our friends to the south

Submitted by andrewG on March 10th, 2021 at 10:22 AM

I went to the ESPN webpage this morning and lo and behold, this gem was waiting for me on the front page. God bless whatever intern (surely a Michigan student/grad) chose this picture to accompany the article.

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oriental andrew

March 10th, 2021 at 12:47 PM ^

For the record, they list:

Near Misses (15 teams):

  • ohio state: Yes, Ohio State was projected as a No. 1 seed for the better part of February, so, yes, this pick could go horribly awry. A recurring theme in these anguished comments is that, hey, keeping the charmed circle to just eight programs necessitates excluding some exceptionally strong teams. The Buckeyes' strength is their offense. Duane Washington and Justin Ahrens get good 3-point looks against defenses preoccupied with stopping E.J. Liddell inside the arc. On the other side of the ball, however, OSU has not been as successful. Big Ten opponents ended their possessions with a shot attempt over 85% of the time, and against a team that doesn't force a high number of misses, that matters.
  • Purdue: The flat-out best thing about the streak of perfection ending for this feature this season would be if Purdue, in particular, won the national title. It would be worth it, in fact, to see Zach Edey cut down the nets while doing without the ladder entirely. No, truly, against Michigan State, he completed a nice alley-oop with an emphatic slam despite the fact that his feet barely left the floor. Edey is a pleasure to watch, and the Boilermakers' defense is stout, but this offense shot 30.7% on 3s against the Big Ten.
  • Wisconsin: Lack of scoring. The reason Wisconsin is here with the near miss teams is due to a lack of scoring. Why this is the case is an excellent question. You've heard all the age comparisons about how these Badgers are older than some (very young) NBA teams. All that experience and continuity from last season was supposed to mean a team that was a little better than average in Big Ten play last season would be excellent on that side of the ball in 2021. It hasn't happened, and in fact, Wisconsin ended conference play clocking in slightly below the league average for points per possession. A mystery yet to be solved.

And as for those 8 teams, one of which will (per the article) win the championship, this is all they had to say. I got to Colorado and I be like what?? And I think he overrates Houston and Iowa, but whatever. 

Right, so by my count, that right there sums to 349 teams. If you're a fan of a team that hasn't shown up yet, congratulations! Your team is among the magic eight, which, as a simple matter of deduction, must consist of the following: Alabama, Baylor, Colorado, Gonzaga, Houston, Illinois, Iowa and Michigan.

Go out and make this feature look good, magic eight. There's a streak on the line.

Joined: 06/30/2008

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1VaBlue1

March 10th, 2021 at 11:38 AM ^

That's fine, but like the Hillbilly said - don't lump us all in!  I grew up in Michigan, even if I've lived longer in the South than I ever did in Michigan - I'm not a Southerner, dammit!!!

Hillbilly might be, though.  He's pretty hillbillyish (NTTAWWT)...  There are others, too, but none of them (us) deserve to be lumped in with that trash in Ohio just because we happen to live south of Findlay.

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