Northwestern 67, Michigan 65
NORTHWESTERN HAIL MARY pic.twitter.com/w86hoHaldH
— Kyle Boone (@kylebooneCBS) March 2, 2017
A grudging but heartfelt congratulations to Northwestern for making the NCAA tournament. Dissecting this gut-punch will wait until tomorrow.
but I disagree on the Evan Turner shot. Ugh. I hate losing to Ohio State in anything but that situation, ugh.
The Evan Turner shot ended our season, right when we were about to upset the #1 seed in the BTT.
This is just annoying. Like the Ben Brust shot.
The Evan Turner shot mercifully ended a massively disappointing season for a team that wasn't even NIT bound, and no one cares about the BTT anyway. It was a shrug in a dark time in UofM athletics.
Decent chance this cost us a six seed and now we're left squarely on the 8/9 line without a great chance to move up.
Dong punch. But I agree with the below that we've inflicted our share of dong punches on them in football lately.
well after the Minnesota crusher. I think with our senior leadership, Walton won't let this team be affected. Could be wrong. I do agree that we aren't necessarily a lock, and MUST win at Nebraska, not just to get in but for seeding.
The Evan Turner shot mercifully ended a massively disappointing season for a team that wasn't even NIT bound, and no one cares about the BTT anyway.That team needed the BTT. It was 15-16 entering that game (the BTT quarterfinal) and with a win, would have had a path to the title given that OSU was the #1 seed. One more win beyond that would have (at that time) probably given us an NIT bid. Two more and we would have been in the Big Dance. Maybe we would have lost our legs and faded on Saturday, but it would have been nice to at least get a shot.
it would have been nice to get a shot. I of course was very disappointed after that shot, because I'm a fan. But realistically even if they won the next game (would have been underdogs) and lost the title game, they'd have been .500. No way they're going to the NIT at 17-17.
Back then, .500 power-conference teams often got NIT bids. That was before they started guaranteeing bids to small-conference champs (pretty sure, anyway).
North Carolina made it that year at 16-16, but they're UNC. So even IF we won the next AND were selected to the NIT (still only a maybe), my excitement level about about a .500 team in the NIT is less than meh.
I would have taken it at the time. But no way it compares to this team having a chance at a solid seed in a tournament they have a real shot at doing some damage in.
We made the NIT the year before the Fab Five, when we were 14-14. It used to be easy to get an NIT invite.
we might have gone to the NIT as a 500 team since ESPN had a say back then and picked attractive to TV teams. I recognized that above. Thanks for repeating it. Again.
We still needed to win more games with a bad team. To make the NIT. With a .500 team. Yippee.
Come on bro. The only way Michigan would have got a 6 seed is to Win out, that's including the tournament. One road loss at the buzzer to a pretty decent team is not going to change our seeding too much.
we came into the game last night projected as an eight seed. If we win a road game against a tourney team, we bump up to a 7 in all likelihood. Win another RPI top 100 road game against Nebraska (in which we'll be favored) and a game in the BTT in which we'd be favored and we'd almost certainly have been a six seed.
So yeah, bro. There is a decent chance last nights game cost us a six seed. Teams in the 5-12 seed range are tightly packed.
...Northwestern prolly isn't a tourney team anymore.
No. That's just not a realistic take at all.
There are four teams at each seed line, all of whom have other games going on to consider. Many of those teams will have opportunities to do things far more impressive than to get a road win over a middling barely-the-right-side-of-the-bubble team.
To say that Michigan would "almost certainly" be a 6 seed -- top 24 -- with wins over Northwestern, Nebraska, and an Ohio State / Iowa type simply doesn't hold water. The only way Michigan would get a 6 in that scenario (coupled by a loss to, say, Minnesota, which is implied in your "a game in the BTT" statement) would be if the other teams around them in the bracket closed their seasons out terribly.
Keep in mind, the committee still uses the RPI, which does not care much for teams with 11 losses who do not bother scheduling to try to game their RPI score.
Yes, some will have chances to do better things. Few of them will though because road games against good teams are hard. Maybe one or two of them would have a better four game stretch than three wins against top 100 teams all away from home, and those teams would stay ahead of us/move to the 6 line with us.
But the rest will either hold steady-ish or drop some ugly games to open up a spots (like Wisconsin losing tonight). Remember, we were an 8 seed (not sure which one) and we wouldn't have needed to pass all the current 6s, just one. So we'd have had to pass 6-7 teams. That's it. 3-1 against all top 100 teams away from home would likely do it.
The committee does use RPI but they also use their brains and the eye test and they know the limitations of the RPI instead of blindly taking the top 24 in the ranking. Just last year Texas was 20-12 (!!) with a 27 RPI and ND was 21-11 with a 32 RPI and both were six seeds.
Had we won last night, we'd be high 30s right now, a win against Neb gets us to mid-30s (road wins are heavily weighted in RPI), a neutral win over a top 100 team gets us to low 30s, and a loss to a top 15 doesn't hurt. A 22-11 record with a low 30s RPI and an impressive 8-2 finish against B1G teams would likely have been good for a six seed. We'll never know, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
This is what I don't understand. You are right, we aren't a top tier program. There's no way we are going to compete with Kansas, Duke, UNC, and Louisville every year for a number one ranking. But this isn't football. You get in the tournament, and then anything can happen. Being one tier below is the ceiling for Michigan basketball, and as soon as people realize we aren't going to get 5* basketball players, people can start appreciating the product we put on the floor.
This is such a horseshit post. Michigan has played in four national title games since 1989 and used to reguarly sign 5 star recruits and McDonalds All Americans. That's the ceiling. There is no such things as blue blood programs in CBB, only blue blood coaches. That's why Calipari is killing it when Tubby Smith and Bill Gillespie couldn't. Duke was a nobody before Coach K. IU has not been the same since Knight retired. UConn and Syracuse were after thoughts before Beoheim and Calhoun. Matt Dougherty couldn't win at UNC but Ro Williams can. I could go on and on.
Look at the top 25, Villanova, Oregon, Baylor, WVU, FSU, etc. Where is Michigan? Do those schools have more resources or tradition? No. the reason Michigan can't get 5 star recruits right now is because Beilein is an atrocious recruiter who only recruits kids from the suburbs with mid major offer lists. Period end of story.
People don't need to accept anything. Micigan should be a top 25 program every year and they should be recruiting with anyone because that's the way it was in the 70's, 80's, and early 90's here. I'm sick of people like you with this attitude. It's wrong and it's fucking annoying.
LOL tradition.
I'll present you facts:
80s: 5 tournament appearances. Other than our championship, ONE team made it to the sweet 16.
90s: 1 EPIC recruiting class, which led us to two national championship appearances and 1 elite eight. The other 3 times in the 90s we made the tournament we didn't make the sweet sixteen. Sure we recruited well in other years, but all times we underachieved.
Beilein: 6 appearances, 1 championship game appearance, 1 elite 8 appearance.
Seems par for the course, yes?
And you mention Calipari, Bobby Knight, Roy Williams, etc. Do you think those guys would come to Michigan? Gotta have some perspective, man.
No. From 85-97 Michigan finished 1st, 1st, 5th, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 8th, 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th in the B1G. They signed top 10 recruiting classes nd mcdonalds all americans most years, played in 3 national title games, 3 final 4's, 1 Elite 8, and two sweet 16's.
John Beilein has finished 9th, 7th, 7th, 4th, 1st, 4th, 1st, 9th, 8th, and whatver he ends up this year (currently 8th). He's signed 1 top 10 recruiting class in a decade and 0 McDonalds All Americans. He's missed the tournament 3 times and not gotten out of the first weekend four other times.
He's an average to slighty above avergae coach who is making more money than anyone in college basketball not named Coach K, Bill Self, Calipari, Izzo, and Pitino. His defenses are terrible every year, there's no toughness, and he recruits like he's at a mid major.
Do your homework next time and get a little perspective.
Beilein is an elite basketball coach but is severely lacking on defense. Billy Donlon hasn't had the immediate, sustained effect we hoped he would.
It started well witth blowouts against SMU and Marquette. (We were in the 30s on defense in Ken Pom.)
Now, we're back in the low 100s.
This is 100% completely false. Ed Martin gave money to a ton of kids in Detroit many of whom went to schools other than Michigan. Michigan got punished because Steve Fisher gave Martin basketball tickets and the guy was running a money laundering scheme so big that that the FBI was involved. His proximinity to UM made them an easy target. People forget the original NCAA investigation turned up nothing, it was only after Mary Sue Coleman asked the FBI to turn over their findings to the NCAA that shit hit the fan. If we're going to talk about revisionist history, you should really take your own advice and learn the facts about the ncaa case.
"Beilein is an elite basketball coach but is severely lacking on defense."
Elite basketball coaches don't lack on defense. They don't lack on offense. They don't lack in recruiting.
Beilein is NOT an elite basketball coach.
i'm guessing that half of this post is on some sort of autotext snippet on your computer. you type "michigan loss" and it spits out 75% of this same rant.
so there's that rant, and the "ed martin paid lots of kids from lots of schools" bullshit. to quote your post, it's wrong and it's fucking annoying. it doesn't matter who else ed martin was paying. he paid our guys, and we got caught. i couldn't care less who else was guilty. we were.
and i know it's not the point of your post, but jesus christ, you're going to toss out "baylor" as some sort of standard? whatever, man.
"There's no way we are going to compete with Kansas, Duke, UNC, and Louisville every year for a number one ranking."
Fair.
...but our recruiting is ranked behind teams like:
2017 - Alabama, Auburn, Xavier, Illinois, Western Kentucky, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin
2016 - MSU, Miss. St., Washington, Auburn, Penn. St., Arizona St., Harvard
2015 - LSU, Texas A&M, Ohio St., Illinois, Michigan St., USC, Oregon St., Purdue
2014 - Ohio St., USC, Xavier, Seton Hall
In ten years he has had 3 top 25 classes. OSU, Illinois, MSU, Indiana, and Maryland all had more in the same time span.
In ten years he has had 1 top 10 classes. Non-"powerhouse" teams with more top 10 classes in the same period:
OSU
Texas
Indiana
LSU
He has never had the top class in the B1G. In 10 years he has only had a top 3 IN THE B1G class 3 times.
It isn't that he isn't competing with Duke/Kansas/UCLA - it's that he's not competing with OSU/MSU/Illinois/Texas/etc.
I'm not asking for regular top 5 classes - but we shouldn't be the 4th-5th best recruiting team in the B1G, and we should regularly get top 25 classes.
We have two road wins - at Indiana and at Rutgers.
It's frustrating that we don't have more, though. Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northwestern - all games where we were right there in the final minute.
Congrats to Northwestern.
I can't think of a better team or circumstance to/in which to lose.
God damned FT's late and maybe don't have a lane violation.
Irvin made the last second shot against against Northwestern last year in the B1G tournament. I guess he was trying to recreate that.
Kind of surprised we didn't call a timeout to try and set something up. There was 7 seconds left. But I agree. Too much hero ball.
Or maybe call the travel on the inbounds pass. The shuffled all over the place before the courth-length pass.
The player can shuffle all he wants within a three foot wide "corridor" extending from the out of bounds line to as far backwards as he wants to go. The throw was legal.
You're right TrueBlue. I got over my anger after actually looking up the rule.
During a designated spot throw-in, the player inbounding the ball must keep one foot on or over the three-foot wide designated spot. An inbounding player is allowed to jump or move one or both feet. A player inbounding the ball may move backward as far as space allows.
I guess it was legal.
I still don't know what happened there. I looked away for a moment and heard there was a violation. Could someone explain to me?
It was the correct call; the confusion factor was amplified by the fact that the Big Ten Network didn't show the applicable replay until after a commercial timeout, IIRC.
Most people know part of the lane violation rule: a player who is lined up in the lane before the shot cannot enter the lane until the ball is released. Many know a second part of the rule: the shooter may not cross the free-throw line until the ball hits the rim (or the backboard, on a truly horrific shot. :-)
What many people don't know -- and the part of the rule that Michigan violated -- is that a player who is not lined up on the lane is required to remain behind both the free-throw line extended and the three-point arc until the ball hits the rim / backboard.
Michigan had zero players lined up on the lane. The referee seemed to question whether or not Wagner (and Beilein) knew it was a 1 and 1. Wagner signaled the bench saying that it was a 1 and 1, the referee handed Wagner the ball, and then Walton took a step across the three-point line, saw what he had done, and retreated.
The "can't cross the arc" rule comes into play the moment the ball is presented to Wagner to shoot. The official nearest the Michigan bench saw Walton's mistake and blew the whistle.
FWIW: the shooting team is not required to have any players on the lane, 1 and 1 or otherwise. I think the referees were spooked by the miscommunication on Michigan's earlier 1 and 1 attempt, where Walton missed the front end, nobody reacted, and Northwestern handed the ball to the official.
hopefully there were no lumps (or a phase change from gas to liquid).
Multi-phase flow is never fun to deal with.
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