Might As Well Muppets? Comment Count

Brian

Probably not a whole lot of opportunity to deploy these guys for a while now, so let's shake the rust off, and they did beat Hated Rival OSU with a collection of misfit toys.

..and you can't have one without the other…

…NBA interested in Spike yo?

Comments

schreibee

February 22nd, 2015 at 4:08 PM ^

Let's not get carried with that word 'happy"... we need to win the B1G tourney to make the dance (which will probably end once and for all the ridiculous practice of having conference tournament winners receive automatic bids, so that'd be really cool)!

We need to make the B1G finals just to get an NIT bid, so that's also filed under unlikely...

My viewpoint on today's game is skewed a bit as I didn't turn it on til we were up 17, and I watched as we were outscored 14-0 over the next 7-8 mins... but I really appreciated the effort I saw today, from Dawk, Rahk, Maxx, Zak and especially Spike!

But that was not a happy feeling watching this team nearly squander another lead. The end was certainly satisfying tho!!!!!!

schreibee

February 22nd, 2015 at 5:52 PM ^

Sorry but that's an extremely antiquated view of the conference tournaments... the whole point of them now is to drive revenue for the conferences and programming hours for ESPN.

If the MEAC or Horizon or what have you still need the drama of the conference tournament to drive interest in which single team from their conference goes dancing - and they'd rather sacrifice their entire regular season for that one game on ESPN - that's fine for them. I just disagree with it.

But literally the ONLY major conference team I can think of that perhaps made the NCAA purely because they won their conference tourney - i.e. would likely not have been invited if not for the conference win - was UConn a couple years ago...the year they beat Butler for the title I believe.

That's a rare & freakish occurance in other words... and should my beloved Michigan somehow parlay this gutty win into an amazing run that leads to them winning the B1G tournament, I'll celebrate the achievement in my heart; but in my head I won't feel they belong in the NCAA.

snarling wolverine

February 22nd, 2015 at 6:24 PM ^

The money issue aside . . . the sporting point of it is to give out an autobid.  That's been true since the days of one bid per conference.   There were years when the 5th-place ACC team would win the conference tourney and that was that.  Nowadays, there are a ton of at-large bids so why would there be an outcry?

And there have been plenty of major-conference teams to make Cinderella runs in conference-tourney play over the years.   Off the top of my head I remember one of Steve Alford's Iowa teams winning the BTT one year when they were no more than a bubble team going in.

Bando Calrissian

February 22nd, 2015 at 3:21 PM ^

Beilein getting Spike to the NBA would be possibly the best recruiting pitch to teenage weird dudes everywhere.

"Look at this kid. From benchwarmer to tweeting Kate Upton to the NBA. This could be you."