Member for

15 years 3 months
Points
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Recent Comments

Date Title Body
Maybe this is what we're

Maybe this is what we're doing wrong, we're not mormon enough. Hell, I'll be mormon for a little while if it means winning in Columbus and East Lansing.

Bronco Mendenhall

I came here to post this exact thought. He's built a very formidable program at BYU, they seem to do things in a clean manner, they play defense and they play with a little tempo on offense. The downside is that he's spent his entire career (and really most of his life) out west. 

Let's look at a quick comparison

Next year we're likely looking at a starting lineup of Walton-LeVert-Irvin-Chatman/Wilson-Donnal.

As a comparison, let's look at the 2010/2011 team. I chose this team because it was J-Mo's RS freshman season and I want to spotlight Mark Donnal. The 2010/2011 team started Darius Morris-THJ-Stu Douglass-Zack Novak-Jordan Morgan. That team went 21-14 and 9-9 and damn near beat 1 seed Duke in the second round of the tournament.

From a talent standpoint, I don't see much difference in the two backcourts. In the frontcourt, Zack Novak was a great leader and defender, but he was a 6-4 PF. Chatman and Wilson are 6-7/6-8 and are athletic and versatile. That leads us to the J-Mo/Mark Donnal comparison. J-Mo averaged 24 MPG, shot 63% from the field and averaged 9.2 ppg and 5.4 rpg that season. Mark Donnal was more highly regarded coming out of high school and is arguably more athletic and versatile than J-Mo was as a freshman. It is not unreasonable at all to think Donnal could put up better numbers than J-Mo's freshman year.

Our major issues for next year will be youth and depth. Youth can be overcome with the level of talent we have. Depth...well, depth is an issue.

I think we're looking at the 2010/2011 season as our floor for next year (the depth wasn't much better on that team than it will be next year, either). If Mark Donnal has the season I'm hoping he has and we can get solid contributions from the freshman, I'm excited about the prospects next season. We're likely not going to win the B1G (Wisconsin is stacked) but a Sweet 16 appearance is certainly possible and who knows once you get that far.

Makers Mark

Neat. My favorite on cold, late fall or winter nights.

I don't know who calls the plays for BG

But he's doing an excellent job. I find I pay attention to that more these days...

One thing that has been increasingly bothering me,

and this goes along with the tendencies point that has been beaten to death, but it feels like the coaching staff limits the skill position players to a role that becomes very predictable. AJ Williams is a great example of this. When he is in the game, he is going to be blocking. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a run play, but his job is to block. Imagine the shock and awe from the defense if we ran a throw-back TE screen to AJ Williams. Just sending him out in a route would be a start. This offensive coaching staff doesn't force the defense to defend the entire field or even every offensive skill player. This allows them to cheat to our tendencies and makes it much easier for the defenses we play. We simply do not sufficiently stress the defenses that we play. Having said this, the pass to the fullback on Saturday was a great example of using an offensive skill position player in a way he isn't usually used and it had great success (at least the first time). We need much, much more of this.

Nothing official

I just think it's fair to say that in the CMU game and the Uconn game there were instances where FGs were a foregone conclusion and the goal was keeping them out of the end zone.

I get 57 points attributable to D

I've been tracking the same and I get 57 points attributable to the D. The breakdown is 6 against CMU, 23 ND, 17 Akron and 11 Uconn. I think the difference is I'm not charging the D with FG's when the opponent takes over already in FG range. For instance after the muffed punt against Uconn the D gave up a TD but I only charged them 4 points because Uconn likely would've gotten a FG even if they had played great D simply because they started at the M 10 yard line.

Wisconsin

I have watched every Michigan basketball game for probably 10 years (even the games that were only streaming online) and I swear on all things holy I will not watch either game against Wisconsin next year. I've had all one man can handle with that team and until Bo Ryan leaves, I simply refuse to watch.

Switch OSU and Indiana

I agree very much with the majority of that list, but my personal opinion is that OSU and Indiana should be switched. OSU is going to have Scott-Craft-Thompson-Ross-Williams, (I'm assuming that Lenzelle Smith Jr. actually gets knocked out of the starting lineup and becomes their 6th man) which I think will be the best defensive team in the league and possibly the country. I think Ross can replace a lot of what they're losing in Thomas. The guy is a phenomenal scorer and Thomas was the weak link defensively, which has been the knock on Ross. On the other hand, outside of Smith coming off the bench, they're going to have a virtually non-existent bench. With regards to Indiana, I think they're really going to struggle. Even if Vonleh comes in and wins FOTY (which I do not think he will), they only have Yogi and Sheehy returning. It'll be tough to win games at Assembly Hall (as always), but they're going to struggle to get road wins. I see them going 12-6 or 11-7.

MSU will be tough as they have, in my opinion, the two best players in the league in Harris and Payne, but the rest of the team is very mediocre. They won't have great depth, they'll have average at best outside shooting and they seemed to have suspect discipline/chemistry this season. Overall, it should be a great season again and I very much like our position. I'm really excited about Walton and Irvin.

No idea

I've watched every televised Michigan basketball game for the last 20 or so years and it's very rare that I have absolutely no idea what to expect going into a game. That being said, I have absolutely no idea how this game is going to play out. I could see us winning by 20 or losing by 15. Most likely the final will be somewhere between those extremes. I'll go with Michigan 75 - Illinois 67 just to get a prediction in, but I'm not very comfortable at all.

Unfortunately, go Bucks

Indiana simply isn't good enough to dominate anyone in the top half of the B1G on the road. Also, I think OSU drops three more games (@IU, @Wisky and home against MSU) to finish 12-6 so I don't view them as a threat. We need more IU losses.

1-3-1

Coach Beilein said something about losing "1000-something" if we played the zone all game but I think that's exactly what we need in this game. Yes, we'll give up some easy baskets but the wisky offense is very mediocre and the zone will force the game into a tempo more suitable for us. If this game does not get into the 60's I don't think we win. With the zone I think we could win going away (for the record I prefer the man-to-man D but not against Wisky).

Before B1G play began...

I would've agreed with you that Indiana was a bigger threat, but now that we're about a third of the way in I see them being equal threats. Indiana has lost a home game and has road games remaining at Purdue, Illinois, OSU, MSU, Minny and Michigan. MSU has held serve at home and has road games against Wisky, Indiana, Purdue, Nebraska, OSU and Michigan. I see IU losing three of those games and MSU also losing three of those games. Assuming they both win out at home (big assumption that I don't actually believe will be true, but just for conversation sake) they're equal threats that would both finish 14-4 in the league. Either way, it's going to be quite a race to the finish line and I really think we've got the horses to get there ahead of everyone else.

MSU at Indiana

I disagree that we want MSU to win at Indiana. IU has already lost at home. We want these teams to split which is most likely if each team wins at home.

Great post

I agree with everything that you said, especially that 15-3 will get us an outright championship and 14-4 will get us a split. In my opinion, the games @Illinois and @Purdue are the most crucial games remaining. We absolutely must win both of these games. I personally think that we will hold serve at home and that we will win at least one of the games @Wisky, @MSU or @Indiana. If we can beat Purdue and Illinois on the road, I think we go 15-3 and win the championship outright.

I've looked at this from every angle...

And we want MSU to win. Tough rooting for either of these teams but I'll nod approvingly if MSU wins.

The pick and roll

Does anyone else think we'd benefit greatly from getting away from the pick and roll a little bit? It's wonderful to have in our arsenal but we become too reliant on it in the half court and the result is Trey dribbling too much with no movement from others. It was great when DMo was running it because he could throw passes over defenders. Trey doesn't have that luxury. We need more movement (how about an occasional backcut) and less reliance on the pick and roll.

Classic Trap Game

This was a classic trap game against one of the weakest teams in the B1G right before going on the road to Ohio and Minny. Don't read anymore into it than what is on the surface. Winning trap games by 15 points is another sign of where this team is headed.

Jameson neat

As I watch season 2 of the walking dead (I'm a little behind, I know)

I agree

wholeheartedly about Minny being a darkhorse. Another team to watch is Iowa. While I don't believe that they'll compete for a league championship, this is a team that has a lot of talent and seems to be moving in the right direction under Fran McCaffery. They get Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota and Illinois at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. My early prediction is that they win at least two of those games, therefore impacting the league championship race.

In my opinion...

One thing that I think us Michigan fans seem to discount is how much experience Indiana has compared to us. I think this will give them a slight edge in B1G play. My rankings:

1. Indiana

2. Michigan

3. Michigan State (not overly intimidating right now but if they find a consistent shooter from the perimeter then watch out)

4. Minnesota (Crazy athletic)

5. Ohio (They seem to have a lot of individually talented pieces that don't fit together very well)

6. Illinois (ZERO inside presence)

7. Wisconsin (Any Bo Ryan coached team will play good defense and at least be competitive)

8. Iowa

9. Northwestern 

10. Purdue

11. Nebraska

12. Penn State

 

They came out in the second

They came out in the second half with a counter which was a pass to Novak on the wing who immediately fired a pass to Morgan who had slipped to the basket when his defender left to hedge. It worked beautifully but they only did this once which surprising/confusing/frustrating.

They ran a slip screen to the

They ran a slip screen to the middle of the field from the 50 with 33 seconds left and no time outs...how is that not questionable game management?

It's an unbelievable lack of

It's an unbelievable lack of effort on the defensive end of the floor

My interpretation of his play

My interpretation of his play was that he was over-pursuing badly. I thought he should've filled the hold on the Saine TD as well as both of Pryor's decent runs. I could be wrong but he seemed out of position at crucial times.

45%

Baseline of 50%. -20% for the fact that it's a night game at Kinnick which is known for being one of the more difficult venues in the Big Ten. +10% because I really think Tate Forcier has ice-water in his veins and I now believe him when he says he doesn't get nervous. +5% because there's no way Minor/Brown will be held in the same way they were yesterday. Thus 45%

Denard Robinson is going to

Denard Robinson is going to be a tremendous player for U of M....at the slot receiver position. I do not want to jump to conclusions on this guy, but I'm going to anyway. He's going to be a slot receiver and a damn good one, but he just doesn't have the ability right not to compete with Tate.

The long TD pass was against

The long TD pass was against JT Floyd and I'm sorry but he's just not ready to play at this level...that would not have happened had Cissoko and Warren both been in the game at that time.

I am going to have to go back

I am going to have to go back and watch the game again to confirm this, but on the first watch, it seemed that D Warren was almost too quick and too good today...he was literally beating the WR's to their spot and they were falling over him, thus the penalties....there were a couple of times, though, that he needed to turn and see the ball and he didn't, but overall, I feel that he played better than his stats would indicate.

I had him as a Prof in Grad School

He went to OSU and his son went to Notre Dame, but I had a few good sports conversations with him and he once told me despite his ties to OSU/ND, he has the utmost respect for U of M. He is definitely a very fair and knowledgable person. He'll get the job done, hopefully in our favor.

2004 Michigan State

I was watching this game the other night on BTN and literally got chills. The crowd was amazing and the performance by Braylon was incredible.

Definitely

Thank you for throwing her out there cause I was losing faith in humanity as I got further down the page and still didn't see her name.

Yes, this was the first time

Yes, this was the first time that I had posted, and obviously it could have been done better. I will improve upon that in the future, but hopefully what I meant to get across was well accepted.