Michigan’s Last 11 games
March 20th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
ESPN is a bad joke.
Michigan is a nightmare team for opponents. You just can’t seem to beat them; just ask Kelvin Sampson.
March 20th, 2018 at 12:40 PM ^
Well come on Syracuse beat MSU by 1 point I mean that has to be more impressive than any of Michigan's victories.
Yep before the tournement ESPN: "we need to take in account all the games all season"
ESPN after first 2 games: "we need completly ignore the first 35 or so games and base these seedings off of the last 2 games"
I'm confused. Thought it was the NCAA who said "you have to take into account the whole season." Not ESPN. Mind you, I'm no big fan of ESPN. I actually am one of those people who don't have cable and won't pay for ESPN. But still, as bad as they are, don't blame them.
As regards being seeded 15th, several things. First, I really don't care. That piece was just click bait. But beyond that, Michigan is very fortunate to be in the sweet 16. Partly because of matchups, and partly because of shooting woes, we didn't look that good. I don't think that's bad: maybe the team will be more focused, knowing how fortunate they are. Still, as has been said many other places, Michigan isn't going to be able to continue much further unless they really improve massively in their offensive performance.
In fairness, our defense and Jordan Poole's heroics are the reasons why we're still in the tourney. Offensively, we haven't played anywhere near the level we played at in the Big Ten Tournament. I'm confident that Beilein will get it figured out and I'm glad we have four days to prepare, but let's be honest: we're very fortunate to still be playing. We'll need to take it up a couple of notches offensively if we want this run to continue.
To be fair, I think ESPN was basing the reseeding on performance in the tournament. And we have played very poorly. I was miffed at first, too.
SI has Michigan as the #2 most likely to win the whole thing, behind Villanova. Both could be right depending on whether you are ranking Michigan's relative first weekend performance or how they were playing the weekend of the B1G tournament.
Behind Duke, Nova, Kanasa/Gonzaga
That reseeding was based on how well we've played in the tournament, now I woulda put us ahead of Syracuse because good god they're terrible, but we've been pretty awful this tournament, near the bottom is where we deserved to be put. But who cares, all that matters is that we survive and advance. Hopefully now we can start to play up to our potential and win out.
March 21st, 2018 at 11:32 AM ^
I believe the re-seeding was based only on the first two game performances in the NCAA tournament. We did not look particularly good against Montana and Houston.
March 20th, 2018 at 12:17 PM ^
2013 when Beilein's team won 16 in a row to start the season.
March 20th, 2018 at 12:35 PM ^
I'm fine settling for 15 this year.
March 20th, 2018 at 12:23 PM ^
How is anyone gonna beat this squad. Theres no way any team can get far enough ahead, pop a couple 5 point plays and clutch 3's.
Boom
March 20th, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^
and we're the highest seed remaining on our half of the bracket
which makes it seem all the more likely we're going to lose Thursday. It would make sense in this year's tournament
March 20th, 2018 at 12:59 PM ^
Actually, the highest-seeded teams usually do well in the tournament.
The average seed that Michigan could play to the finals could be a 9 seed.
But now everything returns to normal and Michigan as the highest seed on the left side of the bracket starts cleaning up on the pretenders. A&M won't be able to guard our inside-outside game. We continue to defend at an elite level. Wagner comes out of his slumber. MAAR hits a few more 3s. Jordan Poole capitalizes on his new-found fame and puts together solid performances off the bench. Duncan Robinson snipes in a few treys. Teske bumps and grinds with the TAM bigs. It's all coming together sports fans!!!
March 20th, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
Go Blue.
What time does M practice at Staples?
Open to public?
Shoot the lights out boys.
I want Duke. I want Michigan to beat them soundly, head to head. The record is currently 22 - 8 in Duke's favor. Too many bad memories. I don't know we will ever catch up, but as said elsewhere, to be the best, you have to beat the best. I know it won't matter in this cycle, but beating Duke can only help Michigan in recruiting as well.
I want Duke, because that would mean we are in the NC. But there are 7 other teams on that side of the bracket I would rather play in the NC...
HANG a fucking BANNER boys !! Win the GAME !
Go Blue!
I want Duke. I want Duke to lose to someone else long before we have to play them.
Villanova and Duke are the 2 scariest teams left in the tournament.
So, our two tournament games haven't been stellar, but we won and advanced and were probably the hottest team in the country coming in. ESPN reseeded everyone in this piece and puts us in the 15th spot.
That's fine. Someone let our guys know ESPN gives us little chance.
Since 2 of those wins were against a mediocre Spartan team with poor coaching
I went back to the Game Previews for all of these last 11 games. Michigan outperformed the KenPom projection in 9 of them. (Outliers were Iowa in the B1G first round and Houston.) Michigan was KenPom underdogs in five of those games going in.
The average outperformance vs. the projected differential in all of those games was a whopping 10 points per game. So, Yeah, ESPN go ahead and seed them 15 out of 16. Please!
coached for the game they play. Who would have thought that Michigan's only real drawback is the inability to play the kind of offense that would define thier success as Beilein-standard, and instead rely on defense as the heart of its identifty.
Michigan is clearly not the most talented team left in the tournament. Duke and Kentucky have far better athletes than Michigan can put on the floor to match up against them. But the Michigan difference is all the tangible elements that make their game work on both ends of the floor, a combination of experience, skill and swag. There I said it. You've got to have swag at this point to succeed in the tournament.
Back in the day, the Fab Five were THE ultimate swag in talent, which is what Duke and Kentucky now present almost yearly after recruiting ends. No doubt, they are kings of the one-and-done program that acts as THE NBA sales funnel.
Coach K's legacy is made. He's the Steven Spielberg of college basketball. John Calipari is the unabashed don of college basketball's made coaches, who live on the edge and claim they never colluded with Russia.
They just win. And that's all that's needed in accepted form. Then there's John Beilein, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, who has made a career of coaching the right way, celebrating with subs and water guns, and making the NCAA message a reality in reality, not an ad for hair care for men needing hair plugs or transplants.
Maybe someday soon the right guy, the nice guy will win. Maybe not, because everyone has to be a little naughty to win at the right time. If anyone has learned that, it's our coach.
March 20th, 2018 at 10:22 PM ^
One thing that a lot of folks have been saying is that we wish the offense looked more like what we saw in the first nine games of the current 11 game streak, particularly in the Big 10 tournament. In that streak, we had games with familiar opponents. I trust in the coaching staff to be able to adapt to unfamiliar opponents, identify advantageous matchups, etc. like in the NCAA tournament, although for whatever reason, it didn't seem to take place against Montana or Houston. Hopefully that really was rust from the layoff. But a part of me wonders if the team "overperformed" in the Big Ten tournament, taking advantage of our second or third look at opponents, which John Beilen and the staff excel at.
There is a lot of talk about how bad we have played in the tournament thus far. I think that is due to the fact that in our previous 9 games we easily beat some solid teams like Purdue, OSU, and perhaps MSU could be considered in that bunch too.
The general consensus on this board is that KenPom is a great predictor. Well they had us projected to beat Montana by 8 and we won by 14. Sure we were down 0 to 10 quick in that game, but we then completely controlled the game after that moment outscoring them 61 to 37 from there on beating the KenPom projection.
In the 2nd game, KenPom had us as 2 point favorites against Houston and we won by 1. We basically did what was predicited.
If you listen to some of the people at work (including Spartans) we have played historically bad and Syracuse is a blue blood giant.
KenPom has us as favorites against everyone left in our half of the bracket, but one. There is more reason to be optimistic than pessimistic.