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| Jordan Brink thanks the Hope Athletic Department for the free net. |
I went to the Wednesday, February 5 Calvin-Hope game at the
DeVos Fieldhouse with a couple of friends. The refrain from the two of them (and
a few others in our section) throughout the game was “Hope’s just faster and
better than Calvin is”. I kept trying to say “but they’re not this good”.
It turned out that Hope was
that good – on that night – but I tried to assure these friends of mine that
what we just witnessed was something like a 2nd percentile result*. They only
could chuckle at me – apparently I’ve developed something of a reputation for
being overly-statistical in my discussion of the sport – but I truly believed
it.
*Upon further investigation
it appears that the 18-point Hope win was more like a 4th percentile
result.
Hope turned out to be much better than I thought they might
be early in the year, but I refused to believe that they were really any better
than Calvin. The preponderance of evidence* suggested, to me, that they were
not better than even strength with the Knights.
*Calvin outscored the
rest of the MIAA by an average of 19.5 points per game; Hope outscored them by 15.5
points per game. Calvin outscored the quartet of Aquinas, Cornerstone,
Carthage, and Wheaton by a total of 22 points; Hope was a -1 against these four
(HFA probably doesn’t quite make up the difference).
And then Saturday came.
I was fully expecting a close game – one that Hope might win
by virtue of home court advantage – but I rarely expect either side to pull
away in this rivalry.
And then it was 13-2.
Nate VanArendonk slammed home a basket and suddenly we were
all watching some terrible rerun of How I Met Your Mother (except no one would
actually watch that show on purpose).
It was the same dang thing all over again.
Alex Eidson was floating and hanging and hitting everything,
Grant Neil was D-ing up everybody, Cody Stuive was just knocking home three-balls,
VanArendonk was getting free for easy buckets, and Calvin was shooting like 7%
from the floor as a team.
But then our old friend Regression To The Mean showed up,
and Calvin started getting buckets. And then our even better friend (in this
particular case) Regression Way Past The Mean came and took his place and stayed
for the rest of the game. Calvin continued to attack Hope and ended up
out-scoring the Dutchmen 76-40 over the final 34+ minutes of the game.
How did they do it? I really don’t know.
A lot of good luck, that’s for sure, but the three-guard
approach (Austin Parks started instead of Tyler Dykstra) also seemed to reverse
some of the matchup problems Hope caused for Calvin in the earlier meetings.
And Calvin’s defense rarely allowed Hope’s offense to settle into comfortable
offensive sets.
Calvin made terrific adjustments, had an excellent game
plan, and executed the snot out of their assignments. That, mixed with a good
amount of random variation, led us to a 98th percentile result (these according to
Massey). It was completely the other side of the Bell Curve from the
earlier meeting at the DeVos Fieldhouse.
I think it was a testament to the fact that, despite what
the doom-and-gloomers say, Coach Vande Streek and the Knights can make the
proper adjustments, and, despite what the doom-and-gloomers say, the bad
results in the first two meetings with Hope had a good amount of bad luck mixed
in.
Onward and upward.
Jordan Brink and the newly minted MIAA MVP Tyler Kruis have
showed that they can both score (1) efficiently and (2) in bulk. I’m a little
bit nervous about what would happen if a tournament opponent really did shut
these two down, but Calvin has enough offensive weapons that they might still
be able to make it work out. I haven’t adjusted the numbers for
strength-of-schedule, but this year’s Calvin offense ranks as the most
efficient (116.8 points per 100 possessions) of the last 12 years (as far back
as the detailed numbers go online).
The defense isn’t as stifling as it was last year, but they’re
still good (and slightly better than the average Calvin defense of the last 12
years).
The Washington U.-Wilmington-Wittenberg-Calvin pod isn’t
going to be easy for the Knights, but I can assure you that none of the other three teams are tickled with the prospect of an early-round matchup with Calvin.
