NOTE: This may be the
last post before a Sunday Game wrap from a bar stool (?) as I’m
taking next week off and heading down to Florida with the Fam. Looking forward to it but we won’t be staying
where we were in 2013 (Anna Maria Island) where accumulated family took over The
Boathouse Bar on Friday evening watching this:
And then the subsequent Sunday we had even more patrons
with us as Michigan destroyed Gatorland. I like traditions and being in Florida for
the FF has been one that I’ve enjoyed.
Does This
Michigan Team Remind You Of Anyone?
I got to thinking about this after reading an article
that stated that while everyone respects Mo-Buckets play, he sort of plays like
a thug…and I then thought of the biggest thug there ever was and the
team that won the NBA Title in 1990. And
I started drawing more parallels and it’s uncanny!!!
Wagner – Laimbeer
Simpson –
Thomas
MAAR - Dumars
Matthews – Rodman
Livers – Aguirre
Robinson –
Johnson
Coincidence? I don’t
think so…..
Is The Tourney Selection
Process Flawed?
There’s a couple of national writers out there claiming that the
NCAA Tourney and the way it selects teams is flawed.
They claim that had Loyola not won the MVC Tourney, Loyola
probably wouldn’t have received an at large bid.
Well, Boo-hoo…
Look, only 68 teams can get in and 67 of them end their
season with a loss. But who gets in, I
believe, is finally getting to the point where I feel confident that the right
teams are getting in. Advanced stats and
the SLOW phasing out of the archaic RPI and looking more towards Kenpom and
ESPN’s BPI have shown everyone that stats and adjusted stats DO
MATTER and definitely help when making a decision.
There are ALWAYS going to be teams that don’t make the tourney
that deserve to make the tourney. But
instead of trying to figure out how to take more power 5 teams OUT of the tourney,
why don’t you eliminate some of these mess teams that find a way to win their compass
point conference tourney with KenPom or BPI stats that are in the 100’s?
Or just do the simple thing and take it to 96 teams. All seeds 8-16 are a play in game on
Tuesday and Wednesday.
See – Simple.
Is the NCAA
Tourney The “Best Way” to Crown a National Champion?
I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot about the NCAA not
being the “Best way” to Crown the National Champion based on it’s “Single
Elimination” approach and I’ve seen some arguments as to why re-seeding
would make things more “fair”. I’ve also
seen that a “Best of 3” format should be considered once the Final Four is set. To all that I say:
Hogwash
The NCAA Tournament routinely crowns a team that has finished in the Top 10
statistically for the season.
This year will probably be no different, unless Loyola manages to
complete the miracle, which, I guess could happen. Numbers don’t lie and numbers
usually hold up in Basketball. Anyone
in the Top 10 is worthy of a National Title.
Somebody just gets to be lucky in March and April, and that’s part of
the beauty of this thing.
Mailbag: Is This Beilein’s Best Season of Coaching?
Hmmm….That’s a good one. Beilein
has had so many good to great teams during his tenure at Michigan dating back
to the Novak years. All the
basketball seasons are special, and I don’t like to look at it as total wins
and losses, but how did the team finish and how were the playing in the last
games of the season? You’re either getting
better or worse…I remember the Novak era and those team did a lot of
things and beat a lot of people they shouldn’t have beat and I think Beilein
might have worked harder with some of that crew vs. how hard he’s worked in recent
seasons. I think what you have to
respect about this season is the fact that he saw shortcomings in himself (last
season) and filled that void.
That’s the key. If you want to
give it to him this season for that, I’d agree with that.
And looking at my new favorite website, the last 10 games, is a great way
to tell how a team finished and how poorly they might have been playing earlier
in the season.
And it would
follow that the last two seasons have shown some of the greatest improvements at
Michigan going into the last 10. I guess
you could make an argument for last season as well with the early calls for Beilein’s
ouster and then just for being able to have the heart to step up after a plane
crash and coach those kids to win the B1G Tourney.
The seasons have been unique, but I do think Beilein is getting
better as he goes through them, also. So
I’ll go with this 2017-18 as his best coaching season.
What’s Your
Prediction for the Icers?
Everyone pretty much knows the only thing I follow as closely as I
follow Football is College Hoops. That
being said, I don’t have enough time to squeeze in Hockey, for the most
part. I do know that Michigan had to get
on a roll late to get into the NCAA Tourney, and they had a lot of “Sweep”
weekends they won, but quite a few they lost and were swept. I distinctly remember two of those were to the suckeyes
and the other weekend sweep was to the domers. So, depending on how you want to look at
this: Either Michigan is due for a win over 1
or both of these teams, or Michigan is doomed. Again, single elimination Hockey is
fluky. Michigan could win and still not
be the best team in the country, but will have won the National Crown. I’d take it.
But I don’t think I can predict it.
How’s Your
Brackets? And How Come We Never Get a
Follow-up on Those?
Well, when there’s nothing to brag about, it’s just kind of
easier to hope it all goes away. I have two
of the Final 4 Teams, and if the Grayson Allen shot would have gone down, I
would have had 3 of the Final 4’s with a shot at some money. Duke screwed me again and I think
there’s one scenario where I make the podium.
But Michigan has to win it all. Anyway,
as always, a good time every year and sooner or later, all this planning and
intense studying will pay off.
Moe At Michigan
Was Fulfilling a Dream
Good read by ESPN and anyone who’s worn a Michigan shirt or hat
while travelling around Europe is often greeted with a “Go Blue!” while
strolling around. I’m going to miss
Wagner when he leaves. The guy is a
worker and a workhorse who will earn it at the next level.
The Coaches Who
Played The Teams Pick The Winners
Yahoo Sports got 4 coaches to anonymously evaluate the games and
pick the winners this Saturday. Two
of the coaches each picked Villanova and two split on Michigan vs. Loyola. Loyola, after re-watching some more
highlights, does in fact look a lot like Michigan. Their defensive approach is sound and they
play a very slow pace, limiting possessions.
I’m sure Beilein and company are seeing all that and are going to look to
come out and play fast and furious, forcing some early Turnovers and
taking the Ramblers out of their comfort zone.
ETC
Michigan Has Played Loyola In The NCAA’s Prior To This…
In 1964 Cazzie and his team took down Loyola, but there was
controversy and it was apparently an incredibly physical game….
This has to be the most insane thing of all time. 72 victories over 3 seasons
and UTA fires its hoops coach for “Not making the NCAA Tourney enough.” This sounds like a Brandictator move if I’ve
ever heard one!!
Bridges Declares
For Draft to Avoid Losing To Michigan – AGAIN!!!
Beilein Had His
OWN Sister Long Before Sister Jean
Meet Sister Frances!!!
Michigan is coached by John Beilein,
whose aunt was Sister Frances Niland. She died in 1995 at the age of 73. She’d
be 96 now, a contemporary of Sister Jean’s, had she lived. And Sister Frances,
by all accounts, was every bit the hoops fan that Sister Jean is — and perhaps
an even feistier one.
Niland
Jr. says his teams regularly reached the semifinals of diocesan tournaments but
Sister Frances preferred champions. And she was known to yell at referees. Let
the record show her language was always clean, if not always charitable
I’ve never met her and already I can tell I’d
like her!!!
LNU
Gymnastics Coach Backed Nassar Till the End!!
And THEN Flip-Flopped claiming she was duped!!
LNU
Dean Strampel FINALLY ARRESTED regarding the Nassar Case
Why THIS TOOK SO F@#$%CKING LONG is also
beyond me. I
still think they need to burn the whole place to the ground, fire everybody in
the chain of command, including the regents, coaches and any administrators, and
start over the way Penn State did.
Lansing —
Larry Nassar’s former boss used his position at Michigan State University to
harass, discriminate, proposition, sexually assault and solicit pornographic
videos of female students, investigators said Tuesday as they announced
criminal charges against William Strampel.
Strampel, the 15-year dean of the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine
who took medical leave in December, is also accused of failing to enforce or
monitor protocols put in place for Nassar in 2014 after a female patient
alleged inappropriate sexual conduct. Authorities say he allowed Nassar to
return to work one month before MSU completed a Title IX investigation into his
treatments
The charges, if true, suggest that not only was MSU
harboring a serial sexual abuser in Nassar, but his celebrated supervisor was
also manipulating female students for his own gratification. Strampel, who was
one of at least 14 MSU representatives who were told of abuse complaints against
Nassar, remains an MSU faculty member.
It was a stunning fall from the top of his field to a
jail cell for Strampel, who just five months ago was honored as a master fellow
for his contributions to osteopathic medicine by the American College of
Osteopathic Internists.
