Hot takes from three years and 50 weeks ago
The guy behind the Twitter account @OldTakesExposed has posted a run down of some of the scorching takes from the Kansas game from 2013, including a number of, yes, Fire Beilein takes.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:04 PM ^
Ha that was a fun read. Thanks.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:32 PM ^
Not a hot take, but I loved this hilarious Kansas 2013 Sweet Sixteen prediction from Grantland.
Keep in mind, this was before the Kansas - Michigan game, during which time Elijah Johnson: grabbed McGary’s privates, missed the free throw that led to "The Trey", and missed a runner that would have won it for Kansas:
Bill Self will become so enraged with Elijah Johnson that his toupee will fall off.
Self and Johnson have an interesting relationship, and by “interesting,” I mean that before every game, I’m pretty sure Self pulls Johnson aside and gives him the following speech:
“I’ve worked my ass off to get to where I am today. I spent seven years coaching at small schools in Tulsa just to get the chance to coach at a big-time program. Now I’m here. I have multiple luxury automobiles, I own real estate all over the greater Lawrence area, and women throughout the Midwest want to lay with me. Look me in the eye, Elijah. I have it all, I tell you. IT. ALL. And I’m not about to let some shithead like you ruin it for me. God as my witness, if the other team’s point guard outplays you tonight, I will end you. Your corpse will spend eternity in the crawl space of my summer home, and when guests ask, ‘What’s that smell?” I’ll tell them it’s the scent of mediocrity. It’s the smell of a guy who wasn’t half the man that Tyshawn, Sherron, or Mario were. Look at me, Elijah. I’ll tell them it’s the smell of a man who fell short of success one too many times.
“Alright, good talk. Remember: Just go out there and play your hardest, and everything will take care of itself. Go get ’em, buckaroo.”
I think it was also Elijah Johnson that had the 10-second violation, right? I loved watching that play on repeat: Trey Burke understood how much time was left, but pretended to go for the steal so that Elijah wouldn't realize how close he was to a violation. If he does a more simple check, Elijah would probably have passed it across the halfcourt.
I certainly don't have a deep understanding of basketball, but beyond the all-around amazingness of Trey Burke's game, I think of him as one of the headiest basketball player I've seen at Michigan for things like that.
Along those lines, Burke had multiple steals at the end of the game (against Michigan State, for one example). I think he realized something I've never seen anyone else realize: those late-game steal attempts look very risky--if he doesen't get the steal, he is way out of position when the opponent is looking for a game-winning basket. However, they're actually not very risky because the opponent is trying to hold the ball for the last shot--so even if he's out of position, the opponent won't make a move to score quickly. As a result, he could go way out of position for the steal, and it was often successful because the other team didn't see it coming.
Yeah, that was Johnson. Dude was as instrumental to us winning that game as Trey was.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:16 PM ^
Truth be told we basically got worked for 85% of that game. But we did just enough to stay in it and Kansas just couldn't kill us. They were completely shellshocked when the game reached overtime.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:21 PM ^
If there was ever a game that went to overtime but you already knew who was going to win it was that one.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:30 PM ^
SuperBowl 51 comes to mind...
March 15th, 2017 at 12:34 PM ^
True dat.
You even knew who was going to win the coin flip.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:35 PM ^
So was I
And I can tell you I let out the biggest roar I can rememmber when Trey's shot went in.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:42 PM ^
...just to get you to 89,000 points.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:48 PM ^
Not impressed. You can afford to give more.
1%er.
Heh.
I was at a bar in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico watching the game on a small TV off to the side of the bar. It was the only place I could find to see the game.
But when that shot went it I heard loud shouts all up and down the street. Despite what I thought, I wasn't the only one paying attention to March Madness in Mexico.
We were sooooo bad that game it was so painful to watch until it suddenly wasn't.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:24 PM ^
Fans are fickle as hell. This place is already a gold mine for MBB hot takes from this season alone. There is a reason you wait until the game, and season are over before posting over-the-top supposed solutions.
It was interesting because we knew Beilein could field an elite team from previous tournament experience, and we knew the injury bug had bit the team the last couple years, but still the comments...
March 15th, 2017 at 12:21 PM ^
March 15th, 2017 at 12:22 PM ^
Probably since he failed to make that Final Four for WVU.
Zing!
March 15th, 2017 at 12:34 PM ^
Twitter and blogs expose what's been said in-game in living rooms around the country for years. It's another place for people with no affect on the game to let their feelings be known. Just think what this place would've been like if it existed from 1993-1996.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:43 PM ^
How bout 1970-1979? Our football team was perenially ranked in the top 5 each year and always came up just a bit short. Our bowl record under Bo by the 1980 season would've been 0-7 and he was getting torched by experts claiming the game had left him behind.
For every one "Fire Beilein" thread created my guess is there would've been five "Fire Bo". We didnt have a social media platform or internet available to share our feelings. But we sure bitched a lot to our friends about it. Trust me - as much as we all look back at the Bo era now as the good ol days - back when we were living them it was every bit as frustrating as the BBall team has been and for much of the same reasons.
And if you want evidence, go rewatch The Big Chill. A group of Michigan alums spending a weekend together. They're watching a Michigan game (Wangler was the QB if memory serves, i.e. the heart of the Bo years), and they are bitching about how poorly the Wolverines are playing.
"Fire Bo, hire Linda Lovelace—she doesn't choke on the big one."
That was scrawled over the urinals in the men's pisser in several downtown A2 bars in 1974 and '75. Plenty of UM fans were incredibly frustrated.
Ha! I remember that saying.
"She may blow a few, but she'll never choke on the big one."
March 15th, 2017 at 12:46 PM ^
*effect
/your welcome
/intentional
March 15th, 2017 at 12:42 PM ^
I will never forget my reaction to Trey Burke's shot. Probably because I embarassed myself in front of my wife's family. They all know I am die hard Michigan fan so the yelling and screaming throughout the game didn't seem to come as any surprise to them. However, when I jumped in the air and took my shirt off as Burke's shot went in, my wife's grandmother was mortified. Admittedly not one of my prouder moments but that family still mentions it from time to time and gets a good laugh at my expense.
Before my cousins moved out of their parents house, they had the entire basement set up as a man cave. Wings, Pistons, Lions, Tigers, and Michigan stuff everywhere. They also had a big screen down there. We watched the entire 2013 NCAA tourney down there. I'll never forget that night we beat Kansas. When that shot when in, we all ran around screaming. I vividly remember my hand hurting because we all high fived so hard when Trey's shot went in.
This years Big Ten tourney title is the only thing that compares to that 2013 run in my history of watching Michigan hoops. And to go off the theme of this post, I'll admit there were a ton of hot takes inside my own head that I thankfully declined to post online. Needless to say, I'm done EVER doubting Coach B ever again. He's a monster who should be allowed to stay here as long as he pleases.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:44 PM ^
I was worried this was going to be a rehashing of the championship game. (Yes, I'm still bitter, too)
But I'm shocked at just how late in the month that game was. It was the 29th, almost a full week later than where this year's Sweet Sixteen will fall.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:46 PM ^
I came to this thread not believing that game was 4 years ago. Andy Rooney was right: life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.
We were basically worked for the first three-quarters of regulations, and I can remember clearly some of these thoughts spinning in my head - not about firing Beilein, but more about being one big away or about defense and so forth, so I am guilty of it too. Obviously, glad it worked out the way that it did, but with about ten minutes to go, there was plenty of "Oh, shit....here comes the great fade...."
I spent the majority of that game pouting because I had that sense that the outcome would be just like the tournament game against Duke the previous year; put in a good effort against an insanely talented #1 seed, stay within distance and do JUST ENOUGH to lose by 2 points at the end.
When he made the shot, I was too much in shock to celebrate.
The real kicker is to go back and read the open thread for that game here. Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom.....OMFG!!!!
You're right. That sucked. But it got John Groce to Illinois. So not a total loss.
to Michigan as well.
And there's nothing to dispel the notion that they won't go out and do it again. Shit the bed against TCU in their first game of the Big XII Tournament.
They probably have the most NBA talent of any team in America outside of Kentucky, and yet they find ways to lose to inferior teams in the tournament almost every year.
I mean, it's kinda hard not to be known for blowing games against inferior opponents when the opponent is always inferior and you play 40 of them every year.
March 15th, 2017 at 10:38 PM ^
I was at a wedding. The wedding was for a friend of my then-girlfriend (now wife). I remember being completely disconnected from the wedding itself, watching on my phone. I let out an audible yelp when Trey's shot went in and got stared at by just about everyone at my table. About 1.5-2 seconds later, I heard an audible "NO!!!!!" from the other side of the ballroom. It was a Kansas fan on a slight delay. What a glorious night.
Also may have been the night I realized my then-girlfriend was a keeper because she didn't kill me.
A hot take has been driven faster into the ground compared to things like "all your base" and bell bottoms.
I guess people aren't allowed to have strong opinions anymore? Everything needs to be watered down, boring, and walking the company line?
The beauty of the First Amendment is that people are not only free to tweet whatever dumb idea pops into their head, but others are free to mock them for said tweet.
Whatsoever. I'm talking about the "concept" of the hot take. Whenever people say something even semi-unique, it is seen as a "hot take." The words themselves are freaking exhausting to hear.
Nope.
But there's an epidemic of people shouting stupid hot takes just to get noticed. E.g., anything Skip Bayless has ever done. Saying that a basketball team losing by 10 in the second half is definitely finished isn't egregious, but everybody has seen a team come back from a deficit like that. So making black-and-white proclamations is just attention-whoring, and that's what this account is calling out.