Why scorn the Northwestern football win and celebrate the Nebraska basketball win?

I don't think the Northwestern win was viewed with scorn.  I think it was viewed with relief and incredulity. 

In football if you play dead-nuts defense their offense won't go off - in basketball you can play great D but if a guy is dropping them in from 30 feet it doesn't matter (just as Kansas...).

There's a reason you see more absurd upsets in basketball than football so the corrolary to that is even on the road the football team shouldn't need a miracle to beat a team that has lost 4 in a row (the basketball equivalent would be 8-10 losses in a row) whereas winning on the road against a team that hadn't lost at home means a lot more than escaping against a team that had been tanking for a month.

 

I'd also say that home "field" advantage in basketball is noticeably greater than in football - maybe not in points but in terms of the actual chances of winning.

Winning on the road in basketball is extremely different than football.

dreg queens

is way more prone to random results. Also, basketball.

1. @ Northwestern isn't a road game
2. Nebraska beat Miami (so they have some life)
3. 9 points! and you had to pull off the craziest FG of all time to get to 9 points!
4. We are newer to this whole basketball winning thing.
5. McGary is out.
6. 9 FUCKING POINTS. 
7. Didn't have a converted 3rd down until the 4th quarter!
8. Mounting anger from football season was building up, and we look for reasons to be doom and gloom.

But honestly, I didn't belittle the Northwestern win. It was our first win in 3 weeks, and could possibly be (and ended up being) our last win of the season. I knew that. So I took it as "a win's a win."

Basketball is trickier. You will beat teams larger than you should, and some times you're going to sweat things out. Getting the W is way more important than the scoring differential. 

The NW game, which I had the opportunity to witness personally, the offense played so poorly and then became a different team in OT.  It was not a hostile environment, half the crowd was wearing Maize and Blue.  It was a very underwhelming win.  Last night, hostile environment, the team rose to the challenge in a spectacular way.  As some have pointed out, on the road in basketball there's a different expectation.  It was a very exciting win.

Just my opinion though.

1) BB expectations are lower, especially on the road.

2) any single regular season loss in BB is much less significant than FB

3) McGary is out

4)

1) We play 30 basketball game a year, only 12 football games

2) Football is more highly scrutinized than basketball around these parts.

3) I think a lot of fans didn't even CARE to watch the Northwestern football game by that point - a lot had been burnt out by the crap that had proceeded it. 

4) While on the other hand, basketball is on a nice little 'hot' streak right now since almost beating Arizona and losing its best player.  

Maybe because the basketball team was actually capable of running an offense that scored points and didn't need something similar to a Dileo-sliding in the rain cluster-bleep of a field goal attempt just to tie the game... at 9... after regulation...

Oh and the whole Michigan lost 2 first round NBA draft picks this year, 3 if you count McGary.

Oh and Coach B gets a little bit of leniency seeing that he has a long-ass career of being a pretty damn good coach.

Football is held in higher regard and it's not even close. We expect and want them to win more than the basketball program. It's great that we have a good basketball program now, but I'd rather have an elite football program.

Basketball was able to hand Nebraska their first loss at the new arena. 

college basketball road victories are never a given, even if it is #1 vs an unranked team. That is why.

But there was outrage over the football victory

I'm fairly certain no one was "outraged" that we won the football game.

Assuming it wasn't a snarky rhetorical question, I think the OP asks an interesting question. Most of my answers have been stated, but I'll just reiterate a few here, in no particular order

1. The offense was a complete dumpster fire in that game, just to get us to the game-winning FG
2. That said, people were still pretty elated that we won, not scornful
3. That said, that kind of win boded (bade?) ill for the rest of the year
4. People still imagine M football to be elite
5. People still don't imagine M basketball to be elite
6. Crazy shit happens usually doesn't happen in football against poorly-matched teams (There are HORRORible exceptions...), so you don't feel good about a close win against an inferior opponent
7. Crazy shit happens all the time in basketball against poorly-matched teams (U Portland beat Gonzaga last night, for example, and in the NBA, the Knicks beat the Heat and the Nuggets beat the Thunder, both in the gym of the winning team), so you feel okay about a close win vs. an inferior opponent, especially on the road

 

football is religion and basketball is entertainment.

 

They're a top 100 team in conference on the road. Kenpom had the game at -4 for Michigan. They have one bad loss: UAB.

 

Northwestern was a tirefire. 

Nebraska basketball and Northwestern football have as much to do with each other as Nebraska basketball and Northwestern football: nothing.

No scorn after the football game. I was just happy that Northwestern managed to Northwestern up the game. Gardner threw what should have been 6 interceptions right to Wildcat players, two of which should have been returned for scores, and they dropped every single one. Last night, we tried to pull a Northwestern football and lose with the 9 missed free throws but we screwed up and won anyway. Either way, I'll take the win.

another disappointing season in a decade of disappointments and was getting worse as the season wore on. This basketball team is the opposite of all that.

Nebraska was undefeated at home coming into last night, including a victory over Miami, who just downed UNC at the Dean Dome.  It was their first B1G home game in Pinnacle Bank Arena, in front of a raucous 15,000-person sold-out crowd.

Basketball is a much more random game.  Last night wasn't pretty and certainly highlighted some areas of concern, but you will take a win on the road in conference play any day of the week.

I like 'em both.

I think if we won a close game in football, say 34-31, with a great offensive outpout people wouldn't be outraged. In basketball, when your offense struggles it can be the case of a cold shooting night that can change the next day. In football, when you scrap to put up 9 against Northwestern, it's an sign of an awful offense.

Because we're all dirty, dirty hypocrites. 

The Northwestern game was "more of the same" and we were angry (at least I was angry) that things were absolutely heading down the drain. It confirmed that the earlier offensive disasters were not aberrations but rather what we could expect to see from the team.
Last night was none of that. As mentioned earlier-that was their first B1G home game an the place was rocking. In basketball that matters and we escaped with a gritty, but not pretty, win. And we're undefeated in conference play with two road wins.

But at that point in the football season, I was just happy for the win. So there was no outrage from me.

Expectations of football fans were very high after ND, then after suffering so many disappointments, even close wins were viewed in a negative light.

Expectations of basketball fans have dropped with some early losses and injuries, now close wins are viewed in a much more positive light. 

Nebraska is better than you think and I believe this was thier first home loss. Winning on the road in the B1G (basketball) has always been tough. 

Around the Northwestern game, we were desperately hoping our football team wasn't a paper tiger fashioned out of the Notre Dame performance. We wanted a strong statement against a team that took Ohio State down to the wire, injured playmakers be damned. The win was exciting, but bitter once the "WTF" subsided.

The basketball team is down its best player for the year and the new point guard is decidedly not Trey Burke. Our two main scorers have already missed at least one game to injury and it's unclear how well our "big" men will hold up down the stretch. In most parallel universes, we lost last night. Our expectations have been rapidly tempered, and now we're satisfied just finding a way to scratch a win off rocks.

The real reason is because you touch yourself at night.

most notably this:

has given me 10000% more tolerance of anything bad that might happen to the basketball team.

suck a dick, man.

In addition to what other people have mentioned, I feel like winning on the road is a bigger deal in basketball than it is in football. The smaller field of play, the sound enclosure, the closer proximity of the fans to the players, and the advent of 'spirit' sections behind the benches all make for a more intimidating atmosphere for the visiting team in a basketball game, particularly in college where the crowd is younger and more animated. So for a young team that just lost one of its best players to injury, any kind of Big Ten road win is a great accomplishment. 

Comparing the two games specifically, Ryan Field is probably the least intimidating place for Michigan to play a football road game. In any given road game at Northwestern, there are at least as many Michigan fans in the stands as there are Northwestern fans. In basketball, Nebraska is breaking in a brand new arena where they had never lost a game prior to last night. Dealing them their first ever loss in their new arena was a nice bonus. Also, the Northwestern game came relatively late in the season after Northwestern had nosedived. It's still fairly early in the Big Ten basketball season, so we don't know how bad (or good) Nebraska actually is.

 

Aren't we concentrating on how miserable our lives are without Kate Upton in it?