CBS Sports Top 25 BBall-UM #3
Might give us an idea of what the AP/Coaches polls will look like.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/rankings/top25
January 14th, 2013 at 10:53 AM ^
After the way we played in the first half, I would have a tough time putting us at 1 or 2. Not saying that we don't get there this season, but this is a very young, talented team that just faced its first really setback. How we respond and how we play in other tough big ten games is something that I think many are waiting to see.
January 14th, 2013 at 10:56 AM ^
I don't think you can judge a team by a half of a game. We almost dug ourselves out of a giant hole. Everyone in the NCAA has obviously had a bad half, or we'd still have an undefeated team.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:25 AM ^
I am not saying that they should be judged by a bad half (it wasn't evena full half - they turned the curner with about 7-8 minutes left in the first). But, that half exposed a few weaknesses and, given the number of other good teams out there, how we deal with those weaknesses and how we respond after this loss will go a long way towards determining our ranking (obviously).
January 14th, 2013 at 12:55 PM ^
This is college basketball - everybody has some weaknesses. It isn't like the early 90s, when top players would stick around for 3-4 years and places like Duke or UCLA could build a complete, experienced team.
We sucked for a half, but personally I'm pretty encouraged by how close the game ended up. If Trey Burke's 3 in the final minute gets an inch further down, Michigan has the lead in the final minute against a team that couldn't do much offensively.
The fact that we could come back from 20 down, on the road, against a rival, speaks volumes to Beilein's coaching and our players' resiliency. We aren't going to start off that cold very often, so I have high hopes for the future.
January 14th, 2013 at 3:35 PM ^
We didn't even suck for a whole half. We actually finished the first half on a 14-5 run.
January 14th, 2013 at 10:57 AM ^
January 14th, 2013 at 10:53 AM ^
Should I be mad that Duke is ranked higher?
January 14th, 2013 at 10:54 AM ^
Despite their loss, Duke still has an impressive resume.
January 14th, 2013 at 10:57 AM ^
I agree. Which is why I asked.
It seems like they have a better resume at this point, but we did beat the team that beat them. I think that it's probably a valid argument either way.
January 14th, 2013 at 10:59 AM ^
Yes, but they beat the team that beat us! :-)
January 14th, 2013 at 11:01 AM ^
Oh... shit. You just blew my mind.
January 14th, 2013 at 2:00 PM ^
transitive property paradox!!!!
January 14th, 2013 at 11:40 AM ^
was also short handed. I don't have any problem with them staying at 1 even though I think there are a hand full of teams that are better than Duke.
My biggest problem is with Illinois. How the _ _ _ _ are they still 18 in this poll. They just got punked, twice, in debacle fashion. Seems as though they should be a little lower than that.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:00 AM ^
No. Duke has played a tougher schedule so far than we have. Sure, we beat NC State, who beat Duke, but Duke beat OSU, who beat us. That's a wash. Outside of those two opponents, Duke has beaten better teams, namely Louisville, Minnesota and Kentucky. Maybe UK doesn't really count, but VCU and Temple probably do.
If we win at Minnesota coming up, that gap will be narrower, however.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:24 AM ^
Then can I at least be mad that Louisville is ranked number 2? They beat Illinois State by 3, Northern Iowa by 5, lost to Duke, and have played a comparable, if not weaker, schedule than Michigan. Can I at least be mad about that?
January 14th, 2013 at 12:03 PM ^
Yeah, I suppose you could, but then you'd have Arizona and Kansas fans making that argument against us, since both of those are 1-loss teams with a more difficult schedule than us up to this point. Basically there are half a dozen 1-loss teams that are pretty close to interchangeable at this point, and the season will work to shake that out.
January 14th, 2013 at 12:42 PM ^
Arizona is really a 2 loss team and should be treated as such come March. Arizona's big wins are SD St. and an overrated Florida team, that K-State beat. K-State and NC St. are continuing to look like better and better wins. Louisville only has one win against a team that would get an at large birth right now is Missouri.
January 14th, 2013 at 10:54 AM ^
...but this is at least a small sign that yesterday's loss doesn't look too bad in the eyes of neutral observers.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:15 AM ^
I can live with being #3 right now
January 14th, 2013 at 11:17 AM ^
Not worried about rankings. We have another extremely difficult game on the road this week. We could potentially lose 2 conference games in a row and be .500 4 games in. Let's get this W at the barn.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:25 AM ^
should be #1, Plumlee is a monster, with that one kid back in the line up ( I think Kelly is his name) they are deep and good.
Michigan is a top 5 team right now, very interested to see how they respond this week, it will tell us a lot.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:42 AM ^
January 14th, 2013 at 11:47 AM ^
Indiana was up by a ton against Minnesota and escaped by the skin of their teeth (not unlike our game with osu). They also very nearly lost to Iowa on the road. IU and Michigan are still the class of the conference for now, but both teams have flaws. I do think IU is a little stronger than Michigan if they can put it all together due to the relative strength of their frontcourt.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:44 AM ^
Rankings don't really matter at this point but it would have been cool to see Michigan hold onto the #1 spot for at least a week. Having everyone lose around them and then immediately losing to Ohio was a huge bummer. An even bigger bummer: Knowing that every Ohio fan is believing that Ohio has Michigan's number in both football and basketball. Anyone know what Michigan's record against Ohio in those two sports over the past 10 years is? I'm sure its not good.
/end emo whine post
January 14th, 2013 at 11:51 AM ^
January 14th, 2013 at 11:57 AM ^
F- you for putting that in print. Kidding. But not really.
Seriously, at what point does Michigan stop being competitive with Ohio?
/continued emo whine post over for real
January 14th, 2013 at 12:08 PM ^
January 14th, 2013 at 12:24 PM ^
January 14th, 2013 at 12:26 PM ^
Hey, OSU hired Thad Matta while we hired Brian Ellerbee - that right there was good for at least 16 OSU wins due to the after-effects of his cratering our hoops program.
January 14th, 2013 at 12:38 PM ^
We have plenty of opportunities to gain that elusive top spot. I'm happy with #3. I just hate losing the initial opportunity to that damn OSU. Did I mention that I hate losing to them?
January 14th, 2013 at 1:19 PM ^
For some comparison to this, and to avoid taking up board space, the Coaches' Poll appears to be updated now -
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/rankings/coaches
We are #5. I haven't seen a link to the updated AP poll yet, but Pollspeak had the vote distribution for the ballots up at least:
We received one 1st place vote ( Cormac Gordon), four 2nd place votes, nine 3rd place votes, twenty-four 4th place votes, nineteen 5th place votes and even eight 6th places votes.