...says Denzel Valentine of Big Ten Tourney favorite MSU, which is 5-7 in its last 12 games. Cumong, man.
Coaches' timeouts are worse. Basketball teams should get one, full stop.
"Though I received no official response to these sophisticated and elegant tweets to the Illini Athletic Department, I would like to think that Beckman spent the evening prank calling everyone in Illinois named George McLellan and then ordering an absurd amount of hats off an internet haberdashery to hoard in his home's hat annex."
in re: is GRIII on a tear
Petway nails threes to death metal. Seriously.
Mike Lantry, 1972
Career-enders coming fast and furious.
"Tonight we were reminded that Michigan is five years further down the road. Which means we have a long road ahead. The State Farm Center renovations start in a few hours and will run for three years. Let’s hope that when they’re complete, we’re Michigan."
unfortunate break for Boilers
Support MGoBlog: buy stuff at Amazon
Morgan was gutting it out on one leg and if you watched he defended Nix beautifully when he was in there. He is a problem only in the sense that we miss having him in the game at 100%
We totally are coming back from 30 down with a few minutes to play now.
Well played.
I reversed jinxed it.
Sorry everyone. My bad.
Piss poor effort from me as well as the basketball team tonight.
Is it possible that this team is just totally and utterly exhausted? Think about this stretch they have played since last saturday. @Indiana, OSU, @wisco, @msu. Plus going to overtime in two of them. They are off until Sunday, I want to see this team get rested, get pissed and come back strong to finish off this season.
Many if us probably have wet dreams about this team playing pissed off so let's hope that happens. But we've seen no indication that that us in their genetic makeup. They are more worried about trying to remember what option 13(b)(4)(D) is off the high pick and roll than they are about kicking someone's ass.
This is why you don't make an "Izzo's team is garbage" thread in November.
Hopefully this game wakes this team up. They aren't doing anything in March looking like they did tonight.
You can only say "this was a wake-up call" or "the freshmen grew up tonight" so many times before accepting that this team just isn't as good as we all hoped.
I'm not saying this was a wake-up call. I'm saying I HOPE it is.
This team is way too talented to get blown out like they did tonight.
If they get it together, I still think this team is capable of doing big things. However, if this is what we look like in March, we ain't doin' shit.
I look at this team the last 3 weeks and see a decent Beilein WV team. I'm not sure what happened over the last month, but I don't like it. Our guys are scared out there. They don't rebound, they don't defend, they don't go to the basket. Its unfortunate that we haven't really improved or grown during b10 play. If anything we've regressed.
lol ap#1
Running the table the rest of the way and parlaying it into a B1G tourney championship and a strong NCAA tourney showing will most certainly make tonight and Saturday forgettable.
Just don't feel M has what it takes. The next 3 vs. PSU, vs. ILL, @ PSU will be key to kickstarting it.
Disagree. Beating up on average to below average teams does nothing. They did that for the majority of the first 60% of the schedule. They have beaten no one (Minn) on the road. They have been exposed from the OSU game forward on how to be beaten. Pressure Burke, take away options, punch GR3 in the mouth (he disappears) and out work Michigan.
Defense always travels. Offense will go into a funk. OSU with 1.5 freaking offensive options almost beat UM on the road. WIscy always is tough to beat with almost no offensive talent. Michigan is a fun offensive team against inferior talent, but does not show the defensive effort or drive to play with big boys. Beating PSU by 15 wont change that.
fucking joke this game was... yet another game that JB does not have this team prepared for...
Everything is still terrible. No reason to alter my hatred of it yet.
Probably have lost worse, but those teams weren't good. No reason for this team to get run out of town in the biggest game of their season to date.
Backs are against the wall now and have to win out just to share. But this doesn't look like a team that's even going to be able to protect home court right now. More likely we're just trying to get our shit together because all this ugly gets erased with a nice run in March. But it's sad to be playing for March before mid-February with this team.
We may not be #1, but we're not playing to the level of our talent either. We can keep using youth as an excuse, because guess what- this is college basketball today. You're almost never going to have a talented and experienced team. You have to find a way to win with freshmen, and sophomores.
And everyone dissing Izzo and MSU back a month ago, uhm, yeah....
In January is an absolute idiot
I'd watch this tape every day if I was Trey Burke. See those "things" laughing at us. See all those, terrible things.
How do you come out so flat in the three biggest road games of the year @ OSU, Indiana and MSU games with absolutely no energy and effort. There are two big differences from this year to last, 1. Novak and company had heart and effort but almost no elite talent - 2. This team has elite offensive talent but no heart and effort which is really what defense, rebounding and hustle create.
I would almost rather watch last years team at this point as at least you would count on the kids hustling after almost everything 100% of the time. At this point, it seems like everyone wants to only hustle to get down to the 3 point line to try to get a long-range shot, way too man y offensive boards due to simply not blocking out and putting in effort, and what appears to be a distinct lack of effort and aggresive play around the basket.
There is no killer instinct that has at least been displayed at this point, and it would be nice to see someone finally drive effort around an almost insane level of effort at hustle plays and defense.
The team will be in Ann Arbor for the next 15 days or so. They need to get some rest now and watch highlights of this game everyday till they meet these guys again.
They ran out of gas last year, hopefully they can get back some momentum over this break.
They did fail in their most important stretch of the season to date though. They can turn things back around.
Scared.
This team is playing scared. Why I have no idea but you can see it in their eyes, their body language and their overall play.
They are scared.
They are not scared, they are small. And unlike scared, that can't be fixed easily.
Scared. Watch the first ten minutes of all the important Big Ten games we've played this year.
Can a team built around players out of their ideal size-based position really contend on the big stage? It seems clear that GR3 is not ready to play the Novak role (and I don't think many people ever will be--Novak was a special guy)
I think that the way this team is built sets it up for failure on the defensive end. We have no athletic bigs to cover our mediocre perimeter defenders. Ideally, McGary/Morgan would be a 4, and we would have a stronger 5 presence.
I see that I'm rambling. I dunno. I just think this team is doomed to be soft. I know I know they're allllll freshmen, but I just don't see where we can grow. To me it's like a 6 foot linebacker who could be really good but he's just too small
If he's getting 4 points a game solely on put-backs.
Guards rule the tournament, but eventually you need some down low presence.
Is old man Paine still in?
Granny Harris put its fake teeth back in.
Okay. I'm going to bed
He's like the Alfonso Soriano of basketball. When he's hot you can't guard him. When he's cold the basket could be 10 feet wide and he still wouldn't make it.
Game's not over, we can do this!
All I really saw tonight was true freshmen playing like true freshmen. Couldn't buy a basket under the hoop, lots of thoughtless turnovers. They got flustered on the big stage because they're young and they're not ready. Hopefully this gets them ready.
I thought getting manhandled in Columbus got the freshmen ready? Or was it getting blown off the court the first half against Indiana that taught them what it's like to play on the big stage?
It might just be that we're not a top-10 team.
I don't know what to tell you, but growing up takes time. I think the tough games are showing us that we probably aren't a top-10 team. When these guys are hitting on all cylinders, they're really tough to beat. When they're off, they can be beat by good teams. This is much better than previous years when if we were off, we could be beat by anyone.
Beyound stupid to play the back-ups for such extensive minutes. Even if your in foul trouble you have to go with your main guys before it gets out of hand. Completely outcoached tonight.
Got pushed around and couldn't do anything about it. Very early 2000s like.
Michigan looked like the softest team in the country. What a joke. Well at least we know that GRIII and Hardaway wont be entering the draft. I doubt they could get minutes in the WNBA at this point.
Agreed
I get that you're pissed, but this kind of shit makes you look like an idiot.
Burn the tape and move on. Nothing to take from this one. They came to play and we didn't.
We don't have the bodies to match up. It's not just a matter of not giving effort.
I don't buy that. They came out making everything and we didn't respond. If nix shoots 70% in Ann Arbor ill freely admit I'm wrong.
I will be happy if this team only makes the sweet 16 now.
They should fall out of the top 10 after this game. They have lost 3 out of 4...and have just been humiliated on the road.
That Izzo is such a great human being. I love him so much.
I don't watch much NBA, but after these last few games against high level competition how in the world in Burke considered such a high draft pick? His D is average, his outside shot is iffy and agianst tall, quick defenders he gets shut down.
Go back and look at his stats and tell me he got shut down. He's the only one that shows up to play.
A point guard needs players around him to do something. ANYTHING. He'd have that in the NBA. If they didnt have Burke tonight they would have lost by 25.
Oh wait. Ok 40. There was no offensive without him. NONE>
Trey had 18 points on 7-11 shooting (3-5 from deep) with 4 assists and 3 steals and you're mad at him!?
I just don't understand how you can write a statement like that. Trey Burke is the only reason this team didn't lose by 50 tonight.
Outcoached, outhustled, outsmarted, and outskilled....
We didn't play our best
I'm still not convinced we even played.
Izzo was pretty classy in the post-game interview.
