For the first time in Michigan Basketball history
.....Michigan will be the top seed in the B1G Tournament.
We all know that the B1G Championship means more than a B1G Tourney title does, but a B1G Tournament Championship needs to be BACK in Crisler. The banner will never come down.
Conference tournaments can sometimes be a nice springboard into the NCAA Tournament.
The last time Michigan won the B1G Tournament-
(Video: WolverineHistorian)
I love the BTT more so to each his own I guess. Nothing says CBB like 30 tournaments going on on all television networks at the same time. This is a lot better than random bball games on Thursday nights in January.
Great season. Can't wait to see what they get done in the B10 tourney and March Madness.
That was when the Big Ten title game was played on a Saturday and not 2 minutes before the Selection Sunday presentation.
Just to really blow your mind. These are the coaches that Brian Ellerbe beat that season by double digits: Tom Izzo, Jim Boeheim, Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight.
And then the following year, the program went to hell.
Michigan Basketball Hist >> B1G Tournament Hist
and the NCAA championship is won in 6 games and is not representative of the work from Nov-March.
Bit of a difference - everyone plays their hardest in the NCAAs, whereas lots of teams go at half-speed in their conference tourney and don't mind if they lose.
w/o all of the garish, intern-designed clutter
Travis Conlan on the far right...blast from the past...
HAIL!!
Seems like when this team has a lot of rest it comes out and dominates. I have no idea if a few extra B1G tourney games will tire the team out or not, but not winning the B1G tourney last year worked out pretty well for us.
Seeing photos and clips of Robert Traylor again brings back some pretty good memories of Michigan basketball as well, at least for me as I was there when he was playing. I believe in his time in Ann Arbor he shot pretty close to 60% and had a few games where I believe he was responsible for 30+ points. He was a fun player to watch indeed.
John Beilein has any intention of spending as much energy as it might take to win the Conference Tournament. It means nothing, you can put way more into it than you'll ever get out of it, and I think last year to go only as far as they did helped them get some rest and prep time for the big dance. I know JB can't come out and say it, but it makes perfect sense to me. I don't think trying to get up one more seed (potentially) or even the possibility getting a lower seed (by not winning the CT) makes a bit of difference to him. JMO, but that's the way I'd approach it, and I think he does too.