Could Have Gone Better
1/14/2009 – Michigan 51, Illinois 66 – 13-4, 3-2 Big Ten
Most Michigan fans expected a loss against Illinois yesterday, and the Illini duly provided said loss. UMHoops and others have covered the main reasons why, but here you go in pictoral form:
Illinois' gumpy 7-foot center can ball, man. I was worried what he'd do to Michigan on both ends of the floor before Michigan's first game against the Illini only for Weber to take him off the floor much of the night because he was worried about Tisdale's defense. That was a mistake he didn't repeat.
Meanwhile, DeShawn Sims fell prey to some rim-outs, was bothered by Tisdale's length, and couldn't finish at the rim a couple times and ended up 3-14. That's the ballgame right there. If Sims isn't a major threat to produce inside and there's a 7-foot shotblocker lingering near the hoop no one is going to get an open three or a backcut and the team's going to shoot around 32.2%, give or take a tenth. This I retroactively predict.
Some bullets:
Walkons and white guys featured for about four minutes in the first half and a couple in the second, and that seemed like a bad idea. Sims, Harris, and LLP all on the bench? Urgh. I guess it worked out, sort of.
Stu Douglass put in better minutes in this game than he had in other recent contests, coming up with a couple of good passes and a corner three, but he also took another inadvisable NBA-range three.
I was pretty frustrated by the lack of productive offense. I don't know nearly enough about basketball to tell you why Michigan couldn't get good looks, but there seemed like there was way too much one-on-one stuff, either because the ballhandler wasn't looking for teammates or those teammates weren't cutting to spots on the floor where they'd be useful. Team is still very young and all that, but the offense seemed more, you know, offense-y early in the season.
It wasn't bad luck that Michigan shot 27% from 3; the only really good looks I remember were Stu's aforementioned corner three and one LLP three in transition that didn't go down.
...fell prey to some rim-outs, was bothered by Tisdale's length, and couldn't finish at the rim a couple times."
heh...that's what she said
Wisconsin, Mich St., Purdue? Minnesota? Illinois? Michigan? and Ohio State? all fight for a spot in the tourney. (Last year 4 spots for the Big Ten). If we had beaten Illinois twice this season we would already have a leg up on that Big Ten spot. I say we probably get 5 in for 2009. Mich St and Wisconsin have become staples in the tourney and Izzo and Ryan will get their teams in again. The rest of the schedule is tough and assuming we split the series with Purdue, OSU, Minnesota, that game at UCONN may decide the RPI. I hope not, I hope we can sweep one of the before mentioned teams, probably Minnesota or the Buckeyes and gain respect as a legit tourney team. The wins against UCLA and Duke only go so far, we need to make a splash in the B10 and a sweep of a much improved Illinois team would have looked impressive come March. I know it's a long season, but,....shit.
Sent From My Commodore 64
to mention Manny's sudden dissociative personality disorder: thinking he was moses and he could drive to the basket and part the orange sea. I understand a leader trying to put the game in his hands, but most of these isos he tries are ill-advised (to say the least); he almost always gets surrounded and loses the ball in flailing fashion. It makes him look like a fool and hurts the team rather than fires it up. Every time I see Manny start driving in from the arc I cringe, and scream at him to pass to one of the multiple people who just opened up due to everyone collapsing on him because THEY KNOW THAT HE IS THE GUY TO STOP; I'm talking to you Manny. I love you Manny, but really...
I was disappointed that when we're down by twelve, we all of a sudden try to start establishing ourselves in the paint. That's where our perimeter "expertise" is best used.
It really is sad though that I have more confidence in our team from around the arc than from 3-7 feet from the basket. We need to work on that type of shooting... especially Gibson (I assume Sims performance last night was a fluke, one that goes by the name of Tisdale)
One thing I've noticed about a "backdoor" type offense over the years is that if it gets out of rhythm everything falls apart. I went to a really small college in Indiana, and we tried to run a similar offense. Watching the 2nd half last night reminded me of that. There was no offense, the ball never moved into places where players had good, open shots... over all it was just miserable to watch.
We'll get 'em next time!
dan
just realized that my post may appear to say I played basketball at a small college...i didn't merely attended, and went to games.
dan
Your retroactive predictions dazzle and amaze us, retroactively.
That's right, Dude. 100% certain.
your description of not getting good looks was how I perceived the Indiana chuck fest too.
The prayers in Indiana happened to go in - but they certainly werent the good looks we were seeing early in the year.
We can't run. We can't pass. We can't stop the run. We can't stop the pass. We can't kick. Other than that, we're just not a very good football team right now. - Bruce Coslet