So ya, that same bracket from yesterday also had Michigan Agricultrual College winning it all and West Virginia in the Final Four. Might not be another "That One Bracket" for a while. Only dude having a worse day than my man Vik is Denzel and Mr. March.
The Wolverines with Caris LeVert started the season by losing every game of note. Their marquee win was in a Big 12 tussle with the Longhorns, who were bad, turned out to be good, then ended up on the business end of a vine loop of sadness last night, minutes after our boys boarded the bus for LaGuardia. Michigan's early marquee losses were severe: 16-points, 14-points, 24(!) points, all but assuring that it would be a struggle to muscle their way into the field of 64 with the Big Ten slate looming.
In mid-December, Spike would shut it down, a blow to leadership and depth. And from a motivational perspective, Michigan would not find an man so inspired until Mo came out of nowhere in the postseason. But I digress... four straight cupcake games built some confidence, enough to pull out an elusive road Big Ten win against the Illini to close out the calendar year. Unfortunately, what we didn't know then that we know now is that December 30th would effectively be Caris LeVert's final game as a Wolverine. And it would have been really nice to know then, because removing the fact that we were effectively Indiana without Yogi or Michigan Agricultural College without Denzel, I feel that the uncertainty of the if/when return of LeVert messed with the team just as much, and messed with John Beilein.
It isn't easy man. Choosing to move on from a team leading 17PPG, from the only guy that had any inkling of driving the ball to the hoop to open up our perimeter game, is a tough one. And nobody on the team seemed to want to take that role, or any other role for that matter. Meanwhile, Michigan's big men devolved. The air had been let out of the balloon. Smoked on the road in West Lafayette (17 points) and in Iowa City (11 points) at home by Sparty (16 points) and Indiana (13 points). They would lose 6 of 8 going into the home finale against Iowa, just four days after the official announcement that Caris would be out for the remainder of the season. What was thought of nationally as a win-and-in game for the Wolverines became an embarassment. Despite a flurry of threes pulling them within five with 5 minutes to go, it was all Iowa on limping Senior Night at Crisler.
I don't believe that you can play your way into the NCAA tournament with wins in your conference tournament. So yes, I believe we were already sharpied into the bracket in the NCAA war room without the narrow win against Northwestern and the miracle against Indiana. What was important about those Big Ten Tournament victories though, was that the team finally seemed to get together. Chatman's buzzer beater was glue. The arrival of Mo Wagner was a huge spark. Wagner, after 12 total minutes of PT in the month of February, played 16 minutes against the Big Ten outright regular season champ, and dominated.
We didn't quite muster up enough to get by Purdue and meet little brother in the finals, but I think we might have if Mo got more minutes. I'm told by the experts that he limits our offense when he's in, to which I reply "Have you seen our offense?" Dude seems to be able to pick and roll with purpose and dunk better than our other options.
So ya, you know the rest. Long bracket show saved by a leak. Michigan is in, but not really in. Played an ugly game against Tulsa to make "the actual tournament." Played an amazing first half against ND before bowing out in the second. Oh, and again it was because we needed more Wagner IMHO.
It will be a season of "what could've been" for a little while before we start looking ahead to "what could be." This team with Caris, developing together throughout a whole season might have been something really special. This team without Caris, and KNOWING they were without Caris, developing together throughout a whole season might have been something really special too. In this year's college basketball landscape, they could have easily made some serious noise.
Next
However, there was never going to be a Caris here next year. So now that it's over, we can be optomistic that we got a head start on the journey without him. The market of Michigan Basketball fan satisfaction was a volatile one this season, here's to hoping we get some happy stability in the near future.
Oh and the Denzel Valentine guaranteed National Champions lost in the biggest upset in the history of college basketball.
Go Blue.
Friday, March 18, 2016
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Today's edition of our particpant shaming tradition "That One Bracket" is really not so bad by round one, day one bracket standards. I can't remember a year where someone didn't lose a Final Four team on the first day, hell, usually in the first session of the first day. But that did not happen to our field of 83 prognosticators. Well done. However, we did have someone that had Purdue, Baylor, AND Arizona in their Elite 8, and that stings a little bit.
So raise a glass to Vik, because while today his bracket makes you feel good about yours, tomorrow, it could be you (or me).
Standings
Congrats to Tuba, Ryan Oneill, and Nick James on leading the pack with 15/16 yesterday. No doubt in my mind your success will be fleeting, so enjoy it until about 12:18PM EST.
Hey, how about that game last night huh?
Brutal to watch. When we aren't hitting from behind the arc, poor basketball seems to ensue. We haven't been hitting lately. And when the other team is Tulsa, you get a shitshow. Couple of quick thoughts from said shitshow:
1) I see no reason to put in Doyle for the rest of the tournament, which is looking more likely to be just one more game
2) Mo should start, and in the absence of that, should come in really quickly because Donnall is like a half an ass hair better than Doyle
3) I have never hate-loved a man more than I do Zak Irvin. I literally say "f#$k you Zak" 5 or 6 times a game, loudly, and half of those expletives preclude shots that go in. Man his shot selection angers me.
4) Why can't Walton take it to the hole, ya know, like MAAR does?
5) Dakich getting meaningful minutes freaks me out, almost exactly the way Spike getting minutes used to freak me out.
Now, had we made 5 more three-pointers, which was WELL within our realm of possibility, it would have been the housing we wanted, everybody would be a glorious genius, and there would be no complaints. We can make those threes. And if we do it, what we see will be better basketball (at least from a layman's perspective) and we might just beat Notre Dame.
Other tournament stuff:
I already mentioned this on twitter, but the Big Ten sucks. We showed it. Purdue showed it. Others will also show it. Not sure why the analysts didn't just flat out say that they were perplexed how a crap conference with a crap preseason got seven teams in. They should have taken 5 max. Why is MSU a 2-seed? Beacuse they lost 5 games in that crap conference.
And Finally, My Bracket
It's March 17 at 9:30PM and my bracket is still perfect. I'm 9 for 9. My best start ever, and it aparently puts me in the top 1% of brackets submitted. Unfortunately, I didn't submit my picks anywhere else. However, it doesn't matter because I have no doubt my picks will be garbage by the time I go to bed, and worthless by Sunday.
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