Posted on

Nothing But ‘Net – Week #09 – 12/24/2012 – Three Down, One To Go

The (#2) University of Michigan men’s basketball team only played one game last week, and they won it handily. On Thursday (12/20/2012), they beat Eastern Michigan 93-54 in Crisler Arena. The win raises UM’s record to 12-0, which is their second best start to a season ever.

So, what does “three down, one to go” mean? It means that for the first time in a long time, Michigan is playing all four of the in-state “directional” schools: Northern Michigan (exhibition – 11/01/2012), Western Michigan (12/04/2012), Eastern Michigan (12/20/2012), and Central Michigan (12/29/2012). They’ve won three of these games, with one left to play. They should win that one as well.

While Michigan has to take every opponent seriously, not all opponents are created equal. EMU doesn’t have the personnel to challenge an elite team like Michigan, but strange things can happen when the game starts. So far, Michigan has played well enough every game to avoid any upsets, and they have played like a Top-5 team against many of the “cupcakes” on their schedule. This game was another example of that. EMU has a decent MAC team, and they did beat Purdue earlier this season, but they don’t have the firepower to stay with Michigan. Eastern opened up an early 6-2 lead, then UM went on a 20-0 run to put the game away before the 12:00 media timeout. The rest of the game was just a controlled scrimmage.

The stats are impressive: UM shot 50.7% (35-for-69) overall, 50.0% (12-for-24) from 3-point range, and 91.7% (11-for-12) from the free-throw line. They crushed EMU on the boards (44-30), and they won the turnover battle (11-18). Those are the numbers you expect to see in a 39-point blowout.

Individually, 5 players hit double figures:

That’s 4 of the 5 starters, and one bench player (McGary). The lone starter who didn’t hit double figures was Jordan Morgan, with 8 points.

Since the game was a blowout, Coach Beilein emptied the bench:

This Week

With finals and the holidays, Michigan has nine days off between games, and only has one game again this week. On Saturday (12/29/2012, 7:00 p.m., BTN), Michigan plays Central Michigan, in Crisler Arena. This is UM’s last non-conference game, and they stand a good chance of being one of the few Michigan men’s basketball teams to go undefeated in non-conference play. CMU is about the same as EMU. Their current record is 6-5, with no impressive wins, and losses to Bradley (who Michigan beat) and two Big Ten schools (Iowa and Nebraska). Once again, I expect this game to be a lot like the WMU and EMU games: tense for a while, then a blowout win for Michigan.

Check back next week to see what happened, and why. Also, it will be time for mid-term grades and a look ahead at the Big Ten season.

Go Blue! (and Merry Christmas)

Posted on

Preferred Seat Donation Letter from David Brandon (First Draft)

After a few glasses of Cristal (compliments of adidas), Michigan Athletic David Brandon put down his thoughts on the preferred seat donation program…

Dear Bryan,

Hey buddy!  How are things in your neck of the woods?  Well, I have to say things are pretty swell here!  I mean, apart from that 8-4 football season (who would have known that all those away games would have been so darn difficult) and the hockey team taking a dive.  But hey, have you SEEN that basketball team?  WOW!

psd_adYou and all of your other fellow pals in the end zones are great people.  Really you are!  You’re loud, wild, crazy, and you throw some really cool tailgate parties.  I know they’re not as fancy as the ones in the Crisler parking lot, but a hot dog is a hot dog, and you guys know how to cook them just how I like them.  The problem is that I’ve made a lot of promises lately. Crazy promises. We’ve got about 600 or something other sports programs (I forget them all – I can’t remember everything), and face it, this one and basketball are the only ones that are paying the university’s bills right now.  I know in 2004 that the message was sent that you wouldn’t have to pay anything for a seat donation where you sit.  Sure, we’ve tripled our revenue from bowl games proceeds and we’re rolling in cash from that Big Ten Network revenue and all of these luxury boxes.  I also know that your ticket stub for the MSU game this year at $95 is a little different then that stub you may have saved from the 1995 MSU game that read $35….but our new tickets are really shiny now!

Basically, we’re strapped.  I’m counting on you pal!  And don’t think you’re alone.  We made sure to stick it to those rich folks that sit everywhere else (yeah, those jerks).  We have to get some money, and fast! We just got a deal that we couldn’t pass up.  We met this guy at a Legitimate Businessmen’s Social Club meeting and he told us that if we build 10 buildings with his company, he’ll throw the 11th and 12th structures in for free!  How can you pass that up?  Plus, with the price of gas so high and my recent addiction to candy cigarettes, $800,000 a year is just not going to cut it as a salary.

Anyway, we need to get this done quickly and it costs a lot of money.  We figured an extra $10 million a year in perpetuity should just about cover it.  And the good news is, we aren’t raising ticket prices this year.  Not one cent!!  I know you were expecting it, but I’m just that kind of guy. It’s just like a tax cut!  We accept cash, check or Diner’s Club cards only.  Make sure you get this in quickly, or we’re going to give your tickets to some random Ohio State fan….and we really don’t want that happening.  Could you live with the fact that YOU let that happen?

Anyway, we’ll be expecting your $75 soon.  The heated yellow brick road in front of Crisler has already broken ground and I had to front my 11th Bentley as collateral.  Those builders are relentless!

Maybe I’ll see you some Saturday…..

Dave

P.S. I’ve enclosed a picture showing how dire the situation is here at the Athletic Department. Send help quick!

scrooge-mcduck

Special Thanks to Bryan Smitt for passing this along!

Posted on

Nothing But ‘Net – Week #08 – 12/17/2012 – The Kings Of New York City

The (#2) University of Michigan men’s basketball team played two games last week, and they won both of them. On Tuesday (12/11/2012), they beat Binghamton 67-39 in Crisler Arena, then on Saturday (12/15/2012), they beat West Virginia 81-66 in the Barclays Center, in New York City, which is the new home of the Brooklyn Nets (formerly the New Jersey Nets) of the NBA. The two wins raise UM’s record to 11-0.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen that Michigan’s ranking has slowly but steadily moved up all season. They started the year ranked #5, and as teams ahead of them have lost, they’ve moved up to #4 and #3, and this week to #2. All season long, Indiana has been ranked #1, and for several weeks now, Duke has been #2, with UM at #3. Well, Indiana lost to Butler in overtime on Saturday, so Duke moved up to #1, and Michigan is now #2. This is the highest ranking that Michigan has had in a long time, and the 11-0 start is the best start UM has had since that magical season (1988-1989) when they won the National Championship. These are exciting times.

So, why are the Wolverines “the Kings of New York City”? Well, over Thanksgiving weekend they won the NIT Season Tip-Off tournament in Madison Square Garden, and this weekend they won their game in the Brooklyn Hoops Winter Festival in Brooklyn. They’re doing pretty well in NYC.

The Binghamton game was just a joke. It was more like a controlled scrimmage. Binghamton stood no chance, and the only interesting aspect was seeing how sharp (or not) Michigan would look against an overmatched opponent. The answer: meh. They took care of business, but didn’t look fabulous. The WVU game was a much better test. Even though West Virginia doesn’t have a very good record this season (now 4-5), they were scrappy and relentless, and they gave Michigan a good run for their money. Even though the final margin of victory (15 points) looks pretty convincing, WVU made the game interesting a couple times in both halves. Michigan had to play hard and well to beat them.

Stats time! First, the Binghamton scrimmage: Michigan didn’t shoot particularly well overall (27-for-61 = 44.3%), and they didn’t very well from 3-point range (10-for-30 = 33.3%). They didn’t get to the free-throw line much, and they didn’t shoot very well when they got there (3-for-5 = 60.0%). They did win the rebounding battle (39-28) and the turnover battle (7-16). They won the game with all those extra possessions.

The stats for the WVU game are a little better: Michigan shot better overall (26-for-50 = 56.0%), and OK from 3-point range (7-for-21 = 33.3%). There were a lot of fouls in the game, and WVU shot a sizzling 83.3% (20-for-24) from the free-throw line, but UM didn’t do quite as well (18-for-27 = 66.7%). Michigan did win the rebounding battle (32-29), but they lost the turnover battle (14-13). They won the game because they held WVU to 38.5% (20-for-52) overall shooting.

Individually, two players hit double figures in both games:

  • Trey Burke (19 vs. Binghamton and 27 vs. WVU). Trey has hit double figures in every game this season. He’s averaging 18.0 points/game.
  • Nik Stauskas (12 and 10). Nik has hit double figures in every game this season except the opener (Slippery Rock). He’s averaging 13.2 points/game.

One other player came close to double figures in both games:

  • Tim Hardaway Jr. (9 and 25). Tim did a lot better shooting from 3-point range this week: 2-for-9 and 4-for-8.

The other two starters did OK this week:

Besides the starters (and McGary), the bench chipped in a little scoring:

A few other bench players played in at least one game last week, but didn’t score:

Josh Bartelstein is still out due to his ankle surgery, and Max Bielfeldt missed both games due to an ankle sprain. Bielfeldt is just about ready to return to action.

This Week

Michigan only has one game this week. On Thursday (12/20/2012, 8:30 p.m., BTN), Michigan plays Eastern Michigan, in Crisler Arena. EMU is currently 6-3 on the season, but their only impressive win is over Purdue. I expect this game to be a lot like the Western Michigan game a few weeks ago: tense for a while, then a blowout win for Michigan.

Check back next week to see what happened, and why.

Go Blue!

Posted on

An SEC Fan’s Impression of the Big House- Nice People but Wearing Red Might Have Been a Bad Choice

We flew into Detroit on Thursday and drove to East Lansing to tour the MSU campus (got to watch the hockey team practice in Munn Arena) before returning to Brighton where we stayed for the long weekend.

We spent Friday in Ann Arbor, mostly on the Michigan campus. Main Street in Ann Arbor is very much like Broad Street in Athens. We were really impressed with the Michigan campus. Of all the campuses we have visited, I would say Cal-Berkeley comes about as close as matching the UM campus as any we have seen.

Had lunch at the University Club, climbed to the top of the Tower, and watched the Michigan intrasquad baseball game before attending the hockey match at Yost Friday night. This was one of the highlights of visit. Yost Ice Arena reminds me so much of the Palestra in Philadelphia and somewhat of Cameron Inddoor Stadium at Duke. The students and pep band were a hoot! Every bit as entertaining as the Wisconsin students at their hockey matches. Several of the students came over to our seats (we were in the area behind the goal nearest the student section) between periods when they saw our UGA coats and were probably the nicest of so many nice people we met during our trip.

On Saturday we parked on the golf course and walked to the practice field to watch the Michigan band rehearse. Might have made one mistake on Saturday. We both wore our UGA coats and sweaters and several Michigan fans mistook the red for OSU – got cursed out a couple of times but most people were very nice and very curious as to why we were so far north of UGA on gameday.

Went back to the car and a number of people asked us to join them in tailgating on the golf course. Lots of good conversation and friendly people.

Went into the stadium early so that we could walk the perimenter. Really impressed with the architectual features of the original structure. Took our seats among friendly UM folks (and a few MSU fans as well). Both bands played the other school’s fight song. That’s pretty unique. Cannot imagine that happening at an SEC game. As a matter of fact, many SEC bands deliberately play right through the Alma Mater of the other school. The atmosphere at this game was so much more friendly than at SEC games. There are places like LSU and Alabama where, if we win, we don’t leave their ball yards for a long time after the game because of the venom spewed. At our ball yard, when the PA announcer gives scores of other games, he never includes Georgia Tech, Auburn or Florida unless they are losing! The opposing team at Sanford Stadium enters the field through a tunnel next to the student section. It’s not a pretty sight for the opposing team. It was hard to realize that there were about 20,000 more people in Michigan Stadium than our sold out Sanford Stadium could hold. Great game with real defense played. I wonder when was the last time Michigan defeated MSU without scoring a tourchdown.

Quite a weekend. No doubt we chose right this year. I would love to return for weekend when the basketball and hockey team are both playing at home. Next year we have decided to go to either the Texas-Oklahoma game in the Cotton Bowl or a home game at Notre Dame. Maybe the Washington-Washington State game in Pullman.

Posted on

Nothing But ‘Net – Week #07 – 12/10/2012 – 4 Minutes Of Mild Discomfort, And WMU Too

The (#3) University of Michigan men’s basketball team played two games last week in Crisler Arena, and they won both of them. On Tuesday (12/04/2012), they beat Western Michigan 73-41, then on Saturday (12/08/2012), they beat Arkansas 80-67. The two wins raise UM’s record to 9-0. The Arkansas win also represented win #100 at Michigan for Coach Beilein.

So, what does “4 Minutes Of Mild Discomfort” mean? Well, Arkansas plays an aggressive style of basketball, with a nasty full-court press, that they call “40 Minutes Of Hell”. Last season, when Michigan played in Fayetteville, Arkansas hit their first 11 shots and sprinted out to a big early lead. UM played from behind the whole game, and almost won it at the buzzer, but the Arkansas press really flustered Michigan for most of the game. This time around, Michigan controlled the tempo of the game, and didn’t let the Arkansas press bother them. They broke the press consistently, and Arkansas decided not to run it much. My guess is that they ran it for a total of 4 minutes during the 40 minute game, and got maybe 2 turnovers out of it. So, it was more like “4 Minutes Of Mild Discomfort And 36 Minutes Of ‘Press? What Press?'”. It was a great revenge win over a pretty good team.

It wasn’t brought up much, but the game against WMU was also a revenge game. It turns out that Western had won the last two games in the series, back in 2001-2002 and 2002-2003. This season’s WMU team was pretty good, with a 6-1 record coming in, and for the first 12 minutes, it was a tight game, with Michigan up 20-15. Then UM went on a nice 15-6 run to end the half, up 35-21. Michigan pushed the lead up to 20 early in the 2nd half, and kept it around there or better for the rest of the game.

So, these were both good wins over pretty good teams, and Michigan looked good winning them. People were starting to get worried after the weak endings in the NC State and Bradley games, but Michigan played well down the stretch in both of these games.

Let’s look at the stats, first for the WMU game: Michigan shot pretty well overall (29-for-58 = 50.0%), but not as well as usual from 3-point range (8-for-21 = 38.1%). They didn’t get to the free-throw line much, and didn’t shoot particularly well there (7-for-11 = 63.6%). They did win the rebounding battle (35-31) and the turnover battle (10-18). The biggest factor was defense, since they held WMU to 28.9% shooting (13-for-45).

The stats for the Arkansas game are pretty similar: UM shot pretty well overall (29-for-62 = 46.8%), decent from 3-point land (7-for-18 = 38.9%), and much better from the free-throw line (15-for-18 = 83.3%). They won the game on the boards, where they dominated (42-26), including an amazing 18 offensive rebounds. They did lose the turnover battle (12-11), but that’s not bad considering the “40 Minutes Of Hell” thing.

Individually, two players hit double figures in both games:

  • Trey Burke (20 vs. WMU and 16 vs. Arkansas).
  • Nik Stauskas (11 and 21). Nik finally had an “off” game shooting 3-pointers vs. Arkansas, going “only” 2-for-5. For the season, he’s now 23-for-38 (60.5%), which is still very good.

Four other players came close to double figures in both games:

 

If you paid attention there, you noticed that all five starters hit double figures in the Arkansas game, which is great scoring balance.

Besides the starters (and McGary), the bench chipped in a little scoring:

A few other bench players played in at least one game last week, but didn’t score:

Josh Bartelstein is still out due to his ankle surgery, and Max Bielfeldt missed both games due to an ankle sprain. Bielfeldt won’t require surgery, and he should be back in action soon.

This Week

Michigan has two games this week, one at home and one on the road. On Tuesday (12/11/2012, 7:00 p.m., BTN), Michigan plays Binghamton, then on Saturday (12/15/2012, 8:00 p.m., ESPN), they play West Virginia, in Brooklyn (NY) in the Barclays Center, which is the new home of the Brooklyn Nets (formerly the New Jersey Nets) of the NBA. This game is part of a tripleheader of college games called the Brooklyn Hoops Winter Festival. Since Coach Beilein came to Michigan from West Virginia, this game has added significance.

Binghamton is pure “cupcake”, and I expect Michigan to crush them. West Virginia is currently 4-3, with only one impressive win (68-67 over Virginia Tech). Due to the fanfare of the event in an NBA arena, and the history surrounding Coach Beilein, I expect the WVU game to be close and hard-fought, but I expect Michigan to win in the end.

Check back next week to see what happened, and why.

Go Blue!