MBB Silver Linings - reasons to look on the bright side

Agreed, but losing by 30 to anyone is pretty damn embarrassing.  The "young team" and "hostile environment" excuses apply but still . . . it was not cool.  I'm not ready to get over it just yet.

"undefeated at neutral sites and home" are your key points. History shows that almost every recent National Champ has been dominant at home and on the neutral court. I'm not going this far but I've heard some people say "throw away all road games." Go Blue!

I understand all the frustration about lack of leadership/drive/fire/etc.  What's hard is that with this team, the highs are really high and the lows are unfathomably low.  Think about how we felt after the Ohio game just a week ago.  The players and coaches have to have short memories if we expect them to improve, and so should the fans.  We have to wait and see how they'll respond the rest of the season.

I also have to say, getting blown out against a main rival is extremely shitty, but most of my anger came out on Saturday after the Wisconsin loss.  That doesn't excuse a lackluster performance last night, but as most of you have observed, we seem to get teams' top efforts, and when teams are making virtually every shot (I swear the statistics are wrong....48.4 team FG% my ass), losses will happen.  

Thanks for this thread...the game threads for losses get so unbelievably negative that it's important to remember why we love this team and why we will absolutely continue to watch every game.

Go Blue.

It will be important to win most of the up coming games. If we can beat IU and MSU at home, the team will gain confidence and I think we will get to the sweet 16, possibly the final four! However, if we keep playing poorly, lose at home to both IU and MSU, then we may only win one or two games in the NCAA tournament!

Will the real Michigan team show up?

www.barwismethods.com/



Use it!

I know that the game yesterday was as bad as it could be from our perspective. I have watched every game this year and I thought that it would be hard for us to win last night but the way in which we lost was completely out of the blue - easily the most gut wrenching basketball defeat in quite some time (the caveats of a young team, extremely raucous road crowd, tired legs at the end of a brutal stretch etc. apply).
I still think that we can go 5-1 and maybe 6-0 in the remaining games and possibly share the B1G title (we would need help but the B1G schedule should offer us an opportunity if we go 6-0) - we need to heal/rest up, work on our defense and get ready to protect home court in the last week of the regular season.

The biggest takeaway I have from this is that it's just really hard to win on the road in the Big Ten. We've played all the tough conference teams on our schedule on the road. The only one to come to Ann Arbor so far, we beat. Still plenty of time left in the season.

our young team learned what it takes to get fired up and defend your home court.

also, can we design some plays to get easy baskets? three man weave around the three point line is the best we have.

for some reason the Wisconsin loss is still harder to get past than last night's for me.  I think the guys were just plain tired.   They went down by 6-8 early and didn't have the emotional or physical reserves to fight back.  We can talk about all the numbers and statistics we want...but there's also the reality of hotel rooms, bus rides, plane flights, away crowds and some fairly decent teams stacked back to back to back.    

I think that accounts for the lack of hustle, driving to the bucket, etc, etc. 

Let's be careful about writing these guys off before we see how the next couple of weeks go.

and calming down I feel similar to your write up.  Though, I think the Wisconsin game just sucked a lot of energy out of this team and we could have been seeing the ol "Wisconsin beating us twice factor".  We were just exhausted last night and on top of that, sparty was going all crazy with their shooting percentage. 

Still love this team, still can be very good, the longer break we have now in between the PSU game is much needed.  Hopefully the guys can get a day off or two and just rest, re-focus.

Hold court at home and we can be in the hunt for the B1G.

Also, I think most of the comments about giving up on the team was largely due to the fact it was against sparty, we all hate them and we all hate losing to them. 

PS. sorry for all my stupid comments yesterday in the open thread, emotions were getting a hold of me. 

I'm still having a hard time finding any silver linings after that debacle.

The past 3 SuperBowl winners illustrate that in a one and done situation, get in and you have a chance to win 4 in a row and win it all. Given that a lack of experience and some toughness that has been exposed all of the freshmen that play except McGary, I would be more than happy with 4 wins and a final four appearance. Where before I was dillusioned to think this team was a serious National Title contender, I think it's more likely that a MSU or even Ohio passes the eye test of a team poised for a deep run with they way their athletes on defense can make life difficult. That said, Michigan will enter the tournament no lower than a 2 seed and I would not be surprised if they win 4 in a row. Unfortunately, today I am resigned to this position and not as optimistic as I was a week or so ago.

Why does everyone keep sticking to this "wait until neutral sites" line of thinking? What happened last night wasn't home court advantage, it was a straight up ass slamming by a superior team that figured out and exploited every weakness we have. The home court didn't do much against OSU; we damn near, and probably should have, lost that one as well. Playing on a neutral floor isn't going to give this team heart, toughness, or fix any of the other glaring issues that good teams have exposed.

That gauntlet was an XP feast. The frosh will be level 10 in time for the tourney. Mark it, Dude

One thing that is nice about coming off what really was a meat grinder of games for us is that this teams has seen the tougher defenses and has a basis for making adjustments in that regard. Going 1-3 in that stretch definitely stinks, but the team learned volumes that it can use to its own advantage later.

Indeed, the next three games hopefully will be used as an opportunity to test some the adjustments, and while playing Illinois and Penn St. is not going to be like playing Indiana and Michigan State, you have three likely wins coming up where you can work with what you now know about this team if you're the staff. It could certainly be a springboard for preparation for the final week of the regular season, as it will not be a picnic for the most part even if it is mostly at home.

The Big Ten is, by most measures, the toughest conference. Those people who predicted a 13-5 or 14-4 conference record in all of the preseason threads stand a good shot of being correct yet. The good news is that this is a good team overall and it seems like it can only get better going forward with the experience gained in this stretch.  

I think this team was just physically and emotionally beat after the 4 game stretch, but especially after Wisconsin. That's the kind of loss you don't just "get over." That's a demoralizing and deflating way to lose a basketball game. 99 times out of 100 that shot doesn't go in.



Also, you're playing a bunch of freshman and expecting them to compete at the highest level against a bunch of upperclassmen on their court in the toughest conference in basketball.



All I can say now is thank God we have Penn State next. This team is in dire need of a breather.

Do any of you feel that in an effort to get out of a funk on the road, the 1-3-1 trap would be a nice way to start out? I feel our man defense is getting torched and we would just need to get to the boards strong. Just thinking out loud.

At least we didn't lose by 30.....or 40.

in the big ten you can get away with just about anythign on defense at home... we won't have to deal with that any more...   And come tournament time these games shoudl help us prep.  Should...