Game 30: Michigan at Maryland Recap

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If you’d told me at the beginning of this season this team would be 26-4 going into the season finale, I wouldn’t have believed you. Great job by JB and the staff. What a season and hopefully the fun hasn’t even truly begun yet.

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Great write up, unreal performance from Zavier.

I thought JP got away with some bad help on D today. One wide open 3 from the left wing with about 4 min left stands out in my memory where JP got stuck in no mans land but got bailed out by a big miss.

This pic preceded clutch shot by Livers. Didn’t look like anything good was coming out of this possession. All 5 M players along the sideline with the shot clock running out

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Yet, all it ever takes is just one guy messing up defensively to create a good look. Wiggins left Livers in order to double Iggy in the corner, which left Ayala to choose whether to stay with X or slide down to cover Livers. He didn’t really do either. I can’t imagine that Turgeon would have wanted a double there, with 5 on the shot clock.

Thankfully Simpson sitting didn’t cost us the game.

He averages what, 1 foul every 17 minutes?

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That was a Hugh shot by Livers, not only for this game, but also going forward. Should give him the confidence to take it and make it in big moments.

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MD perspective

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Here is recap of Brazdeikis ugly stuff. I guess those crazy Terrapin students did the same to Isaac Haas.

I know a lot of fans hate the autobench, but Simpson’s third personal came with 18:30 to go. It’s pretty reasonable to sit him there.

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Got outscored 18-11 in that stretch right?

And Simpson didn’t commit another foul after coming back in.

It isn’t just reasonable, most every coach in the country would have done the same!

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It’s not unusual to get outscored when your star PG is on the bench. But we preserved him for the stretch run.

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Do you really believe he was every in danger of potentially fouling out of that game? Not me.

Ended up with three fouls. Same as he left with.

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I wasn’t particularly fond of or impressed with Morsell for trash talking while standing over Isaiah after scoring on him. After reading his comments in this article I’m pretty impressed with him for, despite his disappointment in the loss, being very complimentary of our team and our individual players. That had to be hard for him and he was pretty classy about it.

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Since, as a former long time coach, I understand that there are sometimes “head scratching” calls made by officials that can literally take a kid out of a game, I can understand why almost every coach in America would have sat his player down in that situation. I support our future Hall of Fame Coach here.

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And, he was also well rested when he came back in… Fouls occur more often when players are tired. It’s easy to say in hindsight that he didn’t commit any more fouls.

I do think JB is a bit too hardline on the auto-bench situation, but he’s come off it a bit since the champ game loss.

For those old enough to remember him, the great Al McGuire, a Naismith Hall of Fame Coach who coached Marquette University to a National Championship used to say, “If a player picks up his second foul in the first half, you sit him. If he picks up his third foul in the second half, you sit him. If he picks up his fourth foul you just let him play.”

This game had a “March” feeling to it - both teams battled and landed body blows. But ultimately the better team was able to get the TKO with a few clutch shots late on the clock.

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A more appropriate question, just personally, is “was it a smart move to bench him for a bit?” I don’t like the auto-bench in the first half. Actually, cannot stand it, but man, I had a hard time arguing with coach taking him out at that point and trusting that the flow of the game would allow a few point-loss at that time, mind you. I cannot say it was the “right” move, but I understood it completely, given all factors. X absolutely had to be in that game for the last 8.

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