March 21, 2013- The 4th-seeded Michigan Wolverines open the 2013 NCAA tournament in Auburn Hills with a 71-56 victory over the Summit League Champion Jackrabbits of South Dakota State. Glenn Robinson III paced the Wolverines going 8-9 from the field, and the world was introduced to Mitch McGary.
Julie Jacobson / AP
A roundup of the things that happened while king of excuses Tom Izzo ran out of them.
Julie Jacobson / AP
If ever there were a Big Ten Championship game that was tough to get up for, it was this one. As much as a matching banner and Purdue revenge were unchecked boxes on the to do list, the previous afternoon felt so good, it would be tough to feel better.
But we do.
After dodging a bullet on Thursday, Michigan manhandled three of the top four seeds of the Big Ten en route to back-to-back Big Ten tournament championships.
We have reached that point in the season where we all start to doubt John Beilein’s team. Apologies will start just a few weeks later.
— umtailgate (@umtailgate) February 7, 2018
The team you punched a wall about less than a month ago just cut down the nets at Madison Square Garden. The team you wrote off into a "maybe next year" scenario is the only team to have beaten every one of the other 13 Big Ten teams at least once. Some, like Michigan State, they beat twice. The team you questioned even as recently as this week, wondering if they could upset some of the top tier teams in the Big Ten and make a run at a banner, has dominated. And they were not upsets. Michigan was the team to beat. Michigan was the aggressor. They are the ones who knock.
Wagner was named "Most Outstanding Player" of the Big Ten tournament, but Moe insists the award belongs to his teammates. And he is most certainly correct. Jon Teske was the man on Thursday, filling in for Wagner when he got into foul trouble, and again today, when he actually had more minutes than Moe, as Coach Beilein tried to throw every option he could at Purdue's mutant Ivan Drago.
Mutant Ivan still had 23 points on 9-12 shooting. HOWEVA, Teske and Wagner combined for 31, so there's that. Zavier Simpson has gone from being benched early in the season for PG by committee to on the cusp of a Burke or a Walton (minus FT%). He became a focus of a few timely articles, and all are worth a read:
That last one is behind the paywall at The Athletic, but you should throws those folks some cash, they make a good product.
Anyway, seems like X could become that tournament guy we've been looking for, but the truth is, there are so many role players on this team that can carry them a game, a round, or even to San Antonio.
Some questions remain: Will free throws eventually bite us in the ass? Can we just practice free throws continuously until the tournament? What will be the effects of this long layoff? If we play in Detroit instead of Sparty, will they cry for a week, a month, or forever #disrespekt?
Well, we've got 11 or 12 long days to find the answers. For now, enjoy the championship, and hope that we don't cool off too much in a fortnight.
Oh, and get yourself in a bracket picking mindset, the field is released in a week (so weird that it's not tonight...friggin' Delaney) and it will be time for the 19th Annual UMTailgate.com tournament challenge.
Go Blue Forever
It's tough to beat any team 3 times. We were starting cold...Iowa played last night. Iowa shot the lights out in the first half. Mo fouled out. Rahk fouled out. We couldn't hit free throws, going 18-32 from the line. We couldn't hit a three, going 3-19 from deep. Matthews blew some bunnies. We were out-rebounded. We got in foul trouble.
And the cherry on top? Zavier had one of those 5-second calls that have to be followed by a game tying 3...and the basketball gods obliged for Iowa, sending the game to OT.
In OT, a Duncan Robinson three was the ONLY field goal made by the Wolverines in the entire 5 minutes. And despite all of these things...and it looked even worse than the sum of those things mind you...Michigan managed to win by 6.
It made no sense. A little of this, a little of that, a little Teske, a dunk by Poole. But it was not enough, except that it was. Weird. I don't know how they won, and neither do they.
So it's revenge time with Nebraska. This is not going to be easy, and despite the fact they are the 4 and we are the 5, the fact remains that we are in the dance and they are not. They need this, we do not. The only motivation Michigan has going for it is that Nebrasketball handed us our ass in Lincoln. That and the bullshit 1997 Coaches Poll.
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