Michigan 79, Penn State 71

Glad to see the truth and not ignore the glaring weaknesses that this team has. It's okay, with good matchups, we can still do something in march...

Like Paul Simon said:  We are soft in the middle.

When a 6'-6" guy gets 10 rebounds for PSU in 38 minutes while two 6'-10" guys get a grand total of 2 between them in 36 minutes for Michigan, soft in the middle looks like an understatement, at least for this game.

good, young team in a solid conference. Age isn't an excuse and PSU isn't good - which results in an ugly 8-point win.

This group must regroup and re-energize before March. We'll go far if we're hot but we're not good enough to play poorly and win.

I think they needed to just get through this game and feel a bit better about themselves.  Now they can work out the kinks in practice with one game in eleven days.  I think people forget that this is still an extremely young team and a lot of critical practice time was lost in that brutal two week stretch.  They'll be a lot better in two weeks than what they are right now.

While today was uninspiring given the who's who of the pregame festivities, the reality is that that stuff doesn't mean a whole lot to players once the ball is jumped. These are still 18-20 year old kids who just came of a gruelling 10 day stretch that had them play 4 of the best teams in the conference and 3 of the best teams in  the nation. They struggled and it showed. They had a few days off to try and muster up the energy to play a team that sucks and is winless in conference play, mentally they weren't ready, luckily their talent let them prevail. I suspect going forward we will see a rejuvinated GRIII and a much better effort and intensity defensively. It is difficult to remember how young they are when they have played much older at times.

this season and largely contributed to "only" an 8 point win.  Among other problems, all of them seem to have trouble holding onto the ball.  Whether it's passes from teammates or trying to grab rebounds, they're not getting it done.  Other teams are clearly exploiting this weakness by going after us in the paint.  The coaches have their work cut out for them to try and correct this problem - and fast.  Otherwise, I don't see us having a chance to win the Big Ten.  Morgan needs to get back to 100% quickly.  That would definitely help.

But I think the hairstyle was just a fade, and not a high top fade, no? Whatever it was, I loved it in combination with the throwbacks.

I see this game a different way.  To me, PSU played the game of their lives and still lost.  They hit a lot of shots with hands in their faces, while off-balance, etc.  This is exactly the way teams pull off upsets in the NCAA Tournament, but Michigan's talent and patience eventually won out.  

Sometimes, you just have to give the other team credit for playing well.  I think this is one of those times.  I'm just glad that Michigan overcame one of those "magical days" for the underdog and still won.

We would not be as good, let alone better. He could hit the outside 3, but was not a strong defender or rebounder and certainly didn't run the floor like GRIII.

Members of the basketball team have a high top fade That cut would be a bald fade or caesar.

           The bigs seem way too eager to switch (rather than quickly flash out) on perimeter picks.  Give how prevalent it is, I figure they must be coached to do that.  The coaches must think we are so bad at fighting through screens that this is a better option.  Which points to terrible, terrible, terrible perimeter defense.  Part of the reason we never foul is because we play very passive on the outside.  Nobody crowds ballhandlers or shooters.

I was suprised that Penn State's shooting percentage wasn't higher by the end, but despite that it felt like they made a ton of huge baskets. Some were drives to hoop, open jumpers or put backs that reflected defensive/rebounding lapses, but others were taken with guys in their face.  They were incredibly aggresive under the boards, and a number of deflections/rebounds seemed to end up in their hands.

My point is not to deny that we played poorly -- especially inside -- but to remind everyone that even bad teams have some ability and sometimes get hot.  I don't have the basketball knowledge to evaluate which shots were poorly defended vs. just great strokes (outside of the most obvious examples), but would note that there appeared to be a lot of the latter.

Much like THJ in his frosh season, I think we will see GRIII in an increased ball handling role the rest of the season. Early in the game, M ran a little action with GRIII curling to the foul line to get the ball, haven't seen much of that this season, then in the second half Robinson was often involved in getting the ball on the move, and aggressively probing the D. I love it, I love it
I liked th 5 minute look with Vogrich on the floor. With Vogrich doing his thing in the corner, it freed up GRIII to take a more active role in the offense, and Robinson responded well. Too bad Robinson got called for the charge while Vogrich was burying a Three

The week off couldn't come at a better time. We have a lot to work on to win out.

Stauskas had 18 points on 5 2pt FG, 2 3pt FG, and 6 FT?

Methinks somethings amiss.

It was poor defense.  I can't remember if it was transition or just looked like it.  Vogrich had to stay under the basket and guard it as someone was there.  He can't be expected to guard 2 guys.

At the beginning of the year they thought Hardaway, Stauskas, & GR III would go pro. Do we still think GR III, Stauskas, & Hardoway go pro? With the recent slumps. Do they seem like they can hold up in the NBA? Just wanted to see what the board thought

Eessh the interior D was pretty bad. I was surprised they kept doubling the ball handler on picks. Didn't seem like it helped much and just left them out of position. I am also surprised they didn't just throw in a bit of zone to see if that would take away some of the interior drives and easy buckets. This week will be great to regroup and work on some new offensive sets since most teams are taking away some things with the pick and roll. Practice won't hurt at this point.

Good to see OSU got blown out in Wisconsin. It was encouraging to see since UM should have won that game. I was pretty frustrated with this game but if you think about their season overall. C'mon they lost the 4 games I thought they would and even had a chance to win won of them. 3 needs for them - play with more energy in the 1st half, improve interior D (maybe work on the zone?) and work on some new offensive sets to get the bigs involved more (more movement off the ball with more pics would be great.)

So nobody is commenting on the story of the game?  The uniforms!  I was beginning to think that was all we cared about around here.

And for the record, I thought the throwbacks looked sweet.  I could easily live with those as the permanent style.  They probably rank as my second favorites all-time, slightly behind the classic Fab 5 look.