MBB Postgame Thoughts and Celebration Thread

I thought Levert was key in our second half comeback because oh his defense.

Defense was played!!! So exciting to see defense again. Cautious props go out to Beilien for getting the team back to playing D.

Also, was I the only one who thought we were using the bigs a lot more on offense and not taking so many threes? Unlike the last few game where it seemed like our entire offense was spotting up from outside the arc on every possession, the attack today seemed much more balanced.

Will still have Illinois ahead of Michigan in his Big Ten power rankings.

Regarding the game:

Burke, Morgan and LeVert...lights out. LeVert locked up one of the better scorers in the entire conference. #clamps

Regarding the season:

Still need to improve, but we showed spurts of our "old self." Particularly when Morgan was on the floor. I'd play J-Mo limited minutes vs. PSU and Purdue because we're going to need him as close to 100% as we can get him for MSU and IU.

Glad LeVert has found his niche...he and Stauskas make a nice pair like Morgan and McGary. When one is off, usually the other is on. We need both players in both of those pairings.

Offensively I still don't think we have enough movement. We still don't seem to run an offense. We run plays (like the ball screen Dakich loved today), but not an offense. This is why on offense we are so choppy. Because plays can be stopped, but when you run an offense you run it until you get an open look, it's endless. We really have to get some type of motion offense going and run our plays out of it.

We need more easy baskets!

Defensively, we cut it on at the 12 minute media timeout in the first half. Someone called Coach Mattison because that was impressive. Hell that was like what Mattison did @ Illinois a couple years ago. It looked like we had 6 guys on the floor at times.

I think defensively if we play like that for the rest of the year, we're fine. Offensively I worry about us if we're not creating turnover and getting transition points. We've got to be able to score consistently out of the halfcourt.

Admittedly unrelated postgame thought*:



Now that we've taken care of business today and appear to have some of our mojo back, my question turns to rooting interests in Ohio-MSU is this afternoon. Obviously a loss for MSU is good for us for the Big Ten standings... But can we really root for the Buckeyes?



*But not worthy of its own thread.

MBB wins and Denard did good. Nice day to be a Wolverine.

Jordan M(VP)organ.

Can't pick the MVP of that game to be anyone other than Burke. 26 points on 11 shot attempts, 8 assists, 1 turonver. That is a stat line that no one else in the country produces, and Burke does it consistently.

With that said, the biggest thing that happened today is that Morgan looked almost 100% helathy. He moved really well on defense and rebounded well. I didn't realize how much he meant to our defense until he went out.

Nice to be able to sit back and watch a big ten battle after a nice win. Hopefully Ohio knocks off MSU for us.

on the court.  Even less than 100%, it's critical to having him out there as much as possible.  He didn't score a lot, but he enabled a lot of other points for Michigan.  As much as Beilein would like to be cautious on bringing him back, without Morgan out there, we don't have a realistic chance at the B10 title.  

Jordan Morgan and Caris LeVert make us much better defensively.  The great thing about our defense being better is that it makes our offense much better since it allows more opportunities to score in transition.  The half court offense is still very much a work in progress with a lot of dribbling around until Burke is forced in to going one-on-one.  It worked a lot today but I don't think it will necessarily work going forward.  I think Morgan needs to be back in the starting line-up again.  He doesn't make all of the mistakes that McGary makes.  He doesn't take bad shots.  He doesn't get caught out of position on defense.  He doesn't throw the ball away.  McGary is super talented but he still plays too out-of-control to be playing lots of minutes.  Bring him in for 5 minute spurts here and there.  10-15 minutes a game.  Try to play Morgan as much as possible and throw a bit of Horford in there if we need it for matchups or foul trouble.  If Michigan can play solid defense and force turnovers like they did in the 2nd half today, they may just get back to playing like one of the top teams in the country like they did for the first 20 games of the season.  Go Blue!!!

For awhile. I'd start Mitch and Morgan together and bring Nik off the bench for instant offense. But maybe that is just me.

First off, that was a great overall effort even with the slow start, and indeed, a very good sign - the second game in a row that overall FG% has increased at least 5% since the Wisconsin game. 

When Trey Burke scored his 1,000th career point, it made me wonder how huge the contribution of what is, in my opinion, the best backcourt in basketball has contributed to the team's offense in the past two seasons. 

Of the 4,306 points Michigan has scored since the beginning of the 2011-2012 campaign, 1,013 of them, or 23.5%, belong to Trey Burke. Hardaway can claim 887 points, or 20.6% of that same total. That's pretty amazing, I would say, as is the fact that in the same time period, Jordan Morgan accounts for 20.1% of all offensive rebounds. 

A nice, decisive win, and let's take down the Nittany Lions again on Wednesday!

with that steal and 3-pointer. As much as I hate to say it, I think we're going to have to accept that Stauskus just doesn't have it right now, and I expect hs minutes to go way down. In Big Ten play, he's a liability on defense and an average shooter at best. The good news is that LaVert looks to be a pretty good defender, and keeps improving every game. I think we'll see a lot more of the Burke-THJ-LaVert-GRIII-Morgan lineup in the near future.

Shoes and socks!

Since at OSU, we have been out scored by 7 points in the 1st half of games. In the 2nd half we have out scored opponents by 49 points.



Slow starts, killing us

But also a number of good things happening. Morgan getting healthy leads the latter list, but LaVert's play is a damn close second. Trey is pulling less of the "pound and step back" possessions than he had. But, until this team's energy/hustle level amps up to what you see with MSU/OSU, we will be fourth in this conference. Here's hoping that the Morgan/LaVert/McGary energy starts to take hold of the rest of the team.

I kinda hate myself for doing this, but...

Possible that Stauskas won't be starting next game? Based on his most recent tweet I would guess it's either that or he got dumped. 

That was a tough conversation to have. Knew it was coming tho.

— Nik Stauskas (@NStauskas11) February 24, 2013