Game is Tuesday night at 9 p.m. eastern.
We better come ready to battle on the boards. Let’s hope we break out of our shooting slump.
My macro view of this game is what happens between these two points:
- Can Michigan step up and do enough on the boards?
- Will Texas hit their threes at a better clip than they’re averaging?
Texas is really bad at hitting threes, so if Michigan can take away their easier buckets, they’ll be right there in the end. However, as it seems with the Michigan opponent 3 pt luck, other teams seem to be uncharacteristically hot most games.
EDIT: Texas may be without their top three point shooter (Jones) due to injury.
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Looking forward to the game preview. I’m wondering if Shaka has the team playing pressure defense more often than he could get them to last year.
Yep, just what I was going to say RE the SG Jones. Right wrist injury. Don’t know if he’ll play, but I’m guessing so. IF he plays will he be effective? Big question. I hope it’s not one of those, “injured guy plays best game of the year” scenarios!
Yeah, keep 'em off the boards (they’ve been good but not great there) and keep Osetkowski from going too crazy are the keys defensively.
Offensively, need Mo to step up. Bamba is proving to be the defensive presence inside predicted. But will he follow Mo to the perimeter? If he does, maybe we can get a couple fouls on him too. Still have to go to the rim, but probably will have to make a few of those open jumpers we’ve been missing. Doesn’t seem like they’ve been pressing so much but we have to be ready to take advantage when they do.
Jones is out
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I’ll have more in the preview tomorrow, but that is a significant loss.
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That is HUGE now that he’s confirmed out.
I wonder if they brush off the zone a bit more tomorrow night. If anything, it can be used to hide a Moe or Matthews if they get into foul trouble. It won’t help with rebounding but Texas is now pretty limited with shooting.
Empty arena without their best guard/only 3 point shooter?
This might be very winnable…
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Maybe Quinn means they have sold 3,000?
3000 unsold seats is a loooot. Even Michigan’s poor attendance usually isn’t at that level. Those 3000 seats are 100% guaranteed to be empty, before you even take into account people just choosing to not go who don’t resell their tickets (for example: what Michigan’s lower bowl section often looks like despite 100% of those seats being sold out).
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the key to the game tomorrow, Duncan Robinson. we need his 3’s to start dropping. or if Livers could finally have a breakout offensive game.
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The students are out of class and exams don’t start until Thursday, so I’d expect a fairly big, rowdy student section at least. Still, could be a big opportunity for a win. Nobody will remember in March what the crowd was like or care much that Jones was out.
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Michigan opens as a 6 point underdog. A little surprised with Jones out. I thought that’d be the opening line with him playing.
Hope Eric Davis doesn’t seize the opportunity to have a big game effort.
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KenPom Line is Texas -5. Although if you removed preseason projections, that line would be a little bit bigger (Texas has moved up about 10 spots since preseason and Michigan has moved down 7).
That seems about right if Jones was playing. I figure the Vegas line will settle into the -4 or -4.5 range. (Moot point but always curious to see the lines before games.)
I’m still missing something. Thirteen of 16,000 sold sounds decent to me.
yeah, that’s 1,000 more than we’ve sold for any game this year, and I’m sure there will be people who buy them at the gate.
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