I don’t have that app.
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Great game for the ladies! Very fun atmosphere! We are season ticket holders, but we live a little over two hours away and my daughter is in grade school so we can really only get to weekend games. The crowd for this one was great, although it made parking an uncharacteristic nightmare. It was appreciation day for university employees so they filled Crisler up.
We were clearly sitting next to some folks who do not follow the ladies based on their comments during the game. 
Surprising since I imagine they would have had to have been season ticket holders to be in the reserved section.
LB continues to play at such a high level. They really struggled to box out 14 for MSU as her size gave the posts fits but in the end it didn’t matter.
The girls were as fiery as I’ve seen them yesterday. Jordan Hobbs was HYPE after her first charge. LB was vocal as usual, and even Maddie got in on it. Was fun to watch.
LB is playing at such a high level. Jordan Hobbs is carving out a very nice role as of late. She has played significant minutes and was the first off the bench yesterday. That’s a nice development.
Really hope Evans is okay. She has a very high upside, but she didn’t return after limping off. She did warm up after halftime and still had her warmup on, though, so that’s a good sign.
Had to be a record for traveling calls, but almost all of them were warranted. I haven’t gone back and looked at the replay, but I do think Maddie got called for one that was not a travel on a press break. Probably the most unhappy and vocal I’ve ever seen her with a referee.
I know Michelle Sidor has been injured, but I noticed she wasn’t on the bench yesterday. Maybe she’s sick or something, but I realized that I haven’t paid close enough attention to know whether she has been on the bench recently before this. Has anyone else noticed if she has been on the bench as of late? I do miss the bench mob celebrations.
Also, do we think Izzy is going to redshirt at this point since she has been dressed for a while but hasn’t played at all yet? Or maybe still working back into game shape?
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I was going to be there yesterday too but was sick. I’m glad it was a great atmosphere, and, most importantly, Michigan got the W.
Not sure about the injuries. I think I’m going to be there for the IU game and maybe I can find something out.
It seems to me that Izzy could have 3 more years, or at least 2. She was in Brazil for almost all of the '20-21 season and hasn’t played this year. She even played sparingly last year.
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I think you’re right. She played in 19-20, missed all of 20-21, and played last year. Theoretically, she would have two years left after last year plus a COVID year if she wants it.
And, I guess, she could still have a redshirt year since 20-21 wouldn’t have counted as that. So if she redshirts this year, that would potentially still leave 3 years to play.
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Nice article in the Athletic (for those with a subscription) about the team this year post-Naz.
I had been a bit curious as to what the minutes distribution had looked like as of late and decided to do some quick Excel work today to get a visual. Obviously, Jordan Hobbs has been playing more as of late, Alyssa Crockett has played less. It felt like Chyra Evans’ numbers started to increase steadily, but that seemed like feelingsball so I just wanted to see it in data form. Put together two quick charts showing the high-major games since Thanksgiving.
Note: I broke them down into simply guard/forward based on their official position, but this definitely doesn’t take into account the nuances of positioning. For instance, Cameron Williams never plays the 4 ever when she’s on the floor, but Kiser bounces between the 4 and 5 depending on who else is on the floor. In terms of guards, Maddie really never plays anything but the 3, Laila is almost always a 2, Greta is almost always a 1, Leigha bounces between 2 and 3, etc. There wasn’t any quick, easy way to account for that, so for the purposes of this exercise they’re just “guards” and “forwards.”
You can see that the top of the rotation has been very consistent with all of them converging right around 33ish minutes currently. Interestingly enough, it’s Laila’s minutes that have dropped off the most from the top 3. You can definitely see the trend of Greta’s minutes going to Jordan Hobbs lately, especially starting with the Penn State game. That will be interesting development to watch going forward as I have been under the assumption that Greta would be the starting 1 next year.
Emily Kiser’s minutes have dropped off a bit, but she is still far and away the team leader in MPG. Cam’s have dropped slightly (with Ohio State being the aberration) while Alyssa Crockett’s minutes have taken a nosedive (not entirely surprising for a freshman). I think what most surprised me here was that Chrya’s minutes have really only slightly increased along the same path as Cam’s decrease – I expected a larger increase – while it’s really Elise Stuck who has seen the bigger increase.
What’s interesting about this graph is that it shows that there are quite a few different forward combinations being rolled out there as of late.
Maybe no one finds this interesting, but I really just wanted to see tangibly how the minutes distribution has evolved over the last month or so of high-major games (plus, ugh, Toledo).
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Seems like Hobbs’ gain is larger by a decent amount than Greta’s loss
Which makes we wonder if it’s also a bit of us being a bit smaller (Kiser down a little, Cam down a little, Evans not really up)
Good point. I wonder if some of those minutes might be Laila’s as well. You can see the slow but gradual decline starting with the Penn State game. Probably only amounts to a couple minutes, but it makes sense. Phelia is a 2 for sure and Hobbs is a 2/3 tweener, so it’s possible that there are moments when Laila gets a rest while Jordan plays the 2.
Either way, Hobbs’ increase in playing time has been pretty dramatic over the last four game and she has made some hay offensively during those minutes. Very encouraging, but it seems to have just come out of nowhere. She had only cracked 5+ minutes twice in games not against Delaware State, St. Francis, and WMU before the App State game. Her last six games have been 15:09, 3:15, 1:19, 15:24, 17:35, and 22:03.
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Getting another shooter out there probably a factor.
Also, I just realized that somehow the UNC game got cut out in the games above. Not sure how that happened. It doesn’t really change much other than tightening the minutes distribution trend between Greta and Jordan as well as Elise and Chyra slightly (both gaps were already very small).
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What we’re seeing is the value of having players around for 4-5 years, giving them time to develop. Kiser is a great example. Hobbs may be, too, if she continues to improve.
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I think the women’s ecosystem is disparate enough from men’s that there is no easy comparison at all. Women rarely leave early (the financial incentive to do so is a small fraction of what it is for men), and transfers are closer in frequency to what it was in men’s basketball pre-Covid.
The point being - it’s way easier to have players for 4 years…it’s the norm. Northwestern is the worst team in the B10 and their 5 top minutes players are 2 5th year seniors, 2 juniors, and a sophomore. Every team is “old” by comparison.
Michigan is good because their players are good. Brown was good three years ago, Phelia was a good freshman, Nolan has started since she was a sophomore, Kiser was the second player off the bench two years ago behind Naz and a senior (Akinreh Johnson).
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This Ari/Laila/Greta/Jordan four guard lineup is interesting.
There has definitely been an uptick in recruiting over the last several years as they have created some sustained success. I think I saw that all three of this year’s incoming freshman were invited to the McDonald’s All-American game.
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Alright I’m in now to watch our actually good hoops team
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Women flirting with scoring in 20 what the men got in 30 mins
Brown’s growth as a playmaker is really amazing and I have to admit I did not see it coming. She was always a bucket, but this is something else
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The scoring in the paint tonight has been 
Beautiful cut and pass Brown to Phelia
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She is just finding people everywhere.
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