Conference Tourney Open Thread
I just want to talk about basketball... A lot of good games on today!
Few things make me as happy as watching Sparty suffer.
Damn Trimble you a boss.
don't know how I feel about Trimble destroying MSU right now. I want Maryland to do well in the NCAA tourney but not the B1G tourney .. on the other hand, Sparty tears taste so good.
cheer for Wisconsin tomorrow. The B1G is down in hoops this year, it would reflect poorly on the conference if a new team wins it in their first season
If I didn't live among so many Badger fans and have to deal with the gloating, I would be 100% on-board with this. as is, I'm 50/50 on being a Wiscy supporter.
I can't say that I'm "cheering" for them a Bo Ryan led team. There are certain instances where I would cheer for them like when they played Kentucky in the Final Four last year.
Let's put it this way, I'd rather have Wisconsin win this tournament than Staee or Maryland
Spartan tears. C'mon Maryland, make those tears rain down!!!
Maryland up 23-9, Trimble (13 points) is only up 4 on MSU.
Smotty is tearing it up. Money from 3 and he takes a big charge. Michigan could have used that the last two years...
Telling that he started on Michigan's B1G championshp team, and comes off the bench for the Terps. This is a deep squad.
Nah, smot is kinda soft.
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Sure, yeah, we had exactly the type of year we can let a guy like him go, and just think, it sure is good to be a real prestigious school and shit, and just let guys who can ball a little bit go because we can replace them with the likes of any moron with a pulse, who can put on a Michigan uniform. Makes sense. Go Blue. Real fucking sensible. And shit.
March 15th, 2015 at 10:47 AM ^
You do realize that Smotrycz wouldn't still be in college basketball if he'd never transferred, right? If he hadn't transferred, he would have graduated a year ago. So no, he wouldn't have been any help to us this season.
Anyhow, if Smot had stayed, he'd have been GRIII's backup for two years. Given that we won 59 games those two years, went to the national title game and won the B1G outright, I don't think we missed him that much. He didn't seem very happy here even when he was starting.
Maryland fans cannot stand Smotz. They're all cheering for his graduation.
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Momentum is a crazy, crazy thing...
Msu absolutely cannot win this tourney. They are an average team amongst a league of average teams. Osu and msu win this tourney too much. Go terps!
Trimble, wtf was that last possession. All you had to do was get a shot off and worst case scenario you go to half up 8. Best case is you make the shot or get an oboard and a bucket at the buzzer and momentum into half. Instead you did the worst thing you could do and get a shot clock violation. 4 seconds plenty of time for MSU to get a shot. Terps fortunate they didn't.
Watching Maryland-MSU here when I am probably supposed to be socializing, but then this is statistically about as even a game as you get right now. Both teams are around 50-ish percent for eFG%, similar rebounding, A/T ratios, etc...
Momentum is funny, as someone mentioned. Honestly thought Maryland might turn a shower into a flood, but alas it did not materialize.
Evan and the remaining Terps to win
Well this sucks. Valentine hits a big shot to put MSU up 38-36, about 12 minutes left. MSU stepped up the defense (and the intensity in general), and the Turtles haven't matched it.
Hits his first bucket and unleashes his gap toothed grin :=)
Hope Trimble and Wells can make a push...but I doubt it.
Watching them get waxed by Wisconsin would be fun :)
For MSU with bad calls in their favor. Starting g to feel like March
Ol' Izzo is a master at "working the officials" no surprise there.
I don't care if they win the BTT, they'll be lucky to win 2 games in the dance!
But it sure seems like Izzo teams get a serious latitude with bumps n hacks.
MSU continues to overachieve. This group has no business being a top 2-3 team in the B1G even as down as the conference has been. But there they are.
They have plenty of talent in Dawson, Trice, and Valentine. They beat Maryland 1 time in 3. They are nothing special.
Actually, based on recruiting rankings, they absolutely should be a contender. Don't believe Izzo's woe-is-me BS.
Walking into this season, I thought they would likely miss the tournament this year. Having to count on Trice and Valentine to lead the team with absolutely nobody else that can step up, wasn't looking like a recipe for success. I thought they would look a lot like Nebraska did, with a decent defense and completely erratic offense.
IMHO, their success has come from 2 factors. 1) Having a solid 2 guard show up out of nowhere was a pretty lucky break. And 2) having Trice make the sophomore leap 2 years late. Their backcourt was looking like a disaster, and has turned into a strength.
Wisconsin needed to play Maryland to get a chance at a #1 seed.
Can I say that I absolutely hate Izzo, but I respect the hell out of him.
They have no more talent than we do and here they are peaking in March...again.
Thy have a lot more talent imo. However, they are peaking in March again.
MSU has 1 top 60 high school player on their roster in Dawson. Valentine and Costello were both only 70-100.
Instead of making some an arbitrary cut off at "top 60 player," why don't you actually look at their roster?
MSU is starting two seniors, two juniors, and four 4-stars. We're starting two freshman, a sophomore, and one 4-star. We have 5(!) freshman in our 8-man rotation. That is a tremendous advantage for MSU in both ranking and experience, so basically, you could not be more wrong.
On another note, I have no idea how any Michigan fan could respsect Izzo. He is childish, whiny, egotistical, insulting, and petty - everything John Beilein is not.
Thank you for that post! What's shocking is how close Michigan is despite the numerous advantages of sparty and their recruits :)
They are also all upperclassmen. Izzo is a fine coach, but put this team in last year's conference and they are in deep trouble. They kinda lucked out that a down year for them meant they didn't have to deal with any injuries and the rest of the conference lost so much talent that they could hang around and be the 3rd/4th-best team.
March 14th, 2015 at 11:17 PM ^
It helps when your entire starting lineup is upperclassmen. MSU is the only "top bball" school that sends almost no one to the NBA early - Harris was their first in a decade. Izzo does not need to rebuild from scratch every year like UK Kansas or Duke. Hell or like we have had to of late.
Dawson was a McDonald's All American who is a frigging 22 year old senior.
Valentine is a JR ranked in the same area as Nik S (both around 80)
Trice was a revelation - he is doing a lot of the things Spike is doing, I give kudos for developing him.
Costello is a Mr. Michigan who is a JR.
Schilling is a top 100 ranked recruit who is a SO.
They imported a JR sharpshooter in Forbes - he is limited but he can shoot the damn ball.
They have a top 100ish PG freshman.
There is a 7 man rotation i.e. what we have been playing for 1+ month. Throw in a freshman like Clark as your 8th and whomever else for mop up minutes at 9th in the rotation.
So 4 of those first 5 guys are just like anything UM has and the first 4 are upperclassmen. Of which we have Max and Spike. It helps a lot to have guys who have seen it and done it. Especially in a sport where the most talented guys constantly leave in 1-2 years. See Wisconsin the past 2 years. They have only suffered one key injury all year and it was to a freshman (Bess). Other than their PG they dont rely on freshman for anything - and he wasnt needed until about a month ago. Contrast that to us who throws out a freshman or two every year as a starter out of need. And which had Caris as the sole starter upperclassmen to begin this year.
Maryland and MSU are not that dissimilar other than Melo is a star freshman - both have a lot of older guys.
They have a bunch of upperclassmen. Michigan is playing three freshmen. They have way more talent on the court. Now take Dawson and Trice off that team (like Michigan without Walton and Caris) and then let's see how he looks.
of having Senior leadership on your team. Izzo has been very fortunate over the years to have some 4 year players elevate their games as Seniors.
That's the upside of being mediocre at developing players.
The league is mediocre. We hung in there with purdue wisconsin and msu as a 16 and 16 team. Msu won't make it past the 2nd round.
Cmon chips
March 15th, 2015 at 12:22 AM ^
Let's be real people. This MSU team was a dumpster fire this year and scary thing is, this will prob be their worst team in the forseeable future. They are getting some major upgrades in the next couple years. Besides Dawson and Valentine they have a bunch of nobody recruits.
March 15th, 2015 at 10:39 AM ^
Yeah, don't like Izzo's antics, but I give credit where it is due. They went from having 3 McD's AAs and another 5 star to having 1, they lost 5 players off last year's squad, and all of that was showing much of this season. Now all the sudden they're playing their best ball. And it's not a fluke season, this happens with Izzo coached teams every March.
You don't make the tourney 18 years in a row by accident.
March 15th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^
A team that has four (!) upperclassmen starters hardly qualifies as a "dumpster fire" in my book.
Don't fall for Izzo's whining. To hear him complain, you'd think he starts nothing but walk-ons and that MSU was the only program in the country to ever lose a player early or to injury. He repeats this line so much that it seems to have an effect - as this thread shows, even some Michigan fans have been duped by it.
The truth is, most of MSU's guys were highly-regarded recruits. And they've been very lucky when it comes to early departures and injuries over his tenure. They've lost one guy early in the last 10 years, and they always seem to have a healthy roster by the end of the season. I can't recall the last time they lost a starter to a season-ending injury. It's happened to us two years running.
Losing Kalin Lucas during the tournament cost them a sure national title in 2010 when they lost to Butler on a controversial non call in the final four. Branden Dawson blew out his knee in his freshman or sophomore year, Adrean Payne was oft injured his first couple years. Russel Byrd a highly touted recruit never panned out cause of foot injuries. That's just off the top of my head.