Hope finally gets its Final Four shot

More news about: Hope
Mar 16, 2022
It's been way too long since anyone got to book a trip to the NCAA Division III women's basketball Final Four, but perhaps no program felt it more than Hope, which saw a 61-game win streak go away without even getting a chance to play for Walnut and Bronze.
Hope athletics photo
 

By Riley Zayas
Managing Editor, True to the Cru

Minutes before he coached his first game at the helm of the Hope College women’s basketball program, Brian Morehouse, coming from years working on the men’s coaching staff, with games that regularly filled the 2,800 seat Holland Civic Center, turned to his assistant coach, Michele Schoon. 

“People arrive late for the women’s games?,” he remembers asking. 

“Mo, they’re not coming,” came the reply. 

“We’ll see about that,” Morehouse responded. “We’re going to build this thing so we need more bleachers.” 

At that time, in 1996, Hope played in the college’s recreation center, a facility with no locker rooms and only portable bleachers. That provides a stark contrast from Devos Fieldhouse, the program’s current home, which saw a crowd announced at 2,969 attend Saturday’s Elite Eight victory over NYU. 

“I said, ‘Our goal is to make it relevant,’ ” Morehouse recalls. “I can still remember that conversation. And then I’m looking around this weekend and we have 6,400 people that attended our games. I’m like, ‘Ok, I think we did a good job. We’re relevant.’ ” 

Relevant might not even be the word to accurately describe what Hope women’s basketball has become, especially in recent years. The Holland, Michigan community bought in a while ago, as the team made deep runs in March, but with the 61-game win streak, continued into this season, the national media began picking up the story, widening the attention given to Morehouse’s program. 

That win streak has since been snapped, in a 70-62 home loss to MIAA rival Trine, but its effects remain. It catapulted the Flying Dutch into the spotlight, and as each game passed, the win total building, the pressure became greater. The NCAA Tournament has lasted for the last three weeks, but Hope played with a type of “must-win” pressure for the majority of this season. 
“Whether we had a streak going or not, this program has a deep desire to win every game,” Morehouse said. “But I do think there was a sense of pressure from the outside when more and more focus came on our winning streak.

“It was important for us to learn how to deal with those outside pressures, and increased media scrutiny. I think it helped us to handle after we lost, because there were also questions after that. How do you handle those with grace and humility and begin working to build another streak?”

By sticking with what worked before, apparently. Because since that Jan. 26 loss, Hope has not lost once in 14 games. Nine games after the streak ended, the Flying Dutch earned an opportunity at redemption, facing Trine on its home floor in the MIAA tournament final. Hope left no doubt, taking an 18-12 lead after the first quarter, edging the Thunder for a 54-50 win. 

“We could show up and play three-on-three at a playground at an elementary school and both of these teams would show up and want to compete,” Morehouse said of the rivalry between the programs. “Even if nobody was watching, it doesn’t change anything. Now everybody’s watching and we both want to play our best game of the year.” 

Hope has now won at least a share of the MIAA title in each of the last three seasons. On Jan. 25, 2020, Morehouse became the fastest collegiate basketball coach to reach 600 wins, winning the 690th game of his career. But there is one thing the current team has not yet experienced: a Final Four. 

The 2020 team had plenty of promise; Hope was 29-0 heading into its sectional semifinal with Baldwin Wallace when the NCAA Tournament was abruptly canceled. Last year’s squad appeared just as strong, posting a 16-0 record that was capped by a 10-point win over Trine in the MIAA final. But last year’s tournament was canceled as well, meaning this run has been several years in the making. 

“I think we set some pretty lofty goals when we heard the national tournament was canceled,” Morehouse said. “That makes it almost 14 months since we heard that news. Our attention stayed on that season, but the day that the MIAA Tournament finished, we started focusing immediately on the next season.”

It was right around that point of the year that leading scorer Kenedy Schoonveld made the decision to return. After experiencing the sudden end to the team’s last tournament run, she opted to put off graduate school for an extra year, aiming at one last chance to dance in March. 

“I wasn’t sure last season if I was going to come back at all,” Schoonveld said. “I made that decision [to come back] around this time last year. We started training right away. It definitely wasn’t an easy decision. You put everything on hold, but a couple of us who are fifth-year seniors really wanted a chance to play in the national tournament again.

“I knew the group of girls coming back was an awesome group and they were all working towards the same goals I had. That made it an easier decision for me in the end.”

Olivia Voskuil's return was a big boost to Hope's chances of reaching Pittsburgh.
Hope athletics photo
 

Olivia Voskuil came to the same conclusion, and along with Schoonveld, has formed a scoring tandem that has led Hope’s offense throughout the season. 

“I knew that whatever happened in the end, it was going to be a fun journey, because of the people on this team,” Voskuil said.

That journey is not over yet. Hope is in Pittsburgh for Thursday’s national semifinal contest, with the current team bringing a sense of anticipation and excitement into their first experience in the Final Four. And while the stage is new, even for fifth-year standouts like Schoonveld and Vouskuil, the opponent is the team the Flying Dutch have played the most this season: Trine. 

“Playing a team three times in a season is a tough thing, so playing a team a fourth time is next level,” Schoonveld said. “They’re a good team. We have some challenges ahead of us to face them, but we’re excited about it.” 

“We’re watching all the film we can,” Voskuil said. “But they know us and we know them. I think it goes from there.”

Hope is right where it wants to be, in prime position, two wins away from accomplishing what the team set out to do at the conclusion of last season. But the experiences of the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 tournaments have certainly given this group, starting with Morehouse, a different outlook on the necessary approach of each game. 

“A great lesson throughout Covid and probably one that we should’ve been applying before, is, all you have is that day,” Morehouse noted. “You better be your best in that moment, not worrying about what has happened or what might happen. Be your best in that moment. That has to be good enough.”

“I think that’s the best way to approach the season,” Voskuil said. “If you’re constantly looking forward to the next big thing, you’re going to miss a lot of the joy of what you just accomplished.”

Riley Zayas is co-founder of the website True to the Cru, which covers Mary Hardin-Baylor athletics. He is an occasional contributor to D3sports.com.