I know it's the first game and everything and they're a mid-major and none of us have watched college basketball in months but...Buffalo is good, right?  It sure seemed like they could play.  And they didn't  seem too rusty like most teams do in the opener (even Michigan looked red hot for a period of time, pretty uncharacteristic for the early season). I wasn't sure how impressed I'm supposed to be with Buffalo and Michigan but it sure seems to me like they could find themselves ranked at some point and be a sleeper pick to make a deep run in the tournament. I'll be rooting for them the rest of the way. 

Take away from this is that T Williams can be a defensive stopper -- and we needed one big time tonight.  

The officiating seemed to include too many ticky-tacky fouls.  It played to our advantage in the first half with Collins providing good bench minutes.  Would've like to see Collins some in the 2nd half -- Jones is good, but Collins provides great energy off the bench and that could help to slow down the Buffalo point man (Segu).

A good game for Juwan and staff.  Got the win but have plenty to discuss with the team.  Defensively it’s probably going to take some time to get back to where we were last year (if we can, sans Franz).  And man, we’ve got to do better on FTs.  Not only did we shoot only 60%, but we missed two front ends in a row.  But it’s a W against a solid opponent.

One correction- the TWill 3 was assisted by Jones on a nice left hand feed, not by Brooks.

It feels kinda comfortable that it wasn't comfortable.

That is, pushed, they pushed back. Good to see.

I was at the game.   All in all a solid win.  They have a lot to work on but that's to be expected, especially now that they are a younger team.    A couple of times when the game got real tight they leaned on Brooks calming experience and he did what he needed to do.  

This team has a lot of upside and at times were an absolute blast to watch.   Should be a very fun season.  

Buffalo is a good team, three guys who would be in the rotation for almost any team in the country, tons of experience.  They played hard and weren't intimidated.  Probably better than at least three or four Big10 teams.

A great first win, which should build some confidence but also provide plenty of motivation by pointing out the need to get much better.  We missed way too many free throws, and Bufkin gave away 2 points at the end of the half with a terrible freshman mistake, fouling at the other end with less than 2 seconds left.

TWill was great, Caleb and Diabate showed why they are rated so high.  Hunter was the difference, playing a dominant game while Buffalo got almost nothing out of their bigs.

Diabate about to pass Johns as a starter like Davis got usurped last year.

Good test early against a good team who had experience and the exact type of athletic wings that we don't have a good person to defend.  Hopefully TWill is that guy and he played well.  Hunter had an iffy game on D but was dominant on offense.  

Gotta make free throws and this isn't even a game.  I am a little concerned that the volume of threes was low, but still TBD.  

I liked seeing Collins and Diabate out there, but not sure I agree with the amount of positivity they got in this writeup.  Collins was fine, but didn't contribute much in his short time.   Diabate was what we expected, a couple of huge highlights mixed into some wild erratic plays.  He's the JJ to Hunters Cade.  That three he took was ugly.  His passing was encouraging.  

Feel bad for Zeb because theres a role for a third guard and also a defensive matchup for 6-5 wings that he might be able to fill if he were healthy.  

While I'm pretty sure this team can shoot, the number of missed free throws is a bit disturbing. Missed front ends were especially grating.

It seems like Juwan has a lot of pieces to play with. Sometimes though, that can work against you.

Should be an interesting season. I can't wait to see how it turns out 

Do you know why they call them Buffalo the papers wouldn’t say.

Would've loved to have been there live to see Bo Boroski in pre-season form with the infamous "travel-flop" call :)

We need more headband. Williams, Collins and Nunez ain’t enough.

It was exactly what they were expected to do (by Vegas and Torvik) as a top 10 team, but Buffalo missed a ton of threes and had they gone just 34%, that's a tie game, However, they also made a lot of floaters and midrange twos that seemed a bit on the lucky side to offset the bad three point luck.

I do think it'll be interesting to see how Juwan fits these pieces together. 

Right now, it appears like they have five bigs with a huge logjam of guys that are essentially fours, a few guards and no true wings.  The composition of this team is a bit wonky.  It will be important for Bufkin to develop and for Houstan to be able to better stay in front of wings.

So much talent though and I have confidence this staff will have them in position for another conference title and final four run.

Meh..I was underwhelmed I guess as they say a win is a win but that was not very impressive especially the 2nd half..defense was bad and very few turnovers created..Neess improvement

Don't think it was coincidental that we were plus 14 in Jones 18 minutes on the floor. Like Mike Smith last year, think he is absolutely a key to success.

Two upper-classmen, Zeb Jackson and Jace Howard did not play at all.

To get where it wants to go this team really needs someone to step up and fill the third guard role.  Right now it is a pretty empty void.  Obviously it is early and some injuries there have not helped, but hopefully we see a third guard emerge and fill quality minutes before conference play starts.  

Caveat: only was able to watch the second half. That said, takeaways:

-T-Will could be the x-factor. Great energy, looked great on D (stayed in front of his man, forced them into bad decisions/TOs), and hit some big shot on the other end. He looked ready to take up the mantle of "Michigan player who gets under the skin of everyone associated with the opponent."

-Liked Devante's vision on the floor. Made a couple of passes that really impressed. 

-Bench depth will be huge late in the season. Loved to see JH roll everybody out and really see what he had to work with. 

-LOTS to be done on perimeter defense. Thought rotations looked bad the whole half and the gave up a ton of wide open looks. This is pretty much expected with the amount of unseasoned guys out there, and I fully expect it to improve. 

-Hunter/Eli are known qtys, didn't disappoint. 

All in all, good W. Buffalo is going to be one of those teams you don't want to draw round 1 if they perform as expected in MAC play. 

The negatives appeared to be some defensive lapses and free throw shooting.

The positives appeared more numerous.  Dickinson looked as solid as we had hoped with a monster game.  Brooks was his usual reliable self.  T. Williams was impressive all around with a high motor and an ability to get buckets.  Houstan and Diabate looked impressive, comfortable on the floor, making smart plays and as highly talented as hoped.  Jones looked solid at the point with only one turnover - turnovers were apparently an issue for him in the past.  Collins showed potential.

Buffalo seems like a good team, possibly tournament caliber with a couple elite players, so this was a great win to start the season.  Michigan showed that it has the potential to be a championship caliber team with a lot of talent, experience and depth.  They need to clean up some of the defensive issues and shoot a bit better at the line.  But all of this should improve with time and experience.   And they need to stay healthy.       

More Frankie and less Brooks at the point when Jones is sitting.  Other than that, we have a squad. My goodness do we have a squad.