Survive and Advance? Postgame Snowflakes and Tex/ASU Open Thread

Submitted by bballislife22 on
Finished up a pretty sloppy game, one I consider to be our 2nd worst offensive performance of the season (Charlotte still the worst). Everything we have grown to expect to not see from a Beilein coached team (turnovers, dumb shots) we saw tonight. Defense was alright I guess, but got lucky Wofford shot just as terribly as us. However, I guess at this point in the year, any win is a good win. Pretty confident we'll be able to turn things around on Saturday. Always survive and advance. Who would everyone rather play between Texas and ASU? I don't see a whole lot of difference between the two. Both teams are coming in kind of cold.

ilah17

March 20th, 2014 at 9:52 PM ^

I don't know where to post this but I'm watching the last episode of The Journey. It shows our senior night and the B1G tournament. It's a great episode!



Happy to be moving on. Hopefully we got the jitters and everything out tonight. I really think Zak Irvin and Caris are our X factors and tonight they were non factors.

Avant's Hands

March 20th, 2014 at 10:01 PM ^

Well NC State had to have one of the biggest choke jobs in tournament history to blow my upset pick and NDSU had a similar choke to blow the other one. Today sucks.

allintime23

March 20th, 2014 at 10:05 PM ^

After all the dust settled it wasn't really that bad. I mean we could have won that game by fifty but we covered and held a team to 40 points. I'm not going to complain. Just get the turnover problem back under control. Much better in the second half.

Danwillhor

March 20th, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^

We'll be the media (rightfully?) upset alert pick from here out. msu is the flavor team to pick to win or go deep but we'll be on upset alert from here on out. Why? Well, a win is a win but there were moments where a bad tourney team forced us into bad habits. A team that can truly capitalize off of that (most every team left in the field) can beat us on a good night. However, we are what we are in that we can truly hang with anyone on our best nights so I won't be bothered by the media. As for UT/ASU, I don't like that both have size and can move. It's why we'll be on upset alert, teams like them. They both can bump inside and shoot mid jumpers. Neither Morgan or Horford can hang inside with their bigs so we have to hit the gimme shots, avoid going over our average of turnovers/fouls, etc. Texas looks especially suited to really make us pay if we don't show up or only play one good half. That said, I don't think we really emotionally arose to the level you need to win big games as we did tonight vs Wofford. Kind of hard to get up for a game you just feel like you should really win but we know as well as any that that problem can bite you. I only see a few teams coasting into the S16/E8 and we aren't one, IMO. Oddly, that goes against my picks and many opinions. My bracket was first busted by BYU, btw. Picked Dayton and Harvard......not Oregon ha.

jmblue

March 20th, 2014 at 10:32 PM ^

Ugly.  We were fortunate that Wofford just plain couldn't shoot.  In the first half, I thought we had good ball movement but just were sloppy.  In the second, we took better care of the ball but that was partly because we took lots of quick, bad shots.  Energy seemed to be lacking in the second half - we let Wofford outhustle us on a few 50-50 balls, which was disappointing.

  But it's a win, and I have a lot of faith in Beilein and his staff to get the team to play a better game Saturday.

bighouse22

March 20th, 2014 at 10:37 PM ^

Good win.  The team needs to clean up some of the sloppy play from the last two games.  Enough of the lazy passes and hit a layup already!  No wonders Belien has his team shoot so many threes.  They have to have a much lower shooting percentage from 2ft and closer vs. the 3pt line.

rob f

March 20th, 2014 at 10:40 PM ^

for Manhattan to upset Louisville.  And no, didn't pick that upset and it won't do my brackets any good, but I would LOVE to see Prick Ritino go down in flames tonight, especially after his smarmy comments about having to go against Manhattan.

aiglick

March 20th, 2014 at 10:40 PM ^

Villanova struggling so far. They're probably going to win but just goes to show Michigan isn't the only too seed to somewhat struggle. Heck Florida struggled a bit with Albany earlier. Just have to concentrate and recognize there are no easy games for the rest of the season.

7words

March 20th, 2014 at 11:00 PM ^

So Jekyl and Hyde, aka Texas, is shooting very well and playing a good game tonight.  Hopefully that means they'll play their bad game on Saturday.  Hopefully we go our bad game out of the way tonight. 

Soulfire21

March 20th, 2014 at 11:17 PM ^

I'm really not going to like this Texas matchup (should they advance, looking likely).  They are aggressive and good in the paint, precisely where we have a myriad of issues.  We're going to need a very solid 3PT shooting game to win.

alum96

March 20th, 2014 at 11:31 PM ^

Texas on paper is the team that matches up less well with Michigan due to front line.   They are also a high variablity team who can beat UNC and Kansas but lay eggs all over the place.  That's not a team you want to face on any given night in case they bring their "A" game.

But to make any sort of deep run this team unfortunately is going to just have to be in the 45-48%+ range in FG% every game here on out since we have little inside game.  I was perplexed why there was not a Jordan Morgan show going on tonite with the size mismatches and GR3 was inefficient taking a lot of outside J's when this was the type of team he should be driving inside more.   So if they are not going to do it against Wofford, it's just not going to happen.

We are one dimesional this year versus last without a serious inside threat and our defense is not impressive at all.  Seeing those Terriers take away most chance of offensive rebounds is also not a great thing.  Again I am a bit amazed what we accomplished in the Big 10 seeing the deficiencies we have - the shooting was just on fire for much of the year.  That said, there are no surprises with the team now.  As someone else said other than OSU for a few stretches the offense has been out of sync since the BTT started and that needs to change because the defense and rebounding are not going to change.  I was dismayed by the turnovers today but I think that does get cleaned up; that is not John Beilein basketball.