This thought made me nervous. I don’t want to lose my own momentum.
Coaches Poll Update (Not that this means ANYTHING):
Michigan ranked 7th! But still somehow behind a team it beat twice….
And there’s always stuff I missed:
Some of my favorite photos and tweets over the weekend:
Exasperated former “Mr. March”
Tweet of the Day!!!
Miles Bridges hasn’t beat Michigan. Wonder if he’ll come back and try again???
“Simpson Strut” – EARNED!!!
Empire State Building Honoring the Maize and Blue!!!
BACK TO BACK!
E-mail and Text Round Up
I actually love feedback and it makes me think
about stuff….
So, How’d you do in your Big Ten Bracket?
Glad you asked! For
a refresher: Here’s the bracket I
submitted.
Obviously, Day 1 was a disaster. 0-2 as Rutgers and Iowa prevailed. Day 2 was better at 3-1, but uppity Rutgers
making a run close to home with a lot of New York support was something I wasn’t
counting on. Day 3 ended up as a 3-1 day
as the suckeyes lost to PSU. Finally,
Day 4 was a perfect 2-0 and of course, I nailed the Championship. So, overall, 9-4, which could have been better
if I had looked a little closer at Day 1. I should have given both Iowa who was playing
better by season’s end and Rutgers playing close to home more credit.
“Why
sparty? This is a term of endearment that they do not deserve! They
use it themselves. Now, I like your “LNU”, but that is perishable (I
think).
In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never thought of sparty as
being endearing, and lord knows I don’t want to endear myself to the jolly green
giants. The green slime seems too easy and
not very imaginative. So, I’m
looking for suggestions. I’m
thinking that LNU is going to hang around and if used enough, it’ll stick. Even though I hate what it represents, but it
does suggest that sparty has a collective group of unaware and even worse, uncaring
idiots driving the bus. And
after all, there’s 4,300 results that come up when you type in “Larry
Nassar University” on YouTube!!!!
“Winning the regular season B1G is a lot harder than
winning 4 games in the B1G Tourney.
Especially when you’re on a roll (like Michigan).”
This was OBVIOUSLY sent by a green loving
zealot of basketball that thinks they know what they’re talking about. (Foreshadow: They Don’t.) I hate to keep repeating
myself, but LNU played the WEAKEST B1G Schedule of the top 5 teams in the B1G, with
Michigan playing the toughest. Then
Michigan beat 3 teams that were ranked in the Top 4 of the Conference in 3
consecutive days!! And
Iowa was no pushover, either! Ergo, Michigan
had the bigger accomplishment in winning the B1G Conference Tourney. That’s also why the NCAA gives the “Autobid” to the
Conference Tourney Champ. Who’s
playing well right now and who’s hot!!!
By the Way: Michigan’s RPI is now higher
than LNU (13 vs 15).
Shouldn’t Michigan automatically be ranked ahead of Purdue
and Sparty after beating them both late in the season? I always thought the committee weighted WHEN
the wins happened? Later is better, right?
That should be the way it works, but no. The Committee does recognize some of that and
given the extra week they’ll have to work with the B1G teams and they’re
respective seeding, it might help in Michigan’s case. My guess is they
will still (undeservedly – much like Duke, north carolina) give the LNU a higher seed based
on “blue blood” status. Believe
me, while the committee and the NCAA loves upsets too, they like a healthy
share of Blue Bloods in the 2nd weekend for ratings.
Sparty had an off day.
Izzo and Sparty will be ready for the “Real Tournament.”
I think LNU was as ready as they could be for the
B1G Tourney. And I never
said Michigan dominated LNU on Saturday. They just played a more complete game, took
Winston and Bridges out of the game, and every time they slapped the floor Michigan
took it to the hole or launched in a 3-pointer. (LNU players finally stopped slapping the
floor). Look, I watch a lot of college hoops. And the BTN showing re-runs of games helps a
lot, also. Plus YouTube highlight reels are awwwesome… LNU is not a great team
this season and was lucky to win a couple of games (down 27 to
Northwestern???). They barely squeaked
by Wiscy in the Tourney and Michigan could have beaten them by more. I’m not saying they won’t be ready for the “Tournament
that Counts”, I’m just saying it’s not a switch you can flip on and off. Everyone knows that LNU wanted to win the B1G Conference
Tourney and get the 1-Seed. So,
in a way, LNU lost THREE TIMES on Saturday!!!
1.
Bounced by HATED RIVAL MICHIGAN (whom they haven’t beaten in 2 seasons)!!!
2. Lost
any chance of a #1 Seed.
3. Did NOT
Validate regular Season B1G Championship.
In a perfect world, what 1-Seed would you like
Michigan to play to get to the FF, assuming they get that far?
I’ve said that Virginia is beatable and I think
if they are the overall #1-Seed, they’d be playing pretty tight and Michigan
plays equivalent Defense, but can get the ball going through the net
better than the Cavaliers. Xavier
can get hot, but our defense should be able to handle them, also. Kansas (who just got PANTSED by 18 points
over the weekend by OSU), if they get the remaining 1-Seed, is not that great
this year and would be the ideal upset 1-Seed (assuming they get out of
the first weekend). Finally, Villanova
is always tough and scrappy. If Duke
ends up with the 1-Seed instead of Kansas, they’re beatable, but I HATE LOSING
TO DUKE!!! I guess in order I’d
like to play:
Kansas
Virginia
Xavier
Duke
Villanova
But ask me again tomorrow and you might get a
different answer. And you might have to beat 2 or 3
of those teams, anyway, to win the entire enchilada!!!
Meet the Guys Who Are Making It Happen
Basketball is no different than Football with
respect to what a head coach needs to do.
Head coaches motivate and also coach some skills and in Beilein’s case,
have a big say in the offense.
But Most Important: A great head coach recognizes his own short
falls and gets the right people on his staff to help fill the gaps that
he recognizes he has.
Let’s face it:
Beilein and his team of coaches are not dealing with “Mr. Basketballs”
with each and every player they have.
In fact, most were cast-offs or lightly recruited individuals. Nobody wanted MAAR and Moe wasn’t even
considered a top 100 prospect when they were recruited. These are individuals that need
coaching.
LOTS OF IT….
Meet Luke Yaklich
Beilein grabbed Yaklich from the Illinois State
Salukis a year ago after the departure of another defensive minded coach. Beilein had a conversation with Luke last
summer and asked him what could be improved. Luke offered the following insight:
Luke: Beilein
asked me: “What do you think we can do better?"
And?
Beilein: “I need to learn to teach defense."
Yes, that's right, a 65-year-old coach with a national championship
game, a Big Ten tournament trophy, and two regular-season conference
titles was asking a little-known coach he'd plucked from Illinois State what he
needed to change.
"That's always stuck with me," said Yaklich, who admitted to being
wide-eyed in that first meeting last summer.
Yaklich was blunt about what the Wolverines had to fix: ball pressure,
rebounding and overall activity on the defensive end. No more jogging back
after 3-pointers. No more alligator arms under the rim chasing rebounds.
I can’t recall where I read it, but there was a
coach out there that said (paraphrasing), “Individuals can be taught an offensive
scheme and most can play a role in any offense, but BASKETBALL TEAM DEFENSE is
what forces teams to come together, forces them to communicate and makes them a
TEAM. And a Team can only be great if
they’re playing Great Defense”
Every season, it’s teams that have good to
great defense that are playing in late March and early April. It all just can’t be about offense and
shooting.
The NCAA’s –Update and Insight
What do these schools all have in
common:
Nebraska
USC
UCLA
They all have Double
Digit Wins in conference play and are well above 0.500 which was usually a
no-brainer for making the NCAA’s. No
More. Unbalanced schedules and “Quadrant
1 Victories” is the new mantra. The B1G
going to a 20-game schedule next season should help some of that.
Bracket Science
There’s a couple of websites that I’m going
to link above in the header that you’re going to want to make yourself familiar
with as we get closer to the Tourney and it comes time to fill out your
brackets.
and
The first one will
actually fill out a bracket for you (once the brackets are announced) using
odds and likelihoods based on team strengths/weaknesses. I believe there’s some randomness to it, and
you’ll never get the same result twice.
I think you’ll be able to mess around with a particular team if you want
to take them further, etc.
The 2nd site is a
composite site that I’ve seen before and it takes a total of 43 rankings (USAToday,
Yahoo, etc.) and compiles them into 1 predictive ranking/analysis tool. It’ll then do a head to head prediction of
any 1st round games. If you
mess around with it enough, you should be able to come up with a pretty good 1st
and 2nd round analysis – probability outcome. But there’s always upsets. It’s getting the
RIGHT upsets that counts.
