Champs.

I'm hoping these students (not pictured) were at the volleyball match.

Calvin 84, Grace Bible 53 (box score)

Calvin 83, North Park 54 (box score)

Not the sports apparel retailer, that’s Champs Sports, and not the sports bar and grill chain, that’s Champps Americana Restaurant (notice the extra ‘P’, someone over there is too clever); I’m talking about the Calvin Tip-off Tournament Champs.

It’s kind of a big deal. People know it.

I find it hard to write words after horrible, horrible losses and blowout victories, but at least I can justify typing random words after the latter (I think that means the second one), because no one’s reading this anyway. They’re all out celebrating the championship. Still.

The results of the two games this past weekend were nice – it’s rarely a bad thing to win by 30 – and we don’t know how the respective seasons for Grace and North Park will shake out, but winning both of these games by 30 (or 31 and 29, if you’re a stickler for details) should put Calvin right where they want to be. In order to be a good team one must beat these two soundly, and Calvin did just that.

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Calvin Tip-Off Tournament Preview

	Game Preview
Who	Grace Bible Tigers (NCCAA-II)
	North Park Vikings
	Cairn Highlanders
What	Calvin Tip-off Tournament
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Friday 5:30 PM,  7:30 PM Saturday 1 PM, 3 PM
Audio	Calvin Stretch Internet
Video	Calvin Live Stream
Live Stats	Live Stats
Tickets	$5 at the door or online

When We Last Met
Last year's Tip-Off Tournament marked the first time in three years that Calvin had won the title. Having lost to the Grace Bible Tigers the two years previous, Calvin eked out a double-over time win against a Grace team that probably "should have won" in regulation and in the first overtime. No one on the current Calvin team has beaten Grace in regulation. We're all getting itchy.

It's been a number of years since Calvin has played North Park. More than 15, and perhaps many more than that. They're in-region, so it would be a good game for Calvin to play (and win).

Cairn (known alias: Philadelphia Bible) came to the Calvin Tip-off Tournament in 2004-05, but they lost their opening game versus Eastern (PA) and didn't meet up with Calvin.

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Stats-And-More Versus Grace Bible

Win Probability Graph
This one is a lot more fun to look at than the one from the Anderson game (click image for larger version.).

Lots of ups and downs and back and forths. The lowest point of the game was right near the end of the first overtime when Calvin was down by five with under a minute to play (look just to the left of the 45 minute mark on the graph). At that point, their chances of winning was one-half of one percent. Snikkers' first three pointer brought that up to 11%, but then that dropped to 3% after Krombeen hit one of the free throws. Tommy's second three pointer that tied the game, then, brought them all the way back to 50%. That one shot was worth 47 points of 'win probability added', which is pretty much a full team win in itself (since each team begins the game with a 50-50 chance, one win equals 50 points of win probability added, and a loss would equal -50 points of WPA).

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Andy Draayer and Matt Veltema Wore Number 30 Too

Calvin 92, Grace Bible 88 (box score)

With the game on the line and the Calvin Knights in desperate need of some clutch three point shooting, it wasn't necessarily a surprise to see a number 30 rise up and bury the shot. What was surprising, though, was that this number 30 jersey was occupied by Tom Snikkers, and not either of the former three point sharpshooters Andy Draayer or Matt Veltema.

Trailing by five points with only 58 seconds remaining in the first overtime, the Calvin Knights were looking for a quasi-miracle. Snikkers hit a three to give Calvin a breath of life, but they were still down, and Grace could afford to milk the clock before attacking the basket. Calvin fouled Ryan Krombeen with 14 seconds left needing a miss and a three to tie the game. Krombeen obliged by missing one of his two free throws, and the Knights received the opportunity to tie the game.

After a timeout and several passes, Tom Snikkers ended up with the ball with time ticking off the clock. So he simply put up a shot -- from way deep -- and buried it. Exactly like Draayer or Veltema would have done.

It wasn't a really pretty game, but the Knights battled hard to win. At halftime, the two sides were dead even in rebounding, but Calvin hit the glass hard in the second half and in overtime to win that battle by a 56-42 margin.

Snikker lead the way with 27 points and 11 rebounds, but Mitch Vallie also chipped in a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds (I'm pretty sure Zac has his Whitney Houston CD on continuous loop right now). It's also impossible to look past what Mickey DeVries did tonight. He came away with 13 points and 7 boards off the bench, and played nearly all of the crucial minutes down the stretch. He played the same number of minutes as Tyler Kruis did, but Mickey was mainly the guy on the floor during crunch time.

Overall this was a fun game to watch. One of those back and forth contests that keeps everyone on the edge of their seats. The largest lead by both teams was six. No game is ever out of reach for either team when the margin never surpasses two possessions. I'm just glad/relieved that it was Calvin that ended the game on top.

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Calvin Tip-off Tournament Preview

	Games Two and Three
Who	D'Youville
	Willamette
	Grace Bible (NCCAA II #1)
What	Calvin Tip-off Tournament
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Friday 5:30 PM and 7:30 PM
	Saturday 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Stretch Internet
Stats	Live Stats

This is pretty much going to be a preview of the Calvin-Grace game for two reasons. (1) I may (or may not) make another preview post for tomorrow's game and (2) I don't care about either of the other teams.

When We Last Met
I don't think there is a single Calvin fan that needs to be reminded that the Knights are riding a two game skid versus the Bible Tigers from down the street. In last year's meeting, Calvin saw a nine point lead turn into a one-point loss in the final five minutes of the game.

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And That Just Happened (Again)

I knew this game was going to be a battle for the Knights. We learned last year that the Grace Tigers weren't messing around anymore, and they've continued that trend into this season. But still, this was a game that Calvin should have won.

The Knights were up by 10 with 8:59 to go in the first half, but then allowed Grace to go on a 21-5 run, and ended up trailing at the break.

The story was the same in the second half. A Tom Snikkers basket with 4:59 to go gave the Knights a 59-50 advantage, but they would only score four more points -- and allow 14 to Grace.

I thought they were about to get last year's monkey off their back and then...



Train wreck city.

They only mustered 1-5 shooting and 2-4 from the line over the final stretch to complete the collapse.

Here's Krombeen's final shot from my vantage point.



You'll notice the camera doesn't pan back when Calvin takes the ball down the court. I think I blacked out or something. I thought he had left it short for sure. (Also, don't worry about that mild travel by Durham at the top of the lane before he dishes it off, I think you're allowed to slide the pivot foot something like three feet.)

Good news is that, being and out-of-region game, it really doesn't count for anything except hurt feelings and a mild bout with Tourette syndrome. You learn, you get better, you move on.

Offensive Chart:

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar
Powell	0.675	0.276	0.455	0.909	0.000	0.421
Brink	0.725	0.094	0.500	1.290	0.750	0.000
Rodts	0.775	0.262	0.417	0.914	0.583	0.348
Snikkers	0.650	0.287	0.500	1.088	0.182	0.250
Schuster	0.600	0.226	0.688	1.313	0.500	0.125
Haverdink	0.500	0.136	0.250	0.500	0.000	0.111
Schnyders	0.500	0.169	0.000	0.510	1.200	0.100
DeBoer	0.175	0.291	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000
DeYoung	0.400	0.042	0.000	0.000	1.000	0.125
Team	1.000	1.000	0.407	0.901	0.390	0.700

In contrast to the game at Davenport, we see mostly poor numbers here, save Schuster, Brink, and maybe Snikkers.

I'll give the game ball to Brent Schuster. He had a really nice day recording Calvin's first double-double of the year. I would have liked to seem him pull the trigger on a few of the three point opportunities he passed up, but I can't complain at all about his final numbers.

Defensive Chart:

Defense
DEff	91.3
DeFG%	0.420
DRb%	0.614
DTO%	0.228
DFTr	0.101
DPPWS	0.885

All extremely good, except the defensive rebounding. Would like to see that closer to 70%. Kudos to the defense for playing tough.

As promised in the live blog, here's the finish to the Heidelberg-Ohio Wesleyan game:



Heidelberg wins by a point.

Calvin will play OWU in the consolation game tomorrow at 1:00 PM. This is a must win, as it's a highly prized regional contest.

Tip-off Tournament Live Blog - Day 1

I'll be at the game, but I'll post some of my thoughts (and maybe a few pictures) below using Cover It Live (via Twitter @snyder_matthew). I'm not sure if I'll be able to enable comments or not, but you can go ahead and try.

I'll be at both games, so if there are any Heidelberg or Ohio Wesleyan fans out there, feel free to check it out too.

Tip-Off Tournament Preview

	Calvin Tip-Off Tournament
Who	Grace Bible (NCCAA II)
	Heidelberg (OAC)
	Ohio Wesleyan (NCAC)
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Friday
	Heidelberg vs. OWU - 5:30 PM
	Calvin vs. Grace - 7:30 PM
	Saturday
	Consolation Game - 1:00 PM
	Championship Game - 3:30 PM
Radio	WFUR 102.9 FM
Web Audio	Stretch Internet
Web Video	Stretch Internet
Live Stats	Calvin Scoreboard
Tickets	$5.00, $3.00 at Door and Online

Game One
This will be Heidelberg's season opener, so we don't have any numbers on them yet, but let's try to piece something together anyway. The OAC coaches voted Heidelberg to finish sixth in the preseason coaches poll, but they did pick up one first place vote.

The Student Princes finished sixth (out of ten) in the Ohio Athletic Conference last season with a conference record of 9-9 (15-13 overall). But don't let the .500 record fool you, they were still a pretty good team. They upset conference champion John Carroll in the OAC Tournament semi-finals, but missed out on an NCAA bid with a loss to Wilmington in the championship game. The OAC, as a league, is much deeper than the MIAA.

Ohio Wesleyan has one game under their belt, a 66-57 home loss to Albion. The NCAC coaches predicted the Battling Bishops would finish third in the league this season, but a home loss to what looks to be a pretty mediocre Albion team doesn't bode well for them.

Game Two
We all remember what happened last year. I don't really want to talk about it.

Grace apparently doesn’t maintain a statistics page on their athletics website, nor do they post individual box scores, so I don’t have all of their stats. But it’s not all bad. Outside of a game against Davenport and a game against Cornerstone, they’ve played a bunch of cupcakes. I was able to easily find box scores for the DU and C’stone games-- they’re probably more comparable to Calvin talent-wise than Southwestern Community Bible Tech, or whoever it was that Grace played.

Grace lost these two games by a combined seven points, so they were more than competitive against two very tough teams.

I don’t usually do this, but because the competition level has been so similar, the side-by-side comparison is pretty interesting. Instead of simply comparing Calvin vs. DU to Grace vs. DU, I elected to include Grace vs. Cornerstone, picking a sample size boost over exact comparison. I think we’ll get (slightly) closer to an estimate of Grace’s true talent level this way.

	Calvin	Grace
eFG%	0.580	0.527
DeFG%	0.507	0.476
TOr	0.28	0.29
DTOr	0.13	0.18
ORb%	0.310	0.297
DRb%	0.659	0.704
FTr	0.30	0.29
DFTr	0.38	0.34
OEff	103.7	93.8
DEff	115.5	98.6

One of the more interesting factoids from this chart is that Grace has actually been slightly worse in turning the ball over. I didn't really know that was possible. Looks like Calvin would be well served to pressure the ball more than normal.

Across the board, Calvin has the better offensive numbers, and Grace has the better defensive numbers. Again, interesting.

Normal Chart:

Match-up	Calvin	Grace	Adv.
Calvin eFG% vs. Grace DeFG%	0.580	0.476	-
Calvin DeFG% vs. Grace eFG%	0.507	0.527	-
Calvin TOr vs. Grace DTOr	0.28	0.18	-
Calvin DTOr vs. Grace TOr	0.13	0.29	-
Calvin ORb% vs. Grace DRb%	0.310	0.704	-
Calvin DRb% vs. Grace ORb%	0.659	0.297	-
Calvin FTr vs. Grace DFTr	0.30	0.34	-
Calvin DFTr vs. Grace FTr	0.38	0.29	-
Calvin OEff vs. Grace DEff	103.7	98.6	-
Calvin DEff vs. Grace OEff	115.5	93.8	-

The information is the same as in the first table, but this is organized in my usual offense vs. defense fashion. It's still too early to declare advantages; maybe that comes next weekend (but maybe not).

This is going to be a very good game. Grace has hung tough with two undefeated and highly ranked NAIA teams. Those losses are nothing to hang your head over. Grace manhandled Calvin last year by playing a disciplined, fundamentally sound game, and I expect to see the same effort out of them this time. I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't nervous.

Key Match-up
Calvin's post players versus Allen Durham. In order for the Knights to be successful on Friday night, they'll need to find a way to slow down Grace's big man. In the games against Davenport and Cornerstone, he's averaged 16.5 points and 13.5 rebounds. Averaged. Coach Vande Streek has been very complimentary of Durham saying something to the effect of him being one of the best post players Calvin will see all year.

Sure To Be Wrong Prediction
So far I'm 2-2 in predicting Calvin losses, but that trend will end here. (Hopefully it's the trend of the losses, not the spot-on prognostication.)

Calvin by 5
Need to win level: Medium
Expected to win level: Medium-High

May I Recommend?

If your home/family life is like mine, then you're probably better off getting games on the calendar well in advance. That way, your wife can't spring some bogus dinner, or something of the like, on you at the last minute forcing you to miss a sporting event. If she still won't let you go to a game that you want to attend, just start a blog on the subject and then say you "have to." Works every time.

In that vein, here are a couple of local "D-III quality" early season college basketball games that you may be interesting in scheduling/attending.

Saturday November 6 - Davenport Tournament Championship - Davenport University - 3:00 PM
The preliminary games on Friday feature Grace Bible vs. Kuyper College and Davenport vs. Great Lakes Christian College. I fully expect both Grace and DU to win snoozers, so expect them to match up with each other in the tournament final (but check the interwebs on Friday night or Saturday morning for scores before you assume). The hook? These are the first two (regular season) opponents that Calvin will face, so you'll be able to get some advanced scouting in.

Tuesday November 9 - Cornerstone at Grace Bible - 7:00 PM
Grace knocked off Cornerstone a year ago (it wasn't just Calvin, so don't feel too bad). It's the second year in a row that C'stone travels to Grace for a game, which seems odd to me. I always thought of them (until last year) as one of those cupcake type schools that always traveled when they played the "big boys." Perhaps not. Either way, I don't think Grace will be as good as they were last year, but they are to be taken seriously from now on. Cornerstone, meanwhile, is a potential second-day matchup for the Knights in the Grand Rapids Hall of Fame Tournament.

The three teams above (Davenport, Cornerstone, and Grace) should serve as a good early season barometer for the Knights. Even if they don’t end up playing Cornerstone head to head they’ll end up playing three common opponents, so we should be able to determine some sort of relative ability.

I got the wife to sign off on the Grace-Davenport game last night (I have a Tuesday night Bible study, so no dice for me on the Cornerstone game), so I'll be able to provide a write up (with video?) later that day (or the next day, or the next day after that). Anyhoo, this is still all well into the future, but I tend to get overly excited about such things.