Michigan v. MSU Postgame Thread (discussion)

Trey Burke can play the game pretty well; on defense too (& much more than just his last couple plays of the game)!!

Defense needs to play like this EVERY game.  They're ceiling for the post-season goes up when they play like they did today.  Combined with a potent offense, this team is very good and stock rises.  Great W.  I'm not sure how I would have handled that gme ending in a loss.  Very weird last 4 minutes (wtf, refs and us doing some screwy things with the ball).

GO BLUE.

We were so obviously the better team all game. Refs were fucking us, but beyond that why can't this team close. Not to be buzz killington, but it sucks to lose or nearly lose when you outplay a team for 90% of the gam like today and against msu.

CARIS LEVERT TO THE STARTING LINEUP

I'm very happy after that.  That's great.  I'm tired.  I'm gonna go pass out and wake up before the highlights on the news later.

Oh man, we won that game.  We won that game!

aaaaahh

Play defense like that and not have a bunch of hyper athletic rebounding freaks on the other team and we're dangerous.  So please do that.

0/12 from 3, and still beat a Top 10 team,  Incredibly ugly, but I'll take it!!

I would appreciate an indepth discussion about how much Sparty can suck it.  

My two cents:  A LOT

Can someone post a video of the floor slapping series from offense to defense? That was awesome.

Cannot believe we didn't at least try for a 2-for-1 in a tie game when we got the ball with 50-ish seconds left.  I'm not saying to force it if it isn't there, but you at least gotta try imo.

and yet sadly, no player has yet to run into Izzo five feet onto the court like I so badly wish to see before I die.....

How much did no Stauskas affect shooting like poop, but conversely how much did it affect the sudden I can ha defense? These questions are nt rhetorical, by the way.

THJ deserves some praise after today's game. I know he didn't shoot well, but many of those were tough luck misses around the hoop, if 3 or 4 of his layups don't roll off the rim this would have been a completely different game. Despite his struggles on the offensive end he played strong defense all game and rebounded the ball well. He's too good of a shooter to fall into a prolonged slump, but the rest of game was really solid today.  Great win. Go Blue!

THJ deserves some praise after today's game. I know he didn't shoot well, but many of those were tough luck misses around the hoop, if 3 or 4 of his layups don't roll off the rim this would have been a completely different game. Despite his struggles on the offensive end he played strong defense all game and rebounded the ball well. He's too good of a shooter to fall into a prolonged slump, but the rest of game was really solid today.  Great win. Go Blue!

First thought: Well, it's good to get a W.

Second thought: I'm not a big fan of criticizing the refs, but in fairness, there were some pretty poor calls. Ugh.

Third thought: Hide your couches...and some in East Lansing might very well do worse than Rick James.

What are everyones thoughts on Stauskas not playing? 

I hate to be down on a good kid and an injured one at that, but as for this team performing well on defense like they needed to do -and did- I was glad LeVert got so much playing time along with us going two bigs a few times.  The way he's been shooting threes hasn't been worthy of the amount of playing time he's gotten as his defense leaves much to desired.  Hope he's okay though and didn't suffer any type of concussion or something along those lines.

Purdue just Wisconsin AT THE KOHL, and we're gonna have to go to their place to play, so we better wear our big boy pants for this one.

Give is going to give me a heart attack, but I'll take it.

I thought Michigan got back to playing Michigan Basketball. They played with energy all game and really fed off the crowd.

Positives:
---Trey Burke over everybody.

---McGary gave us GREAT minutes.

---Morgan was in this game.

---Michigan FINALLY...FINALLY matched its opponents toughess. This to me was the biggest difference in this game vs. most of those games in March. We were too soft. I think having "little brother" come to your house after waxing you 3 weeks ago was the perfect recipe. We went toe-to-toe and took it to Sparty.

Negatives:
---Execution late in the clock...we still can't get anything out of this ISO that Burke loves to run. For all of the love Burke is getting now (and deserves) he was quickly turning into the goat late in the game with the turnovers, bad shots, and poor execution. Obviously he settled back down and game up with 2 of the biggest plays we'll ever see.

---Still not enough "2 Big" offense. You'd think with Nix and Payne, we'd go with 2 of the Morgan/McGary/Horford trio more...but we still don't go to this NEARLY enough. When we did, we extended a 6 point lead to double figures. Then we went back to "1 Big" and MSU climbed back into the game. We're so much bigger, tougher and a much better rebounding team with 2 of the 3 in the game. Obviously with GRIII you can't do it all game, but we still don't go to this enough.

---Not subbing McGary out after the Payne make. It's a made free throw, we should've subbed 1. to allow Burke to gather everyone and get an inbounds play to a guard. 2. to get McGary out. Someone on the bench has to be sending the guards in at this point.

All in all, a GREAT win. Michigan stays perfect on its home floor as well. Crisler has quickly become a VERY tough place to play.

I thought the MSU floor slapping was cute, but I think the woke a giant and that could seriously be something that turns our season around and gets us back on track. Everyone knows what the issue was. We had no energy, no toughness, no fight. MSU slapping the floor was exactly what we needed. That fire, that passion, that "f**k you, NOT IN MY HOUSE!"

GO BLUE!

No Nik.

No THJ scoring.

No 3's.

No traveling.

Valentine and his terribleness.

Yet we win when we played HARD. This team has serious talent and can over come a lot when we play with passion. That's what makes watching them so frustrating.

BUT NOTHING BEATS AN ASTRONAUT

Love to get the W, especially when its over Little Brother, but it makes the Penn State loss, and especially the Wisconsin loss, hurt even more. I know freak losses like that happen every year in college basketball, but we would never have lost either of those games.