Open thread - polls with Michigan Hoops #1
Seth Davis' poll recieved its own thread yesterday, I would imagine a slew of unofficial polls (and hopefully the big 2) report similar results later today.
Gary Parrish (CBS Sports) agrees: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/rankings/top25
As Coach B said, it's great to see for the fans, but in the grand scheme of things the only things that matter are winning the conference and being the last team to win a game in the tourney.
Please add on to the thread with any polls/power rankings with our boys at the top!
January 28th, 2013 at 9:37 AM ^
When do the other polls come out?
January 28th, 2013 at 9:47 AM ^
Should be out in the next 6 hours.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:37 AM ^
Somewhere out there, Duke, Carolina, Kansas, Indiana, and Kentucky are laughing at us for how excited we are to be ranked #1 in January
But we'd beat all of them this season anyway, so screw it! Let's live it up! Our basektball team is amazing this season!
January 28th, 2013 at 9:52 AM ^
If they'd gone through the hell our program has over the past 15 years, they wouldn't be laughing. We went an entire decade without an NCAA tournament appearance, for crying out loud.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:54 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 9:57 AM ^
Their Kelvin Sampson interlude was like the Rich Rod years here - painful but short-lived. (Ditto Matt Doherty at UNC.) It's one thing to have a couple of bad years, but it got so bad here, for so long, that recruits were literally asking Beilein, "Has Michigan ever been good in basketball?"
January 28th, 2013 at 9:42 AM ^
This is almost like one of those schools being ranked #1 in football, so if they don't get our excitement, screw them.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:43 AM ^
Yuo don't think Charlie Weis will bring the Jawhawks to the promised land!?
January 28th, 2013 at 12:06 PM ^
If Golden Corral is the promised land, then yes.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:49 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 9:58 AM ^
...and yet there are some Kansas fans in the comments section at the bottom of that CBS article crying that they should be #1 instead of U-M.
January 29th, 2013 at 6:01 PM ^
Actually I go to IU and you would have thought they won the National Championship when the polls announced IU as the pre-season number one. They were probably way more excited about that, then Michigan fans about the January number 1. Which neither is that big a deal, but I'd rather be number one in January, than in the pre-season.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:41 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 10:20 AM ^
The only thing I saw is that Beilein said he would not have been able to return to the game even if needed.
Just a guess, I think that would put him out for NW and make him highly questionable for Indiana.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 11:35 AM ^
JB said he couldn't put weight on it, but I agree it did look like he was moving around a bit on the bench. Honestly if J-Mo were out for 3 or 4 weeks, I wouldn't be all that unhappy. All I care about is if he is back for March madness. After last year's disappointment (albeit to a pretty good and hot OHIO team), this team needs to make a deep tourney run to validate its season.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:40 AM ^
It's not only promising that he came out without a boot, but that he went into the locker room walking almost completely by himself.
He rolled is pretty bad. I've done that before playing sports, and I couldn't run on it for the rest of the day. Then the next morning it was a little swollen but just a little and after 24-48 hours it's fine, maybe less.
I'm sure he'll be fine. If he missed only Northwestern that's no big deal.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:28 AM ^
Update from the Big Ten conference call this morning, via Twitter:
Beilein on Jordan Morgan, says he was going to have X-rays this morning -- not sure on his ankle
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) January 28, 2013
Beilein says if Jordan Morgan can play Wednesday vs. Northwestern, he'll play.
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) January 28, 2013
January 28th, 2013 at 9:43 AM ^
I just want to be No. 1 on Apr 8.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:02 AM ^
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketba…
interesting read by Jeff Goodman, about the journey back to number 1 for Michigan, Beilein.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:15 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 10:21 AM ^
Eh, that's a pretty standard writing tactic. Compare [current team/player] with [past team/player], then throw in a "They might even do something [past team/player] didn't do - win it all" line at the end.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:36 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 10:40 AM ^
Oh yeah, I didn't really notice that paragraph the first time around. That was unnecessary. (And unfair - teams get more timeouts per game now than they did back then. Then, it was only three per half. Under current rules, Webber's timeout would have been legal.)
January 28th, 2013 at 10:54 AM ^
Sorry, but that's an invalid argument. I don't think Chris Webber was confused because in the future the rule is going to be changed.
Plus, there's nothing to say someone won't make that mistake again.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:08 AM ^
The point is, the NCAA recognized that having games be decided by technical fouls over timeout calls was pretty crummy (it happened in another NCAA tournament game a year or two later) , and so it added more timeouts to a team's allotment, thereby making it unlikely to happen again. Now you almost never see teams run out of them.
It's indeed very unlikely that any of our players will call a timeout we don't have - because we have more timeouts available now.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:24 AM ^
Yeah, I still think that logic is flawed. Adding another timeout doesn't prevent a team from calling timeouts when there are none left. Obviously, I don't have stats on this, but there are plenty of games that finish with teams without timeouts still.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:32 AM ^
I think we are arguing past each other. I'm not commenting on whether or not Webber should have been able to remember that there were no timeouts left. I'm noting that the NCAA has since made that kind of scenario (having the ball with no timeouts left) less common, so of course it's less likely for someone today to do something like that.
I don't have the numbers either, but I'm pretty sure that teams finish games with more timeouts now that they used to. I can't think of many games I've watched lately where either team has been out. I don't know if it's happened in any Michigan game this season. It'd be interested to see the data.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:48 AM ^
Teams tend to run out of timeouts during close games when they are trying to stop the clock, call specific plays, and/or make offense/defense substitutions. How many of Michigan's games have been close down the stretch this year? Not many.
If you looked only at close games—which is the only time calling a timeout you don't have would matter anyway—I'll bet teams run out of timeouts now just as much as they used to.
Isn't it the case that you can carry only four timeouts into the second half anyway? We're only talking about one more timeout.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:34 AM ^
I found this passage to be a bit odd:
These kids may not sound like it, electing to go with the company line, but they are excited -- and deservedly so. They have brought Michigan basketball back. It doesn't have the glitz and glamour of the old days, when booster Ed Martin was paying Webber and other players. Football is king in Ann Arbor now, not hoops -- and that's just the way Beilein prefers it.
Obviously I don't have to tell anyone here that football has always been king in Ann Arbor, regardless of the fortunes of the basketball team.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:20 AM ^
Slightly OT, but Robinson received his second Big Ten freshman of the week award and the sixth for a Michigan player this season (out of 12 weeks).
Case of the Mondays: Michigan wins another B1G weekly award -- Glenn Robinson III is freshman of the week.
— Rod Beard (@detnewsRodBeard) January 28, 2013
Here's the Big Ten release: Indiana and Michigan Claim Weekly Awards
January 28th, 2013 at 10:27 AM ^
If last week's AP poll was any indication, we were at least starting to push on the door of #1 in this poll even then if you look at individual voters and their behavior. We managed 11 first place votes and 31 second place votes, so I have to believe that wins against Purdue and Illinois push a decent portion of those 31 votes in our direction. We've actually had at least one first place vote every week since week seven, but never more than three before last week. The trend and the performance are definitely promising, I think.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:29 AM ^
after NW, the schedule gets pretty brutal. IIRC, we've got @IU, @Wisconsin, Ohio, @MSU? Is that right?
January 28th, 2013 at 11:07 AM ^
NW, @IU, OSU, @ Wisconsin, @ MSU...So, yes, brutal.
January 28th, 2013 at 12:25 PM ^
...and the meat of it is stretched over a mere 10 days, Feb 2 through Feb 12. If that isn't good prep for the tourney, then I don't know what is.
January 28th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 11:13 AM ^
...with the OP. In the "grand scheme of things", I would argue that it is pretty significant for M to get a number one ranking right now. Even if it only lasts a few days in January, it is still indicative that the program has finally returned to the top of college basketball. After the past twenty years, that is pretty significant.
No longer downtrodden, shamed, embarrassed and resigned, the basketball team is fully back as a top level program. And with that definitively accomplished (fingers crossed for the afternoon's polls), attention can turn to the more concrete (yet still elusive, even for those fabulous five) goals of winning the Big Ten and the NCAA Tournement. Looking like a great day, Go Blue!
January 28th, 2013 at 11:28 AM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 12:22 PM ^
...they may not award trophies for being ranked number one in January but, regardless, the fact is that right now they are the best team in the country and everybody knows it. That is a big deal.
How much time did the Fab Five spend ranked #1? How about the 1989 championship team? Or any Michigan basketball team (or even football team for that matter)? We may win championships but it is pretty rare for the rest of the sporting world to look at us and admit that, yes, we are the best. It's like that old kids game, King of the Hill, and we've finally muscled our way back on top. Feels good, awesome even, Hell yeah!!!
January 28th, 2013 at 11:27 AM ^
5 years ago on this day- Michigan was 5-15 in Beilein's first season.
5 years later to the day- Michigan is 19-1, tied for 1st in the B1G and will be ranked #1.
There should be a movie entitled "20 Years" featuring 20 years of Michigan basketball. From the Fab Five to today. All of the shit this program has been through, and the suffering & having Crisler taken over by opposing fans to winning a B1G Championship and starting the season 19-1 and about to be #1.
Thank you coach Beilein.
January 28th, 2013 at 11:52 AM ^
ESPN.com Power Rankings has Michigan #1
January 28th, 2013 at 11:52 AM ^
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/powerrankings/_/season/2013/…
Michigan is narrowly #1 with 440 pts and Kansas with #2 at 435. If that is in anyway predictave...It's going to be very tight when the AP poll comes out later today.
January 28th, 2013 at 12:05 PM ^
I just hope we can retain a #1 ranking for more than 1 week. Our date with Indiana is going to be a really, really tough game. I don't think we play good enough defense to win @ Indiana, but I hope I am wrong.
Edit: I expect to go 3-2 in the next 5 games, with wins against Northwestern, Ohio State, and either Wisconsin/MSU with losses to Indiana and whichever Wisconsin/MSU we don't beat. If we emerge from this stretch at 3-1, I think we are firmly in control of the conference, because our schedule lightens up considerably afterwards with lots of home games, two games againts PSU, etc.
January 28th, 2013 at 12:32 PM ^
OK, some of those hash tags are simply stupid.
January 28th, 2013 at 12:37 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 12:38 PM ^