Michigan MBB in Tournaments

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March 15th, 2013 at 9:46 AM
#1
get-on-my-lawn
Joined: 02/14/2013
MGoPoints: 340
Michigan MBB in Tournaments

As the BTT is currently in play, and the NCAA Tournament approaches, it has me thinking. Unfortanutely, I was at work during the game yesterday and was only able to catch a few minutes of it on a live stream, but of course I was watching my scorecenter app like a hawk. At first, we obviously struggled to pull away, but eventually the better team pulled away as they shoud have. That is common theme in tournaments for that to happen, especially the NCAA Tourney: The better team lets the lesser team hang around for a while, everyone huddles around the TV, only for the better team to pull away with about 10 or 5 minutes left and win by 10-20 points. This is similarly what happened to us yesterday with Penn State. Thus, yesterday was a success and even though we started out bad, you can expect it to happen as long as we pull away at the end, nothing to worry about there.

But, as we all know, this hardly happened at all in the regular season. You always waited for us to pull away at the end from teams like Wisconsin, Penn St. (that game wasn't quite like this scenario but you get my point), Michigan State the second time around, Penn State the first time around, Purdue the second time around and Indiana the second time around. All of those games that I just listed, we could have won by a good, comfortable margin, but we of course had to make it interesting instead. 

My point is that since we will be playing at a nuetral court (other than Indiana next game which will hardly be nuetral) from here on out, in a tournament setting. We have done nothing but play extremely well in these conditions this year, including yesterday. We seem to play with more confidence, more hustle, and simply just play more at ease in these settings. Therefore, I am extremely confident about the upcoming events and the NCAA Tournament, regardless of the struggles and dissapointments we have endured in the regular season. I feel as if this is just a clean slate and that we will be a completely different team than as of late in the most positive of ways. Anybody else feel this way?

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March 15th, 2013 at 9:52 AM | The Tournament is in Chicago, (Score:2)
AmaizeingBlue
Joined: 09/01/2010
MGoPoints: 1344

The Tournament is in Chicago, not Indianapolis, fwiw.

March 15th, 2013 at 9:54 AM | Thank You Sir (Score:0 Normal)
March 15th, 2013 at 11:11 AM | Spell check (Score:-1 Trolling)
March 15th, 2013 at 10:16 AM | To Add To The Discussion... (Score:2 Normal)
LSAClassOf2000
LSAClassOf2000's picture
Joined: 01/07/2011
MGoPoints: 8724

A high-level comparison of a few key stats (using this season only, so the sample size of neutral site games is, as of yesterday, 4 games):

STAT NEUTRAL HOME AWAY
Points / Game 75.5 77.6 72.3
Field Goal% 49.80% 49.30% 46.90%
3 Point% 29.40% 40.90% 37.40%
Free Throw % 75.30% 70.50% 70.10%
Rebounds / Gm 36.8 35.9 32.8
Turnovers / Gm 9.0 8.0 11.3
Assists / Gm 12.0 15.8 13.2
Steals / Gm 5.3 5.4 7.3

It's difficult to say much about neutral site game this season, I would think - 3 of the 4 games were before Christmas, and the stats from the 2nd half of yesterday actually weigh somewhat on these numbers. Further, they were non-conference games save for yesterday. The numbers would say we can hold our own definitely, but we do need to consider at what point in the season the numbers came from, or at least most of them. That said, I would definitely not complain if we moved to 5-0 on the season in neutral site games later today. 

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March 15th, 2013 at 11:23 AM | They were before christmas (Score:-1 Trolling)
March 15th, 2013 at 10:21 AM | The tourneys we've played in were in the beginning (Score:1 Overrated)
jhender85
jhender85's picture
Joined: 10/25/2008
MGoPoints: 1382

The tourneys we've played in were in the beginning of the year. We were a better team in the beginning of the year (at least in the concept that we have not improved and grown over the season as much as the teams around us have). IMHO, to say we're a tourney team or a neutral court team because of what we did months ago is a flawed notion. I do really hope I'm wrong about that though. We do have the makings of a team that can make deep runs just because we have a player that can singlehandedly take control to go along with a bunch of 3pt shooters, but not having a consistent 2nd or 3rd option, reliable bigs and above average D are traits that hurt our chances. Come to think of it, we kinda seem like the Kemba Walker era UConn huskies...

March 15th, 2013 at 10:31 AM | A few things (Score:1)
lilpenny1316
lilpenny1316's picture
Joined: 11/19/2009
MGoPoints: 2667

1. If we beat Wisky and play Indiana tomorrow, we'll probably have the crowd behind us.  I think folks seriously hate Indiana and Crean.  Even if Indiana bought up more tix than any other school, I think the other teams' fans will back us.  

2. In no circumstance is it good to let an underdog hang in a tournament game.  In single elimination games, you have to come out ready.  We didn't do that yesterday.  With out inability to guard consistently, we can't have any mental lapses.  

3. The tournament is a bit of a clean slate, but sadly teams do bring their achilles heels into the tournament with them.  Defense and rebounding allows you to hang in the tourney longer (ie. Sparty, UConn).  Unless we shore that up OR get extremely favorable matchups against teams with those same issues, we may end up with the same fate as Missouri last year.  Great offense, no D, and a first round exit to Norfolk State.

March 15th, 2013 at 11:04 AM | Co-worker picked Missouri to (Score:1)
Soulfire21
Soulfire21's picture
Joined: 03/18/2010
MGoPoints: 3130

Co-worker picked Missouri to win it all last year.  So sad.

HAIL.

March 15th, 2013 at 12:04 PM | NO (Score:0)
March 15th, 2013 at 11:05 AM | Good post (Score:1)
BPocern
BPocern's picture
Joined: 03/12/2011
MGoPoints: 113

I think we all could use some positive energy!

-BP-

March 15th, 2013 at 11:19 AM | This is a completly random (Score:1)
GoBlueGB
Joined: 09/30/2010
MGoPoints: 332

This is a completly random question.  But do they never serve beer at the Big Ten Tourney?  Went to the tourney for the first time and was suprised they didn't serve beer, especially considering the United Center is not on a college campus.  

March 15th, 2013 at 2:07 PM | And the United Center is in (Score:2)
acnumber1
acnumber1's picture
Joined: 10/19/2009
MGoPoints: 2653

And the United Center is in Illinios, right?

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March 15th, 2013 at 4:21 PM | well (Score:0)
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