2020-21 Virtual Season Opener COVID Style

Its the week after Thanksgiving and that means its basketball season.  Oh wait, not here in Minnesota due to COVID.  But we have other fools excited enough to play so that means we get to test technology and some new stat keeping thanks to our friends in Iowa.  Opening night in Iowa gives us #4 2A Albia vs 1A powerhouse Grand View Christian on YouTube.  

A familiar face for me seeing GVC center Daniel Tobiloba again.  He's one of the top big man prospects in Iowa's 2023 class.  He didn't disappoint on this night.  I liked what I saw of him in July when I was in Ames.  5 first half blocks controlled the paint.  The good folks at Prep Hoops Iowa had him for 22 rebounds as well.  Very raw offensively but a definite impact guy on the defensive end.  GVC rolled the dice and kept him in with fouls for much of the game.  It a game against a top 5 team, play to win!  Love the decision.  

Albia really struggled in the middle 2 quarters to score.  19 points in the 1st quarter with a 12-0 run (Tobiloba fouls had him sitting).  The next 2 quarters they combined for 23 points that saw them shoot  4-23 during a stretch of that.  I had Albia 2-22 from 3 on the night and plenty of good looks.  A Manny Hammonds 3 to beat the 3rd quarter buzzer pushed the lead to 9 and was a back breaker to conclude a 12-4 run that closed the quarter.  Hammonds with 34 points to carry the Grand View Christian offense.  Expect Albia to be a very tough out down the road and Grand View Christian to jump way up in the polls as well.

4 FACTORS
Effective FG%: Grand View Christian 59.09%, Albia 35.29%
Offensive RB%: Albia 32%, Grand View Christian 25%
FT Rate: Albia 19.12%, Grand View Christian 18.18%
TO Rate:  Albia 9.09%, Grand View Christian 25%
Points per Possession: GVC 1.01, Albia 0.85

Czar's Facts of Basketball 101 rears its ugly head again. Shoot it better, you win.  End discussion.  Basket, Ball, put ball in basket.  Grand View Christian got beat on the offensive glass, turned it over, didn't get to the line as much (and didn't make them when there, only 4-13).  But Tobiloba's influence forcing jump shots was the difference.  Albia couldn't hit the outside shots, game over.

Fond Iowa memories from watching the game.  Albia is within a stone's throw from Knoxville, IA where I once ventured.  This was 1 week short of 11 years ago back when current Nova Classical head coach John Carrier was starting his head coaching duties in Iowa.  I still tell John to this day that nobody would know he won a game there if I hadn't been there to watch it.  I lost my original iPhone the night before that trip so I couldn't even live tweet about it.  The horror!

Speaking of horror, John and many others can tell horror stories of just how tight the officiating is in Iowa.  Nothing has changed in that regard from watching tonight.  No breathing allowed!  The best story I can tell about that is when former Iowa Hawkeye Jeff Horner (an Iowa native) and current head coach at D2 Truman State was coaching in the Timberwolves Shootout.  I was sitting at the end of the scorers table right next to his bench.  Play goes on for a couple of minutes to start the game, contact happens and no whistle.  Horner is like "You don't call that here?"   That was a vastly underrated part of the Timberwolves Shootout for me in the final years.  Sitting next to the out of town bench and hearing them think out loud.

Iowa once upon a time had a rule where you had to raise your hand if you got called for a foul.  Being a Wisconsin guy in high school, we made the trip to Iowa to play and saw this in the JV game (where nobody knew it was coming).  Kid got a T for not raising his hand.  So once the varsity game came along, it was comical.  Everybody was raising a hand to make sure if they got called they showed it.