Perspective On Tonight's Loss
So much BPONE in multiple threads so I decided to create my first post to bring some perspective to today's loss.
Let me start with what we all saw which was a team that looked lost once Louisville took away X's drive & dish, their D looks great. The team will need to find offense in other ways when X isn't getting it done or is on the bench & I trust Howard to get that developed throughout the season. On to the perspective about the two teams coming in to this game:
In the last 7 days Michigan has taken 3 flights (or at least 3 trips if they bussed down to L'Ville) and played 4 games all against top 40 KenPom ranked teams (#’s 39,10,9,1).
In the same time frame Louisville bussed 2.5 hrs to play the 92nd ranked team & then played Michigan at home.
Michigan looked gassed in this game & rightly so
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:22 PM ^
Michigan missed a lot of shots they made in the Islands. Simpson bottled up in the first half. They will play better.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:26 PM ^
They also didn't see the same shots that they had available in the Bahamas. There were a lot of mostly open 3's in the Bahamas & I rarely saw those available in this game, it felt like everything was heavily contested
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:35 PM ^
True. Livers missed many good looks, however. It also seemed to me that Brooks passed up four or five threes that he would have launched in the Bahamas. Maybe those looks were a step further behind the line, and the defender was playing tighter (having scouted those games). Credit L'Ville for the latter, I suppose.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:54 PM ^
Yea it felt like guys were 90+% in the Bahamas whereas they seemed to be 60-70% open for lack of a better way to explain it. There were definitely times that Franz, Livers & Brooks seemed to be more open than they were most of the night (75-80% open) but passed up the shot as I yelled at them through my screen
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:23 PM ^
Here's perspective: we're 1-25 against #1 all-time and have never beaten #1 on the road.
As it turns out: your road opener is very difficult to win when it's against a top-5 team much less #1.
If you're worked up about this game tonight then I suggest you go smoke a doob and relax. Don't let the Football bullshit cloud what Michigan Basketball has already accomplished so far.
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:39 PM ^
Thanks for sharing that research WD. I'm curious who was the #1 team we beat and when? Maybe Duke at Crisler? (too lazy to look up)
December 4th, 2019 at 12:09 AM ^
Yep. 1997
December 4th, 2019 at 2:12 AM ^
I was at that game and remember it vividly. It was Brian Ellerbe's first year as head coach (and, as it turned out, his only decent year). Recently-fired Steve Fisher was in attendance, but as an ordinary fan who bought a ticket like everyone else. He declined to be interviewed on TV, though he chatted with fans and signed autographs afterwards. Michigan came back from 18 down to win. The fans rushed the court, which would turn out to be the last time that would happen at Crisler until 2003.
Later that day, Charles Woodson would win the Heisman Trophy. It was a pretty good day for Michigan Athletics.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:24 PM ^
It's absurd that someone could possibly be even mildly annoyed with basketball right now.
The toxic faction of the fanbase is by far the worst part of being a Michigan fan.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:27 PM ^
Thank God for the troll cave extension and the block/mute feature on Twitter.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:24 PM ^
I thought we looked uncomfortable, especially on offense, and forced ourselves into a ton of bad shots. But we still hung in there tough and didn't give up. Nobody said playing the #1 team on the road would be easy. Still excited to see what Coach Howard's era has in store.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:25 PM ^
UM may not win the National Champioship.
December 4th, 2019 at 9:58 AM ^
Fire Howard, no reason we can't go 35-0. Sound dumb? Just like the fire Harbaugh posts!!
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:27 PM ^
Tired legs + great defense
oops spelled defense wrong
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:29 PM ^
Dude snowflake thread.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:56 PM ^
Sorry I didn't open it, some days I can't handle seeing all of the hate & blame in one place. That's why I've stayed off Twitter all night..lol
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:30 PM ^
You always count on a good ole fashioned “perspective” post after a tough loss. It’s a MgoBlog tradition
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:37 PM ^
Tough loss? We've traveled 2,829 miles since last Monday.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:39 PM ^
...and you can count on Coldwater to make posts like this.
You don't seem to be a very pleasant person.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:47 PM ^
I’m not. I’ve been depressed since Jim Tressel walked into Michigan Stadium in 2001 with an undermanned football team and beat Michigan.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:49 PM ^
Same era we hired Amaker instead of Pitino.
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:20 PM ^
Never let a man in a sweater vest affect your mood.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:39 PM ^
I am horribly negative about FB too, but for me it started in 2006. 11-0, lose to OSU, lose the bowl game. Sound familiar?
Until then, M would drop games here and there during the season, but I still clung to the idea that the team was one of the best and would always be competitive. 1997 was still recent enough to be a great memory. Then came the Horror, RR, Hoke, and Harbaugh returning us to historical norms but just not restoring the confidence for me.
Then I come on here and just vent - it makes me feel better - and I come off as a giant dick. That's fine. Read my basketball takes for a better idea of what I'm like.
Football is just cursed, man, and the malaise is in my bones.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:35 PM ^
Everyone just needs to relax and watch some Christmas movies.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:37 PM ^
It's time to get rid of Howard.
Jimmy Howard. 48th of 49 in goals against. 47th of 49 in Save%.
Late brah.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:42 PM ^
Fully agree on Howard the Sieve. But he fits into Stevie's tanking strategy, and the porous D isn't doing him any favors.
It just doesn't matter when the team as a whole is this bad. It really is hard to watch though. Make Bernier the #1, even though he's not much better.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:38 PM ^
Cards scored 2 points more than OSU on Saturday.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:40 PM ^
I have traveled to and from the Bahamas. It really wasn’t that tiring.
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:13 PM ^
That's why you're the GOAT, Tom.
December 4th, 2019 at 8:41 AM ^
I would imagine you didn't go to the Bahamas to play 3 straight bball games.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:41 PM ^
We played the #1 team on the road, primetime TV. Shooting percentage was garbage and we turned the ball over 7x what we did the last few years. Gave up 6 points in garbage minutes.... All in all.. It was like a 10 point loss (minus the garbage points) against the #1 team on the road..... I'm not discouraged. Lots of ball left.
Meanwhile...Sparty getting owned at home.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:44 PM ^
Oh fuck me.... please not for basketball too....
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:48 PM ^
Well I guess Perspectives don't end with football season
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:50 PM ^
Just be grateful that Brian is the only person who follows hockey.
December 3rd, 2019 at 10:57 PM ^
You win some, you lose some. Time to regroup and prepare for the next game. Nothing more to read in the tea leaves.
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:06 PM ^
Team looked understandably tired, and Louisville did a good job scouting and taking away what Michigan wanted to do.
I thought they battled valiantly in the second half, but just didn't have the legs to hit shots and ran into an excellent team on the road. No shame in losing a tough game decisively on the road after a long week last week. They battled, just didn't have it tonight. Team will be just fine and a tough squad to beat at full strength as they continue to develop.
Thought the coaches did a fine job game planning, and also have some things the learned where they need to improve. Should be a fun year!
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:07 PM ^
This was how I would describe what happened tonight. Tired legs
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:50 PM ^
Definitely a lot of overreacting going on. I figured they would lose this against a good team in the first road game. First road game will always be tough. I will say I like how we battled and didn't let them pull too far away.
Z looks sloppy in the first half still, Franz looks like a freshman, Brooks needs to be a guy who can just pull once in a while if the offense is stagnant, hopefully Juwan will get Teske going up stronger. A couple times could have been and-1s turned into blocked shot-->runout for Lville
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:51 PM ^
Oh, I see. So the basketball fans make excuses like the football fans do.
December 3rd, 2019 at 11:56 PM ^
The truth is, we don’t know much about Juwan Howard’s coaching or this team yet. So far the season has gone really well, other than a road game against a #1 team that we were fairly competitive in other than the missed shots. It’s too small of a sample size so far - we don’t know if UNC or Gonzaga are actually great teams. They are at least pretty good teams though.
We have some big games coming up against Iowa, Illinois, and Oregon. I will feel really good if we win all of those. So far we seem like a bipolar team. We play really well for a half or 10 minutes and then terrible the next 10 minutes. We need to be more consistent, which was the hallmark of Beilein teams.
We need to rebound with a good game against Iowa on Friday night. Iowa looks like a good team.
We’ll know a lot more about this team when it respond to adversity and some coaches looking at our tapes.
December 4th, 2019 at 4:37 AM ^
If we go 2-1 you should feel really good. If we go 3-0 you should be beyond ecstatic. It’s like people expect to go 26-5 every year and win every top game on the schedule.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:44 PM ^
We played consistently strong against the Zags....that one was destruction.
December 4th, 2019 at 4:28 AM ^
And just a week ago we were all worried about making the tournament...
December 4th, 2019 at 5:32 AM ^
I'm just worried this is going to be like last year, where we played a couple of great games early in the year, and then just spend the rest of the year trying to unsuccessfully match those performances.
Simpson's play this year is really uninspiring.
I didn't expect to win last night, but it would have been nice to show up. That was TX Tech bad.
December 4th, 2019 at 11:00 AM ^
They were tired and had a very bad shooting night, Louisville played good D but they also missed shots they were making the first 7 games. Not sure why some people want to read more into it than there is, it was just one of those nights, they happen over the course of the season in college basketball. It's not like it looked like they didn't belong on the court with Louisville, they just had a bad night.
December 4th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
No worries at all. The shooting was horribly bad. That's not happening often. Also they looked like they didn't feel like moving around on O. After it was clear that there was a lid on the bucket, they started hesitating and passing up quality looks.
Yup, this loss is on the schedule. It would be better if they had a couple sets to go to when plan A isn't working, but that's not how the team plays right now. The D played well until the last few minutes, nothing to be concerned with there.
Overall, it's just a blip. Maybe we're not #4 in the country, but we're not #40 either.