Playing in the belly of the beast - Michigan basketball at Assembly Hall
Do you remember?
Tomorrow we travel again to Bloomington to play Indiana at dreaded Assembly Hall. While the historical record against the Hoosiers is a dismal 56-103 we are an stunning 12-64 when playing in their gym. In my opinion, of all the houses of B1G officiating horrors, Assembly Hall stands alone as the Pantheon of "home cooking" when it comes to getting biased calls favoring the home team. Which means that despite our respective records through the years - the best squad does not always prevail if not in candy striped warm-ups. In fact they rarely, if ever, do in Indiana.
A few notable games stand out through the years:
1977 - The one loss and 5th ranked Wolverines lose to unranked #2 Indiana 73-64
1989 - The 6th 13th ranked and eventual National Champions fall to 9th ranked uanked Indiana 71-70 76-75
1990 - The 5th ranked Wolves lose to unranked Indiana 71-69
1992 - Fab Five get blown out 89-74 by unranked Indiana.
1993 - This time the #2 in the nation Fab Five get screwed at the end and lose 93-92
1994 - No Webber, no change. 11th ranked Michigan goes down 74-64
1997 - Ranked #13, Michigan loses yet again to unranked Indiana 72-70
1998 - Ranked #15 going in, Michigan gets crushed by unranked Indiana 90-65
2012 - #16 Michigan goes down 73-71 to unranked Indiana
2013 - Ranked #1 - Michigan loses to Indiana 72-71 81-73. Lots of Televisions die
I watched all those games. I can tell you beyond a shadow of doubt that when playing at Assembly Hall expect at least 3-5 "WTF" calls per game that will go against us. I think we can and should win tomorrow. But if history has taught me anything it is to not expect the win to be easy (should it come) or without 40 minutes of me yelling at the TV in anger.
Let the game begin.
February 1st, 2014 at 12:56 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:08 PM ^
IU and crean. If we win there, we will have certainly earned it..now let's go wreck their prgram! go blue!
February 1st, 2014 at 6:07 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:02 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:04 PM ^
the internet was invented for the singular purpose of allowing some retired bball official to review the film from every single cbball game and determine how many bad calls/non-calls were committed in each stadium, with the goal of creating an evidence-based chart of which teams in which stadiums get the most help from zebras and posting it onto MGoBlog.
Somebody needs to get on that.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:45 PM ^
I'd like to think it would look exactly like this:
February 1st, 2014 at 1:57 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 2:20 PM ^
Best rug in the game.
February 1st, 2014 at 2:23 PM ^
I like how the "replay monitor" is basically a 1970s-era 10-inch television.
February 1st, 2014 at 3:09 PM ^
nah, it was invented for porn.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:07 PM ^
Remember that in '89, Jay Edwards hit the game-winning shot after time expired. Home cookin'.
As for '98, that was the year we turned around and beat them by 48 points in Crisler later in the season - one of the largest home/road swings ever.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:07 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:09 PM ^
This is where I pulled my data from. Maybe my 54 year old eyes misread some
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/mich/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/2013-…
Getting old sucks BTW.....
February 1st, 2014 at 1:13 PM ^
mGrow, I agree with much in your original post, but I'd be really surprised if the '91-'92 Hoosiers weren't ranked really high before that year's game. Indirect evidence:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-01-22/sports/9201070227_1_junio…
February 1st, 2014 at 1:15 PM ^
You're right. Thanks for the catch. I'll fix that.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:11 PM ^
Last year when we lost at Indiana 81-73. But there some awful calls.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:13 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:16 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:18 PM ^
For at least a couple more years it is. Then...
"On December 19, 2013, Indiana University announced that a $40 million donation from Cynthia "Cindy" Simon Skjodt would be used to renovate Assembly Hall.[16] Indiana University will rename Assembly Hall the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall upon the completion of the renovations and improvements, which is currently anticipated to occur as early as 2016"
That's a real mouthful.
At least i got THAT right...lol.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:17 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:19 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 2:26 PM ^
Thanks. I was careful not to post unitl I was sure the thread on the 120 pound woman winning the wing eating contest wouldnt get knocked off the front page.
February 1st, 2014 at 2:30 PM ^
Did that 120 pound woman win the wing eating contest at Assembly Hall? If so, that's SO newsworthy!
BTW, I enjoyed this time capsule. Much appreciated. And painful.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:20 PM ^
We have no doubt struggled to put up Ws there, but I couldn't believe all of the those Bobby Knight teams were unranked. In both 1989 and 1990 they were #9 when we went down there, in 1992 they were #4. We don't get to face this caliber of Indiana squad very often.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:28 PM ^
AAAAAAANNNNDDDDD I fixed that too.
Thanks for the catch. BTW - given the mulitude of factual errors in my post I decided to "line out" and not simply correct the errors. Everyone should have a chance to enjoy my lack of attention to detail and not just you guys.
Plus I always think it's a bit cheezy when somebody fixes a mistake in a post that others call out. Once they do that the person who accurately noticed the error looks stupid and that's not fair.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:25 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
crean has become my favorite villain in the B1G. hope we punk him.
i would say tomorrow is the 3rd biggest game left on our schedule.
#3 - @ indy
#2 - @ osu
#1 - msu
February 1st, 2014 at 2:18 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:35 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 1:37 PM ^
it couldn't be the bob knight effect could it? like ed hightower being in his back pocket. it's not the arena.
February 1st, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^
when Bobby Knight prowled the sidelines, he owned the refs flat out. They were all scared to death of him. It seems like his effect is still there to some degree. But it won't be worse of an environment than Breslin was this year. So, as long as we keep doing our thing, we should do fine.
February 1st, 2014 at 1:46 PM ^
Fuck Assembly Hall. Let's just go in there and curb stomp them and then have Jeff Meyer teabag Tom Crean right at center court.
I don't care about the home-cooking - we're miles better, we'll play through a few bad calls and we'll win by 12.
Get it done, Blue!
February 1st, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 2:32 PM ^
No teasing!
February 1st, 2014 at 2:19 PM ^
February 1st, 2014 at 2:54 PM ^
What was the year when we hit the walkoff shot for the win at Assembly Hall as time ran out? It was sometime in the 80's, I think. It was beautiful. And rare.
February 1st, 2014 at 3:52 PM ^
1985.
February 1st, 2014 at 5:49 PM ^
Thanks!
Now I remember, it was Gary Grant recovering his own blocked shot and putting it in the hoop as time ran out. (The replay flashback is @ 7:30 on the "1986: Michigan BB vs. Indiana Big Ten Championship" video clip a couple of posts below).
February 1st, 2014 at 2:54 PM ^
Do you still have that video of Bob Knight after we beat them in the '80s?
February 1st, 2014 at 4:16 PM ^
Awesome! I love the first one too - the scenes of celebration with "The Victors" playing give me chills.
February 1st, 2014 at 6:02 PM ^
i forgot how good the bench was on that team: rice, henderson, hughes, thompson. those guys would have made a decent starting squad by themselves; especially if they had the 3 pt line.
February 2nd, 2014 at 10:22 AM ^
Loy Vaught
February 1st, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^
Hopefully, it won't be enough.
February 1st, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^
First and foremost, thanks to mGrowOld for putting this together. It is indeed interesting to review the history of a matchup before the impending game sometimes, and I will say that this might be the most comfortable I have felt about a game in Bloomington in a while. That is to say, not very comfortable, but moreso than in previous years given the trends of both teams lately. Looking at the four factors, for example, we best them in average eFG% and turnover percentage, whereas Indiana holds the edge for offensive rebound % and free throw rate.
It would be nice to have Crean achieve this level of berserk....
February 1st, 2014 at 2:45 PM ^
Thank you. The precious few data points I actually got right the first time before helpful and friendly edit suggestion was pretty interesting I thought.
February 1st, 2014 at 2:49 PM ^
Now that's the psycho Bobby Knight we know and loathe.
February 1st, 2014 at 6:05 PM ^
how would a guy like brandstatter follow-up that question???