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The men’s basketball ushers (Event Staff) had their preseason meeting on Tuesday night, and we got to wander around Crisler Arena afterwards. Only part of it is open to walk through; the rest is still a construction zone, with only 15 days until the first game. The part of the outer concourse we saw was gorgeous. It looks like a whole new arena. I can’t wait to see the rest of it, including the escalators and the waterfall.
Here are the photos I took.
Go Blue!
2012 University of Michigan Football Season Predictions
Drew Montag
12 August 2012
Wow, football season is right around the corner; time for my annual UM predictions. Sure, I’m the “basketball guy” at UMGoBlue.com, but I’m also a big football fan, and I’ve been going to UM games since 1974.
Once again, I did very well predicting the games last season. I got 11 of the 12 right, all except the huge (and unexpected) trouncing of Nebraska.
So, how is Michigan going to do this season? I’m thinking “pretty well”. Continuity and consistency are important, and Michigan finally has some of that. I’m expecting the offense to be a little bit better than last season, the defense to be a little worse, and the special teams to be about the same as last season.
Here are my predictions for the 2012 season:
| Date | Opponent | W/L | Record | Comments |
| 09/01 | Alabama (in Arlington TX) | Loss | 0-1 | What a tough way to start the season: on the road (at a neutral site) against the defending National Champions. UM is good, but I’m afraid ‘Bama is better. |
| 09/08 | Air Force | Win | 1-1 | I expect this to be pretty high scoring. It’s tough to stop Air Force, but they won’t be able to stop UM either. |
| 09/15 | Massachusetts | Win | 2-1 | This is the first season in FBS for UMass, and they’re joining the MAC. UM beats MAC teams, except for that one game vs. Toledo… |
| 09/22 | at Notre Dame | Win | 3-1 | The last 3 seasons, this game has come down to the last play, and UM has won all 3 of them. It should be close and exciting again. |
| 09/29 | Bye | The bye week comes very early this season. | ||
| 10/06 | at Purdue | Win | 4-1 (1-0) | Purdue will be better than they were last season, but not good enough to beat Michigan in their B1G opener. |
| 10/13 | Illinois | Win | 5-1 (2-0) | Let’s see: Illinois started last season 6-0, then lost 6 in a row, including a home game vs. UM. They have a new coach. This game is Homecoming for UM. Looks like a UM win. |
| 10/20 | Michigan State | Win | 6-1 (3-0) | Finally, after losing 4 in a row to the Farmers, UM stops the bleeding. This will be a tough, emotional game. |
| 10/27 | at Nebraska | Loss | 6-2 (3-1) | UM crushed Nebraska last season, and they’ll be looking for revenge. UM’s first B1G trip to Lincoln will be a tough one. |
| 11/03 | at Minnesota | Win | 7-2 (4-1) | Minnesota was pathetic last season, and they won’t be much better this season. Sure, it’s tough to win on the road in the Big Ten, but not in Minneapolis. |
| 11/10 | Northwestern | Win | 8-2 (5-1) | Playing Northwestern is always tricky, but UM is talented enough to hold them off. |
| 11/17 | Iowa | Win | 9-2 (6-1) | UM owes Iowa big-time, and they’re finally going to beat them. |
| 11/24 | at Ohio State | Win | 10-2 (7-1) | Yeah, OSU has a new coach (Urban Meyer), and they’ll want revenge for last season’s loss, but UM has more talent. It’s always tough to win in Columbus, but UM will pull out a thriller. |
That should be good enough for a tie for 1st place in the Legends division of the Big Ten, but not a place in the B1G Championship game. It will be good enough for a good New Year’s Day bowl game, probably another BCS game.
It’s possible that UM might beat Nebraska, but I doubt it.
It’s also possible that UM could lose to Michigan State, but I think we’re due. They could also lose the Notre Dame and Ohio State games, but that seems less likely.
Michigan has 7 games that they should win (Air Force, Massachusetts, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Iowa), and 5 that they could easily lose (Alabama, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Nebraska, and Ohio State). Of those 5 games, only the Alabama game looks hopeless, so UM could finish anywhere from 11-1 to 7-5.
The “State Of Michigan” Trophy
15 April 2012
Another academic year is in the books, and Michigan won the “State Of Michigan” Trophy again! Barring a meeting or two between the baseball or softball teams in postseason play, Michigan and Michigan State are done playing each other this academic year. The current, and probably final, score for 2011-2012 is 35-19, in favor of the Wolverines.
The score was close for most of the year, with MSU jumping out to an early 6-0 lead after the first 3 events, and Michigan finally tying it up (9-9) when they beat MSU in the championship game of the Great Lakes Invitational hockey tournament on 12/30/2011. Michigan won 4 of the next 5 events to open up a comfortable lead (17-11), but MSU won 3 in a row to tie it up (17-17) on 02/10/2012. From that point on, it was all Michigan. UM won 9 of the last 10 events, the only blemish being a 13-inning loss in baseball, to crush MSU in the final total.
A quick look at the overall summary (Season: Summary / Sport: All) shows that UM now holds a commanding 11-1 lead in the 12 years covered by the State Of Michigan Trophy. Over that period, Michigan is 186-116-18 vs. MSU, for a winning percentage of 61.6%. Michigan has a winning record in 13 of the 17 individual sports, including perfect records in 4 of them (men’s and women’s gymnastics and swimming & diving).
Get all the information on one of the most heated rivalries in all of college sports: the University of Michigan vs. Michigan State University. Not just the “marquee” sports, but all 17 men’s and women’s sports with head-to-head competition. First, some history:
Back in September 2003, Pontiac started ‘The Pontiac Challenge’, to track the head-to-head competition between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University for the whole school year. They divided the school year up into 3 sessions (Fall, Winter, and Spring), and awarded a trophy to the winner of each session, with the current winner keeping it in the case of a tie.
Not too surprisingly, UM won (or tied) every session for all 3 years that Pontiac sponsored the Challenge (2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006). Also not too surprisingly, Pontiac lost interest when the Challenge got too one-sided. So, after the 2005-2006 season, they dropped it, but I picked it up. However, I thought their setup with the 3 sessions and a goofy scoring system could be improved, so I changed it to a single session (the whole school year), with 2 points for each win, and 1 point for each tie.
From 2006-2010, I used Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track the results. I used the built-in spreadsheet-to-HTML converter in Excel to generate the Web pages, which I then had to upload to my Web site. It was clumsy, to say the least, so I wrote a PHP script, with some Javascript, to use MySQL to generate the Web pages ‘on demand’. I also entered all the old data for the seasons going back to 2000-2001, which is as far back as I can find reliable information.
May the best University win!
Results
Here are the results from last week’s games (NCAA Tournament and National Invitation Tournament):
Tuesday (03/27/2012) – NIT Semifinals – Madison Square Garden
(#6) Minnesota beat (#1) Washington, 68-67 (overtime)
Thursday (03/29/2012) – NIT Championship – Madison Square Garden
(#6) Minnesota lost to (#3) Stanford, 75-51
Saturday (03/31/2012) – NCAA Semifinals – New Orleans
(#2) Ohio State lost to (#2) Kansas, 64-62
So, the Big Ten is finally done, but they did pretty well, getting one team to the NIT Championship and another to the NCAA Tournament Final Four. They didn’t win either tournament, but they put up a good fight.
That’s it for Big Ten Report for this season. Check back in late December, a week before the 2012-2013 Big Ten season starts.
The University of Michigan men’s basketball team finished their season last week with a disappointing loss in the 1st (technically, 2nd) round of the NCAA Tournament. Still, it was a successful season, even though it ended poorly. It’s time for the end-of-season wrap-up, along with final grades, and a look ahead to next season.
Michigan ended the season with a record of 24-10 (13-5 in the Big Ten). This is on the upper end of what most of the experts predicted. UM also won a share of the Big Ten regular season title, along with Michigan State and Ohio State. That was definitely the highlight of the season. The bad news was how poorly they played in the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. They barely won their 1st game in the Big Ten Tournament vs. Minnesota, then they got blown out in their next game against Ohio State. Still, they were awarded a #4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but that didn’t stop them from losing to a #13 seed, Ohio University. It was a lousy end to a good season.
Not all wins are good wins, and not all losses are bad losses. This season, Michigan had a lot of good wins, a few bad wins, a couple good losses, and a few bad losses. Let’s look at each category:
Good wins:
Bad wins:
Good losses:
Bad losses:
Looking at the final season statistics, a few patterns jump out:
It’s time to look at the final grades. This season, I graded the players after the non-conference portion of the schedule (01/02/2012), after the first half of the Big Ten schedule (01/30/2012), and now. Here are the grades:
Freshmen
Max Bielfeldt: Incomplete (1st: Incomplete, 2nd: Incomplete)
Max was voluntarily redshirted this season.
Carlton Brundidge: C (1st: C, 2nd: C)
Carlton didn’t play much (44 minutes in 15 games = 2.9 minutes/game), which is probably why he left the team at the end of the season. No big loss. He never really did much when he was out there. He scored 6 points, 4 of them free throws.
Trey Burke: A (1st: A, 2nd: A)
Trey did everything that we hoped he would, and much more. He had a few (very few!) sub-par games, and he occasionally tried to do too much, but in general he was the most talented player on the floor in most of the games, regardless of class level. He led the team in minutes played, he was the leading scorer, and he led the team in assists, blocks, and steals. When he’s on the floor, Michigan just plays better. See below (“Looking Ahead”) for the potential bad news.
Sai Tummala: Incomplete (1st: Incomplete, 2nd: Incomplete)
Sai was voluntarily redshirted this season.
Sophomores
Colton Christian: C- (1st: C, 2nd: C-)
Colton didn’t play much (51 minutes in 19 games = 2.7 minutes/game), which is probably why he left the team at the end of the season. No big loss. He was too short to be a “big”, and not a good enough ballhandler and shooter to be a guard. He scored 7 points this season.
Tim Hardaway, Jr.: A- (1st: A, 2nd: A-)
Tim started the season with a bang, but he leveled off a little once Big Ten play started. He tended to disappear for large chunks of the game (entire 1st halves), and his shooting percentages sagged a little in Big Ten play, but he’s still an important player.
Jon Horford: Incomplete (1st: B-, 2nd: Incomplete)
Jon showed great improvement over last season, and was looking more comfortable out there, then he hurt his foot. He missed the last 25 games, and he’s going to get a medical redshirt for this season. He’ll be back next season with sophomore eligibility.
Blake McLimans: C+ (1st: C+, 2nd: C+)
With Horford out, McLimans got more minutes earlier in the game, but he didn’t do much with them. He averaged 0.8 points/game, he got surprisingly few rebounds (21, in 30 games), and looked a little lost out there sometimes.
Jordan Morgan: B+ (1st: B+, 2nd: B+)
Jordan just wasn’t as effective this season as he was last season. He showed flashes of his old self, then he disappeared again. Still, he averaged 7.3 points/game, he shot 61.9% from the floor, and he was Michigan’s leading rebounder.
Evan Smotrycz: B (1st: A, 2nd: B)
Evan had a real up-and-down season. He had several games where he was on fire, but he had just as many games where he was barely there. He was asked to play center, and he gave it a good shot, but he’s more of a shooting forward. He shot a great percentage overall (48.1%), and he had the best 3-point shooting percentage on the team (43.5%). He was the 2nd leading rebounder on the team, and the 4th leading scorer. Unfortunately, he quit the team after the season. He will be missed.
Juniors
Eso Akunne: C- (1st: C, 2nd: C)
Eso didn’t play much (12 games, 48 minutes), and he didn’t score much (20 points), but he shot well (7-for-8 = 87.5% overall, 4-for-5 = 80.0% from 3-point range). Unfortunately, he broke a bone in his foot during the game at Purdue on 01/24/2012, and he missed the rest of the season.
Josh Bartelstein: Incomplete (1st: Incomplete, 2nd: Incomplete)
Josh only played in “mop up” action this season (11 games, 14 minutes), but he did manage to hit a 3-pointer in the Ohio State game in the Big Ten Tournament. He also writes a very interesting and informative blog on MGoBlue.com.
Matt Vogrich: C (1st: C, 2nd: C)
Matt came off the bench in every game this season, and he did OK, but not great. He hit double figures once (Arkansas-Pine Bluff), but he also had several scoreless games. He shot pretty well overall (38.2%), and he shot OK from 3-point range (30.2%).
Seniors
Stu Douglass: B (1st: B, 2nd: B)
For the first half of the season Stu was the “6th man”, but he replaced Smotrycz in the starting lineup starting with the home Michigan State game. He scored 7.5 pts/game, which is pretty good, and his shooting percentages were decent (40.6% and 33.8%). He did a pretty good job running the point when he spelled Burke, and he helped settle things down when the team got a little crazy. Most importantly, he provided senior leadership.
Zack Novak: A- (1st: A-, 2nd: A-)
After getting to play his natural position (shooting guard) in the “preseason”, Zack had to move back to playing “over his head” at small forward in several Big Ten games. Once again, he had to play out of position, guarding players 4-6 inches taller and 30-50 pounds heavier, and he held his own. Unfortunately, he kind of faded in the last few games, but that doesn’t diminish all he did for the program over the last 4 years. He is a fierce competitor, and a true leader.
Corey Person: Incomplete (1st: Incomplete, 2nd: Incomplete)
Even though he has junior eligibility, Corey was honored during the Senior Night festivities, so I guess that means he’s out of here. He’s another player who only played in “garbage time” (10 games, 11 minutes), but he came on strong in 2 of his final 3 games, when he scored 4 points in the home Purdue game, then 7 points in the Big Ten Tournament game vs. Ohio State.
Looking Ahead
Even though the season ended with a whimper instead of a bang, things were looking very promising for next season, with most of the key players returning from this season’s team, and a very impressive recruiting class set to come in. Then the bad news hit, all on the same day: first, the three players mentioned above (Carlton Brundidge, Colton Christian, and Evan Smotrycz) all decided to leave the team at the same time, then the best player on the team (Trey Burke) announced that he was examining his NBA draft options. None of this is good news, but it might still work out OK. Losing Smotrycz is a blow, but the incoming recruits should soften that blow somewhat. The other two players (Brundidge and Christian) didn’t play much, and they won’t be missed. The big question mark is Burke. If he decides to leave, Michigan will be in bad shape, with no one on the roster to take his place. Coach Beilein will be working hard to find a good point guard for next season, either to replace Burke if he leaves, or to back him up.
Of course, Michigan is losing 3 players to graduation: Douglass, Novak, and Person. Person didn’t play much, so losing him won’t have much impact, but Douglass and Novak have both been key contributors for 4 years. They will be missed.
The rest of the news is good. A solid nucleus of returning players will be joined by 3 very promising incoming freshmen:
Mitch McGary – 6’10”, 250 pounds, Center. Mitch is the center that Michigan has needed for the last 10 years. He’s tall, he’s big, he’s strong, and he’s a pretty good all-around player.
Glenn Robinson III – 6’6”, 192 pounds, Forward. Glenn (“Trey”) is very athletic, and a great scorer.
Nik Stauskas – 6’6”, 205 pounds, Forward. Nik could be the elusive “great 3-point shooter” that the Beilein system needs.
Well, that’s all for this season. Have a good summer, and be sure to check back here the week before the first game next season to get caught up on the 2012-2013 team.
Go Blue!