	15-1	16-1	0-0	16-1
MA	4	Catholic	LAND	0.882	0.487	0.586	27	A	wC	15-2	15-3	0-0	15-3
MA	5	Keystone	CSAC	0.875	0.489	0.585	30	C	11	14-2	14-2	0-0	14-2
MA	6	Mary Washington	CAC	0.800	0.524	0.593	45	A	wC	12-3	12-3	0-0	13-5
MA	7	St. Marys (Md.)	CAC	0.733	0.589	0.625	46	C	19	11-4	12-5	0-0	13-5
MA	8	Wilkes	MACF	0.769	0.539	0.597	51	A	bub	10-3	10-3	0-0	13-3
MA	9	Penn State-Harrisburg	NEAC	0.800	0.480	0.560	64	A		12-3	12-3	0-0	14-3
MA	10	Alvernia	MACC	0.714	0.535	0.580	71	C	35	10-4	11-4	0-0	12-4
MA	11	Messiah	MACC	0.667	0.569	0.594	74	C	38	10-5	10-5	0-0	11-5
MA	12	Susquehanna	LAND	0.667	0.555	0.583	77	C	41	10-5	10-5	0-0	11-6
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
SO	1	Mary Hardin-Baylor	ASC	0.938	0.522	0.626	5	A	C	15-1	16-1	0-0	16-1
SO	2	Emory	UAA	0.938	0.482	0.596	14	C	4	15-1	15-1	0-0	15-1
SO	3	Randolph-Macon	ODAC	0.875	0.519	0.608	19	C	6	14-2	15-3	0-0	15-3
SO	4	Virginia Wesleyan	ODAC	0.867	0.492	0.585	31	A	wC	13-2	14-2	0-0	14-2
SO	5	Birmingham-Southern	SCAC	0.929	0.424	0.550	34	A	wC	13-1	15-1	0-0	16-1
SO	6	Christopher Newport	USAC	0.800	0.504	0.578	54	A	bub	12-3	15-3	0-0	15-3
SO	7	Guilford	ODAC	0.750	0.556	0.604	55	C	25	12-4	12-5	0-0	13-5
SO	8	Texas-Dallas	ASC	0.765	0.472	0.545	73	C	37	13-4	14-4	0-0	14-4
SO	9	Hampden-Sydney	ODAC	0.750	0.482	0.549	75	C	39	12-4	13-4	0-0	13-4
SO	10	Hardin-Simmons	ASC	0.714	0.500	0.554	82	C	45	10-4	12-4	0-0	12-4
SO	11	Lynchburg	ODAC	0.667	0.539	0.571	87	C	49	10-5	11-5	0-0	11-7
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
GL	1	Hope	MIAA	1.000	0.473	0.605	3	A	C	8-0	9-0	0-0	16-1
GL	2	Wabash	NCAC	0.800	0.573	0.629	24	C	9	12-3	12-3	0-0	14-3
GL	3	Bethany	PrAC	0.938	0.413	0.544	36	C	15	15-1	15-2	0-0	16-2
GL	4	Wittenberg	NCAC	0.786	0.562	0.618	38	A	wC	11-3	12-3	0-0	13-4
GL	5	Wooster	NCAC	0.800	0.515	0.586	47	C	20	12-3	13-3	0-0	14-3
GL	6	Ohio Wesleyan	NCAC	0.750	0.542	0.594	57	C	26	12-4	13-4	0-0	13-4
GL	7	Thiel	PrAC	0.800	0.469	0.552	67	A		12-3	12-3	0-0	12-4
GL	8	John Carroll	OAC	0.714	0.505	0.557	80	C	44	10-4	10-4	0-0	12-4
GL	9	Capital	OAC	0.667	0.539	0.571	86	A		10-5	11-6	0-0	11-6
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MW	1	Lake Forest	MWC	0.929	0.538	0.636	4	A	C	13-1	13-1	0-0	14-1
MW	2	Transylvania	HCAC	0.933	0.485	0.597	15	A	C	14-1	15-2	0-0	15-2
MW	3	Washington U.	UAA	0.800	0.571	0.628	25	C	10	12-3	12-4	0-0	12-4
MW	4	Illinois Wesleyan	CCIW	0.800	0.562	0.622	28	A	wC	12-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
MW	5	Wheaton (Ill.)	CCIW	0.800	0.554	0.616	33	C	13	12-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
MW	6	Grinnell	MWC	0.923	0.422	0.547	39	C	16	12-1	12-1	0-0	13-1
MW	7	Edgewood	NATHC	0.800	0.540	0.605	41	A	wC	12-3	12-3	0-0	14-3
MW	8	Hanover	HCAC	0.800	0.514	0.585	50	C	23	12-3	12-4	0-0	12-4
MW	9	Concordia (Wis.)	NATHC	0.733	0.559	0.602	60	C	27	11-4	11-4	0-0	12-4
MW	10	Rose-Hulman	HCAC	0.765	0.525	0.585	61	C	28	13-4	13-4	0-0	13-4
MW	11	Ripon	MWC	0.667	0.557	0.584	78	C	42	8-4	9-5	0-0	10-5
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
WE	1	UW-Whitewater	WIAC	0.944	0.532	0.635	2	A	C	17-1	17-1	0-0	17-1
WE	2	Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	SCIAC	0.900	0.499	0.599	18	A	C	9-1	11-1	0-0	15-1
WE	3	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.813	0.575	0.634	20	C	7	13-3	13-3	0-0	13-5
WE	4	Dubuque	IIAC	0.857	0.516	0.601	23	C	8	12-2	12-2	0-0	12-5
WE	5	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	0.750	0.595	0.634	35	C	14	12-4	14-4	0-0	14-4
WE	6	Whitworth	NWC	0.867	0.474	0.572	40	A	wC	13-2	14-2	0-0	14-3
WE	7	Luther	IIAC	0.824	0.507	0.586	44	A	wC	14-3	14-3	0-0	14-3
WE	8	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.733	0.576	0.615	52	A	bub	11-4	11-4	0-0	12-4
WE	9	Nebraska Wesleyan	IND	0.800	0.490	0.568	59	B	1	4-1	4-1	0-0	8-10
WE	10	Whitman	NWC	0.733	0.520	0.573	68	C	32	11-4	12-4	0-0	13-4
WE	11	George Fox	NWC	0.700	0.555	0.591	70	C	34	7-3	7-3	0-0	9-8
WE	12	UW-La Crosse	WIAC	0.625	0.572	0.585	90	C	52	10-6	11-6	0-0	12-6

KEY:
WP - Winning percentage
wSOS - Strength of schedule (including home/neutral/away adjustment)

NAT - National rank (according to my formula)

C - "Guaranteed" Pool C (within top 18 RPI in nation)
wC - Within Pool C position (within RPI range of current top 18 Pool C candidates)
bub - Pool C bubble (within RPI range of current top 28 Pool C candidates)
number - Current RPI rank among Pool C candidates.

REG - record versus in-region opponents
D3 - record versus all D3 opponents
vRRO - record versus regionally ranked opponents
OVR - overall record

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Hope Preview

2012-01-18T09:39:00.001-05:00

	Game Sixteen (7-8, 2-2)
Who	#7 Hope Flying Dutchmen (14-1, 4-0)
Where	DeVos Fieldhouse, Holland, MI
When	Wednesday, January 18 -- 8:00 PM
TV	WGVU ( Over-the-air Channel 35 & 35.1, Comcast Channels 6 & 240)
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Stretch Internet (WGVU feed), MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

**I have one general admission ticket available for tonight's game. Send me an email (use the email/letter icon on the sidebar) if you'd like to claim it.**

When We Last Met
Hope won last year’s MIAA Tournament Championship game in Holland by five points, but it wasn’t really a close game. The Dutchmen lead by twelve points for most of the second half, and although the Knights fought back to cut the lead to only three with thirty seconds left (courtesy of Hope only scoring four points between the 7:54 mark and the 0:30 mark), they never had the ball while trailing by only a single possession.

Tom Snikkers was Calvin’s best player that night; he scored 20 points on 16 shots, but the rest of the team shot putridly. The 3-19 that the Knights shot from three point range was the real killer. It was just one of those really bad nights.

About Hope
Hope is currently ranked seventh in the country by D3hoops.com, but that ranking is actually a bit low for my taste; they've been playing like a top-five team all season. The Massey Ratings has them as the second ranked team in Division III, with a rating that would beat out 100 of the 345 Division I teams (just above teams such as IUPUI, Toledo, and Army). We can argue the validity of that rating, and whether or not they'd actually beat those teams, but the point is that Hope's a very good team right now.

Hope's probably starters are:

Nate VanArendonk, a 6-10, 255 lb. center, is in his first year after receiving a medical redshirt during his one year on scholarship at Central Michigan last season. He had a slow start to the season, but he's been picking up the pace recently -- during conference play he's averaged better than 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 blocks per game.

Nate Snuggerud, a 6-5 junior forward, is perhaps the most unheralded of Hope's (effective) starters. He's been solid all season (averaging about 14 and 6 while shooting nearly 60%), and he's carried that right into conference play. He's a strong All-MIAA candidate.

Peter Bunn, a 6-3 senior guard, is back after missing last season due to injury concerns. He was effectively the MIAA MVP runner up two seasons ago, and while he's probably not going to garner too much MVP consideration this year, he's going to be an All-MIAA player. Bunn has always been a good shooter, but by all accounts he's improved as an athlete this year as well.

David Krombeen, a 6-2 senior guard, is the straw that stirs the drink for the Dutchmen. He's their top candidate for league MVP, and he's been a team leader this season. He's always been known for his tenacity on defense in forcing steals, and for his high assist-to-turnover ratio, but he's really turned up the scoring element this season. Contrary to what some newspaper articles have suggested, he's not going to torch you over and over again from three point range, but the mid-range and closer game is where he's deadly. He'll get to the rack, stop-and-pop, backdoor cut, or anything else that uses his speed and agility to slip by defenders for a good look at the basket.

Billy Seiler, a 6-2 junior guard, is the fifth (nominal) starter. He's Hope's David Eckstein award winner for hustle and scrap (and all those other things that folks love to rave about), but he doesn't usually show up big in the box score. I call him a nominal starter because Colton Overway and Logan Neil have received more minutes off the bench than he has since MIAA play began.

'Four Factors'

I'm actually surprised at how much Hope has turned the ball this season. They're actually a few tenths of a percentage point worse than Calvin in this respect, but it's nothing that would make a difference.

The rest is the same old story. Calvin can't shoot, Hope shoots very well, and Calvin may have a slight rebounding advantage (although the rebounding prowess has grown weaker now that Vallie and DeVries are on the shelf).

Hope likes to get to the free throw line, but Calvin can't oblige by committing stupid fouls due to poor defensive positioning.

Team	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	ORb%	Rb%	Ar	TOr	Blk%	Stl%	OEff	DEff	POS	POS/40
Calvin	0.448	0.97	0.31	0.35	0.54	0.59	0.20	0.13	0.10	95.5	97.9	1103	72.9
Hope	0.547	1.15	0.36	0.32	0.54	0.55	0.20	0.12	0.13	107.8	90.7	1093	72.9

Final Thoughts, Preditions, and Whatnot
This one’s probably not going to be pretty, but I’m prepared for that. For me, this game won’t be as much about the W-L result (although I’m not conceding defeat), but more about the approach to the game. I’m looking for Calvin to execute what they’re able to, to learn, and to get better.

I’d like to see Calvin establish a physical toughness. Not an unintelligent over-aggressiveness on defense leading to stupid fouls, but more a willingness on offense to take it right at (not thru) the Hope defenders. Not that anything should be forced offensively, we’ve seen what happens then (lots of missed shots), but working within the offense to try to get the ball down low to Kruis, Snikkers, and DeBoer. Jordan Mast needs to be willing to shoot the ball when he’s open. Bryan Powell needs to find only good shots. Smart play will be what wins this game for Calvin. It’ll take 100% focus and commitment for 40 minutes. Simple task.

Everything I’m seeing says Hope by 16-20 or somewhere in that range. Massey says Hope by 21, but my efficiency calculations say it’ll be more toward the 16 point end. Either way, Hope’s favored big.

Benchmarks: Scoring more than 60. Allowing fewer than 75. Those numbers would probably “beat the prediction” on offense and defense respectively.

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Stats-and-More Versus Alma

2012-01-17T17:27:00.000-05:00

Win Probability

Alma took a 9-3 lead about four minutes into the game, but it was a steady climb from there on to the win. Despite the student webcast announcers calling the game a ‘nail biter’, nothing really exciting happened in the final twelve or thirteen minutes.

Game Chart

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar	TOr	Rb%	eff
Snikkers	0.70	0.44	0.452	0.94	0.57	0.19	0.00	0.18	-
Kruis	0.60	0.15	0.167	0.86	1.17	0.19	0.22	0.14	-
Mast	0.55	0.11	0.750	1.21	0.50	0.08	0.00	0.06	-
Rietema	0.33	0.05	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.22	0.25	0.11	-
DeBoer	0.70	0.15	0.143	0.29	0.00	0.05	0.09	0.08	-
Powell	0.78	0.34	0.556	1.18	0.28	0.00	0.05	0.05	-
Haverdink	0.63	0.12	0.500	1.48	1.60	0.06	0.07	0.11	-
Dykstra	0.35	0.17	0.500	1.12	0.25	0.13	0.00	0.03	-
Stout	0.18	0.17	0.000	0.68	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.13	-
Van Eck	0.20	0.00	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.00	1.00	0.23	-
Calvin	1.00	1.00	0.426	0.99	0.54	0.39	0.11	0.56	106.8
Alma	1.00	1.00	0.460	1.03	0.38	0.48	0.17	0.44	94.6

Calvin finally scored an offensive efficiency rating on the good side of 100 (it hadn’t happened since the Trinity game), but Alma’s defense has tended to rate below average by about the same amount, so what we’re left with was probably Calvin playing on offense like an average team (if that makes sense). So we’re not sad panda, but we’re not jumping for joy and tossing our spreadsheet printouts in the air claiming we found quality offensive production either. Somewhere right in the middle of those (but perhaps still a bit closer to sad panda).

The (effective) field goal percentage was the best it’s been in conference play, but at only .426 it still wasn’t very good. A very good free throw rate and solid rebounding margin saved the day offensively. If you can’t make regular field goals, you need to get to the free throw line to try the unguarded ones. Unfortunately, Calvin hasn’t been all that good at getting to the line. It was good that they did here; I’d love to see it continue.

Jordan Mast NEEDZ MOAR SHOTS.

Tyler Dykstra had his second quietly effective game in a row (at least in the stat sheets). He could stand to get more involved on the boards, but I’m liking the (efficient) six-ish points per game that he’s chipped in recently. And as we’ll see in a bit, he scored well in the individual efficiency numbers for the third straight game.

Whatever Bryan Powell’s been doing needs to continue. I still have about four heart attacks every time he lets a shot fly, but goodness if he hasn’t been knocking them down.

From my perspective, Tom Snikkers’ game flow recently has been miss shots early, then force the issue (and miss some more), and then relax and let it come (and score buckets). I think he plays better as a part of the offense, and not when he’s playing to be the offense.

Player Efficiency Chart

Player	MIN	PF	PA	+/-	O-Pos	D-Pos	OEff	DEff	Margin
Powell	30.1	68	61	7	60	60	113.3	101.7	11.7
DeBoer	28.8	55	50	5	59	60	93.2	83.3	9.9
Snikkers	28.4	61	58	3	55	57	110.9	101.8	9.2
Kruis	24.3	50	38	12	46	45	108.7	84.4	24.3
Haverdink	24.3	53	50	3	45	46	117.8	108.7	9.1
Mast	22.1	48	45	3	45	43	106.7	104.7	2.0
Dykstra	13.9	30	28	2	29	31	103.4	90.3	13.1
Rietema	13.2	27	20	7	29	30	93.1	66.7	26.4
Van Eck	7.9	17	21	-4	19	20	89.5	105.0	-15.5
Stout	7.0	16	14	2	13	13	123.1	107.7	15.4
DeVries	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
DeYoung	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Henry	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Huizenga	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Nadeau	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
TOTAL	40.0	85	77	8	80	81	106.3	95.1	11.2

David Rietema battled foul trouble all afternoon (and eventually fouled out after only 13 minutes), so Bryan Powell had to play a lot more minutes than maybe he’s used to, but he performed well both on the stat sheet and in the efficiency numbers.

Tyler Kruis didn’t have the point total impact that I figured he would, but while he was in the game, the team performed exceptionally well on defense. Calvin’s length clearly bothered the Alma offense, and I think it’s fair to say that Kruis was a big part of that.

I had heard that Matt DeBoer was suffering from the flu a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know if he’s still feeling the effects of that or not, but he hasn’t performed all that well offensively in a few games, and there’s a big difference showing up for him in these efficiency numbers as well. His jump hook was deadly in the early part of the year, but it’s seemed to come up short in recent games.

Nice seven minute debut for Daniel Stout.

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Women's Regional Rankings 1/16/2012

2012-01-16T16:57:00.000-05:00

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
NE	1	Amherst	NESCAC	1.000	0.561	0.781	4	C	1	10-0	14-0	0-0	14-0
NE	2	Williams	NESCAC	0.857	0.674	0.766	8	A	C	12-2	13-2	0-0	14-2
NE	3	Tufts	NESCAC	0.857	0.625	0.741	14	C	5	12-2	12-3	0-0	12-3
NE	4	Babson	NEWMAC	0.846	0.566	0.706	22	A	wC	11-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
NE	5	Colby	NESCAC	0.833	0.560	0.697	29	C	10	10-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
NE	6	Connecticut College	NESCAC	0.846	0.543	0.695	32	C	13	11-2	11-2	0-0	12-2
NE	7	Rhode Island College	LEC	0.857	0.521	0.689	34	C	14	12-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
NE	8	Fitchburg State	MASCAC	0.923	0.450	0.686	36	C	16	12-1	12-1	0-0	13-1
NE	9	Bowdoin	NESCAC	0.769	0.591	0.680	44	C	22	10-3	10-4	0-0	10-4
NE	10	University of New England	CCC	0.750	0.587	0.668	50	A	wC	9-3	9-3	0-0	9-3
NE	11	Emmanuel	GNAC	0.727	0.594	0.661	61	A	wC	8-3	9-4	0-0	9-4
NE	12	Southern Maine	LEC	0.714	0.603	0.658	65	A	wC	10-4	10-4	0-0	11-4
NE	13	Wesleyan	NESCAC	0.750	0.553	0.651	69	C	36	9-3	9-4	0-0	9-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
EA	1	Rochester	UAA	1.000	0.603	0.802	1	A	C	13-0	13-0	0-0	14-0
EA	2	Ithaca	E8	0.917	0.632	0.775	7	A	C	11-1	11-2	0-0	12-2
EA	3	St. Lawrence	LL	0.750	0.579	0.664	54	A	wC	9-3	9-4	0-0	9-4
EA	4	Buffalo State	SUNYAC	0.833	0.495	0.664	57	C	31	10-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
EA	5	Hartwick	E8	0.818	0.507	0.663	58	C	32	9-2	10-3	0-0	10-3
EA	6	SUNYIT	NEAC	0.900	0.419	0.660	63	A	wC	9-1	9-2	0-0	11-2
EA	7	Oneonta State	SUNYAC	0.727	0.571	0.649	73	A	wC	8-3	8-5	0-0	8-5
EA	8	Skidmore	LL	0.750	0.524	0.637	86	C	51	9-3	9-3	0-0	9-3
EA	9	Geneseo State	SUNYAC	0.727	0.505	0.616	95	C	58	8-3	9-3	0-0	9-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
AT	1	William Paterson	NJAC	0.929	0.648	0.788	3	A	C	13-1	14-1	0-0	15-1
AT	2	Kean	NJAC	0.933	0.624	0.778	5	C	2	14-1	14-2	0-0	15-2
AT	3	Mary Washington	CAC	1.000	0.501	0.751	10	A	C	13-0	15-0	0-0	15-0
AT	4	Mount St. Mary	SKY	0.846	0.596	0.721	18	A	C	11-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
AT	5	York (Pa.)	CAC	0.800	0.566	0.683	41	C	20	12-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
AT	6	Richard Stockton	NJAC	0.700	0.586	0.643	79	C	44	7-3	10-3	0-0	10-4
AT	7	Rutgers-Newark	NJAC	0.733	0.544	0.639	83	C	48	11-4	11-4	0-0	12-4
AT	8	Ramapo	NJAC	0.750	0.486	0.618	93	C	56	9-3	10-4	0-0	11-4
AT	9	Catholic	LAND	0.692	0.524	0.608	98	C	60	9-4	10-4	0-0	11-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MA	1	Juniata	LAND	0.933	0.504	0.719	19	A	C	14-1	15-1	0-0	15-1
MA	2	Kings	MACF	0.818	0.591	0.704	25	A	wC	9-2	10-3	0-0	11-3
MA	3	Muhlenberg	CC	0.917	0.474	0.695	30	C	11	11-1	11-1	0-0	12-1
MA	4	Johns Hopkins	CC	0.833	0.550	0.692	33	A	wC	10-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
MA	5	Lebanon Valley	MACC	0.857	0.504	0.681	43	C	21	12-2	13-2	0-0	13-2
MA	6	Messiah	MACC	0.786	0.559	0.673	47	A	wC	11-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
MA	7	Eastern	MACF	0.818	0.510	0.664	56	C	30	9-2	10-3	0-0	11-3
MA	8	Haverford	CC	0.786	0.489	0.637	85	C	50	11-3	11-3	0-0	11-3
MA	9	Delaware Valley	MACF	0.667	0.523	0.595	109	C	70	6-3	7-3	0-0	9-5
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
SO	1	Berry	IND	1.000	0.472	0.736	15	N/A		1-0	5-6	0-0	5-9
SO	2	Louisiana College	ASC	0.923	0.506	0.715	21	A	C	12-1	12-1	0-0	12-2
SO	3	Centre	SCAC	0.917	0.495	0.706	23	A	wC	11-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
SO	4	Texas-Dallas	ASC	0.929	0.481	0.705	24	C	9	13-1	14-1	0-0	15-1
SO	5	Eastern Mennonite	ODAC	0.909	0.467	0.688	35	C	15	10-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
SO	6	Howard Payne	ASC	0.857	0.515	0.686	37	C	17	12-2	12-2	0-0	13-2
SO	7	Concordia (Texas)	ASC	0.846	0.497	0.672	48	C	25	11-2	11-2	0-0	12-2
SO	8	Ferrum	USAC	0.818	0.515	0.667	51	C	27	9-2	10-2	0-0	11-2
SO	9	Piedmont	GSAC	0.900	0.431	0.666	52	A	wC	9-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
GL	1	Mount Union	OAC	0.923	0.579	0.751	9	A	C	12-1	14-1	0-0	14-1
GL	2	Calvin	MIAA	1.000	0.501	0.750	11	A	C	9-0	11-0	0-0	15-0
GL	3	DePauw	NCAC	0.923	0.575	0.749	13	A	C	12-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
GL	4	Franklin	HCAC	0.929	0.475	0.702	28	A	wC	13-1	13-1	0-0	14-1
GL	5	St. Vincent	PrAC	0.857	0.514	0.685	38	A	wC	12-2	12-3	0-0	12-3
GL	6	Ohio Northern	OAC	0.813	0.555	0.684	40	C	19	13-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
GL	7	Thomas More	PrAC	0.833	0.515	0.674	46	C	24	10-2	10-4	0-0	11-4
GL	8	Otterbein	OAC	0.813	0.504	0.658	64	C	33	13-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
GL	9	Manchester	HCAC	0.786	0.524	0.655	68	C	35	11-3	11-4	0-0	11-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
CE	1	Chicago	UAA	1.000	0.555	0.778	6	C	3	14-0	14-0	0-0	14-0
CE	2	Washington U.	UAA	0.917	0.584	0.750	12	C	4	11-1	12-2	0-0	12-2
CE	3	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	0.857	0.597	0.727	16	C	6	12-2	13-2	0-0	13-3
CE	4	UW-Eau Claire	WIAC	0.875	0.559	0.717	20	C	8	14-2	14-2	0-0	14-3
CE	5	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.800	0.609	0.704	26	A	wC	12-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
CE	6	UW-La Crosse	WIAC	0.786	0.585	0.685	39	C	18	11-3	11-4	0-0	12-4
CE	7	Westminster (Mo.)	SLIAC	0.889	0.474	0.681	42	A	wC	8-1	10-1	0-0	12-2
CE	8	Elmhurst	CCIW	0.867	0.483	0.675	45	C	23	13-2	13-2	0-0	13-2
CE	9	UW-Whitewater	WIAC	0.750	0.580	0.665	53	C	28	12-4	12-4	0-0	12-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
WE	1	George Fox	NWC	1.000	0.602	0.801	2	A	C	10-0	12-0	0-0	15-0
WE	2	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.923	0.520	0.722	17	C	7	12-1	12-1	0-0	12-1
WE	3	Gustavus Adolphus	MIAC	0.846	0.562	0.704	27	A	wC	11-2	11-2	0-0	11-2
WE	4	Lewis and Clark	NWC	0.875	0.515	0.695	31	C	12	7-1	9-1	0-0	14-1
WE	5	St. Olaf	MIAC	0.769	0.569	0.669	49	C	26	10-3	10-3	0-0	10-3
WE	6	Coe	IIAC	0.800	0.514	0.657	66	C	34	12-3	12-3	0-0	12-4
WE	7	Occidental	SCIAC	0.900	0.400	0.650	71	C	38	9-1	12-2	0-0	12-2
WE	8	Wartburg	IIAC	0.750	0.538	0.644	77	C	42	12-4	12-4	0-0	12-4
WE	9	Whitman	NWC	0.714	0.565	0.640	82	C	47	5-2	7-3	0-0	8-7

Regional Rankings 1/16/2012

2012-01-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

These regional rankings are not official. I use my own formula (heavily based on RPI). All data comes via d3hoops.com.

A few notes:

This is not a 'top-25 'poll or power poll. The point of these rankings is not to determine who I actually think are the best teams, but to approximate the NCAA's official regional rankings that are released starting in early February.
These rankings attempt to account for in-region winning percentage (primary criterion), in-region strength of schedule (primary), results versus regionally ranked teams (primary), division III winning percentage (secondary criterion), and division III strength of schedule (secondary). It does not currently account for head-to-head matchups or results versus common opponents (both primary criteria), so feel free to ‘adjust’ the rankings accordingly.
I 'award' the Pool A bid to the team with the highest RPI (versus all D-III teams). Since 97.6% of the automatic bids are doled out to winners of conference tournaments anyway, I figured this was about as relevant as using actual standings (and 100 times easier).
The pre-championship manual has been released, and the home/away multipliers are still in effect, but this year they carry a different (better) weight. For away games, a multiplier of 1.25 is being applied to SOS, and for home games, a multiplier of 0.75 is used.

Through games of 1/15/2012

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
NE	1	Middlebury	NESCAC	1.000	0.576	0.682	1	A	C	12-0	13-0	0-0	14-0
NE	2	MIT	NEWMAC	1.000	0.474	0.606	7	C	1	16-0	16-0	0-0	16-0
NE	3	Western Connecticut	LEC	0.867	0.600	0.667	8	C	2	13-2	13-2	0-0	13-2
NE	4	Rhode Island College	LEC	0.857	0.599	0.663	12	A	C	12-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
NE	5	Amherst	NESCAC	0.917	0.528	0.625	13	C	3	11-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
NE	6	Eastern Connecticut	LEC	0.923	0.500	0.606	17	C	4	12-1	12-1	0-0	12-1
NE	7	WPI	NEWMAC	0.800	0.580	0.635	26	A	wC	12-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
NE	8	Albertus Magnus	GNAC	0.923	0.457	0.574	27	C	8	12-1	12-1	0-0	12-1
NE	9	Wesleyan	NESCAC	0.800	0.522	0.592	46	C	19	12-3	12-4	0-0	12-4
NE	10	St. Josephs (Maine)	GNAC	0.750	0.560	0.607	50	A	bub	9-3	9-3	0-0	9-3
NE	11	Tufts	NESCAC	0.714	0.589	0.620	51	C	23	10-4	10-4	0-0	10-4
NE	12	Williams	NESCAC	0.786	0.492	0.566	58	C	28	11-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
NE	13	Keene State	LEC	0.750	0.522	0.579	61	C	30	9-3	10-3	0-0	10-4
NE	14	Becker	NECC	0.667	0.575	0.598	71	A		8-4	8-4	0-0	8-4
NE	15	Fitchburg State	MASCAC	0.750	0.471	0.541	84	C	48	9-3	9-3	0-0	9-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
EA	1	New York University	UAA	0.909	0.452	0.566	31	C	11	10-1	11-1	0-0	12-1
EA	2	Hobart	LL	0.818	0.535	0.605	36	A	wC	9-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
EA	3	Hartwick	E8	0.867	0.486	0.582	40	C	15	13-2	13-2	0-0	13-2
EA	4	Nazareth	E8	0.769	0.520	0.583	54	A	bub	10-3	10-4	0-0	10-5
EA	5	Oswego State	SUNYAC	0.846	0.425	0.530	62	C	31	11-2	11-2	0-0	11-3
EA	6	Stevens	E8	0.833	0.428	0.529	65	C	33	10-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
EA	7	Rochester	UAA	0.643	0.611	0.619	66	C	34	9-5	9-5	0-0	9-5
EA	8	Medaille	AMCC	0.857	0.400	0.514	68	C	35	12-2	12-2	0-0	13-2
EA	9	Clarkson	LL	0.667	0.513	0.552	97	C	61	6-3	7-3	0-0	9-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
AT	1	St. Josephs (L.I.)	SKY	0.909	0.522	0.619	16	A	C	10-1	10-1	0-0	11-2
AT	2	Staten Island	CUNYAC	0.833	0.584	0.646	20	A	C	10-2	10-4	0-0	11-4
AT	3	New Jersey City	NJAC	0.833	0.541	0.614	30	C	10	10-2	11-3	0-0	12-3
AT	4	William Paterson	NJAC	0.857	0.496	0.586	35	A	wC	12-2	12-2	0-0	13-2
AT	5	Brooklyn	CUNYAC	0.727	0.555	0.598	57	C	27	8-3	8-3	0-0	10-3
AT	6	Ramapo	NJAC	0.733	0.533	0.583	63	C	32	11-4	11-4	0-0	12-4
AT	7	Montclair State	NJAC	0.733	0.507	0.564	74	C	38	11-4	12-4	0-0	14-4
AT	8	Mount St. Mary	SKY	0.750	0.451	0.525	93	C	57	9-3	10-4	0-0	10-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MA	1	Cabrini	CSAC	1.000	0.479	0.609	5	A	C	14-0	14-1	0-0	14-1
MA	2	Lycoming	MACC	0.923	0.538	0.635	9	A	C	12-1	13-1	0-0	14-1
MA	3	Mary Washington	CAC	0.846	0.514	0.597	32	A	wC	11-2	11-2	0-0	12-4
MA	4	Franklin and Marshall	CC	0.929	0.430	0.555	33	A	wC	13-1	14-1	0-0	14-1
MA	5	Catholic	LAND	0.867	0.491	0.585	34	A	wC	13-2	13-3	0-0	13-3
MA	6	Keystone	CSAC	0.846	0.500	0.587	42	C	16	11-2	11-2	0-0	11-2
MA	7	St. Marys (Md.)	CAC	0.692	0.594	0.618	55	C	26	9-4	10-5	0-0	11-5
MA	8	Wilkes	MACF	0.727	0.554	0.598	59	A	bub	8-3	8-3	0-0	11-3
MA	9	Penn State-Harrisburg	NEAC	0.769	0.484	0.555	67	A		10-3	10-3	0-0	12-3
MA	10	Alvernia	MACC	0.667	0.565	0.590	78	C	42	8-4	9-4	0-0	10-4
MA	11	Juniata	LAND	0.714	0.516	0.565	80	C	44	10-4	11-4	0-0	12-4
MA	12	Susquehanna	LAND	0.615	0.588	0.595	91	C	55	8-5	8-5	0-0	9-6
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
SO	1	Mary Hardin-Baylor	ASC	1.000	0.485	0.614	3	A	C	14-0	15-0	0-0	15-0
SO	2	Virginia Wesleyan	ODAC	0.923	0.512	0.615	14	A	C	12-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
SO	3	Emory	UAA	0.929	0.487	0.598	19	C	5	13-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
SO	4	Randolph-Macon	ODAC	0.857	0.494	0.585	39	C	14	12-2	13-3	0-0	13-3
SO	5	Birmingham-Southern	SCAC	0.917	0.431	0.552	41	A	wC	11-1	13-1	0-0	14-1
SO	6	Hardin-Simmons	ASC	0.833	0.509	0.590	44	C	18	10-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
SO	7	Christopher Newport	USAC	0.750	0.514	0.573	64	A		9-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
SO	8	Guilford	ODAC	0.714	0.530	0.576	73	C	37	10-4	10-5	0-0	11-5
SO	9	Lynchburg	ODAC	0.692	0.543	0.580	76	C	40	9-4	10-4	0-0	10-6
SO	10	Hampden-Sydney	ODAC	0.786	0.447	0.532	77	C	41	11-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
SO	11	Texas-Dallas	ASC	0.733	0.474	0.539	87	C	51	11-4	12-4	0-0	12-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
GL	1	Hope	MIAA	1.000	0.503	0.628	2	A	C	6-0	7-0	0-0	14-1
GL	2	Wabash	NCAC	0.846	0.572	0.641	18	A	C	11-2	11-2	0-0	13-2
GL	3	Wittenberg	NCAC	0.833	0.546	0.618	28	C	9	10-2	11-2	0-0	12-3
GL	4	Bethany	PrAC	0.929	0.416	0.544	43	C	17	13-1	13-2	0-0	14-2
GL	5	Ohio Wesleyan	NCAC	0.786	0.525	0.590	47	C	20	11-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
GL	6	Wooster	NCAC	0.769	0.538	0.596	49	C	22	10-3	11-3	0-0	12-3
GL	7	Adrian	MIAA	0.667	0.580	0.602	69	C	36	4-2	7-2	0-0	10-4
GL	8	John Carroll	OAC	0.750	0.496	0.560	70	A		9-3	9-3	0-0	11-3
GL	9	Thiel	PrAC	0.769	0.474	0.548	72	A		10-3	10-3	0-0	10-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MW	1	Lake Forest	MWC	0.917	0.560	0.649	6	A	C	11-1	11-1	0-0	12-1
MW	2	Washington U.	UAA	0.846	0.585	0.650	15	A	C	11-2	11-3	0-0	11-3
MW	3	Illinois Wesleyan	CCIW	0.846	0.548	0.622	22	A	wC	11-2	13-2	0-0	13-2
MW	4	Transylvania	HCAC	0.923	0.468	0.582	23	A	wC	12-1	13-2	0-0	13-2
MW	5	Wheaton (Ill.)	CCIW	0.769	0.582	0.629	37	C	12	10-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
MW	6	Grinnell	MWC	0.909	0.443	0.559	38	C	13	10-1	10-1	0-0	11-1
MW	7	Edgewood	NATHC	0.769	0.567	0.618	45	A	wC	10-3	10-3	0-0	12-3
MW	8	Rose-Hulman	HCAC	0.800	0.513	0.585	48	C	21	12-3	12-3	0-0	12-3
MW	9	Hanover	HCAC	0.769	0.528	0.588	53	C	25	10-3	10-4	0-0	10-4
MW	10	Concordia (Wis.)	NATHC	0.750	0.490	0.555	75	C	39	9-3	9-3	0-0	10-3
MW	11	Lakeland	NATHC	0.778	0.458	0.538	79	C	43	7-2	9-3	0-0	11-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
WE	1	UW-Whitewater	WIAC	0.938	0.538	0.638	4	A	C	15-1	15-1	0-0	15-1
WE	2	Dubuque	IIAC	1.000	0.462	0.597	10	A	C	11-0	11-0	0-0	11-3
WE	3	Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	SCIAC	1.000	0.459	0.594	11	A	C	8-0	10-0	0-0	14-0
WE	4	Whitworth	NWC	0.923	0.485	0.595	21	A	wC	12-1	13-1	0-0	13-2
WE	5	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.857	0.533	0.614	24	C	6	12-2	12-2	0-0	12-4
WE	6	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	0.786	0.597	0.644	25	C	7	11-3	13-3	0-0	13-3
WE	7	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.750	0.627	0.657	29	A	wC	9-3	9-3	0-0	10-3
WE	8	Central	IIAC	0.833	0.468	0.559	52	C	24	10-2	11-2	0-0	11-2
WE	9	Nebraska Wesleyan	IND	0.800	0.484	0.563	56	B	1	4-1	4-1	0-0	7-9
WE	10	Luther	IIAC	0.786	0.491	0.565	60	C	29	11-3	11-3	0-0	11-3
WE	11	UW-La Crosse	WIAC	0.643	0.580	0.596	81	C	45	9-5	10-5	0-0	11-5
WE	12	Pomona-Pitzer	SCIAC	0.750	0.471	0.541	83	C	47	6-2	6-2	0-0	8-5

Better Than the Really Bad Teams

2012-01-16T11:05:00.000-05:00

Calvin 85, Alma 77 (box score)

After Calvin’s 64-59 loss to Albion a week ago, I was thinking that even making the four-team MIAA Tournament might be more than a bit of a stretch. I’m more optimistic at the moment. Not that either Kalamazoo or Alma are any good, but beating the bad teams – and not really struggling with either one – is still a good sign. I would have loved to see Calvin keep the double-digit final margin on Saturday, but I’ll take the eight point win on the road, especially since the final twelve minutes or so were spent with Calvin up by 11 (or so). Making the MIAA Tournament will still be a chore for the Knights, but they’re “in the hunt” along with Trine and Albion (I’m assuming Hope and Adrian are shoe-ins). I still think Albion is the weakest of the three, but they have a leg up on Calvin with the early head-to-head win; the rematch at (historic) Kresge Gymnasium looks like a must win for the Knights.

But anyway, this is supposed to be about the Alma game. The Scots had been a team that shot the ball really well from the floor, but due to turnovers, iffy free throw shooting, and poor rebounding, they really didn’t score all that many points. The Scots hit a fair number of their free throws on Saturday, but Calvin controlled the glass and forced a lot of tough shots, and so Alma only managed an effective field goal percentage of .460 (which looks good to us, but is 80 points below their season average) and an offensive efficiency rating of 94.6.

Bullets

I had been down on Brian Haverdink after the trip out west, but he’s played fairly well in the last three games, averaging about nine points per game (and a .571 eFG% and 1.39 PPWS). I’d like to see several more games like this before I hand him the key to the city, but some scoring touch from Havs is a welcomed addition.
After a 1-for-7 start to the game, Tom Snikkers made eight of his final fourteen shot attempts. He finally started hitting some shots with consistency, but free throws were a problem. Tom would have had a very nice day had he done better than 6-12 from the stripe. Credit to him for getting to the line 12 times though, I think he needs that as part of his game.
Matt DeBoer and Tyler Kruis need to get going offensively ASAP. They’re two of the top scorers on the team, but they’ve been mostly absent on the offensive end of the floor since the conference season began. Calvin will need all scorers in top form come Wednesday.
I don’t think there’s any question that we just saw Bryan Powell’s best game in a Calvin uniform. All of a sudden he’s become on of Calvin’s most reliable scorers. Over the last nine Calvin games (all the way back since the Carthage game), Bryan has averaged 11.9 points, a .500 effective field goal percentage, and 1.07 points per weighted shot. Turnovers haven’t been a big problem either, as 1.9 per game isn’t bad for a guy that plays primarily as a point guard (David Rietema has averaged 1.7 TO’s per game over this same stretch).
It was interesting to see Dan Stout get his first few minutes of the season. I don’t know if it was a chance to get his feet wet against an obviously undersized opponent, or if coach will begin working him into the rotation (no minutes for Adam DeYoung, and only eight for Nate Van Eck), but he figures to be a contributor down the road. He’ll need to add some muscle, but 6-9 doesn’t grow on trees. He looks to have a nice touch on his shot, if you like big men who can shoot (and I do).
This fact struck me yesterday: Calvin will return (or, should return) all five starters for next season, but at least two of them probably won’t start. The Knights should go from inexperienced to quite experienced at the start of next season.

Stats-and-More to come.

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Alma Preview

2012-01-14T00:30:00.000-05:00

	Game Fifteen (6-8, 1-2)
Who	Alma Scots (4-10, 0-3)
Where	Art Smith Arena, Alma, MI
When	Saturday, January 14 -- 3:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Ustream, MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

When We Last Met
Calvin trounced Alma 115-65 at the Van Noord Arena on Senior Day last year. Five Knights reached double figures in the scoring column but, unfortunately, none of those players are playing this year (last year’s four seniors plus Jordan Brink)

About Alma
Alma's a little bit of a weird case. They're the second best shooting team in the league (their .540 eFG% is just .007 below that of Hope), but they don't rebound well, they turn the ball over a little too much, and they don't get to the free throw line all that well. Consequently, their offense ends up looking only average.

As far as defense goes, Alma's never heard of it. They've allowed nearly 84 points per game this season, and while that's inflated a bit due to their relatively fast pace, it's backed up by their league worst 108.6 defensive efficiency rating.

Throw an average offense and a really bad defense into a hopper, and out comes a 4-10 Alma squad.

'Four Factors'

As I stated above, Alma actually makes quite a few of the shots that they take, but Calvin is going to destroy them on the glass, and they'll likely win the turnover battle as well. It's not often that Calvin has the advantage in ball control, so they need to take advantage.

Team	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	ORb%	Rb%	Ar	TOr	Blk%	Stl%	OEff	DEff	POS	POS/40
Calvin	0.450	0.97	0.30	0.35	0.54	0.60	0.20	0.13	0.10	94.0	97.3	1023	72.4
Alma	0.540	1.13	0.31	0.23	0.45	0.50	0.22	0.03	0.07	100.3	108.6	1077	77.1

This one should be played at a pretty quick pace, so the score will look high even if Calvin's offense can't get it firing as cleanly as we'd like.

Alma leads the league in three point attempts, and we've established that they shoot well, so Calvin absolutely cannot allow them to receive open looks from the outside. Tyler Kruis et al. should be able to handle whatever (if any) inside game that Alma comes up with on their own, so helps should be minimal with an eye to the three point line.

On offense, Calvin should look to shove the ball inside. Alma doesn't list anyone on their roster taller than 6-4, and no one's heavier than 220, so Tyler Kruis should have a field day. And even when he's not going, Tom Snikkers and Matt DeBoer should be able to get up close for some short range looks.

Predictions and Whatnot
Ken Massey's rating system likes Calvin by an 80-77 score, but I'm willing to stretch that out to 82-72. I think this is a really good matchup for Calvin (and not just because Alma is very bad).

A few benchmarks: I'd really like to see the offense score more than 80, and the defense to hold Alma to 74 or less. Those marks would probably give us the efficiency numbers that we're more used to seeing.

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Stats-and-More versus Kalamazoo

2012-01-13T14:56:00.000-05:00

Win Probability

I’ve highlighted a few of the ‘bigger’ plays of the game. For Kalamazoo it was Adam Peter’s two point shot in the first half that gave the Hornets a six point lead – it would be their biggest lead of the evening – the win probably graph gave Calvin only a 30% chance of coming back to win at this point.

Calvin’s top play of the night was a three point play by Tom Snikkers just one minute into the second half. David Rietema came up with a steal and found Snikkers streaking toward the hoop. Snikkers received the pass, drew contact, and laid the ball up and in. He hit the free throw to give the Knights a three point lead – a lead they would not relinquish. This play netted Calvin 30% in the win probability column, from about 50% up to about 80%.

The final play I called out was a jump shot by Bryan Powell that gave the Knights a nine point lead with under ten minutes to play. The result of the play added about 14% to Calvin’s win probability total, bumping their percentage up to 96%.

Game Chart

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar	TOr	Rb%
Rietema	0.63	0.05	0.500	1.02	1.00	0.38	0.18	0.11
Snikkers	0.58	0.33	0.308	0.69	0.46	0.26	0.15	0.18
Kruis	0.58	0.20	0.375	0.81	0.50	0.08	0.00	0.14
DeBoer	0.53	0.30	0.273	0.55	0.00	0.00	0.08	0.13
Mast	0.48	0.12	1.000	2.00	0.00	0.31	0.00	0.07
Powell	0.68	0.34	0.500	1.06	0.13	0.20	0.00	0.07
Haverdink	0.55	0.13	0.500	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.25	0.02
Dykstra	0.50	0.12	0.625	1.19	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.07
Van Eck	0.33	0.18	0.250	0.50	0.00	0.13	0.00	0.21
DeYoung	0.18	0.17	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.06
Calvin	1.00	1.00	0.420	0.88	0.26	0.59	0.12	0.53
Kalamazoo	1.00	1.00	0.292	0.70	0.27	0.63	0.28	0.47

First things first, the shooting has got to get better. Calvin is now running on seven straight games in which their team points per weighted shot average has been below 1.00. Last season never saw more than two consecutive games with a PPWS below 1.00. The huge bulk of the trouble is simply not making shots. Last year’s club had an effective field goal percentage just north of .500, but this year’s team is struggling to stay above .450.

Turnovers aren’t getting close to coming off of my personal ‘areas of concern’ list, but we’ve seen Calvin handle the ball much better in the early going here in conference play. In the three games, they’ve turned the ball over on 17%, 19%, and 12% of their possessions. Considering 18% is about where we want Calvin to be (and 19-20% is about league average), these numbers are acceptable. Including the non-conference games, Calvin’s right at 20% for the year.

It was another rough, rough shooting game for Tom Snikkers, but it was really a tale of two halves. In the first period Tom settled for mid range jump shots and found himself with only three points on seven shots and two free throws attempts (roughly 0.38 PPWS). He appeared more committed to getting to the basket in the second half, and that resulted in eight points on six shots and four free throw attempts (roughly 1.00 PPWS). That’s still not great scoring efficiency, but it is in the acceptable range (especially when the team as a whole is struggling so much).

It wasn’t a great offensive night for Tyler Kruis, but he did a nice job defensively on Joe Preoplec (6-14, 5 TO, blocked twice), so I’m more than willing to give him a pass. I’m not sure what it was with the officiating in the Pacific Northwest, but after getting in lots of foul trouble in two games out there, Tyler has picked up just two total fouls in his three games back in Michigan.

Please join me in hearty encouragement of Jordan Mast and his deadly three point shot. I’d like to see him eliminate the pump fake and dribble from his repertoire and replace it with ready-aim-fire at every opportunity. Jordan’s shooting just over 45% on his three pointers this season, but he’s only attempting about two per game. I’d love to see him fire up four or five three point shots every time out.

Player Efficiency Chart

Player	MIN	PF	PA	+/-	O-Pos	D-Pos	OEff	DEff	Margin
Powell	26.7	47	37	10	51	47	92.2	78.7	13.4
Rietema	24.6	40	23	17	42	46	95.2	50.0	45.2
Kruis	23.2	39	28	11	43	44	90.7	63.6	27.1
Snikkers	23.1	33	30	3	41	45	80.5	66.7	13.8
Haverdink	22.8	36	27	9	40	39	90.0	69.2	20.8
DeBoer	21.1	32	24	8	44	41	72.7	58.5	14.2
Dykstra	19.8	34	22	12	33	33	103.0	66.7	36.4
Mast	18.9	44	22	22	35	35	125.7	62.9	62.9
Van Eck	12.6	26	15	11	25	22	104.0	68.2	35.8
DeYoung	7.1	9	7	2	11	13	81.8	53.8	28.0
DeVries	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Henry	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Huizenga	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Nadeau	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Stout	0.0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	0.0
TOTAL	40.0	68	47	21	73	73	93.2	64.4	28.8

It’s really interesting to see how well the offense did when some of the bench players were in the game. Part of it is probably ‘our bench is better than your bench’, but even so, it’s nice to see some of the bench players see quality results.

Those offensive efficiency numbers need to all be north of 100 against a team like Kalamazoo, but those efficiency margin numbers are solid. The defense really drove the game, and they’ve really been good this year. Calvin’s defensive efficiency rating for the season is 97.3 which is just slightly better than Calvin’s average over the previous seven years had been.

We can find a really good example here of why I like efficiency margin so much better than plus minus. Look at the difference between the stat lines of Snikkers and DeBoer. Matt was a +8 on the game while Tom was ‘only’ +3. Looking at their efficiency margin numbers, we see much less of a difference as both players were very nearly +14.0 (that’s points per 100 possessions). What we see, though, is that Tom played in four more defensive possessions than he did offensive possession and Matt played in three more offensive possessions than he did defensive possessions. So one player was granted three extra possessions in which to score, and the other was granted four extra possessions in which to be scored upon.

Up next: @ Alma.

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Joe Prepolec Wears Tights

2012-01-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

Just saying

Calvin 68, Kalamazoo 47 (box score)

Can't describe how much of a relief it was to see Calvin pull away and win this game by a comfortable margin. It surely wasn't pretty, but the Knights clamped down on defense -- and provided enough offense -- to coast to a respectable 21 point victory. Kalamazoo is far from good, but Calvin needed to show that they're better than the 'bottom half', and I think they ended up doing that tonight.

I think Kalamazoo, Olivet, and Alma have declared themselves to be the bottom of the league, Hope and Adrian are probably the top two teams, and Albion, Trine, and Calvin look to be in a fight for the final two tournament spots.

Bullets

The defense deserves a lot of credit for the big win tonight. The offense managed to shoot only 39%, but the Hornets shot even worse than that. Calvin was active in getting a hand in the passing lanes, they (mostly) closed out on three point shooters in an expedient fashion, and they played solid interior defense on Joe Prepolec -- major props to Tyler Kruis for the last part.
Only nine turnovers for Calvin tonight. They did a really nice job for the most part in controlling the ball. There were still more than a few careless passes, but I can live with only nince TO's, especially when they forced Kzoo to commit 21.
I usually don't love to see Bryan Powell put up 16 shots, but he made a good number of them tonight. He was a difference maker in the second half.
I absolutely love to see Jordan Mast shoot the three pointer when he's open. He's the only real threat on the team from distance.
Tyler Dykstra played a pretty nice game. Perhaps his best since joining coming to Calvin this fall. It wasn't a very 'loud' game with 'only' seven points, but he looks more comfortable on the floor.

Kalamazoo Preview

2012-01-11T10:59:00.002-05:00

	Game Fourteen (5-8, 0-2)
Who	Kalamazoo Hornets (6-7, 1-1)
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Wednesday, January 11 -- 8:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Stretch Internet, MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

When We Last Met
It was Calvin winning a three point squeaker in Kalamazoo in early February of last year. This game was back-and-forth early on, but Calvin wouldn’t lead from the 10:00 mark in the first half until the 10:00 mark in the second half. The game was tight from this point on, but Kalamazoo was ultimately undone by their inability to make shots down the stretch. The Hornets managed just five points (2-10 from the field) in the final seven minutes of the game. This would be Calvin’s only win in a four game stretch that included home losses to Hope and Adrian and a road loss at Olivet.

About Kalamazoo
The Kalamazoo Hornets are 6-7 on the year. They don’t have any wins that would be considered “signature”. They’ve beaten most of the really bad teams on their schedule (Earlham, Northland, and Olivet), but they haven’t beaten anyone of even marginal quality all year (their best two wins are against Bluffton and Denison). But as I need to keep reminding myself, Calvin might not be considered to be “of marginal quality” right now themselves, so Kalamazoo’s suspect results versus a suspect schedule should not be cause for extreme optimism for Knight fans.

Four Factors

I think, as we’ve seen in the past couple of games, this is going to come down to how well Calvin can shoot. It’s basketball at its most simplest form, and it’s what the Knights are struggling the most with: getting the ball through the hoop. The league, on average, is shooting 44% from the floor, and if Calvin could have hit that mark (instead of 38%) in the first two MIAA games, we very well could be talking about a 2-0 Calvin team that had some life left in them. They almost certainly would have beaten Albion, and the game against Adrian would have probably been a win or a one-possession loss.

Calvin’s had been the best rebounding team in the conference, but they haven’t been quite as strong without Vallie and DeVries in the lineup. The remaining portion of the team is going to have to work extra hard to keep Joe Prepolec off the glass tonight, although Kalamazoo doesn’t rate particularly well on rebounding overall this year.

Kalamazoo likes to get to the free throw line, they have the highest free throw rate in the league by a good bit, but they don’t necessarily make a very high percentage of them (just 68%). Still, Calvin can’t afford to give them a large number of extra shots from the charity stripe.

Team	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	ORb%	Rb%	Ar	TOr	Blk%	Stl%	OEff	DEff	POS	POS/40
Calvin	0.452	0.98	0.30	0.36	0.54	0.52	0.21	0.14	0.09	95.0	100.8	949	72.2
Kalamazoo	0.499	1.07	0.48	0.30	0.49	0.45	0.21	0.06	0.10	99.9	105.8	944	72.5

The Hornets love to send up three point shots, and they’ve been very good at knocking them down. In past years, Kalamazoo has opted to drive and kick with regularity, so the Calvin defenders are going to have to be ready to close out – quickly and completely close out – on the open three point shooters.

Final Thoughts, Predictions, and Whatnot
Being in a “must win” situation only three games into the league slate isn’t where you want to be, but that’s where the Knights are at the moment. There’s still plenty of time to make up ground, obviously, but it would be more than a little difficult to climb into the top four (in order to make the MIAA Tournament) after starting in an 0-3 hole (with already playing winnable two home games). Losing isn’t really an option here.

That being said, winning won’t be a cakewalk. Kalamazoo isn’t a deep team, but they squeeze the most out of Joe Prepolec, Joe Wilson, Eric Fishman, and Mark Ghafari. They don’t get much production at all after their top six players. As a team, they rate as about average on offense, and solidly below average on defense (just the reverse of Calvin). This looks like one of the better opportunities for Calvin to have a good offensive game in league play, and they’re going to need it.

The Massey Ratings give Calvin a six point edge for tonight (77-71), but I think it’s going to be a bit tighter than that even. Something more in the 70-68 range. Still a Calvin win, but we’re going to hate every minute of it (figuratively of course). Allowing fewer than 70 points would be a ‘win’ for the defense, and scoring more than 70 would be a ‘win’ for the offense.

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Women's Regional Rankings 1/10/2012

2012-01-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
NE	1	Williams	NESCAC	0.909	0.693	0.801	4	A	C	10-1	11-1	0-0	12-1
NE	2	Amherst	NESCAC	1.000	0.583	0.791	5	C	1	9-0	12-0	0-0	12-0
NE	3	Tufts	NESCAC	0.917	0.601	0.759	10	C	4	11-1	11-2	0-0	11-2
NE	4	Colby	NESCAC	0.900	0.542	0.721	21	C	9	9-1	9-1	0-0	9-1
NE	5	Babson	NEWMAC	0.818	0.570	0.694	34	A	wC	9-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
NE	6	Bowdoin	NESCAC	0.818	0.564	0.691	35	C	14	9-2	9-3	0-0	9-3
NE	7	New England College	CCC	0.917	0.464	0.691	36	C	15	11-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
NE	8	Fitchburg State	MASCAC	0.917	0.437	0.677	45	C	23	11-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
NE	9	Wesleyan	NESCAC	0.800	0.549	0.674	47	C	25	8-2	8-3	0-0	8-3
NE	10	Keene State	LEC	0.778	0.571	0.674	48	A	wC	7-2	7-3	0-0	7-3
NE	11	Southern Maine	LEC	0.750	0.594	0.672	52	C	28	9-3	9-3	0-0	10-3
NE	12	Connecticut College	NESCAC	0.818	0.517	0.668	57	C	33	9-2	9-2	0-0	10-2
NE	13	Clark	NEWMAC	0.818	0.514	0.666	59	C	34	9-2	10-3	0-0	10-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
EA	1	Rochester	UAA	1.000	0.623	0.812	2	A	C	10-0	10-0	0-0	11-0
EA	2	Ithaca	E8	0.900	0.650	0.775	6	A	C	9-1	9-2	0-0	10-2
EA	3	Buffalo State	SUNYAC	0.889	0.512	0.700	29	A	wC	8-1	10-1	0-0	10-1
EA	4	Hartwick	E8	0.889	0.481	0.685	38	C	17	8-1	9-2	0-0	9-2
EA	5	Skidmore	LL	0.800	0.569	0.684	39	A	wC	8-2	8-2	0-0	8-2
EA	6	Oneonta State	SUNYAC	0.750	0.596	0.673	50	C	27	6-2	6-4	0-0	6-4
EA	7	William Smith	LL	0.571	0.745	0.658	69	C	41	4-3	4-5	0-0	4-5
EA	8	SUNYIT	NEAC	0.857	0.459	0.658	70	A	wC	6-1	6-2	0-0	8-2
EA	9	New York University	UAA	0.700	0.561	0.630	90	C	57	7-3	7-3	0-0	8-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
AT	1	William Paterson	NJAC	1.000	0.620	0.810	3	A	C	12-0	13-0	0-0	14-0
AT	2	Kean	NJAC	0.929	0.599	0.764	8	C	3	13-1	13-2	0-0	13-2
AT	3	Mary Washington	CAC	1.000	0.511	0.755	13	A	C	10-0	12-0	0-0	12-0
AT	4	Mount St. Mary	SKY	0.818	0.634	0.726	18	A	C	9-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
AT	5	Richard Stockton	NJAC	0.714	0.630	0.672	53	C	29	5-2	8-2	0-0	8-3
AT	6	York (Pa.)	CAC	0.769	0.573	0.671	54	C	30	10-3	10-3	0-0	10-3
AT	7	Ramapo	NJAC	0.818	0.507	0.663	65	C	38	9-2	10-3	0-0	10-3
AT	8	New Jersey	NJAC	0.667	0.621	0.644	77	C	45	8-4	9-5	0-0	9-5
AT	9	Rutgers-Newark	NJAC	0.750	0.514	0.632	88	C	56	9-3	9-3	0-0	10-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MA	1	Muhlenberg	CC	1.000	0.460	0.730	17	C	6	10-0	10-0	0-0	11-0
MA	2	Juniata	LAND	0.923	0.506	0.715	24	A	wC	12-1	13-1	0-0	13-1
MA	3	Johns Hopkins	CC	0.889	0.523	0.706	27	A	wC	8-1	10-1	0-0	10-1
MA	4	Lebanon Valley	MACC	0.833	0.527	0.680	42	C	20	10-2	11-2	0-0	11-2
MA	5	Eastern	MACF	0.875	0.477	0.676	46	C	24	7-1	8-2	0-0	9-2
MA	6	Kings	MACF	0.778	0.557	0.668	58	A	wC	7-2	8-3	0-0	9-3
MA	7	Messiah	MACC	0.750	0.548	0.649	74	A	wC	9-3	10-3	0-0	10-3
MA	8	Franklin and Marshall	CC	0.727	0.546	0.637	83	C	51	8-3	9-3	0-0	9-3
MA	9	Delaware Valley	MACF	0.714	0.552	0.633	87	C	55	5-2	6-2	0-0	8-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
SO	1	Louisiana College	ASC	0.909	0.534	0.722	20	C	8	10-1	10-1	0-0	10-2
SO	2	Piedmont	GSAC	1.000	0.430	0.715	23	A	wC	8-0	12-0	0-0	12-0
SO	3	Centre	SCAC	0.900	0.512	0.706	26	A	wC	9-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
SO	4	Greensboro	USAC	0.889	0.519	0.704	28	A	wC	8-1	8-1	0-0	8-1
SO	5	Texas-Dallas	ASC	0.909	0.455	0.682	40	C	18	10-1	11-1	0-0	12-1
SO	6	Concordia (Texas)	ASC	0.800	0.561	0.681	41	C	19	8-2	8-2	0-0	9-2
SO	7	Millsaps	SCAC	0.833	0.521	0.677	43	C	21	10-2	11-2	0-0	12-2
SO	8	McMurry	ASC	0.750	0.596	0.673	51	A	wC	6-2	6-2	0-0	8-4
SO	9	Eastern Mennonite	ODAC	0.875	0.466	0.670	55	C	31	7-1	8-1	0-0	8-1
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
GL	1	DePauw	NCAC	0.909	0.606	0.758	11	A	C	10-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
GL	2	Mount Union	OAC	0.909	0.602	0.756	12	A	C	10-1	12-1	0-0	12-1
GL	3	Calvin	MIAA	1.000	0.503	0.751	14	A	C	8-0	10-0	0-0	13-0
GL	4	Franklin	HCAC	1.000	0.473	0.737	16	A	C	12-0	12-0	0-0	13-0
GL	5	Thomas More	PrAC	0.900	0.454	0.677	44	C	22	9-1	9-3	0-0	10-3
GL	6	Ohio Northern	OAC	0.786	0.561	0.673	49	C	26	11-3	11-3	0-0	11-3
GL	7	St. Vincent	PrAC	0.833	0.495	0.664	63	A	wC	10-2	10-3	0-0	10-3
GL	8	La Roche	AMCC	0.889	0.437	0.663	64	C	37	8-1	8-1	0-0	10-3
GL	9	Kenyon	NCAC	0.846	0.473	0.660	67	C	39	11-2	11-3	0-0	11-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
CE	1	Chicago	UAA	1.000	0.535	0.768	7	C	2	11-0	11-0	0-0	11-0
CE	2	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	0.917	0.608	0.762	9	A	C	11-1	12-1	0-0	12-2
CE	3	Washington U.	UAA	0.900	0.596	0.748	15	C	5	9-1	10-2	0-0	10-2
CE	4	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.846	0.585	0.716	22	C	10	11-2	12-2	0-0	12-2
CE	5	UW-Eau Claire	WIAC	0.857	0.539	0.698	30	C	12	12-2	12-2	0-0	12-3
CE	6	Westminster (Mo.)	SLIAC	0.833	0.558	0.696	32	A	wC	5-1	7-1	0-0	9-2
CE	7	UW-La Crosse	WIAC	0.833	0.544	0.689	37	C	16	10-2	10-3	0-0	11-3
CE	8	Elmhurst	CCIW	0.846	0.472	0.659	68	C	40	11-2	11-2	0-0	11-2
CE	9	Wisconsin Lutheran	NATHC	0.750	0.545	0.647	75	A	wC	6-2	7-2	0-0	8-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
WE	1	George Fox	NWC	1.000	0.677	0.838	1	A	C	8-0	10-0	0-0	13-0
WE	2	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.909	0.543	0.726	19	C	7	10-1	10-1	0-0	10-1
WE	3	Lewis and Clark	NWC	0.833	0.581	0.707	25	C	11	5-1	7-1	0-0	12-1
WE	4	St. Olaf	MIAC	0.818	0.576	0.697	31	A	wC	9-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
WE	5	Gustavus Adolphus	MIAC	0.818	0.571	0.694	33	C	13	9-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
WE	6	Wartburg	IIAC	0.786	0.546	0.666	60	A	wC	11-3	11-3	0-0	11-3
WE	7	Cal Lutheran	SCIAC	0.857	0.432	0.644	76	C	44	6-1	7-2	0-0	8-4
WE	8	Coe	IIAC	0.769	0.501	0.635	84	C	52	10-3	10-3	0-0	10-4
WE	9	Occidental	SCIAC	0.857	0.380	0.618	100	C	65	6-1	9-2	0-0	9-2

Regional Rankings 1/10/2012

2012-01-10T06:57:00.001-05:00

These regional rankings are not official. I use my own formula (heavily based on RPI). All data comes via d3hoops.com.

A few notes:

This is not a 'top-25 'poll or power poll. The point of these rankings is not to determine who I actually think are the best teams, but to approximate the NCAA's official regional rankings that are released starting in early February.
These rankings attempt to account for in-region winning percentage (primary criterion), in-region strength of schedule (primary), results versus regionally ranked teams (primary), division III winning percentage (secondary criterion), and division III strength of schedule (secondary). It does not currently account for head-to-head matchups or results versus common opponents (both primary criteria), so feel free to ‘adjust’ the rankings accordingly.
I 'award' the Pool A bid to the team with the highest RPI (versus all D-III teams). Since 97.6% of the automatic bids are doled out to winners of conference tournaments anyway, I figured this was about as relevant as using actual standings (and 100 times easier).
The pre-championship manual has been released, and the home/away multipliers are still in effect, but this year they carry a different (better) weight. For away games, a multiplier of 1.25 is being applied to SOS, and for home games, a multiplier of 0.75 is used.

Through games of 1/8/2012

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
NE	1	Middlebury	NESCAC	1.000	0.522	0.641	3	C	1	10-0	11-0	0-0
NE	2	Western Connecticut	LEC	0.923	0.583	0.668	5	C	2	12-1	12-1	0-0
NE	3	Rhode Island College	LEC	0.917	0.576	0.661	6	A	C	11-1	11-1	0-0
NE	4	Amherst	NESCAC	0.909	0.559	0.646	10	A	C	10-1	12-1	0-0
NE	5	WPI	NEWMAC	0.846	0.599	0.661	13	A	C	11-2	11-2	0-0
NE	6	MIT	NEWMAC	1.000	0.437	0.578	16	C	3	14-0	14-0	0-0
NE	7	Eastern Connecticut	LEC	0.900	0.515	0.611	22	C	8	9-1	9-1	0-0
NE	8	Albertus Magnus	GNAC	0.900	0.498	0.599	25	A	wC	9-1	9-1	0-0
NE	9	Wesleyan	NESCAC	0.846	0.526	0.606	36	C	14	11-2	11-3	0-0
NE	10	Keene State	LEC	0.800	0.524	0.593	46	C	20	8-2	9-2	0-0
NE	11	Bowdoin	NESCAC	0.818	0.487	0.570	56	C	27	9-2	9-2	0-0
NE	12	St. Josephs (Maine)	GNAC	0.700	0.604	0.628	57	C	28	7-3	7-3	0-0
NE	13	Williams	NESCAC	0.833	0.443	0.541	65	C	36	10-2	12-2	0-0
NE	14	Tufts	NESCAC	0.667	0.613	0.626	67	C	37	8-4	8-4	0-0
NE	15	Elms	NECC	0.667	0.588	0.607	76	C	45	6-3	7-4	0-0
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
EA	1	Hartwick	E8	0.923	0.504	0.609	21	C	7	12-1	12-1	0-0
EA	2	Hobart	LL	0.750	0.579	0.622	44	A	wC	6-2	7-2	0-0
EA	3	Buffalo State	SUNYAC	0.875	0.423	0.536	55	A	bub	7-1	10-1	0-0
EA	4	Rochester	UAA	0.750	0.551	0.601	58	C	29	9-3	9-3	0-0
EA	5	New York University	UAA	0.875	0.404	0.522	63	C	34	7-1	8-1	0-0
EA	6	Oswego State	SUNYAC	0.818	0.466	0.554	64	C	35	9-2	9-2	0-0
EA	7	Nazareth	E8	0.700	0.582	0.611	66	A		7-3	7-4	0-0
EA	8	Stevens	E8	0.800	0.456	0.542	74	C	43	8-2	10-2	0-0
EA	9	Medaille	AMCC	0.846	0.413	0.522	75	C	44	11-2	11-2	0-0
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
AT	1	New Jersey City	NJAC	0.900	0.526	0.620	20	C	6	9-1	10-2	0-0
AT	2	Staten Island	CUNYAC	0.818	0.586	0.644	27	A	wC	9-2	9-4	0-0
AT	3	St. Josephs (L.I.)	SKY	0.900	0.500	0.600	29	A	wC	9-1	9-1	0-0
AT	4	William Paterson	NJAC	0.833	0.526	0.603	38	A	wC	10-2	10-2	0-0
AT	5	Montclair State	NJAC	0.769	0.501	0.568	69	C	39	10-3	11-3	0-0
AT	6	Ramapo	NJAC	0.733	0.535	0.585	70	C	40	11-4	11-4	0-0
AT	7	Brooklyn	CUNYAC	0.667	0.568	0.593	83	C	50	6-3	6-3	0-0
AT	8	Medgar Evers	CUNYAC	0.538	0.622	0.601	114	C	75	7-6	8-6	0-0
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
MA	1	Cabrini	CSAC	1.000	0.473	0.605	9	A	C	12-0	12-1	0-0
MA	2	Franklin and Marshall	CC	1.000	0.451	0.588	11	A	C	12-0	13-0	0-0
MA	3	Lycoming	MACC	0.909	0.537	0.630	12	A	C	10-1	11-1	0-0
MA	4	St. Marys (Md.)	CAC	0.818	0.601	0.655	24	A	wC	9-2	10-3	0-0
MA	5	Keystone	CSAC	0.818	0.519	0.594	43	C	19	9-2	9-2	0-0
MA	6	Catholic	LAND	0.846	0.476	0.569	49	C	22	11-2	11-3	0-0
MA	7	Mary Washington	CAC	0.818	0.497	0.577	51	C	24	9-2	9-2	0-0
MA	8	Alvernia	MACC	0.700	0.585	0.614	62	C	33	7-3	8-3	0-0
MA	9	Hood	CAC	0.700	0.573	0.605	71	C	41	7-3	7-4	0-0
MA	10	Juniata	LAND	0.750	0.491	0.555	79	C	47	9-3	10-3	0-0
MA	11	Widener	MACC	0.700	0.538	0.579	81	C	49	7-3	8-3	0-0
MA	12	Penn State-Harrisburg	NEAC	0.727	0.510	0.564	82	A		8-3	8-3	0-0
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
SO	1	Mary Hardin-Baylor	ASC	1.000	0.490	0.618	7	A	C	11-0	12-0	0-0
SO	2	Virginia Wesleyan	ODAC	0.909	0.533	0.627	15	A	C	10-1	11-1	0-0
SO	3	Emory	UAA	1.000	0.428	0.571	18	C	4	12-0	12-0	0-0
SO	4	Hardin-Simmons	ASC	0.900	0.496	0.597	30	C	10	9-1	11-1	0-0
SO	5	Randolph-Macon	ODAC	0.833	0.479	0.567	52	C	25	10-2	11-3	0-0
SO	6	Birmingham-Southern	SCAC	0.900	0.394	0.520	60	C	31	9-1	11-1	0-0
SO	7	Lynchburg	ODAC	0.727	0.537	0.584	72	C	42	8-3	9-3	0-0
SO	8	Christopher Newport	USAC	0.700	0.542	0.582	78	A		7-3	10-3	0-0
SO	9	Guilford	ODAC	0.667	0.566	0.591	87	C	52	8-4	8-5	0-0
SO	10	Centre	SCAC	0.600	0.606	0.604	92	A		6-4	8-4	0-0
SO	11	Rhodes	SCAC	0.727	0.481	0.543	93	C	57	8-3	9-5	0-0
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
GL	1	Hope	MIAA	1.000	0.531	0.648	1	A	C	4-0	5-0	0-0
GL	2	Wabash	NCAC	0.909	0.606	0.682	4	A	C	10-1	10-1	0-0
GL	3	Bethany	PrAC	1.000	0.402	0.551	26	A	wC	11-0	12-1	0-0
GL	4	Wittenberg	NCAC	0.778	0.615	0.656	31	C	11	7-2	9-2	0-0
GL	5	Ohio Wesleyan	NCAC	0.833	0.548	0.620	34	C	13	10-2	11-2	0-0
GL	6	Wooster	NCAC	0.818	0.531	0.603	39	C	16	9-2	10-2	0-0
GL	7	John Carroll	OAC	0.800	0.510	0.582	54	A	bub	8-2	8-2	0-0
GL	8	Marietta	OAC	0.727	0.512	0.566	80	C	48	8-3	8-3	0-0
GL	9	Thiel	PrAC	0.750	0.431	0.511	107	C	69	9-3	9-3	0-0
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
MW	1	Grinnell	MWC	1.000	0.426	0.569	19	C	5	8-0	8-0	0-0
MW	2	Lake Forest	MWC	0.889	0.526	0.617	23	A	wC	8-1	8-1	0-0
MW	3	Ripon	MWC	0.857	0.546	0.624	28	C	9	6-1	7-2	0-0
MW	4	Illinois Wesleyan	CCIW	0.818	0.565	0.628	33	A	wC	9-2	11-2	0-0
MW	5	Washington U.	UAA	0.818	0.560	0.625	35	A	wC	9-2	9-3	0-0
MW	6	Transylvania	HCAC	0.909	0.456	0.570	37	C	15	10-1	11-2	0-0
MW	7	Edgewood	NATHC	0.727	0.613	0.641	41	A	wC	8-3	8-3	0-0
MW	8	Wheaton (Ill.)	CCIW	0.727	0.607	0.637	42	C	18	8-3	10-3	0-0
MW	9	Hanover	HCAC	0.818	0.502	0.581	48	A	bub	9-2	9-3	0-0
MW	10	Rose-Hulman	HCAC	0.846	0.473	0.566	50	C	23	11-2	11-2	0-0
MW	11	Augustana	CCIW	0.833	0.453	0.548	61	C	32	10-2	10-2	0-0
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO
WE	1	Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	SCIAC	1.000	0.520	0.640	2	A	C	6-0	8-0	0-0
WE	2	UW-Whitewater	WIAC	0.929	0.550	0.645	8	A	C	13-1	13-1	0-0
WE	3	Whitworth	NWC	0.909	0.532	0.627	14	A	C	10-1	11-1	0-0
WE	4	Dubuque	IIAC	1.000	0.429	0.572	17	A	C	9-0	9-0	0-0
WE	5	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.833	0.554	0.624	32	C	12	10-2	10-2	0-0
WE	6	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	0.750	0.587	0.628	40	C	17	9-3	11-3	0-0
WE	7	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.700	0.624	0.643	45	A	wC	7-3	7-3	0-0
WE	8	Luther	IIAC	0.833	0.492	0.577	47	C	21	10-2	10-2	0-0
WE	9	Central	IIAC	0.900	0.414	0.535	53	C	26	9-1	10-1	0-0
WE	10	UW-La Crosse	WIAC	0.750	0.547	0.597	59	C	30	9-3	10-3	0-0
WE	11	St. Johns	MIAC	0.800	0.474	0.555	68	C	38	8-2	8-2	0-0
WE	12	Nebraska Wesleyan	IND	0.800	0.462	0.546	73	B	1	4-1	4-1	0-0

Albion Preview

2012-01-06T16:21:00.001-05:00

	Game Thirteen
Who	Albion Britons (5-7, 1-0)
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Saturday, January 7 -- 3:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Stretch Internet,, MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

When We Last Met
The last Calvin-Albion meeting of the season last year was a 15 point Calvin victory in the MIAA Semifinals at the DeVos Fieldhouse in Holland. Calvin swept the three-game season series with the Britons by margins of 31, 6, and 15. Albion couldn’t really do much offensively against the Calvin defense -- their high-score in the three games against the Knights was only 53, and their average actually came in below 50.

It’s kind of surprising considering the history of these two teams, but Calvin currently holds an eight (!) game winning streak versus Albion, with the last defeat being a one-point loss at (historic) Kresge Gymnasium back in February of 2008. Only Trine and Alma have longer losing streaks versus the Knights.

About Albion
Albion has struggled on the offensive end of the floor every bit as much as Calvin has so far this season. Their struggles are actually probably worse considering they haven’t played as difficult of a schedule as Calvin has.

The Knights and Britons have two common opponents: both played a road game against Anderson and a home game against Carthage. In both instances, Calvin’s result looks better. Albion lost to Anderson by 18, and they lost to Carthage by 8. Calvin lost to Anderson by 13 and beat Carthage by 3.

Albion’s best win was a one-point victory over North Centrall (Ill.), a middle of the pack (or worse) CCIW team. Other “key games” include a one-point (home) win over a bad Heidelberg team, and a five-point (road) loss to a bad North Park team. Actually, the longer I stare at their schedule, the worse I think Albion actually is.

This might be the year we finally quit saying “until someone beats them, I’m picking Albion to finish third” because they very well may find themselves in the basement. Of course, Calvin’s seat at the four-team conference tourney is far from safe either so I’ll withhold from throwing too many stones (except to point out that Albion is occasionally accused of thuggery).

’Four Factors’

Tell me if this sounds familiar: Albion doesn’t shoot at a very high percentage, and they turn the ball over a little bit too much. Those are pretty much the same issues that Calvin has. Albion’s a bit better at getting to the free throw line so their offense has been ever slightly more efficient, but they don’t rebound the ball very well. I’m going to look for Calvin to re-establish themselves on the glass.

They’re going to have to be prepared for the physical nature of play that Albion usually brings. They shoot a lot of free throw and give up a lot of free throws, so you know the Britons aren’t concerned with a little bit of (excessive) contact.

Team	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	ORb%	Rb%	Ar	TOr	Blk%	Stl%	OEff	DEff	POS	POS/40
Calvin	0.455	0.98	0.30	0.36	0.54	0.52	0.21	0.14	0.09	95.9	101.5	882	72.4
Albion	0.464	1.01	0.41	0.31	0.47	0.42	0.20	0.05	0.10	96.9	101.6	786	65.3

Predictions and Whatnot
I’ve established that Albion is quite bad, but that won’t make this game rainbows and smiles for Calvin. I think this game will be closer than we all want it to be. Massey predicts Calvin to win 72-63. I’ll say Calvin wins 71-64.

Benchmarks for success:

Win
Score more than 70 points
Allow fewer than 65 points

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Stats-and-More Versus Adrian

2012-01-05T17:07:00.000-05:00

Win Probability

Adrian jumped out to a 3-0 lead, and it was Calvin playing catch up pretty much the rest of the way. Despite taking a brief one-point lead, and cutting the Adrian margin to one possession on a couple of occasions, they were never able to get their win probability above 45%.

Game Chart

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar	TOr	Rb%	eff
Snikkers	0.75	0.33	0.400	0.86	0.33	0.09	0.09	0.13	-
Rietema	0.73	0.05	0.000	0.51	2.00	0.18	0.22	0.02	-
Kruis	0.68	0.20	0.375	0.95	0.38	0.08	0.00	0.15	-
Mast	0.63	0.13	1.000	2.02	0.40	0.10	0.10	0.08	-
DeBoer	0.55	0.09	0.333	0.67	0.00	0.00	0.25	0.02	-
Haverdink	0.50	0.20	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.07	-
Powell	0.48	0.67	0.500	1.05	0.11	1.04	0.15	0.10	-
Dykstra	0.40	0.08	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.50	0.06	-
Van Eck	0.30	0.00	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.14	0.00	0.08	-
Totals	1.00	1.00	0.408	0.90	0.27	0.39	0.17	0.49	88.9
Totals	1.00	1.00	0.444	0.95	0.29	0.44	0.13	0.51	100.7

The students doing the radio broadcast repeatedly remarked about how surprised they were that the “pace of the game was so fast”, as both teams were willing to move the ball in transition, but it only ended up being about a 68 possession game which is pretty close to the average of the two teams. Calvin came in at about 72 possessions per game, and Adrian was playing at around 66 possessions per game.

Calvin’s last three games have been their worst this year three in terms of scoring efficiency; The PPWS number has been at or below 0.92 in each of the three games. As a team, they’re at 0.98 Points Per Weighted Shot on the season, about 0.12 points below where Calvin’s historical average has been – that equates to about eight or nine points per game. (Could have used eight or nine extra points last night.)

Tyler Kruis hasn’t performed well on the offensive end since showing up to the MIAA-CCIW Classic with a knee brace. He was shooting around .600 up to that point (unreasonably high to sustain, I know), but has only shot about .340 since.

Bryan Powell took five three point shots last night, which isn’t good, but four of those were chucked up in the last three minutes when the team was looking for a prayer. On the year, though, Powell is attempting just 1.7 three point shots per game – less than half of last year’s rate of 3.5 per game. He’s not shooting the ball any less frequently, but he is getting those shots a lot closer to the basket, and his scoring efficiency numbers are much better for it. He’s currently sporting a .461 effective field goal percentage and a 0.98 PPWS. Those aren’t great numbers, but they’re up from his .425 eFG% and 0.88 PPWS career marks.

Bryan is also in the middle of a very nice six game stretch. Since the Carthage game, he’s totaled 63 points (10.5 ppg) with a .509 eFG% (1.09 points per weighted shot). He’s had 12 turnovers during this stretch as well, but two per game isn’t all that many for a point guard who’s also giving the team quality offense.

Player Chart

Here's the season "plus/minus" chart for the Knights (sorted by minutes played).

Player	MIN	G%	F%	C%	Pts For	Pts Agnst	+/-	O-Pos	D-Pos	OEff	DEff	Margin
Snikkers	319.6	6%	94%	0%	561	580	-19	586	574	95.7	101.0	-5.3
Kruis	288.4	0%	0%	100%	514	503	11	509	505	101.0	99.6	1.4
DeBoer	264.3	39%	61%	0%	471	456	15	482	481	97.7	94.8	2.9
Rietema	247.6	100%	0%	0%	446	439	7	440	448	101.4	98.0	3.4
Powell	235.3	100%	0%	0%	400	454	-54	429	419	93.2	108.4	-15.1
Haverdink	222.3	98%	2%	0%	382	441	-59	397	407	96.2	108.4	-12.1
DeVries	220.6	0%	73%	27%	385	381	4	405	393	95.1	96.9	-1.9
Mast	205.2	67%	33%	0%	350	390	-40	370	371	94.6	105.1	-10.5
Vallie	183.7	0%	99%	1%	326	334	-8	326	329	100.0	101.5	-1.5
Dykstra	95.8	0%	98%	2%	155	198	-43	171	174	90.6	113.8	-23.1
Van Eck	94.9	0%	4%	96%	156	183	-27	183	179	85.2	102.2	-17.0
DeYoung	42.8	0%	0%	100%	58	92	-34	69	75	84.1	122.7	-38.6
Nadeau	20.8	100%	0%	0%	31	32	-1	35	35	88.6	91.4	-2.9
Henry	8.6	0%	85%	15%	15	17	-2	13	15	115.4	113.3	2.1
Huizenga	0.0	0%	0%	0%	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-
Stout	0.0	0%	0%	0%	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-
Totals	2450.0	-	-	-	4250	4500	-50	4415	4405	96.3	102.2	-5.9

I prefer to look at the efficiency margin column rather than the "+/-" column because it's a rate stat and not a counting stat. It takes into account how often a player gets subbed in on defense or offense; this difference isn't usually very great, but as we see above, it turns Mickey DeVries out of the positive (+4 points overall) and into the slight negative (-1.9 points per 100 total possessions)

Obviously not having DeVries and Vallie right now is a huge blow. They're two of the six Knights with an individual efficiency margin that's better than the team average.

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Not enough

2012-01-05T10:14:00.000-05:00

Adrian 68, Calvin 61 (box score)

Calvin’s losing the battle of attrition hard right now. First it was Jordan Brink with a shoulder injury in October. Then it was Mitch Vallie’s busted arm last week. Now, as indicated on last night’s radio broadcast, it appears that Mickey DeVries will have to spend some time away from the team as he gets his academics in order.

But what that doesn’t excuse is the plethora of 38%-ish shooting nights that we’ve seen from this team. Last night in Adrian, Calvin took 29 shots that were classified as two-point “jumpers” in the box score*. Of those 29 shots, only 10 were made (.345). Add that to the horrid 3-17 (.176) night they had from the three point line and it’s easy to see why Calvin lost the game, even with Adrian shooting only 39.6% themselves. On two and three point jump shots last night, the Knights effectively shot just 31.5%.

*The box score classifications aren’t the best, but I’ll go with it having no other data to rely on.

Obviously not every shot can be a layup, but the lack of top-notch shooting means Calvin will need to work harder to get the ball into the paint than they usually will. Early shot clock jump shots should not be tolerated.

Bullets

It was a very nice offensive night for Bryan Powell; 21 points was a career high for him. He was effective in transition, getting all the way to the hoop for easy baskets.
Jordan Mast should be the only player allowed to shoot from any distance, and he should be encouraged to shoot more. He put in 12 points on only five shots and two free throws.
Calvin’s defense isn’t a problem right now. They weren’t great last night by any means, but they held Adrian below their season efficiency. I’d still only consider Calvin’s defense to be ‘average’ (which is worse than a ‘normal’ Calvin team), but with the way the offense is sputtering, even league average looks wonderful.
Players are gaining experience. That’s a look on the bright side.
Apparently Matt DeBoer has been dealing with the flu. He played 22 minutes, but barely made any impact in the box score. Calvin sorely needs him as a scorer.

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Check Out MIAA Gameday

2012-01-04T18:11:00.001-05:00

I've created a new tab at the top of the page called 'MIAA Gameday'. Here you'll find Live Stats and embedded video feeds (or links) for all the men's league games (that have streaming video available **cough** Hope **cough**). I'll try my darnedest to keep this updated every Wednesday and Saturday of the conference season.

Tonight in MIAA action:
Olivet at Albion -- 7:30 PM
Calvin at Adrian -- 8:00 PM
Trine at Kalamazoo -- 8:00 PM
Hope at Alma -- 8:00 PM

Click on the MIAA Gameday link for your one-stop shop for MIAA men's basketball action starting tonight at 7:30! Feel free to post any comments about how I could improve the Gameday experience for you at the bottom of this thread as well.

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TJ Huizenga and Daniel Stout Added to Varsity Roster

2012-01-04T15:36:00.001-05:00

I speculated that we would see TJ Huizenga added from the JV roster to the Varsity roster after it was learned that Mitch Vallie would miss the rest of the season with an arm injury (apparently it’s actually a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder).

Today we see (with an updated roster page) that Huizenga will indeed join the Varsity squad, but he’s not the only call up. 6-9 freshman center Daniel Stout will join him in the move (both are still listed on the JV roster as well).

I wouldn’t expect them to see much playing time right away, but in the JV games that I’ve seen, both have shown the potential to make a Varsity impact at some point down the road. Of the two, Huizenga seems to be better suited to play immediately, if the need arises.

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Adrian Preview

2012-01-04T05:00:00.000-05:00

	Game Twelve
Who	Adrian Bulldogs (7-3, 0-0)
Where	Merillat Center, Adrian, MI
When	Wednesday, January 4
Audio	(Calvin) Stretch Internet
Video	(Adrian) UStream
Stats	Live Stats

When We Last Met
The Adrian Bulldogs hold a two game winning streak over the Calvin Knights. The latest of which was an excruciating 75-63 home loss in February of last year. As was the case often last season, Adrian clamped down hard on defense, holding Calvin to under 36% from the floor. Adrian shot 54% themselves (57% on three pointers), and never really allowed Calvin to get much closer than 10 points in the second half.

About Adrian
Adrian is a really interesting team. They just recently received a transfer from DI Florida International in 6-4 sophomore forward Richaud Pack. He appeared in nine games at FIU earlier THIS SEASON, averaging 8.3 minutes per game. In his two games with the Bulldogs, he's averaged 21 points in 24.5 minutes. Pack and freshman guard Eric Lewis (6-2) may be Adrian's best two players as underclassmen. With zero seniors on the team and a 7-3 non-conference record, the future is definitely bright for coach Mark White and the Adrian Bulldogs.

'Four Factors'

Adrian's not a particularly good shooting team themselves, but they still rate a tick above Calvin. They've been very good at taking care of the ball as well. The Knights are really going to have to go after the rebounds hard. I think they've proven that rebounding is the one area in which they can have a strong advantage, but boards don't come to passive teams. Limiting second chance points for Adrian will be huge.

Fouls were an issue in the Pacific Northwest, especially in the Whitman game. Adrian has displayed an excellent ability to get to the line; Calvin can't make it any easier for them to do so. It is imperative that Tyler Kruis stays out of early foul trouble.

Team	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	ORb%	Rb%	Ar	TOr	Blk%	Stl%	OEff	DEff	POS	POS/40
Calvin	0.459	0.99	0.30	0.37	0.54	0.61	0.22	0.14	0.09	96.4	101.7	813	72.7
Adrian	0.470	1.02	0.40	0.34	0.51	0.48	0.16	0.06	0.11	104.1	98.7	673	66.5

Adrian's pace of play has been more deliberate that Calvin's has been so far. In the past, they've liked to take their time, set screens, and only attack or shoot when the opportunity comes to them. Shooting efficiency hasn't necessarily been Adrian's strong point. They've scored by getting rebounds, not turning the ball over, and getting to the free throw line. It seems like forcing them into shooting jump shots would be a recipe for success.

Other Thoughts
This may be the single most important game on the conference schedule. Sure, there are the two games with Hope, but the Dutchmen appear poised to run away with the league. The way it stands now, Adrian looks to be Calvin's biggest opponent for the #2 spot in the league. A road win here would put the Knights in the driver's seat, but a big loss, such as the ones suffered in Washington, would signal a changing of the guard.

I don't think any Calvin fans are out there holding their breath on tournament chances, especially when it comes to at-large berths, but I figure they need to go 11-3 in conference play to have a good shot. This would be a huge result toward that goal.

Predictions
Old Mr. Massey likes the Bulldogs by a score of 70-64, but since I'm a homer, I'll say Calvin 71, Adrian 69.

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Women's Regional Rankings 1/3/2012

2012-01-03T15:30:00.002-05:00

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
NE	1	Williams	NESCAC	1.000	0.708	0.854	1	A	C	9-0	10-0	0-0	11-0
NE	2	Amherst	NESCAC	1.000	0.575	0.788	6	C	3	7-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
NE	3	Colby	NESCAC	0.875	0.623	0.749	17	C	5	7-1	7-1	0-0	7-1
NE	4	New England College	CCC	1.000	0.473	0.737	22	C	8	10-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
NE	5	Tufts	NESCAC	0.889	0.584	0.736	23	C	9	8-1	8-2	0-0	8-2
NE	6	Keene State	LEC	0.875	0.580	0.727	24	A	wC	7-1	7-2	0-0	7-2
NE	7	Fitchburg State	MASCAC	1.000	0.419	0.710	33	C	15	10-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
NE	8	University of New England	CCC	0.750	0.637	0.694	41	A	wC	6-2	6-2	0-0	6-2
NE	9	Bowdoin	NESCAC	0.778	0.598	0.688	44	C	21	7-2	7-3	0-0	7-3
NE	10	Connecticut College	NESCAC	0.889	0.471	0.680	52	C	26	8-1	8-1	0-0	9-1
NE	11	Emmanuel	GNAC	0.714	0.640	0.677	54	A	wC	5-2	6-3	0-0	6-3
NE	12	Wesleyan	NESCAC	0.857	0.489	0.673	59	C	31	6-1	6-2	0-0	6-2
NE	13	Babson	NEWMAC	0.778	0.566	0.672	61	A	wC	7-2	8-2	0-0	8-2
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
EA	1	Rochester	UAA	1.000	0.611	0.805	4	C	1	9-0	9-0	0-0	10-0
EA	2	Ithaca	E8	0.875	0.658	0.766	10	A	C	7-1	7-2	0-0	8-2
EA	3	Buffalo State	SUNYAC	0.875	0.528	0.701	36	A	wC	7-1	9-1	0-0	9-1
EA	4	Hartwick	E8	0.857	0.511	0.684	49	C	24	6-1	7-2	0-0	7-2
EA	5	Oneonta State	SUNYAC	0.750	0.600	0.675	56	C	29	6-2	6-4	0-0	6-4
EA	6	Skidmore	LL	0.750	0.599	0.675	57	A	wC	6-2	6-2	0-0	6-2
EA	7	William Smith	LL	0.571	0.727	0.649	71	C	40	4-3	4-5	0-0	4-5
EA	8	New York University	UAA	0.750	0.525	0.638	81	C	48	6-2	6-2	0-0	7-2
EA	9	Vassar	LL	0.750	0.513	0.631	87	C	54	6-2	6-2	0-0	6-2
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
AT	1	William Paterson	NJAC	1.000	0.617	0.809	3	A	C	11-0	12-0	0-0	12-0
AT	2	Kean	NJAC	0.917	0.583	0.750	16	C	4	11-1	11-2	0-0	11-2
AT	3	Mary Washington	CAC	1.000	0.448	0.724	26	A	wC	8-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
AT	4	Mount St. Mary	SKY	0.800	0.624	0.712	30	A	wC	8-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
AT	5	Richard Stockton	NJAC	0.833	0.590	0.712	31	C	13	5-1	8-1	0-0	8-1
AT	6	York (Pa.)	CAC	0.818	0.549	0.684	50	C	25	9-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
AT	7	Trinity (D.C.)	IND	1.000	0.305	0.653	68	B	1	2-0	2-0	0-0	4-1
AT	8	Catholic	LAND	0.778	0.518	0.648	72	C	41	7-2	8-2	0-0	9-2
AT	9	Ramapo	NJAC	0.778	0.517	0.648	73	C	42	7-2	8-3	0-0	8-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MA	1	Muhlenberg	CC	1.000	0.508	0.754	13	A	C	9-0	9-0	0-0	9-0
MA	2	Juniata	LAND	0.909	0.523	0.716	28	A	wC	10-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
MA	3	Johns Hopkins	CC	0.875	0.545	0.710	32	C	14	7-1	7-1	0-0	7-1
MA	4	Eastern	MACF	0.833	0.539	0.686	47	A	wC	5-1	6-2	0-0	7-2
MA	5	Lebanon Valley	MACC	0.818	0.547	0.682	51	A	wC	9-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
MA	6	Franklin and Marshall	CC	0.778	0.566	0.672	62	C	33	7-2	8-2	0-0	8-2
MA	7	Kings	MACF	0.750	0.533	0.641	78	C	46	6-2	7-3	0-0	8-3
MA	8	Messiah	MACC	0.700	0.561	0.630	88	C	55	7-3	8-3	0-0	8-3
MA	9	Marywood	CSAC	0.750	0.484	0.617	95	A		6-2	7-2	0-0	8-2
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
SO	1	McMurry	ASC	1.000	0.574	0.787	7	A	C	6-0	6-0	0-0	8-1
SO	2	Piedmont	GSAC	1.000	0.512	0.756	12	A	C	6-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
SO	3	Greensboro	USAC	0.833	0.647	0.740	20	A	C	5-1	5-1	0-0	5-1
SO	4	Louisiana College	ASC	0.889	0.515	0.702	35	C	17	8-1	8-1	0-0	8-2
SO	5	Concordia (Texas)	ASC	0.875	0.519	0.697	39	C	19	7-1	7-1	0-0	8-1
SO	6	Centre	SCAC	0.889	0.504	0.696	40	A	wC	8-1	10-1	0-0	10-1
SO	7	Virginia Wesleyan	ODAC	0.857	0.518	0.687	45	A	wC	6-1	7-2	0-0	7-2
SO	8	Eastern Mennonite	ODAC	0.857	0.515	0.686	46	C	22	6-1	7-1	0-0	7-1
SO	9	Texas-Dallas	ASC	0.889	0.480	0.684	48	C	23	8-1	9-1	0-0	10-1
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
GL	1	Franklin	HCAC	1.000	0.523	0.762	11	A	C	10-0	10-0	0-0	11-0
GL	2	DePauw	NCAC	0.889	0.618	0.753	14	A	C	8-1	9-1	0-0	9-1
GL	3	Calvin	MIAA	1.000	0.505	0.753	15	A	C	6-0	8-0	0-0	11-0
GL	4	Mount Union	OAC	0.889	0.595	0.742	19	A	C	8-1	10-1	0-0	10-1
GL	5	Kenyon	NCAC	0.900	0.507	0.704	34	C	16	9-1	9-2	0-0	9-2
GL	6	Ohio Northern	OAC	0.833	0.564	0.699	37	C	18	10-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
GL	7	St. Vincent	PrAC	0.900	0.477	0.689	43	A	wC	9-1	9-2	0-0	9-2
GL	8	Otterbein	OAC	0.833	0.524	0.679	53	C	27	10-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
GL	9	Thomas More	PrAC	0.875	0.477	0.676	55	C	28	7-1	7-3	0-0	8-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
CE	1	Washington U.	UAA	1.000	0.576	0.788	5	C	2	9-0	10-1	0-0	10-1
CE	2	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	1.000	0.572	0.786	8	A	C	10-0	11-0	0-0	11-1
CE	3	Chicago	UAA	1.000	0.558	0.779	9	A	C	9-0	9-0	0-0	9-0
CE	4	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.909	0.565	0.737	21	C	7	10-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
CE	5	Principia	SLIAC	1.000	0.440	0.720	27	C	11	2-0	2-0	0-0	3-6
CE	6	UW-Eau Claire	WIAC	0.917	0.515	0.716	29	C	12	11-1	11-1	0-0	11-2
CE	7	Westminster (Mo.)	SLIAC	0.800	0.580	0.690	42	C	20	4-1	5-1	0-0	7-2
CE	8	UW-La Crosse	WIAC	0.800	0.546	0.673	60	C	32	8-2	8-3	0-0	9-3
CE	9	Wisconsin Lutheran	NATHC	0.714	0.578	0.646	75	A	bub	5-2	6-2	0-0	7-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	SOS	RPI50	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
WE	1	George Fox	NWC	1.000	0.644	0.822	2	A	C	6-0	8-0	0-0	11-0
WE	2	Lewis and Clark	NWC	1.000	0.486	0.743	18	C	6	4-0	6-0	0-0	11-0
WE	3	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.889	0.564	0.726	25	C	10	8-1	8-1	0-0	8-1
WE	4	Gustavus Adolphus	MIAC	0.778	0.617	0.697	38	A	wC	7-2	7-2	0-0	7-2
WE	5	Bethel	MIAC	0.875	0.471	0.673	58	C	30	7-1	7-1	0-0	7-1
WE	6	St. Olaf	MIAC	0.778	0.559	0.668	63	C	34	7-2	7-2	0-0	7-2
WE	7	Cal Lutheran	SCIAC	0.800	0.502	0.651	70	A	wC	4-1	5-2	0-0	6-4
WE	8	Coe	IIAC	0.818	0.475	0.647	74	C	43	9-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
WE	9	Wartburg	IIAC	0.750	0.539	0.644	76	C	44	9-3	9-3	0-0	9-3

Regional Rankings 1/3/2012

2012-01-03T13:29:00.001-05:00

These regional rankings are not official. I use my own formula (heavily based on RPI). All data comes via d3hoops.com.

A few notes:

This is not a 'top-25 'poll or power poll. The point of these rankings is not to determine who I actually think are the best teams, but to approximate the NCAA's official regional rankings that are released starting in early February.
These rankings attempt to account for in-region winning percentage (primary criterion), in-region strength of schedule (primary), results versus regionally ranked teams (primary), division III winning percentage (secondary criterion), and division III strength of schedule (secondary). It does not currently account for head-to-head matchups or results versus common opponents (both primary criteria), so feel free to ‘adjust’ the rankings accordingly.
I 'award' the Pool A bid to the team with the highest RPI (versus all D-III teams). Since 97.6% of the automatic bids are doled out to winners of conference tournaments anyway, I figured this was about as relevant as using actual standings (and 100 times easier).
The pre-championship manual has been released, and the home/away multipliers are still in effect, but this year they carry a different (better) weight. For away games, a multiplier of 1.25 is being applied to SOS, and for home games, a multiplier of 0.75 is used.

Through games of 1/2/2012

Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
NE	1	Middlebury	NESCAC	1.000	0.590	0.692	2	C	1	7-0	8-0	0-0	9-0
NE	2	Western Connecticut	LEC	0.917	0.610	0.687	6	C	3	11-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
NE	3	Rhode Island College	LEC	0.900	0.593	0.670	11	A	C	9-1	9-1	0-0	9-1
NE	4	Amherst	NESCAC	0.889	0.585	0.661	14	C	6	8-1	10-1	0-0	10-1
NE	5	MIT	NEWMAC	1.000	0.465	0.599	17	C	7	12-0	12-0	0-0	12-0
NE	6	WPI	NEWMAC	0.818	0.600	0.655	25	A	wC	9-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
NE	7	Eastern Connecticut	LEC	0.889	0.503	0.599	31	C	15	8-1	8-1	0-0	8-1
NE	8	Wesleyan	NESCAC	0.909	0.477	0.585	32	C	16	10-1	10-2	0-0	10-2
NE	9	Williams	NESCAC	0.900	0.461	0.571	40	A	bub	9-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
NE	10	Albertus Magnus	GNAC	0.875	0.456	0.561	49	A	bub	7-1	7-1	0-0	7-1
NE	11	Keene State	LEC	0.750	0.520	0.578	71	C	41	6-2	7-2	0-0	7-3
NE	12	Clark	NEWMAC	0.700	0.572	0.604	74	C	43	7-3	7-5	0-0	7-5
NE	13	St. Josephs (Maine)	GNAC	0.667	0.597	0.615	77	C	46	6-3	6-3	0-0	6-3
NE	14	Becker	NECC	0.667	0.590	0.609	79	A		6-3	6-3	0-0	6-3
NE	15	Elms	NECC	0.571	0.681	0.654	83	C	51	4-3	5-4	0-0	5-4
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
EA	1	Hartwick	E8	1.000	0.525	0.644	7	C	4	11-0	11-0	0-0	11-0
EA	2	New York University	UAA	1.000	0.451	0.588	18	A	C	7-0	8-0	0-0	8-0
EA	3	Hobart	LL	0.857	0.525	0.608	35	A	wC	6-1	7-1	0-0	7-1
EA	4	Oswego State	SUNYAC	0.900	0.435	0.552	48	C	25	9-1	9-1	0-0	9-1
EA	5	Rochester	UAA	0.800	0.530	0.597	50	C	26	8-2	8-2	0-0	8-2
EA	6	Nazareth	E8	0.714	0.609	0.635	51	A	bub	5-2	5-3	0-0	5-4
EA	7	Hamilton	NESCAC	0.778	0.529	0.591	55	C	29	7-2	9-2	0-0	10-2
EA	8	Cortland State	SUNYAC	0.800	0.491	0.568	62	C	35	8-2	8-2	0-0	8-2
EA	9	Buffalo State	SUNYAC	0.857	0.404	0.517	72	A		6-1	9-1	0-0	10-1
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
AT	1	New Jersey City	NJAC	1.000	0.531	0.648	4	C	2	7-0	8-1	0-0	9-1
AT	2	William Paterson	NJAC	0.909	0.495	0.599	29	A	wC	10-1	10-1	0-0	10-1
AT	3	St. Josephs (L.I.)	SKY	0.889	0.474	0.578	42	A	bub	8-1	8-1	0-0	8-1
AT	4	Staten Island	CUNYAC	0.750	0.603	0.640	47	C	24	6-2	6-4	0-0	7-4
AT	5	Ramapo	NJAC	0.769	0.525	0.586	60	C	33	10-3	10-3	0-0	10-3
AT	6	Brooklyn	CUNYAC	0.750	0.528	0.584	70	A		6-2	6-2	0-0	7-2
AT	7	Montclair State	NJAC	0.727	0.535	0.583	78	C	47	8-3	9-3	0-0	11-3
AT	8	Medgar Evers	CUNYAC	0.545	0.635	0.612	110	C	74	6-5	7-5	0-0	8-5
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MA	1	Cabrini	CSAC	1.000	0.535	0.651	3	A	C	9-0	9-1	0-0	9-1
MA	2	Lycoming	MACC	1.000	0.510	0.632	8	A	C	10-0	10-0	0-0	11-0
MA	3	St. Marys (Md.)	CAC	0.778	0.680	0.704	19	A	C	7-2	8-3	0-0	9-3
MA	4	Catholic	LAND	1.000	0.441	0.581	23	C	11	11-0	11-1	0-0	11-1
MA	5	Franklin and Marshall	CC	1.000	0.437	0.578	24	A	wC	10-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
MA	6	Keystone	CSAC	0.800	0.563	0.622	43	C	22	8-2	8-2	0-0	8-2
MA	7	Widener	MACC	0.750	0.550	0.600	56	C	30	6-2	7-2	0-0	9-2
MA	8	Alvernia	MACC	0.625	0.661	0.652	61	C	34	5-3	6-3	0-0	6-3
MA	9	Mary Washington	CAC	0.778	0.485	0.558	75	C	44	7-2	7-2	0-0	8-4
MA	10	Johns Hopkins	CC	0.714	0.530	0.576	84	C	52	5-2	6-2	0-0	6-2
MA	11	Juniata	LAND	0.700	0.541	0.581	87	C	55	7-3	8-3	0-0	9-3
MA	12	Salisbury	CAC	0.700	0.520	0.565	95	C	61	7-3	8-3	0-0	8-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
SO	1	Emory	UAA	1.000	0.448	0.586	20	C	8	10-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
SO	2	Mary Hardin-Baylor	ASC	1.000	0.446	0.584	21	C	9	9-0	10-0	0-0	10-0
SO	3	Virginia Wesleyan	ODAC	0.900	0.503	0.602	30	C	14	9-1	9-1	0-0	9-1
SO	4	Hardin-Simmons	ASC	0.875	0.469	0.571	46	A	bub	7-1	9-1	0-0	9-1
SO	5	Texas-Dallas	ASC	0.800	0.523	0.592	52	C	27	8-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
SO	6	Centre	SCAC	0.667	0.646	0.651	54	A	bub	6-3	8-3	0-0	8-3
SO	7	Randolph-Macon	ODAC	0.800	0.496	0.572	59	A		8-2	9-3	0-0	9-3
SO	8	Rhodes	SCAC	0.875	0.419	0.533	63	C	36	7-1	8-4	0-0	8-4
SO	9	Hampden-Sydney	ODAC	0.800	0.452	0.539	81	C	49	8-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
SO	10	Guilford	ODAC	0.700	0.547	0.585	85	C	53	7-3	7-4	0-0	8-4
SO	11	Lynchburg	ODAC	0.667	0.564	0.590	91	C	58	6-3	7-3	0-0	7-5
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
GL	1	Hope	MIAA	1.000	0.657	0.743	1	A	C	2-0	3-0	0-0	10-1
GL	2	Wabash	NCAC	0.889	0.636	0.700	5	A	C	8-1	8-1	0-0	10-1
GL	3	Bethany	PrAC	1.000	0.510	0.632	9	A	C	10-0	10-1	0-0	11-1
GL	4	Ohio Wesleyan	NCAC	0.900	0.513	0.610	26	C	12	9-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
GL	5	Wooster	NCAC	0.778	0.599	0.643	34	C	17	7-2	8-2	0-0	9-2
GL	6	Wittenberg	NCAC	0.714	0.569	0.606	65	C	38	5-2	6-2	0-0	7-3
GL	7	Marietta	OAC	0.700	0.580	0.610	66	A		7-3	7-3	0-0	8-4
GL	8	John Carroll	OAC	0.750	0.517	0.576	73	C	42	6-2	6-2	0-0	8-2
GL	9	Baldwin-Wallace	OAC	0.727	0.530	0.580	80	C	48	8-3	8-3	0-0	8-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
MW	1	Transylvania	HCAC	1.000	0.485	0.614	12	A	C	9-0	10-1	0-0	10-1
MW	2	Lake Forest	MWC	0.875	0.592	0.663	15	A	C	7-1	7-1	0-0	7-1
MW	3	Edgewood	NATHC	0.889	0.576	0.654	16	A	C	8-1	8-1	0-0	10-1
MW	4	Grinnell	MWC	1.000	0.413	0.560	28	C	13	7-0	7-0	0-0	8-0
MW	5	Wheaton (Ill.)	CCIW	0.778	0.595	0.640	36	A	wC	7-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
MW	6	Washington U.	UAA	0.800	0.574	0.631	37	C	18	8-2	8-3	0-0	8-3
MW	7	Augustana	CCIW	0.900	0.469	0.577	38	C	19	9-1	9-1	0-0	10-1
MW	8	Ripon	MWC	0.833	0.540	0.613	39	C	20	5-1	6-2	0-0	7-2
MW	9	Illinois Wesleyan	CCIW	0.778	0.571	0.623	45	C	23	7-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
MW	10	Rose-Hulman	HCAC	0.818	0.498	0.578	53	C	28	9-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
MW	11	Hanover	HCAC	0.778	0.501	0.570	68	C	40	7-2	7-3	0-0	7-3
Reg.	Rank	Team	Conference	WP	wSOS	wRPI	Nat.	Pool	Status	REG	D3	vRRO	OVR
WE	1	Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	SCIAC	1.000	0.500	0.625	10	A	C	5-0	7-0	0-0	11-0
WE	2	UW-Whitewater	WIAC	0.917	0.559	0.648	13	C	5	11-1	11-1	0-0	11-1
WE	3	UW-River Falls	WIAC	0.900	0.543	0.632	22	C	10	9-1	9-1	0-0	9-3
WE	4	Dubuque	IIAC	1.000	0.416	0.562	27	A	wC	7-0	7-0	0-0	7-2
WE	5	UW-Stevens Point	WIAC	0.800	0.577	0.633	33	A	wC	8-2	10-2	0-0	10-2
WE	6	UW-La Crosse	WIAC	0.800	0.563	0.622	41	C	21	8-2	9-2	0-0	10-2
WE	7	Whitworth	NWC	0.889	0.462	0.568	44	A	bub	8-1	9-1	0-0	9-2
WE	8	Luther	IIAC	0.818	0.486	0.569	57	C	31	9-2	9-2	0-0	9-2
WE	9	St. Thomas	MIAC	0.667	0.634	0.642	58	C	32	6-3	6-3	0-0	7-3
WE	10	Central	IIAC	0.875	0.413	0.528	64	C	37	7-1	8-1	0-0	8-1
WE	11	Puget Sound	NWC	0.833	0.448	0.544	67	C	39	5-1	5-1	0-0	10-1
WE	12	Gustavus Adolphus	MIAC	0.625	0.651	0.645	69	A		5-3	6-3	0-0	6-3

Everybody Hates Losing

2012-01-03T11:45:00.001-05:00

Whitman 84, Calvin 67 (box score)

Fill-in radio man Brad Draayer asked coach Vande Streek what I thought was a very good question after Friday night’s discouraging loss to Whitman.

Was this trip worth it?

The response by KVS contained more than a little bit of coachspeak, but I thought it was a very good response.

(Paraphrasing)

No one likes losing. The players hate losing, the coaches hate losing, the fans hate losing. We could make a non-conference schedule where we win most of our games by 10 or 20 points, but we choose to play good teams to help us get better and to prepare us for the conference season.

I think the idea here is that Coach Vande Streek would rather see the team go 0-2 against quality teams like Whitworth and Whitman than 2-0 against teams like Trinity Christian. The latter has the risk of tricking the team into thinking they’re good when really they’re only average. The former may trick the team into thinking they’re terrible when really they’re average.

Obviously, we’d all like to see them go 2-0 against the really good competition. We (and he) would love to see them be great. But they’re not that right now. The philosophy is to play tough teams so that you can truly learn where you stand against the tough competition. I’m willing to take that experience over a falsely inflated W-L record.

Game Bullets

As far as I’m concerned, the offensive strategy should revolve around getting the ball to Matt DeBoer, especially in the paint. He’s shooting over 60% on the year, and heaven knows we need to see scoring efficiency right now.
The defensive numbers for the game don’t come out all that bad actually. It was a fast paced affair, and even though Whitman scored 84 points, it only ended up being an offensive efficiency rating of about 98.5 for the Missionaries.
Tyler Kruis came away from the Pacific Northwest with just five points on two of seven shooting in the two games. I know foul trouble was a big issue in both games, but Tyler needs to be a central part of the offense.
Mickey DeVries showed up big on the offensive end. Calvin desperately needs scoring threats, and it was nice to see Mickey cash in on the opportunity.
Free throw shooting has suddenly become a big issue for the Knights. They haven’t had a game in which they shot better than 70% as a team since the Cornerstone game on Thanksgiving weekend (seven games ago).

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Whitman Preview

2011-12-30T11:37:00.005-05:00

	Game Eleven
Who	Whitman Missionaries, 7-3, Northwest Conference
Where	Lynden, Washington
When	Friday, December 30, 10 PM (EST)
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	none
Stats	Live Stats

When We Last Met
This will either be the first meeting between the two schools, or the first in a long time. I don't have any record of them playing. Then again, my records don't go back all that far.

About Whitman
Whitman's a good team, but I'm not yet sure how good they are. Good enough to beat Calvin? Definitely. Good enough to dominate them the way Whitworth did last night? Hopefully not.

They have one common opponent with the Knights; they suffered a 10 point loss at the hands of Wheaton on a neutral floor in Texas. That single data point would match them up very well with Calvin, who lost by five to Wheaton at home.

Whitman can claim solid wins against Chapman and Lewis and Clark (though the jury's still out on L&C in my opinion), as well as a solid 37 point drubbing of Buena Vista. Their nine point home loss to George Fox looks pretty bad though.

'Four Factors'

The two teams look to be pretty evenly matched, although Whitman does hold a decent advantage when it comes to shooting percentage.

One big area of concern is going to be turnovers (isn't it always?). It doesn't shot up on this graph, but the Whitman defense has forced A TON of turnovers so far this year -- around 27% of their opponents possessions end in giving the ball away. I don't know if that's due to a press (I'm guessing not because they average under 68 possessions per 40 minutes. Usually teams that press play at a faster pace than that.), but hyper-active defenses usually give Calvin trouble.

Team	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	ORb%	Rb%	Ar	TOr	Blk%	Stl%	OEff	DEff	POS	POS/40
Calvin	0.463	1.00	0.29	0.38	0.55	0.63	0.21	0.14	0.09	98.5	102.0	728	71.5
Whitman	0.497	1.04	0.36	0.37	0.55	0.44	0.19	0.03	0.13	105.3	86.1	685	67.9

They don't appear to be particularly explosive on offense -- their 105.3 offensive efficiency rating is good, but nothing to write home about -- but they have lock-down type defensive numbers. Whitman has been strong on the glass, and as mentioned above, very active in forcing opponent turnovers.

Predictions and Success Benchmarks

Massey says Whitman by a score of 73-66 (before last night's beat down).
Offensive success benchmark: score more than 70 points.
Defensive success benchmar: allow fewer than 73 points.
Obviously a win would be nice, but there wouldn't be much shame in keeping it within a possession or two.

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Shattered

2011-12-30T09:13:00.000-05:00

Whitworth 76, Calvin 51 (box score)

Arms and games.

This was a really disappointing result. Not that I expected the Knights to win, but to get utterly dominated like this is very discouraging. Injuries, yes. First game after a long break, yes. Lots of travel, yes. But none of that can excuse away a 25 point shellacking.

Whitworth didn't shoot all that well -- just over 41% for the game -- but they destroyed Calvin on the glass. Most disappointing of all, Calvin allowed Whitworth to collect 22 offensive rebounds (49%) while grabbing only nine themselves (26%). That's really how Whitworth was able to turn this game into a laugher. They didn't really shoot much better than the Knights did, but they were able to shoot the ball 21 more times. That will turn into lots of points all by itself.

Bullets

Tyler Kruis only attempted one shot. I don't think Calvin is going to win many games without his presence being established. He got into early foul trouble which took him out of the game*, so that didn't help things either.
Zero turnovers from either Rietema or Powell is a good thing.
The playing rotation will be even more patchwork for a while with Vallie out. It looks like Tyler Dykstra will be the primary beneficiary of his minutes. Probably a few more for Mast and Haverdink now too.
No idea where points are going to come from. I'm probably overreacting though.

*I don't understand why coaches need to pull players after recording their third foul in the first half. Kruis only played five or six minutes in the first half because of his foul trouble, and only ended up with 16 minutes for the game. Why not just keep the normal rotation? Three things could happen: (1) leave him in and he doesn't get further into foul trouble -- roughly 26 minutes (2) leave him in and he fouls out early -- roughly15 minutes (3) sit him down so he doesn't foul out early -- 16 minutes. The way I see it, by pulling players, you're pretty much guaranteeing the foul-out penalty.

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Mitch Vallie to Miss Remainder of the Season WIth Broken Arm

2011-12-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Some bad news on the injury front for the Calvin Knights: Mitch Vallie apparently suffered a broken arm this morning in Washington. The word is that he'll miss the rest of the season.

Calvin is already without Jordan Brink, who had shoulder surgery before the season began.

The injury means that Calvin is down to 13 on their roster, so we'll probably see a JV player added to the varsity team. My bet is that T.J. Huizenga gets the call up.

Here's the picture that Mitch sent out from his twitter account:

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