4 Days - 4 Games
4 BIG WINS!!!
Michigan Owns the Garden!!!
B1G Tourney Champs Back to Back!
Sparty still hasn’t beaten Michigan this season!
(Or last season, for that matter!)
I’m not even sure where to start this. Michigan vs. Sparty was a game of beauty in
more ways than one.
First:
Michigan proved who the more defensively dominating team was on
Saturday.
Second:
Michigan played with a helluva’ lot more swagger and sense of belonging
than Sparty did.
Third:
Michigan has earned the right to be seeded higher than Sparty – More on that
in a minute.
After singing The Victors in a local
establishment with the other Michigan fans that were in attendance, I politely
told all the Sparty fans that I hope to see them again in the NCAA’s. Only 1 Sparty fan that the guts to pipe up
said, “No!!! I don’t want to play you
guys any more this season. Michigan’s
the better team!!”
I call that a true basketball fan that knows a
good team when he sees one.
Then, yesterday’s brilliant masterpiece over Purdon’t
and TESKE making everyone believe that he’s a secret weapon we’ve been
hiding on the bench was absolutely incredible.
Painter gambled that Michigan might have 3-pointer
issues and was pressing the perimeter, leaving the middle open for just about
everyone in the first half. If
Michigan had made even a few of those 3’s in the 1st, this game wouldn’t have
been blown open a lot earlier.
Mo Buckets hitting back to back 3’s in the 2nd
half and taking the lead to double digits against a Purdon’t squad that already
looked defeated made the last 8 minutes of the game a thing to just sit back
and enjoy. There would be no
nail biter in MSG for the final game.
Michigan set it on cruise and rode the momentum. The Simpson Strut will probably become a thing
now!!!
Jordan Poole’s Photobomb of Delaney and Nantz may
temporarily replace my picture above as this has to be the best thing ever!!!
And how about the Water Fight, which has become a
Michigan thing the last couple of seasons?
Only this time, they got JB with COLD WATER – which woke him
up!!
Does this team have a weakness right now? Yeah – the Foul Line. And that may prove to be their Achilles Heel
at some point further on down the road, but I’m not focusing on the negative
today! Only the Amaizing Blue’s
Fantastic Finish to this incredible season.
It’s funny how basketball emotions run during
the season when your team looks so bad you think they’re never going to win
another game. Then, when it starts
coming together, it feels SO GOOD. Beilein has
now earned the Moniker of “Mr. March” away from another coach in the B1G,
in my humble opinion. MY favorite quote of many from
Coach Beilein:
“This is one of the best teams I’ve
ever coached at just moving forward and doing things the old-fashioned way with
a lot of hard work,” Beilein said. “They won’t give in. They won’t give in to
fatigue. They won’t give in to momentum changes. … There might be some teams
with more talent, but we have just a great team, a real team.”
Team Definition: A team is a group of individuals working together to achieve
a goal. A group does not necessarily constitute a team.
The TEAM
The TEAM
The TEAM
More interesting numbers:
1. John Beilein
in the last 2 seasons is the WINNINGEST COACH in the B1G in the post season at
11-2. That’s B1G Tourney and NCAA
numbers combined.
2. Teske’s 14-point
performance along with this dunk was his “Spike Albrecht” moment of the season – But hopefully not
his last.
3. It was the FIRST
TIME Mo Buckets Mom got to see Moe play as a Wolverine live and in person. And that was awesome!
4. Michigan more or less
hit their season averages on 2-pointers, 3-pointers and were a little better
than the season average from the Charity Stripe.
5. Michigan will have at
least 11 days(!!!) off before they play another basketball game. I’m not sure yet how I feel about that, but
they will be rested.
The NCAA’s –Update and Insight
So, who should have the highest seed in the
B1G at this point in time?
Here’s a BPI snapshot of the
4-Teams heading to the Dance from the B1G (not including Michigan’s win over
Purdue – I hate that it takes FOREVER For ESPN to update this stuff):
Does any other
B1G team have a better claim to “best team in the conference?” besides
Michigan? Sparty played nobody on the
road and lost by double-digits twice to Michigan at home and at a neutral court.
As you
can see, there’s not a lot of separation here.
I guess you could make a case for Purdue being the highest seed, based
on Quality wins and SOS Rank. In the
last 2 months, Michigan has played 7 Top 25 teams (Purdue-3x, Sparty-2x, suckeyes-2x). But no WAY Should Sparty be seeded above
Michigan with only 3 Top 25 games in the last two months and only 1 victory in
those games (Purdue). The other two
losses….Oh yeah, double digit home court and neutral court losses to MICHIGAN!
Michigan is higher than Sparty in
every category with the exception of Non-con SOS, which the committee has
already stated, doesn’t matter much.
On to the other “opinions:
Palm has Michigan as a 4-Seed, which I believe can easily move
up this week as some higher seeded teams lose. Michigan winning the B1G Tourney and padding
its resume with 2 more “Quality Wins” has earned an easy 3-seed, IMO.
If I wait for Lunardi to update before I post, we’ll see
where he has them ranked. And Lunardi
updated. He’s got Michigan as a
3-Seed in the East (Villanova). I like
that bracket for Michigan (You know I believe Duke is beatable) but Nova could
present problems…Assuming that Michigan can get that far. Another interesting note: Lunardi dropped Sparty down to the 3-Seed
Line!!! Disrespect!!!
Yahoo’s Brad’s Big Board also has Michigan on the 3-Seed Line:
Torvik sees Michigan as high as a 2-Seed with the B1G Championship, but we'll see....
I believe both Sparty and Purdue can do NCAA damage, but
again, seeding will be critical. Painter’s
boys looked more confused by Michigan than Sparty did, but Sparty looked like
the team of components. They
haven’t found the mesh gear, and it’s March.
I put all of this on Izzo and he has 11-12 days to figure it out. But without games to play, that becomes
trickier.
KenPom Numbers still on the up-tick, even playing the B1G's Best:
Michigan Hockey Sweeps Wiscy!
Michigan won the first leg of the
B1G Hockey Tourney and now moves on to face the suckeyes down in Columbus. More on Hockey later in the week.
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