At the start of February, I had the Wolverines as one of four teams I thought could win a national title, but the offense was far too inconsistent down the stretch to think we’re about to see another deep run from John Beilein’s team. I think the draw is really tough with Nevada, Florida and Texas Tech all in the potential path to an Elite Eight showdown against Gonzaga, and would pick any of those three teams against the Wolverines on a neutral floor right now.
Lol, what an insane take.
Every year we are disrespected by the “experts”.
The Athletic had 16 of their staff predict the Final Four. I actually thought their predictions were friendly to Michigan. In terms of the number of people predicting the winner of the West bracket:
Gonzaga 8
Michigan 6
Florida State 1
Marquette 1
I hate that one of the guys who picked Michigan to do well went with the “Big Blue” tag. I mean, nobody calls Michigan that.
That Mike DeCourcy guy is always on BTN- I didn’t know he was a writer too. I don’t like his Nevada take, and I definitely agree with some of the others who believe they’re overrated. They are a very similar team to a year ago, and they had all this hype coming into the season because of a crazy couple of games last March.
To me it’d be like some national writer saying that Michigan is so good just because they have Poole, and Poole is so good just because he had a crazy moment last March. That makes no sense at all, and yet that is sort of the logic behind Nevada. Other than the fact that every CBB fan in America could name Caleb Martin, Cody Martin, and Jordan Caroline, how is Nevada’s 29-4 record in a bad conference reflect anything more than a 10 or 11 seed?
How can a color be “big” anyway?
“No respect” by the pundits is just the way JB likes it. X and CM say they don’t care what anyone else outside the locker room thinks. They’ll just go about their business.
Idk man I think they are pretty legit. I thought they were under seeded. That said Florida is a really solid team. I think we got the toughest 7-10 game for sure. I like the rest of the bracket though. If we can get by one of those two I like our chances.
The potential to go from Texas Tech to Florida State is exhausting just thinking about it. Major defensive battles.
I always thought that it made sense when referring to IBM, since they were so big and their branding mark is a blue eight bar.
I swear to god that the three games against MSU (which were disappointing, upsetting, hurtful) have given people Michigan dysmorphia. Being worse head to head than MSU sucks, but it also says nothing about momentum, trend, or overall danger. By any measure we’re one of the six or seven best teams in the nation. Could we lose early? Sure - it’s a single elimination tournament. It’s not like UVA was a fatally flawed team last year, but if you flip a coin enough…
This team is good, which is not to say this season hasn’t been disappointing, primarily because we came up short on two goals within our grasp. There is still basketball to be played - hopefully that turns around.
Florida could be before that, and they’re the #14 defense
Besides, U-M will beat MSU in the national semis, so all will be forgotten.
Hard to think of a more all-in way to end the year. 0-4 would be just devastating. Michigan fans have had enough misery with rivalry games lately.
But man, that 1-3 would be about as sweet of a losing record ever.
I just don’t have the energy to contemplate this yet. May have to soon.