2018-19 indiana #2

The Sponsors

This show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan, MGoBlog would be like if the basketball program stuck it out with Amaker all these years.

Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown hosted us (and the Wagners last week), the University of Michigan Alumni Association might know a guy, Ann Arbor Elder Law might've come up with a better retirement plan than Cleveland, Michigan Law Grad will get you out of a ticket if you're racing to lock up a star assistant, Human Element is about to unleash the greatest posbang in the site's history, the Phil Klein Insurance Group is about to be contacted about a very bad policy, Peak Wealth Management is about to have a new client, and HomeSure Lending was probably like Alonzo Mourning dot gif when he heard who just stole Beilein.

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1. Now What?

starts at 1:00

We review the candidates who've come and gone. Ace warms to Yaklich after hearing the names after Juwan Howard. Speaking of Juwan Howard: about the best resume for an assistant you can possibly have. Porter Moser is not on this list.

2. Best of Beilein: Honorable Mentions

starts at 29:31

We all made lists of our top Beilein-era moments, and those lists did not fit into a Top 10, nor a Top 15, nor a Top 20, so here's all of the things that didn't make the list—it's a long non-list.

3. Best of Beilein: 11th-20th

starts at 1:07:07

Now we give our lists. Except we need to talk about our top moments for so long that we're going to need another segment before we even get to the top ten. Sorry not sorry.

4. Best of Beilein: 1st-10th

Starts at 1:39:30

Some you know. Some you're just going to get mad about. A few are obvious, but not in the obvious spot. This is really hard. There's probably a Smiths song in the Music.

MUSIC

• "Cemetery Gates"—Leah Blevins
• "Holding On"—The War on Drugs
• "End of the Road"—Boyz II Men
• “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link (right click/save as)
• What's with the theme music?

It's very on brand that we fit Denard onto this list

This show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan nobody would get our jokes. Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Peak Wealth Management, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, and Lantana Hummus

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1. Iowa

starts at 00:58

We cede Brian 5 minutes to talk about autobenching and he uses most of it to talk about the ref show. How do you attack a zone with this team, because if you put Iggy in the middle of it you don't have enough shooters. Ready for Castleton to come in when there's a post who's 6'11".

2. Ohio State

starts at 25:43

X's big night is on a higher level than a normal triple-double because there were also no turnovers and a block on Kaleb Wesson that made the center's mom lose her shit. We come up with parenting advice for Mama Wesson, who is certainly lying about getting spat on and will have a hard argument with physics to explain why getting hit by a foam light hurt. Simpson is a cross between Isaiah Thomas (not THAT Isiah) and a center.

3. Indiana

starts at 44:46

They were angry in Bloomington. Whoever draftsa Langford their rival should draft Matthews.

Big Ten: The Tourney Situation, wsg Alex Cook

starts at 56:32

We recorded the IU part before last night obviously. Nebraska is scuffling, Palmer is disappointing. Iowa is in. Grad transfers in the Big Ten this year aren't getting much time on the floor. Purdue has made it past the toughest part of their schedule, have an equal chance to win the Big Ten despite the beginning of the season. Michigan-MSU is still the marquee.

MUSIC

• "Big Time"—Peter Gabriel
• "Gotta Get Mine"—MC Breed
• "Space Song"—Beach House
• “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

• • Helpful iTunes subscribe link
  • General podcast feed link
  • Direct download link (right-click/save-as)
  • What's with the theme music?

I feel it's unfair that Boudreaux looks like a 60-year-old Frenchman

1/25/2019 – Michigan 69, Indiana 46 – 19-1, 8-1 Big Ten

By halftime it was hard to tell exactly what Indiana fans were booing: the refs, their team, various Michigan players, their grandmothers. Could have been anything. What was clear is that 17,222 people were livid. And yelling. The sheer level of concentrated white-hot rage inside Assembly Hall leapt off the screen.

Michigan scores: BOOOO. Indiana does not score: BOOOO. Isaiah Livers may or may not step on the court before flinging an in-bounds pass to mid-court: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Any of a thousand real or imagined slights caused an entire arena's temples to pulse alarmingly.

And yeah, that'll happen when the opposition blows out to a 17-0 lead when you're already on a five-game losing streak and the sheen may be coming off yet another coach. The parallels between Indiana basketball and Michigan football aren't hard to draw. Aging glories, frustrating postseasons, superhero recruits failing to get the team over the hump—it's all there.

Michigan isn't falling apart bodily, at least. It's hard not to look at the various technical difficulties that befell the Hoosiers as symbolic. The shot clock doesn't work at one end so the PA guy has to call it out; there are no microphones at the post game presser; one message board guy asserted this was the third time in four games something went haywire with the clocks, necessitating a stoppage. Indiana basketball is twitching like a recently decapitated bird.

In contrast Michigan football fans seem to have lapsed into a kind of lizard coma. Assembly Hall got there in the second half after Indiana's push was blunted and Michigan extended the lead back out. Those that didn't bail didn't have the spirit to boo anything that moved anymore. They looked on dolorously, silently, as Michigan posted its biggest-ever win in that arena.

[JD Scott]

There wasn't anything else to do.

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Oddly, 18-1 Michigan kinda sorta needed that. They needed to pick someone up by the scruff of the neck and shake them until all the change fell out of their pockets. They needed the version of Michigan from November that obliterated Villanova, UNC, and Purdue from the drop to re-emerge. They needed to remember that they're the most miserable bunch of bastards to play in the country, give or take Texas Tech.

Check. Romeo Langford will be happy to see the back of Charles Matthews. After scraping out a decently efficient game in Crisler thanks to some missed switches and an unusual hit from three, Langford had nine points on 32 percent usage. Matthews hounded him. A couple of second half possessions saw Langford get about ten feet from the basket and put up awkward ducks. Matthews didn't bite on a pump; Langford went up to get fouled anyway. He got nothing.

This didn't even seem hard for Matthews. There were no last-second rescues where he got in a block from behind. Jon Teske was not called into action much, if at all, as help except when hedging on screens. He was not pulled to the action, and Indiana scuffled to four-count-em-four assists. Langford admittedly had one of them. High five.

Maybe you can get after Michigan's defense a bit if you roll three or four scorers deep, especially if one of them draws Poole or Brazdeikis. An Indiana team that's two stars and the Washington Generals, with those stars matched up against Jon Teske and Charles Matthews? Doom, only doom. I still have no idea how Indiana scraped above a point per possession in the first game. Offensive rebounds and an anomalous lack of turnovers, I guess. In anything resembling a normal shot volume environment there's going to be a lot of hopeless shots raised at the last possible second that clang.

They say defense travels, and that particular cliché certainly feels true after Michigan set a small part of Indiana on fire by proxy.

[After THE JUMP: Hello again Iggy]