We're So Totally Even For The Last Six Years

I was at the game, and the Ohio State fans behind me turned from pretty obnoxious to totally silent by the end. That was nice...

The first M basketball win that I've seen in person, curse that 2.5 hour drive!

EDIT--

A few thoughts:

1.) 37.5% from three is refreshing.

2.) Sims not playing like a tentatitve shooting guard and scoring 28 points (13-18) is excellent.

3.) Vogrich may be Zach Novak Jr., and he playing the three is great for the team.

4.) Ohio State really misses Turner, only seven Buckeyes played.

5.) We are who we thought we were (I think).

First!

I know I needed this - we all did. The tide is turning (eeeeeee!).

1. Vogrich totally read my last post - Way to come in and give a lift, kid.

2. Defense was soooooo much better today - I feel like we still have a ways to go, but I'll take the effort - solid.

3. Manny and D. Sims looked confident and in attack mode today. Deshawn staying inside is much more effective than shooting 3's and long jumpers.

Let's get it rolling now!

1-0 in 2010!

After I read the title I would have bet jamiemac's bankroll that the author was Brian.

Yeah, great win, but not really so much...

Sans Evan Turner, UM did what it needed to do. Beat the underdog (despite ranked) OSU at home.

And they did it with talent.

Manny (24) and Deshawn (28) combined for 52 of our 73 points. No other player scored more than 9 points.

Manny Sims (or Deshawn Harris) did the following:
52 points
22-34 from the field (65%)
5-7 from the line (71%)
3-6 from 3 (50%). Deshawn took ZERO 3's.
15 rebounds (more than 2/3rd of the teams), 4 steals (more than half), 4 TO's, 1 block, 1 foul

While OSU had to focus their attention on these guys, the others (6) did the following:
21 points
7-18 from the field (39%)
4-6 from the line (67%)
3-10 from 3 (30%)
7 rebounds, 3 steals, 5 TO's, 1 block, 11 fouls

That Manny and Deshawn were our leaders is of course no surprise. To the extent that they were should give us some pause.

These guys are talented. Manny off the dribble is special and what garners "first round" attention. And Deshawn is a good post player (though a ho-hum perimeter player).

JB has some nice offensive schemes, but there are times I think, Geez, let manny do his thing and keep Sims on the post, and for god's sake, don't encourage Sims to take shots beyond 15 feet. Three's can be a nice result of the attention that a driving Manny or a posted Sims.

On defense, the signature 1-3-1 defense now seems like it's the basketball equivalent of a "change up" (sans the weird Kansas game). It makes its way in the first half to see how the other team deals (I like that it forces teams to gameplan against it), and if it works (which seems less often), we use it. If it results in an alley-oop slam dunk (see today's game), it gets shelved until we want to go Johan Santana on them in the late innings to add some degree of confusion.

All said, I think Manny taking over more, Deshawn developing the post game (and decreasing his 3's) and good ol' man-to-man or 2-3 zone on defense may be the best way to win. The only problem: That really doesn't sound like Beilein ball.

Let's hope Sims was right, and this win gets the momentum rolling!

-UMichGA

can we plus 1 the title?

I was there and that was definitely very loud after U-M broke off the run near the end of the game to finally put it away. The OSU fans behind me were complaining about the broken sound system and kept implying that Crisler was a dump(which it is). Before the game they were saying how David Lighty would put up 45...

I'm glad we finally beat OSU! And it was a win when we really needed it, on top of it all. Hooray for new years and new beginnings!

I was so pumped to see Manny use his left hand!

He's unstoppable whenever he mixes it up and takes it to the left side. Thank you Jesus.

Sims actually irritated me after the first half because most of his looks were unnecessarily falling away, and his points came from lay-ups set up by teammates. However, the second half he ran the court very noticeably even though his teammates were unable to get him the ball. Later on though, he did get some feeds on the break, and it was obvious he did a much better job attacking the whole. I hope Beilein said something to him and he will continue like this because he is much more effective when he is attacking the whole; it opens up his jump shot, so he doesn't need to fade away.

Vogrich didn't get very many minutes, but he was awesome, and showed a lot of passion. Certainly a huge improvement from Indiana, in which he looked confused and bewildered on the court, to say the least.

At this point, I'm not sure why Anthony Wright plays other than to spell the other starters for brief stretches.

Sims actually irritated me after the first half because most of his looks were unnecessarily falling away, and his points came from lay-ups set up by teammates. However, the second half he ran the court very noticeably even though his teammates were unable to get him the ball. Later on though, he did get some feeds on the break, and it was obvious he did a much better job attacking the whole. I hope Beilein said something to him and he will continue like this because he is much more effective when he is attacking the whole; it opens up his jump shot, so he doesn't need to fade away.

Vogrich didn't get very many minutes, but he was awesome, and showed a lot of passion. Certainly a huge improvement from Indiana, in which he looked confused and bewildered on the court, to say the least.

At this point, I'm not sure why Anthony Wright plays other than to spell the other starters for brief stretches.

Game was sweet. Favorite moment was the Vogrich sequence in second half right before he was substituted for... really got the crowd in a frenzy. Teammates gave him a lot of love as well.

Hopefully Beilein can find a few more minutes for him, as I think all the minutes Novak and Douglass are playing might be catching up to them late in games.

Vogrich was draining deep threes prior to the game like they were five footers. Eventually this season he's going to go off and win a game or two for Michigan.

I don't think we're "even," as the title of this post implies.

Not by a long shot; there's much retribution left to be had.

when you shoot 55.8% overall and 37.5% from behind the arc.

In our losses, we shot:

Marquette 45.5%/15%
Alabama 38.6%/24%
BC 32.3%/26.5%
Utah 34%/31.8%
Kansas 35.8%/17.9%
IU 39.3%/32.1%

It's not that complicated: If we shoot better than 50% overall and over 30% for threes, we can very easily win 12 games in the conference.

First off, like everyone has said, great and very necessary win. Obviously it's a concern when two guys provide such a huge proportion of your production and when you have to work that hard to beat a mid-tier Big Ten team at home without their best player, but if this can get the ball rolling, that would be excellent.

On the lineup, it seems that the rotation is pretty much set. Some combination of LLP, Stu, and Morris are handling the 1 and 2. LLP is always the 2 if he's in, Morris is always the 1 if he's in, and Stu is whatever the other one in with him isn't. Vogrich is backing up Manny at the 3, Wright is backing up Novak at the 4, and Gibson is backing up Sims at the 5. I think this is a solid strategy going forward.

Vogrich has seemed overwhelmed at times and a very specific role of giving 3-5 minutes of hell when Manny needs a break seems like a good way of working him into things. I agree he was very solid in his second half cameo, but the two defensive possessions he played in the first half resulted in two wide open threes for Deibler (he hit one of them) and Beilein immediately pulled him. That being said, it was the best he's looked in a while and I'm encouraged.

I have become a huge fan of Stu. I'm convinced he's clearly the third best player on this team. His defense is very strong despite the natural inclination to think it won't be, he's very secure with the ball, has a great assist to turnover ratio, and has the ability to be a dead eye shooter. I think his development is the biggest sign to have faith in Beilein after watching the stagnation of the Amaker years.

As for Anthony Wright, I share a lot of the concerns many of you have, but I don't think there's a great alternative at this point. It should be noted that he played very well in his second stint yesterday. Good defense, no shots, and nothing crazy. I don't think Beilein can afford to play Gibson and Sims together too often because if they both get in foul trouble, I think UM has literally zero chance of winning a game. There's just no 4 on this team. I give Novak all the credit in the world for gutting it out there and he's clearly the best option. The only other idea I could think of is to give Eso more of a chance at the 4. He looked decent against Utah and seems to be strong enough to at least hold ground there.

Next year's team is going to be interesting. Tons of experience in the back court and only one player (Novak) who's ever played any significant time at the 3, 4, or 5.

but it should be noted that OSU is without arguably the best player in the Big Ten. Let's keep it in perspective. Somehow Tim failed to make any mention of this in his recap, and only one poster commented on it. It's a pretty big deal.

That being said, it is nice to see our defense get some stops. We rotated very well underneath, and really shutdown their penetration from the top, and the wings. Offensively, we did a nice job of getting guys the ball with space, and coming off screens. That is huge, because it forced them to switch, and we made some good decisions going to the hole, and dumping it off to the open guy. If we start knocking down some shots, we can make some noise this year.

was going to win this game when wright passed up a layup to hit a open stu for a 3.... maybe JB has finally drilled it into his head that he is not allowed to shoot... the only thing that upsets me is that if sims would have played half as well as he did yesterday against indiana, michigan wins that game...

was indeed terrific...it was not because of the student section, either, which was smaller than usual (although they were nicely rowdy) - it was the whole building. students are clearly not all back yet - we parked in the street at my stepson's house on benjamin, which is unheard of after classes start.

It was a very nice win. And, their tourney hopes are far from buried.

Schedule sets up nicely the next three games. If they can get wins and get off to a 4-1 start, I think they will be right back in the middle of the mix with several weeks to go.

In the end, I think a Michigan club with a 17-13 regular season record will get an invite as long as they are not one and done in the Big 10 tourney.

We'll see if they have the chops to pull it off, but yesterday we saw a bit of their potential.

Loved seeing Vogrich out there. In the end, I think this kid needs to play. We're going to need the basket or two that he can contribute to ease by some of these teams.

took HALF as many threes as OSU and was not content to chuck up a contested 3 opting instead to take a shot from inside the arc. id like to see this more going forward.

Of course, the best news from Sunday was the defeat of the Bucknuts.

The second best news is that Crisler was rowdy despite the broken sound system. This proves it really is possible for fans at a live sporting event to act like fans without the incessant and annoying Skinnerian electronic balderdash.

The number of 3 point attempts dropped considerably and it appears obvious that JB is riding Harris and Sims, pretty much for the rest of the season. Novak and Lucas-Perry's green light to attempt threes appears to be off. Only Douglass still has a light, and he's improved somewhat of late. That means Vogrich really needs to step up and make some shots for there to be any consistency.

Also, UConn is essentially a must win. The non-conference is very weak now and at least one good win is needed or else 10 (maybe 11 wins) in conference will not be enough for the tourney.

It did feel good to beat OSU. Also, it somewhat (yes, somewhat) took the sting out of OSU's win in the Rose Bowl.

The fact that we beat Ohio State and how crazy the crowd was last night, it was a awesome game to watch.

In the 3rd row, the guy with his hand on his chin. At least I wasn't picking my nose!