Michigan 97, Alabama A&M 47
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]
We tried to stop MG from going so we could ignore this game entirely. Then he said he could get two pictures of Charles Matthews dunking at once and we relented. Merry Christmas.
[Hit THE JUMP for more pictures and the box score.]
Michigan's box score doesn't quite add up because newest walk-on Rico Azuna Harrison apparently wasn't in the stat database yet.
December 21st, 2017 at 11:53 PM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:09 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:43 AM ^
at football. The expectation is that they'd be at least .500 and the playoff committee seems to love the number of teams you beat with winning records (even though those winning records aren't created equal), so at least beating Air Force has a chance of helping your team.
Beating Alabama A&M does not. Zero chance of helping. Not fun to watch. I actually thought they were better coached than Detroit, they just don't have good players (which Detroit does!).
December 22nd, 2017 at 1:03 AM ^
Playing Air Force might not have been a smart scheduling move, but equating Air Force and Alabama A&M is just goddamn stupid.
Playing Alabama A&M is like the football team playing 0-11 Minnesota-Crookston Golden Eagles of Division II.
December 22nd, 2017 at 4:08 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 10:11 AM ^
My HS QB was the starter at Crookston. He suffered 2 concussions, but he is ok today.
December 23rd, 2017 at 12:19 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 1:34 AM ^
No argument from me. I hated that we scheduled Air Force. A lot of wasted practice time for a system you won't see again all year, and putting your kids at higher risk for injury with the way they cut block. I'd just assume we never play AF again.
December 22nd, 2017 at 8:55 AM ^
Maybe don't peak at the 2019 schedule.
December 22nd, 2017 at 4:20 PM ^
wouldn't assume that Michigan will never play Air Force again. They play Army, which is pretty close to the same thing, in a couple of years.
December 22nd, 2017 at 4:54 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:52 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 1:28 PM ^
we probably wouldn't schedule opponents from the SWAC.
This is the part of the schedule for easy opponents. Most of the Big Ten is doing the same thing.
December 22nd, 2017 at 2:16 PM ^
December 23rd, 2017 at 10:17 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 11:07 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 11:26 AM ^
My sense has been, like yours, that Beilein likes to give his guys a nice ramp up into the conference season, so he schedules a couple of terrible teams to get them going. It's not good for the RPI, but I also think people freak out about it far beyond it's actual significance.
He's been a successful coach wherever he's been; at this point, I trust that his system works for him, and it seems to work for this team. I will also add about the confidence element, Duncan Robinson has hit 8/11 on 3s the past two games, and so if this marks an actual upturn in his shooting stroke, whatever hit it gives to the rpi right now is far outweighed by a hot-shooting Robinson come conference time.
December 22nd, 2017 at 2:56 PM ^
Beilein is kind of old school. I like it. Remember when cars had carburetors and you'd find a nice stretch on the highway and floor it? Blow all that carbon out and your car would run better.
This game and next = flooring it.
December 22nd, 2017 at 11:33 AM ^
was Rico suave, at least?
/ I regret nothing
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:04 AM ^
(Edit: I looked but was unable to find a suitable menorah one to add)
December 22nd, 2017 at 1:10 PM ^
I saw that one too lol
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:11 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 8:05 AM ^
Thanks - I had fun ... Not a serious game so just trying new approch.
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:28 PM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:28 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 8:23 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:45 AM ^
Charles Matthews was 10-10 from two. That is about all that is interesting from this game.
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:53 PM ^
I almost just send a camera with a radio receiver and shoot it from my coach in underpants ...
But someone told me it was un ethical. So I went and decided to not do the usual but to practice new stuff.
Edit:
Couch and not coach.
Pff English - I am still learning
December 23rd, 2017 at 10:20 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:55 AM ^
Well, our RPI only dropped from 26 to 34. Alabama A&M rose 5 spots,basically swapping with... you guessed it, new #364 (and our next opponent) Jacksonville. We'll get a shot to drop our RPI again on Saturday as we continue our charity week of helping teams not finish in the bottom 10 of RPI. This could be chalked up to a simple oversight, but off of the top of my head we have recently played two of the only five teams currently rated BELOW these two: Delaware State and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. They've really got to get a clue with this scheduling. As is the case this year, you can't just count on the B1G being strong and us going on miracle runs late in the season to get into the tourney. Some smarter scheduling would give us much more wiggle room.
The formula they seem to use over and over is:
-Decent Tournament, depending on who we draw
-Whoever the ACC Challenge gives us
-1-2 Big Name Home/Home
-5-6 Absolute tomato cans, totally cancelling out or even lowering any accomplishments we make in the other non-conference games
Time to get out of the 200+ range, especially 300+ for multiple games.
December 22nd, 2017 at 1:35 AM ^
For comparison, I just was surprised Missouri is rated #4, so I looked to see their schedule. You don't have to kill yourself to play the schedule game. They are 10-2:
| $ 11-10 | Iowa St. | 9-2 (0-0) | 38 | 74-59 | W | |
| $ 11-13 | Wagner | 5-3 (0-0) | 60 | 99-55 | W | |
| 11-16 | at | Utah | 8-3 (0-0) | 50 | 59-77 | L |
| 11-23 | vs | Long Beach St. | 4-9 (0-0) | 97 | 95-58 | W |
| $$ 11-24 | vs | St. John's | 9-2 (0-0) | 17 | 90-82 | W |
| 11-26 | vs | West Virginia | 10-1 (0-0) | 24 | 79-83 | L |
| $ 11-30 | at | UCF | 9-3 (0-0) | 54 | 62-59 | W |
| 12-05 | Miami (OH) | 5-5 (0-0) | 126 | 70-51 | W | |
| 12-09 | Green Bay | 2-7 (0-0) | 312 | 100-77 | W | |
| 12-16 | North Florida | 3-9 (0-0) | 161 | 85-51 | W | |
| $ 12-19 | S.F. Austin | 7-2 (0-0) | 58 | 82-81 | W |
That gets you at #4. At the very least, you play teams from shitty conferences who are likely to not finish 0-23.
Ours:
| 11-11 | North Florida | 3-9 (0-0) | 161 | 86-66 | W | |
| 11-13 | Cent. Michigan | 7-2 (0-0) | 113 | 72-65 | W | |
| 11-16 | Southern Miss | 3-5 (0-0) | 231 | 61-47 | W | |
| 11-20 | vs | LSU | 7-3 (0-0) | 151 | 75-77 | L |
| 11-22 | vs | VCU | 7-5 (0-0) | 110 | 68-60 | W |
| 11-26 | UC Riverside | 3-7 (0-0) | 251 | 87-42 | W | |
| 11-29 | at | N. Carolina | 10-2 (0-0) | 5 | 71-86 | L |
| 12-02 | Indiana | 7-6 (1-1) | 118 | 69-55 | W | |
| 12-04 | at | Ohio St. | 10-3 (2-0) | 52 | 62-71 | L |
| 12-09 | UCLA | 8-3 (0-0) | 92 | 78-69 | W | |
| 12-12 | at | Texas | 8-3 (0-0) | 62 | 59-52 | W |
| 12-16 | vs | Detroit Mercy | 2-8 (0-0) | 263 | 90-58 | W |
| 12-21 | Alabama A&M | 0-12 (0-0) | 342 | 97-47 | W |
(We finished with #346 Jacksonville)
$ = quality wins
Anyone can take Missouri's outline and schedule teams in those ranges that appeal to your particular fanbase as well. It's really not that difficult. Our schedule loses us at least 10 spots in the RPI which for the tourney can be a 2 seed swing.
December 22nd, 2017 at 2:39 AM ^
how in the world have we not played them the past couple years?
But seriously, how the F are they 60th!??!! They haven't beaten a top 200 kenpom team. Makes no sense. And they're rated 227 in kenpom. That's a wild difference from 60th to 227th.
Long Beach St. is somehow 97th at 4-9 and 238th in kenpom.
RPI is weird, man.
BUT, others have shown the committee isn't overly reliant on it and last year we got screwed, but in the Beilein era, our seeding has been better than kenpom would indicate as often as it has been worse. i.e. no systematic underseeding because of RPI for us.
If we're 34th right now, that's probably more reflective of our resume than 26th (which is what we were before tonight).
The doom is overstated as relates to RPI.
December 22nd, 2017 at 3:03 AM ^
The key is replacing teams that will finish last place in the Southern Conference with teams who will finish in the top half of the Metro Atlantic or whatever. That's the problem we have. We would still win 99% of the time, and my point about finding a team in a similar range that appeals to your schedule would mean maybe not Wagner, but who knows... Illinois-Chicago isntead of schools from the deep south that are 0-11 we've never heard of.... let alone 4 or 5 of them. It's not asking for much, and it would absolutely help our seeding.
There are 350 schools to choose from and it's pretty obvious Michigan has done a piss poor job of selecting the optimal easy-wins from not just a SOS standpoint, but also fan appeal. I guess they have broadened our knoweldge of schools we never knew existed.
This is where the SEC is way smarter than the B1G. We make fun of them for scheduling ridiculous teams in football, but look who is in the playoffs and ranked higher (most of the time in recent history). In Basketball, SOS and RPI excpilcitely count and are computer calculated, and we seem to just disregard it. I thought we were the smart kids?
December 23rd, 2017 at 10:26 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 2:59 AM ^
My honest theory, and it was even mentioned how Coach B is friends with the Alabama A&M coach tonight, is that Coach has so many ties and coaching friends, that he takes all of the open dates for easy payout wins to throw bones to all of his long time collegues regardless of where they are coaching. It's been mentioned during broadcasts a bunch of times how he knows the random coach from his many years of never being an assistant coach.
December 22nd, 2017 at 3:05 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 12:30 PM ^
They said they are on the ethics committee together.
The commentator was ridiculous haha. I thought I had seen enough guy on guy slobberfests this week on a different cable station.
December 22nd, 2017 at 9:57 AM ^
December 24th, 2017 at 4:53 PM ^
You really think that Michigan can only compete against teams worse than 150th in the country for half (6/12) of its nonconference schedule? C'mon.
December 22nd, 2017 at 11:42 AM ^
I get all this. I really do.
But John Beilein has been a coach for a very long time. His teams mostly make the NCAA tournament barring massive attrition or bad luck. His teams do pretty well, especially at Michigan; couple regular season titles, a conference tourney title, run to the national title game, etc. This works for him, and he has a read on his team and how this scheduling works for them.
Missouri is 50th in Kenpom, and my guess is that they'll look a lot more like than the #4 team to RPI by the end of the year. Michigan is 32nd, and that feels about right. And for all the talk that RPI matters in how teams are seeded, it really doesn't seem to be the case. Last year MSU's RPI was 50th when seeding happened, while Michigan's was 25th. Well, MSU got seeded higher than Michigan and a bunch of other teams. WVU was seeded one slot about ND despite ND having a higher RPI. Dayton was 2 slots ahead in RPI and 3 seed lines above Wichita St. I could go on.
Maybe it means a bit at the corners, but I just don't think three body-bag games in the middle of the year matter all that much in the end. What got Michigan last year (and may very well this season as well) are bad losses to bad teams - last year it was OSU and Illinois, this year LSU and, again, OSU. They can't keep losing those games. So if games like this means they don't lay an egg at Iowa and against Illinois to start the new year, then I'm fine with it.
December 22nd, 2017 at 11:16 PM ^
While your theory is spot on, it's too soon to be worrying about the specific values in the RPI. It's still mostly noise at this point of the season. Try rpiforecast.com instead; they include future games at an appropriate probability of wins and losses in order to project things out.
They have Michigan at about #46, which is "win a couple of games in the Big Ten Tournament to feel better" range. Missouri is about #32; their RPI will go down as teams get into conference play.
The RPI is a terrible tool, but it's especially terrible before about February 1st.
December 23rd, 2017 at 1:44 PM ^
what would our RPI forecast be if we had Missouri's non conference schedule?
December 22nd, 2017 at 1:05 AM ^
Went to Crisler tonight, and man, Alabama A&M was... not good. Not. Good. Still a fun night with a surprisingly not-the-worst turnout for a 9PM game against a doormat.
In other words, please stop scheduling doormats and definitely don't start the game at 9PM.
December 22nd, 2017 at 1:52 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 2:24 AM ^
# FireBurkhalter
December 22nd, 2017 at 7:57 AM ^
December 22nd, 2017 at 10:45 AM ^
I've told that kraut a f***in' thousand times, I don't ball on winter solstice!
December 22nd, 2017 at 2:26 AM ^
Livers with a nice stat line. Robinson shot pretty well.
December 22nd, 2017 at 4:19 AM ^
Robinson always shoots well against inferior teams, when nobody is guarding him.
Late last year he hit some bit shots against good teams. Let's hope he picks it up.
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