Not to mention Davison is now playing with a shoulder brace after “dislocating/separating” it twice this season. He played a ton but they don’t have a ton of guard depth, so he will play more. Wisconsin played two walk-ons today over several scholarship guys as well.
They look lost and disinterested. They are dealing with having some expectations and isn’t going well. I think the biggest thing with Minnesota is that they don’t have a knockdown shooter. They have a bunch of guys that are in the low 30’s% from 3, and things are getting congested.
Are we still talking about Minny? They have 4 moderate to high volume shooters at above 40% from deep. Isaiah Washington is almost unfathomably bad for his volume, but they’re still an above average shooting team.
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Big win for Michigan tonight at Texas. Feels like UM needed to go 9-3 out of conference (D1 opp) and 11-7 in conference plus a 1-1 B1G Tourney mark to get on the correct side of the NCAA bubble.
With the win tonight 10-2 out of conference should be anticipated — which, with a win this weekend over Detroit, would also mean 3 wins away from home in non-conference play.
11-7 still seems reasonable for the B1G schedule, leaning more to possibly 12-6. 8-1 at home in B1G and find 3 or 4 road wins? The game at OhioSt was there for the taking, but I still think there are 4-5-6 “winnable” road games remaining or shock the country at MSU or at Purdue?
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Quite a cluster now at 3 through 7 with kenpom’s efficiency margins and rankings:
Team AdjEM
Michigan St. 27.58 2
Purdue 23.96 8
Ohio St. 13.86 48
Michigan 16.48 36
Maryland 16.31 38
Penn St. 15.64 40
Minnesota 15.32 41
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The B1G’s massive 2nd tier behind MSU and Purdue seems prime for a bunch of randomness and coin-flips. 12-6 and 11-7 seems like it would require quite a bit of luck. Maybe OSU is better than we thought, and there’s definitely some degree of fluke-y-ness to just how poorly we shot in the 2nd half; but you have to steal those 3-4 away games AND avoid adverse randomness at home for 8 more games.; while we have already lost a road game to what is probably a bottom half B1G team(?).
I guess Im just saying I’’’ let myself dream that big when we control/dominate/boss a few more B1G games. Sure seems like our talent (and coaching) is top 1/3 of the conference. If our shooting progresses toward the mean, then we may really be in business. Pretty remarkable to win the Texas and UCLA games with such poor shooting.
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For better (strength of schedule) or worse (conference record), we have almost no double plays against the bottom of the B10 this year (Nebraska, Rutgers, Illinois). It’s kind of too bad we avoid Nebraska because they’re down in kenpom but pretty high in RPI. We also avoid MSU at home – bad for the lack of a chance at a signature win, but good I guess for conference record.
11-7 doesn’t seem like it would take a lot of luck. According to barttovik, we are favored in 11 of the Big Ten games right now, although the projected record is 10-8.
Another way to think about it - our double plays are MD, OSU, Northwestern, PU, and Iowa (we already lost at home to OSU). Sweep Iowa and split the rest and that’s 6-4. (PU is favored against us at home, though we are favored against Northwestern on the road).
Our other home games are Minny, Rutgers, and Illinois (we already beat IU). Minny is the only game in there that seems hard and that’s a big one. We have a decent shot of going 4-0.
Our other away games: Nebraska, Wiscy, PSU, MSU. MSU is a likely loss, but winning one of the others seems likely. (We are actually favored at both Wiscy and Nebraska). 1-3.
That’s 11-7. Sure, there are lots of “coin-flip” games, but we’re as likely to win all those as lose them. 13 wins is pretty much as likely as 9 wins. 11 conference wins seems like a solid baseline in a lot of ways.
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Im definitely a fan of how you just laid it out, and it seems entirely reasonable and logical. I think I just still have a lid on my optimissim, because:
Winning on the road, even against inferior teams, is really hard: OSU this year, Illinois last year, Rutgers even gave us a scare, last year. And it only takes an off night to lose a game at home: Maryland last year, OSU last year, almost PSU last year. Before all of those games, when previewing them, it was easy to see us winning them all.
I think shooting is the biggest reason to be optimistic and/or pessimistic. If we start shooting as well as we expected to be shooting, and combine that with our surprisingly adequate defense and rebounding, then you’re looking at a team with enough strengths to win all of the games it should win, even if you have a bad night in one of those departments. But, if the shooting stays well-below average, then every game is a lot more dangerous.
Edit: I realize a lot of my above examples are from the pre-Dwalt-becomes-a-fire-breathing-wizard era. But I also dont think this year’s squad will be/could be as good as last year’s end-of-season form, where Dwalt was a top 10-15 player in the country and we were probably a top 10-15 team.
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somebody post a gif/clip of the ending of the Wisconsin v WKU ending as soon as it’s available, please please please. This is amazing and horrifying and terrible all at once. So Wisconsin.
One other quick point – JB has won at least 10 Big Ten games 5 out of the last 6 years, and the B10 is down this year. Of course, this doesn’t seem like it’s JB’s best Michigan squad either. And I hear you – road games and especially road conference games are hardly ever easy.
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Here it is! So bush league. But…a win’s a win?
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Can a “charge” be called on a defensive player? I think the ref might have just signaled a “block” because the foul was on the defense, and it wasn’t a reversal of the call. Not sure though. Anyway, that whole play is kind of lame but it’s in the rules and, really, is it so silly for the offense to give the inbounder a good look?
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I have seen this play out in other end of game situations and no foul was called. I think refs need to call the game the same from start to finish. If this is a foul in the early minutes then it is a foul in the final seconds.
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For what it’s worth (not much), bracketology currently has 5 Big Ten teams in: (1) MSU, (3) PU, (8) Minny, (9) UM, and (11-last four in) MD.
I just think it’s such a “bush” play. Central Michigan used this same play decades ago to win a game in the same situation, same play. I wasn’t a Central fan so I was pretty disgusted with it, but Central fans thought their coach was a genius to do this. In my opinion, it’s just a “no call” and clearly the Wisconsin player was falling back even before contact was made. OK, maybe he HAD made minimal contact, but really, given the circumstances, I think it probably should have been a no call, but then, I’ve never really been a fan of officials. I know, I know, as I always told my players, if it weren’t for the officials we couldn’t even play the game! Bang, Bang play, official makes the call. I feel bad for a WKU team that beat Wiscy only to have it taken away, not by a GREAT play, but by a “trick” play and an official. If Wiscy had thrown the ball the length of the floor (ala NW) and scored on terrific execution of a great offensive basketball play, well, OK, but not this.
Wasn’t it a tie game before that play?
Don’t know, maybe it was. That would negate my statement about having the game stolen, or whatever I said. Still don’t like the play. I will say this, if it WAS tied, it was a stupid play by Wisconsin because you’d think taking their chances in OT at HOME would be far preferable to possibly having the foul called on the Wisconsin player, which, unless he was completely set in legal screening position, it would have been, and perhaps still should have been.
Do refs call defensive fouls when someone goes through a screen hard in normal game time?