Basketball Snowflakes
Beat State on Thursday and win the big ten. Hopefully, we can get revenge over Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament.
Would be one hell of a coaching job making this L not linger in 48 hours.
Go. Away.
Juwan will make it go away in 24hrs or less. Everything is still there for this team to take.
Juwan's greatest coaching challenge will be to convince a Michigan team they can have nice things.
They’ve gotta find a way to stop those crossing routes.
They’ve gotta find a way to stop those crossing routes.
i laughed the first time.
Beat our ass. Plain and simple. They wanted it more and took it to us. Very surprising and disappointing to see us get dominated in every phase of the game. Gotta move on.
This was as humiliating a loss as any I've watched in the last decade plus of hoops.
- Illinois was without its best player.
- Illinois HC talked trash about our COVID-shortened conference schedule. (Or at least he tried to.)
- Michigan was on a big winning streak.
- Michigan could clinch the Big Ten Regular Season Championship with a win against Illinois.
- Illinois had never beaten a top 2 team on the road.
- It was a home game for Michigan.
All that should've added up to a comfortable Michigan victory.
Maybe this loss will finally get the overexuberant idiots from starting threads asking "Is this the greatest super duper Michigan Basketball Team of All-time?!?!?"
STFU
/That said, it's just one loss.
//Michigan can win the Big Ten Regular Season against our *actual* rivals - Sparty - by winning at least one. Hopefully, we'll sweep the season series.
Yeah everyone is high on the season record and our ranking.
Last time I looked no one gave out national championships until they actually win the thing.
We can't crap the bed like last night in the bracket or your are out - then nobody will ever remember our regular season record.
"As humiliating a loss as I can remember in a decade."
You must've missed the game against NJIT in 2014...
The '89 title team lost to Div II Alaska-Anchorage. Bad games happen.
They so .... ....
Team does nothing by half. When they lay an egg, they REALLY lay an egg.
They all seemed to be standing around watching things happen, they weren't crashing the boards, blocking out, driving the lane, making good passes or hitting easy shots. They didn't look loose at all. Illinois played better but I don't believe that Illinois is the reason UM played poorly.
Some nights, teams just come out flat. This was one of those nights for us. Illinois got into a rhythm early and we didn't. And once they were in that rhythm, they played with more fire and the game just got away from us.
Thankfully, this loss has zero effect on whether this team can still achieve its goals. They're well-coached; they'll shake it off and hit practice with a renewed intensity tomorrow. Beat Sparty.
Maximum effort.
Just a bad matchup for Michigan. Our strengths are three point shooting, moving the ball, and having Dickinson do work inside. They have the guards and wings to run us off the line and switch everything on the perimeter, and they have the worst matchup possible for Dickinson. Just not having to send help on Dickinson takes a way a lot of what we've been riding on for the conference schedule.
I mostly agree with that. Fortunately, Dickinson won't run into many guys bigger than him.
Our wings, though? Definitely a bad match-up. In general, a team with athletes on the perimeter will be a bad match-up for this team. Livers, Brooks, and Smith aren't going to get easy separation.
Illinois DID lose 4 B1G games this year to our 2. Even though the loss was lopsided, I still think Michigan is the better team when we play with our typical energy. We were flat out of the gate, missed a ton of shots we normally make, not creating or getting open, allowing WAY too many second chance points. Illinois was much more determined and brought it. Sometimes shit starts to pile up and there is no way to dig your way out if the energy and effort is lacking, which it was.
I thought Hunter was nervous and probably too geared up for a matchup he knew was going to be his toughest of the season. You could see it on his early FT attempts and the short jumper he took. His hands were definitely not steady.
I imagine the best way to attack Cockburn would be to have a stretch-5, similar to how you negate a guy like Drummond in the NBA. Let him get his on offense, and torch him on the perimeter on the other end with a stretch 5 and pick & roll/pop. Instead we tried to bang with him, which he's better at -- and their guards rushed us off the threes, which lead to our perimeter players taking a couple dribbles and realizing Cockburn was waiting for them (bc Hunter and Davis camped out inside all game). That lead to a lot of mid-range jumpers and floaters, which is 100% NOT our game. In the end we were reduced to having Davis trying to back Cockburn down from 15 feet away. They had us totally discombobulated.
I was thinking the same thing about stretch fives, but Garza didn't go off in their game against IL this year. Though Iowa did put up 75.
This is my take as well. It was very reminiscent of the Iowa game in reverse. Illinois was able to nullify Dickinson the way Dickinson nullified Garza. No need to double Dickinson means he can't pass to open shooters, and our guards coudn't drive on theirs. You can't really blame Michigan's shooting on bad luck, because a lot of those shots were just bad shots. They made bad decisions all game, many of which it seemed they were forced into. Gone was the crisp passing that was gif'd on the front page. Illinois was a bad matchup compounded by Michigan putting forth an effort that looked like they had no gas in the tank.
Hopefully it's just the sort of stinker of a game that teams have once in a while. If it shows a game plan for how to beat Michigan (and Minnesota did much the same thing, so that's possible), the good news is that it's a game plan that a lot of teams just don't have the personnel to put in place. For example, I don't think MSU has the centers to handle Dickinson inside 1-on-1, and sending him to the line as they did Cockburn isn't a great idea either, so it's hard to see them looking at tonight as "that's how we beat Michigan."
Underwood went straight to the locker room. No handshake
They waved to each other.
Why continue to play man vs a team that can get to the rim anytime they choose? That’s stubborn.
Shooting 50% from three and higher than that against zone. We no showed it and Illinois' probably built up the they dodged us narrative so were extra fired up. It happens with college kids.
They couldn’t go to zone because the rebounding would of been even worse!
Juwan HerbBrooks Howard forcing the team to run sprints in the next practice
Was there no handshake at the end of the game?!? The fuck.
Nope. Underwear was practically in the tunnel while Howard was at half court dapping one of their assistants.
That was an ass kicking. Disappointing that Underwood gets to crow about this one. I think they might hang a banner for this one down in Champaign
The worst thing tonight was that Illinois absolutely destroyed us in energy and effort. The abysmal rebounding was hard to watch. No effort. Illinois beat us to every loose ball. Better shape up because MSU is gonna smell blood in the water and want to ruin our title run
Whelp, that game was the whelpiest whelp to ever whelp.
Whelp.
Illinois was by far the better team tonight, so a lot of credit to that team.
Michigan looked bad and Illinois had a lot to do with it. Reminded me of Underwood's defenses at OkSt.
The only thing positive is that this wasn't a knock out game... Hopefully Michigan learns that they need to start the game on time or else good teams will bury you.
Illinois is a good team but this also felt a bit like that Minnesota game where nothing was working for UM. They have good athletes on the perimeter and can play Dickinson straight up, but UM also missed a number of makeable shots early and Illinois was able to dominate on the boards in a way that I don't believe it reproducible. Gotta beat State coming up and then try again in the tournament. But I do think some people may read a bit too much into just a bad performance by Michigan and a solid one by Illinois, which honestly looked more coherent on offense with Ayo out than they have in the past.
Curbelo had given some indications that he might have an excellent game. He was two assists shy of a triple double last game, and a very good game before that.
Illinois played excellent D, but I saw very little motion out of our guys, and was a bit surprised at how little we seemed to box out. Granted, some of those rebounds were kind of fluky and long, but most were our fault for not putting a body on someone.
Yeah, my concern coming into the game was that Curbelo would have a good game and Michigan wouldn't have an answer to him.
It didn't look great at the start and I resigned myself to it being another Minnesota. Sometimes you just get got, and it's on UM to correct for that the next two games against MSU.
Watched a documentary about Sierra Canyon Monday Night...and there was this kid on a high school team from Long Island they played against that was carving them up! I thought to myself “this kid can ball”...that kid was Andre Curbelo! He’s going to be a problem now and in the future.
Ouch. Everyone played soft and tired. It happens. Oh well, lost to #4 not Northwestern. Learn and grow.
Beat Sparty..
This team has lost two games. RELAX
Before the bench players came in, Illinois' guards outrebounded Michigan's guards 26-7. That's pathetic.
Tbf Michigan has short ass guards. Need some NBA talent at that position.
Michigan does have a rather small backcourt, but those rebounding stats are more about their poor shooting as a team.
Michigan was missing so many shots that it allowed Illinois' bigger guards to have a lot of rebound opportunities and it's easier to get defensive rebounds than offensive ones.
Game threads are an absolute cesspool
epic fail
Illinois played great defense and was hitting some difficult shots, but this loss was on us. It felt like we just didn't care. Did we forget how to run the offense? Because that's what it felt like. We didn't care to rebound or box out. Took way too many long twos. All I can do is throw my hands up because I honestly have no idea what just happened. We're better than that
They looked like they had dead legs. All things considered, they were due for a form of a stinker. As the sports cliche goes, they picked a bad night to have a bad night. Burn the film, rest up, salt up, and take it out on Sparty.
Some people have it, and some people don’t. And Michigan didn’t have it tonight. It is what it is. Watch the film, fix the mistakes and beat state.
So... What's the opposite of muppets?