Observations from Carver Hawkeye Arena

play some defense, get on the boards. and they were careless with the ball. couldnt get the ball inside at all. cant wait til mitch mcgary gets here.

the team is stagnant, poor shooting continues..Smotcz has disappeared in B10 play..Hardaway? who knows when hes going to show up... VERY inconsistent and its time to bench Morgan in favor of Mclimas..Morgan is human turnover machine and McLimas is more productive and doesnt turn the ball over..the whole team is struggling and the lack of effort and emotion today was UNACCEPTABLE...time for some changes in the lineup..NOT Michigan basketball today.  against a average B10 team

Homefield advantage strikes again?

Bench everyone!  Clearly the starting lineup should be Akunne, Douglass, McLimans, Novak, and Vogrich.

/sarcasm

Today was a trap game in a ridiculous league.  Disappointed with the amount of effort, but there's no need to overreact.

We don't have it.

What in the hell did I just watch?  Were they overconfident, bored, tired or what?  With the exception of a three minute stretch in the second half where the cut the lead from 12 to 6 they played disjointed on offense and lethargec on defense. 

Winning these games are the difference between being a 3-5 seed and actually getting deep into the tournament or being slotted as a 7-10 and being a "one and done".  They simply can't afford to drop winnable road games to average (at best) teams in conference.

This one hurt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MCFvZLjRPNg#t=38s

Anybody know what's up with Smot's hands?  Obviously he has been terrible shooting the ball but I noticed in person against NW that his hands were very red and today they looked purple on tv.  Anybody know whats up with this?

It was everyone else pretty much.  Horrible shooting and not enough defense.

I will agree about the poor quality refereeing.  I've been watching Big Ten basketball for over 30 years and I'm always amazed how the conference tolerates the constant mediocrity from it's officials.  There's almost no consistency in calls.  Charges are frequently not called right.  And cheap hand-check foul calls are all over the board.  That one guard for Iowa had his hands all over Michigan players for most of the game and got very few calls.  

OMG we suck!!!! BLAH BLAH BLAH.   

Everyone relax, we played terrible without much effort on the defensive end and no ball movement on offense.  It happens, this was a classic trap game.  It may be frustrating as heck, but it happens in basketball, sometimes one team can play terrible while the other team plays great.  Do you guys all think UNC sucks too for being down to FSU by 20+ points right now?  I do think we need Horford to get healthy very quick, because like others have said our post game isn't  very good.

including 0-12 from long distance.  That is just unbelieveably bad.  Inexcusable.

Jordan Morgan getting 1 shot in 27 minutes when he's shooting almost 65% from the field this year is something that shouldn't happen, especially on the road when shooters tend to force things. 

Plain Embarassing. that's all I got to be honest.

every top team has a bad game at some point. this team will only get better with time. besides, i'd rather they get it out of their system now before next tuesday.

I feel better after the red wings win then seeing the tar heels lay an egg as well.

Oh and watching the fab five again puts me in a better mood

I'm a big fan of Belien, but this was not a well-coached game.  Sitting Burke for most of the first half made very little sense, and how Morgan gets that few touches is puzzling.

I'm a big fan of Belien, but this was not a well-coached game.  Sitting Burke for most of the first half made very little sense, and how Morgan gets that few touches is puzzling.

A Big Ten champ and just a good team that hangs around the top. Did anyone really think that this team was going to be Big Ten champs? It's still a work in progress. It's disappointing, and it hurts, but it's not going to change much overall.

If State loses today and we beat them on Tuesday then we're right back in it. 

Minnesota: 1/4 FG  0-2 3pt   2pts total

IU: 3-6/2-3   8

Wisc: 1-6/1-5    3

NW: 1-7/0-3    5

Iowa: 0-6/0-4   0

Except for IU, he's been almost invisible, and 8 pts against the Hoosiers is hardly an explosion. Combine his ineptitude with THJ's scoring funk, and you've got big problems.

It's ironic as hell that throughout Beilien's tenure at UM he's been saddled with players who are woefully poor at the one thing his offense requires the most: reliable, consistent outside shooting. For each of his seasons UM has been near the basement in shooting % in the conference; going into this game, we were 9th in overall FG% and 8th in 3pt %. This game will make that even worse.

I don't think anyone expected Big Ten champs, but it's still very frustrating to see the team continue to shoot so poorly from long range and refuse to adapt.  They should not be shooting significantly more threes than twos, and the defense outside of the Wisconsin game has been mediocre.  They need to respond Tuesday.

Not sure how thats trolling but ok...