if you're not excited about this team...
...you have no pulse.
also you're an apocalyptic zombie.
and i hate you.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:32 PM ^
Team Rocket?
February 9th, 2011 at 11:07 PM ^
he's referring to Team Car Ramrod.
February 10th, 2011 at 1:10 AM ^
I think I speak for everyone here when I say FUCK Team Rocket, and FUCK their Zubats!
February 10th, 2011 at 9:12 AM ^
Red Rocket.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:32 PM ^
muthafuckaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
February 9th, 2011 at 8:32 PM ^
granted, it was against a somewhat suspect defense, but hat's off to Jordan Morgan for a great game.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:36 PM ^
but he finished with 1-2 rebounds. I guess he just made too many shots for there to be any chance of a rebound.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:49 PM ^
It was just a funny game. Hardaway had 10 boards.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:53 PM ^
His rebounding numbers don't bother me. They are asking their bigs to block out and let the others clean up. Morris, Stu and Hardaway combined for 23 rebounds.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:00 PM ^
them (which we did), it really doesn't matter who gets them (IMO)...
February 9th, 2011 at 10:10 PM ^
look up my other posts on morgan. he is doing it all by himself down low, and he is very very fundamentally sound and impresses the heck out of me. without him wed be in deep trouble. and with some more confidence, he can really bring the wood. only a freshman, wow. like i said before, we are only one big man recruit away from being a major program again. i know b/c i was there at the 1989 national championship, and the fab five.
morgan needs alot of help down low. if we had two of them we'd be golden.
February 10th, 2011 at 9:14 AM ^
You were there, so you know? Huh...
Cool story bro.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:35 PM ^
February 9th, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^
You called captain?
February 10th, 2011 at 9:41 AM ^
You forgot the coffee Farva, and your suspension......continues.
February 10th, 2011 at 9:15 AM ^
Dramatic cupcake dog.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:35 PM ^
unfortunately I'm at sschool and couldn't watch the game, but just watching the stats online was amzed by jordan morgan's performance, and by the team's as a whole. Hope it's no too late to try and turn around the season, but if anyone can do it we can.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:16 PM ^
Please think about what you post, try to contribute in a positive way and for the love of God, please remove the image of a Michiganized Ohio state logo from any future posts.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:16 PM ^
Your comment was a real "contribution". Why don't you take your own advice. His comment was harmless so shut up and read the next one.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:25 PM ^
The comment was harmless, however he is one of only 1 or 2 posters on the board to have an image in his signature. They're generally frowned upon.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:37 PM ^
They played better than your/you're grammar
I kid, I kid...
February 9th, 2011 at 8:40 PM ^
If they can take care of business at home against IU, this team still has a legitimate shot to go dancing. Keep hope alive!
February 9th, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^
The tourney is still something of a longshot, but . . . we now have the same exact record we did two years ago after 25 games, both overall and in conference.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:46 PM ^
Only difference is...we haven't beaten Duke and UCLA to pick up quality wins. If only we could have found a way to get one more point in regulation against Kansas this year...
February 9th, 2011 at 8:48 PM ^
I'll put some of the Big Ten as difficult as UCLA that year.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:09 PM ^
But we still haven't beaten any of the teams in the Big Ten that are at that level. Granted we still have Wisconsin coming in so that will be an opportunity (and Minnesota on the road which is way tougher), but the MSU win doesn't look as good because they keep getting blown out.
I really hope we can close strong and make it into the tourney, but my point was it would help if we had a win or two over Top 50 RPI teams to boost the resume.
EDIT: MSU is actually 47 according to ESPN, but I highly doubt that holds up the rest of the seson.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:56 PM ^
68 teams now make it instead of 65, which could prove significant if you have no great wins, but are .500 in the deepest conference
February 9th, 2011 at 9:35 PM ^
Having those two wins in our back pocket helped a lot two years ago. Now our best win is looking like Clemson. We need them to keep it up.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:48 PM ^
We have a pretty nice schedule for the remainder of the season, and this team seems to be improving every game.
If we can finish 4-2(which seems fairly realistic), we'll have a pretty good shot of making the tourney. We'd probably have to win a couple in the B10 tourney, but at least those won't be true road games.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:49 PM ^
just might be our ticket once again...
February 9th, 2011 at 8:49 PM ^
Unfortunately, last year we had beaten UCLA and Duke. This year, we beat a bad MSU team and a mediocre Penn State team twice. Playing close with Syracuse, Kansas and Ohio State looks good to us on the inside, but most people will see them only as losses, unfortunately.
Sorry to rain on the parade. I'm as excited as anybody, because I am a fair weather basketball fan, and when the team is losing, I get unreasonably frustrated, even more than when the football team loses.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:55 PM ^
I think you, as well as most on this board, have forgotten about a pretty big win against a quality ACC team at their gym. Not saying they are as good as Duke and UCLA, but Clemson is pretty damn good this year.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:14 PM ^
Any win at an ACC teams home is a good win. Clemson is in 4th place in the ACC and sports a 17-7 record and is very much in the big dance race. A win at their place is worth a bunch.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:59 PM ^
Penn State being a mediocre win is our own fault. If we just didn't beat them, bringing them down more, then it would have been a bigger win if we had won instead
/freeplogic
February 9th, 2011 at 9:31 PM ^
amazing post-who knows what OSU's RPI would be if we had decided we wanted to beat them, I'm happy we preserved them where they are
February 9th, 2011 at 9:21 PM ^
Don't forget that UCLA, although ranked 4th at the time we beat them, ended up the season as a 6 seed in the NCAA tournament so it wasn't really that big a win in the eyes of the selection committee. Also, the Duke win was coupled with a blowout loss to Duke on a neutral floor earlier in the year.
With a much stronger Big Ten this year and a couple decent OOC wins @ Clemson (4th in the ACC right now) and at home against Harvard (16-4 with no bad losses) and Oakland (two game lead in their conference), I don't think the resume gap is all that big.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:22 PM ^
Well...think about the fact that a 6 seed would translate into between the #21-#24 teams at selection time. That's still a pretty relevant win. By comparison, Clemson is #67 in RPI despite being 4th in the ACC.
Given the formula for the Selection Committee gives a lot of weight to Top 50 RPI wins, I think we've still got some work to do. So in conclusion: please beat Wisconsin!!!
February 9th, 2011 at 9:00 PM ^
Looks like we were at 62 in the RPI before this win. The Big Ten should get 6 teams in (at least 5, considering we're #2 in conference RPI and got 5 last year). The league got 7 bids when UM got in two years ago and the league wasn't nearly as strong.
Right now we're just a half game behind Minnesota, MSU, and Penn State (teams 5, 6, and 7 in the standings). 4-2 down the stretch would get us right in that mix. We've got a better OOC schedule and the head to head edge over Penn State. We've got a shot to take the head to head edge over MSU as well.
I think they can beat IU, @ Iowa, and steal one out of Illinois/Wisky/Minnesota. That would set up a huge end of season game at home against State and I think a win would put us solidly in the tournament, especially considering how down the ACC/SEC/Pac 10 are this year.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:45 PM ^
Also, Tim Hardaway is really starting to play well. Hats off to Coach Beilien for the gameplan tonight (Easy layups by Morgan). The last time we played NU, they totally took away the outside. It's nice to see "Beilien ball" isn't all about the three!
February 9th, 2011 at 8:45 PM ^
"Did you just foul me on my dunk?"
"Now I spend the rest of the night making you my bitch."
February 9th, 2011 at 8:51 PM ^
I'm very impressed with this team considering how much they seem to be improving as the season goes on. This isn't really surprising considering how young we are, but I thought next year was going to be when we started to see Hardaway and Morgan and Smotrycz come into their games. I am very happy to see them maturing this year instead. These three seem more comfortable with their role on the team. Don't get me wrong, they still have a ways to go, but they are only going to get better over the next 4 years.
February 9th, 2011 at 8:52 PM ^
The Indiana game is a must. Win that and you are 6-7. Just need 3 out of the last 5 from there. It won't be easy, but a .500 league record and 19-12 overall will get them in regardless of what happens with the B10 tourney.
They have played themselves into a very reasonable shot at this.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:36 PM ^
"a .500 league record and 19-12 overall will get them in regardless of what happens with the B10 tourney"
Not true. They still don't have a quality win and have not beat a team from RPI top 50. They have 2 bad losses in IU and Northwestern. They need more IMO. Win over Wisconsin and Illini would do it for Michigan plus a couple of wins at BTT.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:08 PM ^
If we finish 19-12, we'll have at least one quality win (one of Wisc/Minn/Ill.). Clemson might creep up there, too.
I don't think the BTT really makes that much of a difference. It's held so late in the game that the committee's deliberations are almost certainly over by the time the BTT final occurs. A loss in the BTT opener might cost you, but I don't think a win or two can really help that much.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:17 PM ^
Both Harvard and Michigan State are in the RPI top 50 as of yesterday's rankings. Not sure that they will stay there, but right now Michigan is 2-7 against those top teams.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:24 PM ^
Every year someone tries to say .500 in the league isn't enough, pretty much every year they turn out to be wrong. As strong as the big ten is top to bottom, if Michigan finishes the big ten tourney at or above .500 in the league they will make the dance. If it makes you all feel better to play the pessimist that is all well and good, and hell, its still probable that they wont finish that well anyway. But if they do they will dance.
February 10th, 2011 at 12:00 AM ^
We can't look past them. The IU loss was absolutely terrible, so a loss at Iowa would be difficult to overcome. Plus the game @ Minnesota could be a must win. We might be competing for the last spot out of our conference with them. Losing twice to them would put us in a tough position.
But if we finish .500 in conference, we'll probably need at least two wins in the BTT. We would probably have to play ourselves into Sunday to feel supremely confident about our chances.
Our road/neutral site record is not great, so we need to improve that in the conference tourney.
Lots of work ahead, but this is getting fun!
February 9th, 2011 at 8:55 PM ^
Are we in the running for any highly touted bigs for next year? I know Morgan just had a hell of a game but I wouldn't consider him a true center. I am really excited for this team's future.