tom izzo

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

3/2/2022 – Michigan 87, Michigan State 70 – 16-12, 10-8 Big Ten

Say what you want about Tom Izzo—please do so loudly and publicly—but you have to give him one thing: he offers satisfaction. You can beat guys like Chris Holtmann and Matt Painter and yeah it's nice to win a basketball game against a good team. They'll talk about what happened and it'll be nice. But at no point will you feel that cosmic justice has been done. You can woof at them and they'll say "he's a good player." They'll probably even mean it.

Not Tom Izzo.

When Hunter Dickinson is dropping 33 and four blocks and woofing like he's going for 70, Tom Izzo will not sit on the sideline in stony silence and then graciously tip his hat in the post-game press conference.

Instead, he will wander onto the court to berate an official because the tall man is being mean. He won't get a technical for this, for reasons, but he will sputter and mewl and yell at his players for betraying him; only then will he descend into the stony silence. When it's clearly time to pout. He will give Dickinson the blow-by in the handshake line he just valorized in the aftermath of the Trohl Center incident. Then in the press conference he will say things like "give them credit, I guess."

Tom Izzo is a delight to beat, because he's a thin-skinned maniac. One time Izzo was getting hammered by Michigan and spent two full minutes of game time pointlessly fouling because he would not give up on the 0.01% chance Michigan would hurl all their free throws into the stands along with their clothes and get called for indecency technicals. This is what I am saying.

To beat Tom Izzo is to watch him rend his clothes and go bug-eyed and threaten to kill an official who will pat him on the head because he's a lovable wee scamp if you're the kind of lunatic who referees college basketball. One day someone will beat him so badly he will lie down and die on a basketball court, out of spite.

BULLETS

Mmm drop coverage. AJ Hoggard only played 11 minutes with leprosy or whatever, but even though MSU's most drop-coverage vulnerable PG wasn't a major factor Michigan still spent the whole game in it and MSU did little against it. Tyson Walker was hesitant to pull up despite having significant off-the-dribble game. In particular, I think he attempted one pull-up three despite Michigan constantly going under screens against him. He is capable:

He just doesn't want to do it much. This was fairly typical:

He has all the room in the world to pull up; he's hitting 55% from three on the year (and was 35% last year on 113 attempts); half of his threes this year are unassisted. It is flat out weird that he's averaging just over 2 3PA per game.

Also:

This performance makes the blitzing from game one all the more baffling, but at least that mistake wasn't repeated.

[Hit THE JUMP for appreciation]
oh, the humanity [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

Scores from last week (home team listed second):

  • Illinois 72, MSU 81
  • PSU 86, Nebraska 83
  • Indiana 63, Rutgers 74
  • Iowa 57, Michigan 79
  • OSU 67, MSU 71
  • Nebraska 70, Illinois 86
  • Northwestern 67, Minnesota 59
  • Purdue 73, PSU 52
  • Michigan 73, Indiana 57
  • Illinois 74, Wisconsin 69
  • Minnesota 74, Nebraska 78
  • MSU 55, Maryland 73
  • Iowa 73, OSU 57

This was a great week for Michigan, a bad one for Ohio State, and a brutal one for Indiana's and Minnesota's tourney chances.

The Standings

  Record   NET   KP/Torvik Avg   OFFENSE   DEFENSE
Team OVR B1G RK Q1 Q2 Nat Rk (chg) Proj. B1G

Rec.*
KP BT KP BT
U-M 18-1 13-1 2nd 8-1 4-0 2.0 (up 1) 16-1 5th 6th 4th 8th
ILL 18-6 14-4 6th 8-5 4-1 6.5 (--) 15-5 10th 11th 17th 21st
IOWA 18-7 12-6 5th 5-6 6-1 5.0 (down 0.5) 14-6 2nd 2nd 59th 74th
PUR 16-8 11-6 21st 5-7 5-0 17.0 (up 4.5) 12-7 27th 34th 26th 31st
OSU 18-7 12-7 8th 7-5 4-2 7.5 (down 0.5) 13-7 3rd 3rd 81st 82nd
WIS 16-9 10-8 24th 3-8 6-1 11.5 (up 0.5) 11-9 36th 49th 7th 5th
MD 15-10 9-9 29th 5-9 1-1 28.5 (up 5.5) 10-10 29th 35th 27th 36th
RUT 13-9 9-9 32nd 4-8 4-1 28.5 (up 0.5) 10-10 59th 70th 14th 15th
IND 12-12 7-10 57th 3-9 5-1 40.0 (down 3) 8-11 46th 48th 42nd 52nd
MSU 13-10 7-10 77th 4-9 2-1 63.5 (up 5.5) 8-12 82nd 87th 50th 50th
MIN 13-12 6-12 69th 4-10 1-0 57.0 (down 7.5) 7-13 45th 47th 74th 76th
PSU 8-13 5-12 52nd 3-10 2-2 45.5 (down 7.5) 6-13 38th 44th 58th 67th
NW 7-14 4-13 87th 3-11 0-2 75.5 (up 2.5) 5-14 119th 117th 41st 54th
NEB 6-17 2-14 138th 1-11 1-4 102.5 (up 10) 3-16 209th 204th 40th 34th

*Torvik's projections no longer include postponed games.

Michigan's magic number for winning the title is down to one. Any M win or Illinois loss will wrap it up; the two just so happen to face off tomorrow evening. Both KenPom and Torvik not only project the Wolverines to win that game but also both MSU matchups to finish with the most victories in the conference despite playing only 17 of their 20 scheduled games.

Illinois Update: Signs Point to No Ayo, Brad Underwood Says Something Stupid



preparing to claim a title at 14-6, somehow [Campredon]

Even if Ayo Dosunmu returned from his broken nose tomorrow night after missing the last two games, the chances Illinois wins out and Michigan loses out are 0.2%, according to Torvik's title odds. Given that bleak outlook, it's sensible for the Illini to let Dosunmu completely heal before a postseason run, and it's looking like that's the plan. First, there's the early line for the game:

Then there's this quote from Illinois coach Brad Underwood:

This is the right approach. Particularly in a year with a condensed schedule, any good coach is going to prioritize long-term health over short-term gains and be understanding when other teams face similar dilemm-- wait, what's that?

Beat them by 40, please.

There's no legitimate reason to be upset Michigan didn't force themselves to cram in 20 Big Ten games when they were effectively under state-sanctioned quarantine for two weeks. The Wolverines rescheduled the toughest game that was postponed, which was—yup—the Illinois game. They gave MSU back-to-back cracks at an upset. The games they didn't reschedule—hosting Indiana, trips to Northwestern and PSU—would've helped their chances of winning a regular season title. The reason not to put them back in was player safety.

Meanwhile, the gripe about Michigan's women's team returning earlier than the men needs context. Namely, the WBB squad already had three games postponed before the two-week shutdown. They've now been left off two straight NCAA bracket reveals of the top 16 teams despite having a strong argument for inclusion, and in the first reveal the committee specifically cited M's need to play more games to earn consideration for a top-four seed. They were under significantly more pressure than the men to return early and it certainly hasn't seemed to help the women's squad form that they did so.

It's unfortunate that Dosunmu isn't looking likely to play. I want to see Michigan smash Illinois at full strength. Winning more Big Ten games in three fewer total contests may have to do.

[Hit THE JUMP for the pettiest table I've ever made, updated bracketology, injury news, and more.]

[Eric Upchurch]

We know you're starving for live sports. While we cannot provide that, we can do the next-best thing: watch some old games while providing inane commentary.

Join me at 8:00 pm ET as we travel back to January 27th, 2011, when John Beilein's Wolverines went in search of their first win at the Breslin Center since 1997. Bob Wischusen and (gulp) Stephen Bardo are on the call. I'll be talking over them for much of it. Trust me, this is for the best.

If you'd like to take part in the live chat, you can get the full experience on my Twitch page.

Consider this a test run. If all goes well, plan on seeing a lot more of this while we're all waiting for something approaching normalcy to return.

this is the most spartyfruede of all days 

stop scheduling men's and women's game that overlap, jerks

bah, i say.

I say that whenever you can get a guy named Bizzy Bones you gotta do it 

old school is in session