So which is more disappointing?

Submitted by BraveWolverine730 on
So I read the MIchigan Daily article debating which team was more disappointing and naturally wanted the opinion of the MGoCommunity on the topic. So let's break down the cases for each. Basketball: Basketball came in as a top 15 ranked team and coming off of the first NCAA tourney in 11 years. They only lost two walk-ons from the previous year and brought back two of the more explosive players in the Big Ten. Student ticket sales skyrocketed as people anticipated a repeat performance and becoming a regular participant in the NCAA tournament. The team then dropped two of three in Orlando(a tournament where they were co-favorites), lost to a mediocre BC team that lost to Harvard, and blew a 17-pt HOME lead in the biggest dong-punching game since Roy Roundtree was tackled at the one. Hockey: Hockey had a preseason top 5 ranking and had made the NCAA tournament 19 straight years. They returned the bulk of an excellent defense and Hogan was a seemingly solid returning goalie. The team struggled early culminating in sweeps against MSU and Miami(No not that Miami). The team decided to preemptively try to out dong-punch the basketball team by losing a game where they outshot the opponent 46-13?!?! The team did just come off of a must have sweep against WMU, but that doesn't seem to be enough to save their season. Well to be honest, I really could care less about hockey but from an objective point of view it appears their season to be much more disappointing. As a fan base I think that hockey is way more important to the average Michigan student(as judged by the fact that even my friends that couldn't name a football position other than QB can break down hockey). But I would like to put forth the question to the community at large: Who was more disappointing this season, the hockey team or the basketball team?
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captainlonghair

January 14th, 2010 at 3:29 PM ^

Basketball can still make a monumental turn around this season, but football has left me only with lament for another 8 long months. I usually don't catch up with hockey until later in the season, closer to CCHA tourny and NCCA's time. They always seem to have lofty expectations, die a bit in the beginning of the season, and get it together toward the end.

Joined: 08/31/2009

MGoPoints: 25

SFBlue

January 14th, 2010 at 3:24 PM ^

Hockey, IMO. This year is refining what a "lean" year is in Michigan hockey. I am more accustomed to basketball being a disappointment, even if the scale of this year is greater than other disappointments.

Joined: 11/02/2009

MGoPoints: 15698

MGoAlumnus

January 14th, 2010 at 3:24 PM ^

Hockey had a preseason top 5 ranking and had made the NCAA tournament 19 straight years.
By all means, the basketball team has been a disappointment. But having a mediocre basketball team is something I'm all too familiar with. Hockey, not so much.

Joined: 07/27/2009

MGoPoints: 3276

el segundo

January 14th, 2010 at 5:41 PM ^

He doesn't have a left hand yet (He's better at going to his left, but not nearly all the way there). He's wildly inconsistent and has not proven that he can reliably score despite good defense. His jumper still needs work, and I've seen no evidence that he's going to have a reliable shot from 23' 9". So he's not a first rounder in 2010, unless his game takes off over the rest of the season. His hamstring problems seem to be still affecting him, and they won't get better if he starts playing 100 games a year, and 4 games a week, in season, instead of two. If he comes back, he has a chance to establish himself as an elite player, not merely a very good one, which is what he is now. He can deal with his hamstring problems over the summer and figure out how to prevent them over 35 games, thus preparing himself to prevent them under the much more demanding conditions of professinal basketball. He greatly increases his chances of getting guaranteed money by being a first rounder. I'm not saying he will stay for his senior year. But he should.

Joined: 04/17/2009

MGoPoints: 1085

the_big_house 500th

January 14th, 2010 at 3:30 PM ^

This is not your typical powerhouse Yost energized Wolverines this year. This a team that is struggling against teams that it shouldn't struggle against. The Msu series was frustrating as hell to watch, Ohio State was equally disturbing. Michigan had so many power plays in the Saturday night game yet only managed to get two in for a 2-1 win. Then the night before they looked lethargic and lost 5-3. Rensselaer for god sakes should of been a clinic by us but obviously we didn't come ready to play. Miami leading up to Bowling Green in November was horrid. 0-5. Currently we sit at 7-7 in conference play and 12-10 in overall points. It has not been a top 10 quality year for a school that excels in hockey.

Joined: 09/04/2009

MGoPoints: -129

the_big_house 500th

January 14th, 2010 at 3:47 PM ^

I've played it for 11 years now counting this season in adult league. I've always had it as my favorite sport but during the fall Michigan football is always the favorite. When it comes to basketball my attention isn't as grabbed as much like in hockey. During the Stanley Cup Playoffs and NCAA tournament I'm glued to my tv because those are the two biggest series of games in my book to watch.

Joined: 09/04/2009

MGoPoints: -129

Jimmy Ballgame

January 14th, 2010 at 3:43 PM ^

I'm not counting the hockey team out just yet. They have won three in a row and have shown signs that they could go on a long winning streak. They still have an opportunity to crawl their way back into tournament contention. A sweep this weekend would be a big step in the right direction. Basketball is much more disappointing.

Joined: 02/26/2009

MGoPoints: 1

aaamichfan

January 14th, 2010 at 3:45 PM ^

I would say Basketball. I expected the football team to be better than 5-7, but with a true freshman QB and a new DC it was difficult to envision them winning more than 7 games before the season. The basketball team returned every key player(so we thought) from an NCAA tournament team. The season is only halfway complete, and they have already discarded any chance of a repeat tourney trip. I expected at the very least a trip to the Sweet 16 for the bball team.

Joined: 10/23/2009

MGoPoints: 14362

Clarence Beeks

January 14th, 2010 at 3:51 PM ^

Both teams could turn it around with the talent that they have. It seems to me that it's more of a matter of underperforming in both cases. However, I think that hockey has a much better chance of actually doing it, especially if the ultimate consideration is making the tournament, which hockey has a better chance of doing as an at-large than basketball does. So, to directly answer the OP's question, I would have to say that basketball has been more disappointing.

Joined: 09/06/2008

MGoPoints: 22711

PurpleStuff

January 14th, 2010 at 3:51 PM ^

I didn't feel like we had a really good basketball team last year, but rather a team that played well enough to win at key times (Duke, UCLA, Minnesota, Tourney). A similar record with a few flip-flopped results may not have been seen as such a big success. The current team still has shortcomings with respect to size, experience, and depth, so struggling to me is not that big a surprise despite the preseason ranking. The hockey team seems to have plenty of talent and outplay virtually every opponent only to be unable to penetrate some laser force-field in front of the opposing net. For me that makes the hockey season infinitely more frustrating and disappointing (at least so far).

Joined: 04/21/2009

MGoPoints: 15969

AMazinBlue

January 14th, 2010 at 4:35 PM ^

New Years Day Bowl game. Football is the most disappointing because we started out pretty well and looked to be making progress and then PSU happened and Illinois happened and the dong-punching continued. I thought eight wins woulds have been a good year. Basketball is in a different league because the Big Ten is a much stronger conference in b-ball than football. The hoops team is still a huge disappointment, but I see them completely differently (that phrase sounds terrible. Can you end a sentence with two adverbs together?).

Joined: 10/12/2008

MGoPoints: 7197

NHWolverine

January 14th, 2010 at 4:56 PM ^

Gotta be hockey. For the first time in years we were looking at a team comprised as a cohesive unit without those huge name players a-la Johnson, Hensick, Hunwick, Tambellini, Montoya, etc. Also, it's been said before but snapping a 19 year Tournament streak is obviously a bigger blow than 1 yr.

Joined: 07/14/2009

MGoPoints: 79

DoubleMs

January 14th, 2010 at 4:58 PM ^

Hogan was a seemingly solid returning goalie.
Please provide evidence... There was no evidence that Hogan was anything near a solid goalie. The only thing we knew for sure is that he'd given up a soft goal in almost every game he'd ever been in.

Joined: 10/13/2008

MGoPoints: 611

steve sharik

January 14th, 2010 at 5:37 PM ^

Since he's an alum who supposedly loves Michigan, I am just dumbfounded by his dislike and irrational behavior towards the Rodriguez program. Like Colin Cowherd says, everyone is something-"ist" and Rosenberg appears to be culturalist, specifically southern-ist.

Joined: 08/08/2009

MGoPoints: 13860

Beavis

January 14th, 2010 at 8:00 PM ^

I haven't read the article or the summation (I think the Daily is garbage), but "disappointment" is all in the eyes of the beholder. Basketball - Beat Duke and UCLA last year, and won a tournament game against Clemson. The team looks lost this year. Our defense has picked up but the offense doesn't look like it will get there. We have a snowball's chance in hell at the NCAA's (while... Clemson... I mean - we did beat them last year right? They would CRUSH us right now). Hockey - Tradition, first year of sucking, and a sick preseason ranking. Unfortunately preseason rankings don't mean jack shit these days in my opinion, so I'd call this the least disappointing option (since I follow hockey the least, that sways me in a major way as well). Football - There is nothing left to say other than "it can't get worse than it is now". We made progress this year and continued progress will return us to "Lloyd Carr's University of Michigan" aka 9-3 every year. Basketball gets my vote. I just don't understand why we can be this bad after being good last year.

Joined: 07/28/2009

MGoPoints: 5993