Congrats on your #1 ranking
Spartan fan here, but I wanted to congratulate you on your b-ball #1 ranking. I wondered at the beginning of the year, "what are they seeing with this team--so many left, so many new faces..." Well, just shows basketball people knew what they were talking about. Beilein is a good coach, and a good guy. He has your team playing good defense, and your team has shooters. You've earned the ranking.
See you Feb. 12--that will be a great game!
January 28th, 2013 at 3:33 PM ^
I don't know if I would go so far as to say we're playing 'good defense'. Our defense is adequate, but sometimes quite shaky. Our offense is the much bigger story.
Other than that, thanks, I agree, and there's going to be some really exciting matchups with Michigan involved in the next 2 weeks.
January 28th, 2013 at 3:50 PM ^
We're playing good defense. We're what, 40th in the country in defensive efficiency out of 350 or so teams?
January 28th, 2013 at 4:01 PM ^
...per KenPom. And just 1 point (89 vs. 90) from 30th place. I think our defense is fine, though not elite, but provides something to complain about because our offense is so dominant. I'm not excusing it, but I think that our D can play very well, but when you're up by double-digits and winning in the B1G by an average of 18 points, it's hard not to let the D slip a little.
January 28th, 2013 at 8:05 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 9:26 PM ^
...depends on your standards. We held the Illini to their 3rd-lowest point total of the year in a game where the pace seemed pretty average. We're ranked 4th in D in a very competitive conference. Are we the best D in the nation? No. We don't have to be. As Brian says, we're happy to place HORSE with anyone and see who wins. We don't play an aggressive D, but then again, we don't have to. The main thing is to box out and prevent buckets at the rim.
January 28th, 2013 at 4:04 PM ^
That was my initial thought. Damn you RDT.
January 28th, 2013 at 3:35 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 3:38 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 3:39 PM ^
What exactly is a Nucky?
January 28th, 2013 at 3:44 PM ^
If anybody on tRCMB says bad things about MSU they call him "Nucky". I believe Nucky was a previous poster that was always negative about all-things msu but still considered himself a fan.
Others, correct me if I'm wrong as I didn't spend much time researching the legend of nucky.
January 28th, 2013 at 4:24 PM ^
(before this sparks the same debate we have every week about him, I actually find him delightful)
January 28th, 2013 at 7:11 PM ^
Ghost Of Yost of RCMB?
January 28th, 2013 at 5:07 PM ^
Nucky is part of the quantumn foam of tRCMB. Some new poster pops out of nowhere, annoys the hell of people, then disappears never to be seen again. That's when you know it's Nucky.
January 28th, 2013 at 3:37 PM ^
Thanks for the classy post. In a similar conciliatory vein.... not that this means much, but even speaking as a Michigan fan who was kinda rooting for IU in that game to maximize our conference title chances.... you guys got reamed hard by the refs Sunday.
January 28th, 2013 at 4:26 PM ^
"......you guys got reamed hard by the refs Sunday."
No - they got the SOP from the B1G refs at Assembly Hall. They are scared shitless to call ANYTHING against IU there and every team (from Penn State to us) is going to get the same BS calls go against them.
Wait for Saturday night. I predict two very, very fast fouls on both Burke & Timmy (charges and/or off the ball fouls) and then two more on McGary and whoever is backing him up. The refs will have virtually all of our starters in foul trouble by the 10 minute mark of the first half and Indiana will have at most two or three fouls on the entire team.
How do I know this? Because I've been watching B1G basketball for over 40 years and have seen team after team, year after year, get totally hosed there by frightened refs.
BKFInest it. (and that I think is my first one ever on the board)
January 28th, 2013 at 5:07 PM ^
All of the this.
January 28th, 2013 at 5:20 PM ^
When I was younger, I assumed that Indiana got ALL OF THE CALLS at home because the refs were afraid of the human volcano known as Bob Knight. I was disappointed to have that theory proven incorrect as Indiana still gets ALL OF THE CALLS despite the fact that they have had several coaches since Knight.
I wonder what the real reason is for the deference to Indiana by the B1G officials?
January 28th, 2013 at 9:10 PM ^
You're mostly right (about home court advantage due to ref calls.)
However, there are several dynamics at play that could partially mitigate this home court ref advantage for Indiana.
- Michigan's number 1 rating. The refs aren't stupid, and are well aware that Michigan is ranked #1. I think this puts a bit more pressure on the refs to call the game fairly. A corollary for this is found in the NBA, with the so-called "Jordan rules." With superstars (i.e., Jordan, Magic, Kobe, Lebron, etc.,) the refs let them get away with more. I think that with Michigan's rating, they "might" be treated differently than, say, Iowa, Illinois, MSU, etc.
- Related to this, there will be a lot of publicity and coverage of the game. The lights are very bright. This is a marquee game for not only Indiana & Michigan, for not only the Big 10, but for all of college basketball. As such, the refs know that everyone will be watching their calls, even more than usual. I wouldn't be surprised if the league office requested the best possible refs, and put a bug in their ear to be fair.
- Lastly, Burke, Hardaway, Robinson, and Morgan (if he plays) have not fouled out a single time this year. Those four, along with Stauskas, have averaged less than 1 1/2 fouls per game. McGary is the only one on the team who struggles at all with fouls. This suggests that none of the starters is foul prone. Even if they doubled the amount of fouls, none of the starting five would foul out.
I guess I think that given Michigan's ranking, given the marquee nature of this game, and given Michigan's lack of a propensity to foul, they are unlikely to be as jobbed by the refs as would otherwise be typical.
January 28th, 2013 at 4:46 PM ^
Yeah, there were a few calls that were tough to deal with--especially at the end. But, we had our chances, too. No excuse for not getting it across mid-court for the 10 second call.
Anyway, good luck.
January 28th, 2013 at 3:38 PM ^
I don't trust him, he's up to something....
January 28th, 2013 at 7:03 PM ^
the RCMB is taking over MGOBlog... just wait for it....
January 28th, 2013 at 3:39 PM ^
You bet we got shooters. Should be a combination of a good old fashioned shoot-out and hog wrasslin' when Michigan and Michigan State clash on Feb. 12
January 28th, 2013 at 3:50 PM ^
Stauskas is NOT just a shooter!
/Color commentator'd
/Blouses
January 28th, 2013 at 3:54 PM ^
Someone really needs to photoshop this with 6 of our Freshman/Sophomores.
January 28th, 2013 at 4:17 PM ^
But I am no good at that kind of thing.
January 28th, 2013 at 8:32 PM ^
...Excel, so consider this your rough draft until a more talented photoshopper improves on this!
January 28th, 2013 at 3:41 PM ^
Thank you for the compliment.
Our D is not very good, but the explosiveness of our offense makes up for it.
January 28th, 2013 at 3:46 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 3:52 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 3:58 PM ^
Spar Dan has come down from Candy Mountain to entice us
January 28th, 2013 at 4:19 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 4:59 PM ^
Shun the non-believers!!
January 28th, 2013 at 3:54 PM ^
The winner of the Big Ten is going to have 3-4 losses. I'm happy about the number one ranking for sure but, i'll be a lot happier with a B1G touney/ regular season championship and a number 1 ranking after march
January 28th, 2013 at 3:56 PM ^
Thanks for the good words. FWIW, I think MSU is a top 10 right now. Very talented and deep team that I think has a legit shot at the Final Four (along with UM and about 7 or 8 other teams). IMO MSU, IU and UM are a cut above OSU and Wisc and maybe Minny, then it's a decent fall off to the others.
Glad to see UM at #1 right now but in two weeks (after IU, OSU, Wisc and MSU games) Michigan will likely not be at #1 so it's not that much of a big deal. I am just happy to see Michigan playing so well and get some recognition nationally.
January 28th, 2013 at 4:01 PM ^
Font fail, my eyes hurt. This post is a designers nightmare.
January 28th, 2013 at 3:59 PM ^
The last time we were #1, Color Me Bad was cool. Damn, it's been a LONG time.
January 28th, 2013 at 4:28 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 4:03 PM ^
In all sense of respect and sportsmanship, congratulations to your team accomplishments in becoming the #1 team. Its been a quite some time since Michigan has been on top of the basketball world and its good to see JB bring you back there. Best of luck this week!
January 28th, 2013 at 4:32 PM ^
psych! - made you look
January 28th, 2013 at 4:46 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 4:56 PM ^
We lost Novak, Smotrycz, and Douglass. Combined they accounted for 24.4 ppg. Coming back in just Burke and Hardaway Jr was 29.4 ppg. Yes, we lost leadership and intensity with Stu and Zach, but bringing in a, dare I say "elite", freshman class, we definitely made up for lost goods. Not to mention getting a healthy Horford for this year as well.
January 28th, 2013 at 5:01 PM ^
Two graduated: Novak, Douglas. Three left: Smotrycz, Brundidge, and Christian transfered. Granted, Smotrycz was the one getting more of the minutes, but overall that's 1/3 of your team.
January 28th, 2013 at 5:09 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 4:59 PM ^
January 28th, 2013 at 5:41 PM ^
WITH MANTI TE'O AND ROLLDAMNTIDE HOW CAN WE BE SURE ANYMORE???
January 28th, 2013 at 7:56 PM ^
Appreciate it, and while this is something to be very excited about, its about as helpful as the ND faithful going apreshit over being number 1 before the NTG in football. We need to keep up the momentum and go through some major hurdles before we celebrate too much.
January 28th, 2013 at 8:11 PM ^
The number one ranking is nice as a historical milestone taken against the context of where we were five years ago. If we were a long term power like Kansas, UNC or (gulp) Michigan State then yeah,,, we wouldn't give two shits about being #1 in January. Considering how far we've come and how hard our guys had to work to overcome hiring Brian Ellerbee in the wake of the Ed Martin scandal... I think it's ok for us to give one shit about the #1 ranking.
Only one though. The rest of the shits I'll give after we cut down the nets in April.
January 28th, 2013 at 8:24 PM ^