Video: Ohio

highlights:

full game:

 It's final 4 or bust for this team.

There were some glaringly obvous things yesterday from that loss. 

1.  Our ability to shoot the 3 ball could be our achilles heel all season.  When you are on you will blow teams out, but when you are off you need to find other ways to create. 

2.  The number of freshman who play on our team is obvious.  The experience factor played a big part in yesterdays loss.  At times our guys seemed intimidated to take the ball to the basket, all of them. 

3.  Our lack of developing a low post game will cost us this year.  I cannot understand why GR3 played so much outside on the wing while Stauskus seemed to end up down on the post. 

4.  Our ability to play zone or man coverage will end up being a good thing.  It can change the pace of a game and create offense from the turnovers and rebounds.

5.  Drive, Drive, Drive........this cannot be said enough after yesterday.  Sure you are gonna take some hits, but let's get teams in foul trouble and create opportunities from the line.  We left way too many points on the floor by chucking 3 pointers when we were not hitting or didn't have players in position for rebounds.

6.  McGary needs to see more minutes against bigger teams.  This kid hustles, blocks shots, can body up to a big man and play defense.  The other guys are good, but he has the ability to be special when he gets back to 100%.  We have the height, now we need to use a big man rotation to change up the pace when we are shooting poorly from behind the arc.

Just my 2 cents.

Ohios best shot for us.  Though disappointing loss lets look at a positive, for me at least.  We were down huge in the first half and we clawed back give us a chance to win the game.  I know large leads dont usually hold but I was impressed how we came back.  I think we know sometimes it takes a hard loss, espeicially to a hated rival, to light another fire under butts.  

Also, good learning experience for the young guys. 

On to Minnesota

Two thoughts:

1) The funk that they went through vs. Nebraska carried over to OSU, except OSU is much better than Nebraska.  The second half, they seemed to snap out of it. 

2) the "lack of urgency" or "non fired upness" or whatever you want to call it that some people have complained about might actually be a strength.  The team seems pretty level headed at all times, which I think allowed Michigan not to panic after they were down by 20+.  An emotional low may have caused the team to fold after being down by so many, but lo, they came back in a cool, calm nature. 

Someone probably addressed this in one of the massive Ohio threads, but I noticed during the game a couple of things (and, yes, this is influenced by the maize-colored glasses):

1.  The TV crew was unbearable.  Their comments about our "lack of depth" seemed from bizzaro land.

2.  The Ohio scorer's table video board was doing funky stuff.  Now, take this with a grain of salt (especially considering the fact that I didn't re-watch the game to pick it apart)...BUT...It was like a strobe light disco when Michigan was running their offense, and then the blinking stopped when Ohio had the ball.  WTF?  And yes, my hat is tinfoil.

3.  I'm just venting, but the refs were turrible.  I know, common and annoying gripe, but (prior to the game) even 11W said officiating, especially with regard to Craft being too physical, would be a big issue.  The refs let him go full Sandusky and it hurt us.  We still should have won, but it's tiring to see our team game abused (and clotheslined). 

Ok, neg away.  Just needed to get that off my chest.

The "NutCracker" Pre-game speeched sucked, it did not prepare them for what was about to happen.

I thought the second half comments were awesome with the coaches.  There was no panic in that group, really well done.

Let's remember we were about a centimeter away from taking a 1 point lead with 12 seconds left, how that shot did not go in is beyond me.