CBS Bracketology UM #1 Overall
#1 Overall Seed as of today
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/bracketology-no-1-overall-seed-michigan-leads-10-big-ten-teams-in-updated-ncaa-tournament-bracket/
January 28th, 2019 at 8:04 AM ^
I agree with this. Long way to go though. Can’t wait for tomorrow night.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:19 AM ^
Yes, many are looking forward to tomorrow night, but are you going to Crisler? Snow today and tomorrow with sub zero wind chill, 9pm start on a Tuesday might lead to the emptiest venue for any highly rated team. Before anyone negs me, I will be trudging back to my car through the stadium concourse at 11:20, hoping my car warms up before I pull in my driveway.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:19 AM ^
Wanna drive me home so I don't have a 45 minute walk back?
January 28th, 2019 at 11:09 AM ^
I’m a nice guy —- sooo maybe. If you’re going to campus or west,yes —-south or east sorry. ( I live on the Old West Side).
January 28th, 2019 at 1:35 PM ^
Your car will not be warm in your driveway which suggests that you should just bundle up and walk. Life is short; enjoy an outlier weather event.
January 28th, 2019 at 1:50 PM ^
Lol, I'm in Oxford so totally out of your way, thanks for the offer though
January 28th, 2019 at 9:38 AM ^
I would go if I had a ticket.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:49 AM ^
I got a text that there were $30 upper bowl seats available. That was yesterday afternoon though.
January 28th, 2019 at 10:00 AM ^
Got same text. And the first 10 responding were going to moved to the lower bowl so it sounds like seats are available there as well.
Bums me out the weather sucks - was going to make trip up from Cleveland with my best friend who just happens to be the world's biggest OSU honk alive. I've been taking a LOT of shit from him over the past several years thanks to our football team - would love some in-person payback thanks to basketball!
January 28th, 2019 at 10:30 AM ^
Your best friend is Mark "Munch" Bishop?
January 28th, 2019 at 11:17 AM ^
Ok 2nd biggest OSU honk.
My friend goes to every home & away game for OSU football and all home games and about 1/2 of the away games for OSU basketball. But unlike Bishop he's not a complete asshole to anything Michigan - it's all good natured.
Bishop, for those not not in Ohio, is a local broadcaster who actually rooted for Peppers to fail as a Brown cause he was from "sCum" He has the brains of a pea pod.
January 28th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
Buy an upper bowl ticket and come early. Make friends with a friendly Event Team Member and after the second TV timeout said ETM might find you some nice seats in the lower bowl. Don’t ask me how I know this but trust me — the AD doesn’t like whole rows of empty seats on national tv either.
January 28th, 2019 at 12:10 PM ^
can vouch that scanner qualifies as friendly, whether as an ETM or in his 'real' life. scanner is a champ.
suggest you take him up on his offer. i would if we weren't 250 miles north and a blizzard between us. other than that, no problem.
January 28th, 2019 at 12:48 PM ^
I'm actually surprised at how strict the usher in our section is about looking at everyone's tickets. I'm in section 110. The usher is very old; his name is Herb, I believe.
January 28th, 2019 at 1:19 PM ^
I worked with Herb for a year and a half at 110 and so probably met you. He polished the helmets under Bo in the ‘70’s on Friday’s before games. He’s probably dealt with so much b.s. from certain “fans” over the years that his strict adherence to policy is understandable. (Ask him how the ADA seating is going in sec108 and he’ll talk your ear off— perfectly able bodied people taking spots on his platform ... rabble,rabble).
January 28th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
I sort of figured the strict approach was due to people taking advantage of the system. Plus, with attendance at high levels, it's probably more important than ever to ensure people are sitting in their own seats. I know you've mentioned this before, but what section do you work in at Crisler? Would love to come by and meet a fellow MGoBlogger.
January 28th, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
Top of the escalator veer left 101-104 —I’m not Linda.
January 28th, 2019 at 2:47 PM ^
If you wait to right before tip off prices will plummet. I was able to get 10th row center court lower bowl for the Minnesota game for $22 and I think the weather is worse at this time than last Tuesday.
January 28th, 2019 at 2:07 PM ^
Considering the weather, you’ll be able to pick up a ticket (face value) at the door.
January 28th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
We'll just call you "Scanner Trooper" from now on, always at the gates come hell or high water---or high snow drifts!
January 28th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
Well, schools are going to be closed on Wednesday. I would expect the normal Ann Arbor family crowd that will brave the cold once they hear it's not a school night.
I'll be there. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to get there much before 9p, which means I'll be hiking a bit from and to my car :|
January 28th, 2019 at 12:25 PM ^
have you considered alternative means of transportation....?
January 28th, 2019 at 10:45 PM ^
We’ve got a 2 hour drone back to Hudsonville!
January 28th, 2019 at 8:05 AM ^
Awesome, I'm glad at least one ranking has us #1. Serious question, how does Kenpom still have MSU ranked above us after the loss yesterday. Their OOC SOS is very high, but they lost the 2 biggest out of conf games they played. They get credit for losing big games every year. I don't get it.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:13 AM ^
Kenpom is not trying to rank "who has had the best season so far." The goal is predictive. Based on the games everyone has played so far, on a neutral floor, the algorithm says they would be favored against us. No one is/isn't giving them credit for anything. If Team A plays all top 20 teams and loses to each of them by 1, they'd probably be ranked higher than Team B that beat all bottom 20 teams by 1, even though Team B is undefeated.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:22 AM ^
I guess I agree with your assessment, but our D eff is better than MSU's even if their O eff is better than ours. I understand it is predictive, but it seems like they give too much weight to SOS instead of W and L's. No doubt Staet is good, but it just seems like they aren't that impressive to watch and they really don't have any big wins. You would think the large UNC, Nova and Purdue wins would give us a big boost.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:26 AM ^
I mean he built his model by looking at thousands of games and seeing how changing weights impacts its ability to work. He doesn't really care what you think is being overrated. If sos is weighted heavily its because historically playing well against good teams, whether you win or lose a close game, is a better predictor of future team performance than beating a bad team easily.
MSU has 9 tier 1 wins, we have 4. It is pretty clear that msu has played a more challenging schedule to this point.
January 28th, 2019 at 10:25 AM ^
You should take a shower now...
January 28th, 2019 at 10:34 AM ^
The whole point of an algorithm-based model is to remove the "seems like," "impressive to watch," and other eye-test type aspects from the rankings. These types of results are not meant to "rank" teams, but to predict how teams would match up if they play each other.
January 28th, 2019 at 12:03 PM ^
But does KenPom take into account how Zavier owns Winston and will limit him to 0 points?
January 28th, 2019 at 8:15 AM ^
I mean, come one, MSU, up until yesterday, has been playing amazingly well. Better than UM. They're above UM in efficiency margin in B1G play and have played a tougher schedule so far than UM. They're far ahead of any other B1G team in defensive FG% and eFG% I believe, and have one of the best offenses in the whole nation. There's ebbs and flows to every season, but credit due to them right now. We'll see if they can keep it up, or if there will be a little regression (I think the Purdue game saw a little regression, plus while they have played decent B1G teams, they've also played ones like Iowa who are uniquely ill-suited to match up against MSU). But still, they've earned that KenPom ranking right now.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:35 AM ^
Amazing well when? During the conference season until the Purdue loss? Certainly not the entire season. What win does MSU have that Michigan does not? We have Villanova on the road and UNC at home. If we’re using KemPom predictive analytics, I like our chances in both games head to head.
We have a slight slump of losing one game and not completely dominating a few others and MSU is better? Gimme a break.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:55 AM ^
Particularly when Nova has rebounded and will be a Top 15 team today. It is like State is getting more credit for losing to two good teams than we are for beating two good teams like a drum.
January 28th, 2019 at 1:17 PM ^
Well don't forget that Michigan State lost to a 14-6 Purdue team, and Michigan only beat a 5-3 Purdue team. 14-6 is better than 5-3, so checkmate nerds.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:24 AM ^
Ok, well you apparently don't understand the difference between efficiency and predictive metrics and measuring resume by wins. They are completely two different things. KenPom is predictive and basically says based on how the team is actually playing on a per possession basis, who should win between two teams. That does not measure who actually won big games. I don't think anyway is saying MSUs resume is better. That's probably why UM was still ranked ahead of them after losing to UW. But while UM was slogging it in ugly wins through most of December and Jan, MSU has been hammering everyone they've played. Which also included clobbering Purdue up in East Lansing. And MSU has been clobbering generally better opponents than UM has been struggling with over the past month and a half. I don't know what's so hard to understand about that.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:28 AM ^
Well why don’t you marry them?
January 28th, 2019 at 10:32 AM ^
I mean I would. Can you imagine how much money I would get? But polygamous marriages are still outlawed unfortunately.
January 28th, 2019 at 10:58 AM ^
That shit isn’t enforced.
January 28th, 2019 at 10:02 AM ^
Michigan State has been really consistent against a tough schedule, while we have struggled a bit in January versus a modest schedule.
I still think we have the better resume (and better team!), but it's not hard to see why the computers think MSU is stronger: yes MSU is 1-3 versus Kenpom Top 20 teams while we are 3-1, but MSU has 6(!) wins versus teams 21-40. We have zero (our next best wins are #43 Indiana - twice - #56 Northwestern, and #57 Minnesota). MSU's slaughter of all those tournament teams over the past couple months was remarkable, even if no single win was as impressive as our obliteration of UNC.
This will all be decided on the court in 4 weeks (and again in March)!
January 28th, 2019 at 1:26 PM ^
It's a kenpom conspiracy! Jesus christ knock it off. Just keep winning and quit trying to make everything into some sort of childish conspiracy behind every corner.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:55 AM ^
MSU had a pretty good stretch of wins. Some of those wins are looking less impressive (@OSU, @Nebraska, @Iowa) as conference play continues, but road wins in conference are still impressive.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:55 AM ^
As of this post, MSU is #3 and UM #5 in the kenpom rankings, with the system projecting a 2-point Michigan victory in Ann Arbor and a 6-point MSU victory in East Lansing.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:13 AM ^
That article is dated 11 Jan.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:27 AM ^
Haha good catch.
January 28th, 2019 at 10:34 AM ^
It's not even a good catch. If any one reads it talks about UM and Virginia being undefeated. This is a terrible job by the OP.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:44 AM ^
Came here to post the same, this was written when UM and Virginia were the last two unbeaten teams.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:13 AM ^
Just keep winning, baby, and good things will happen.
January 28th, 2019 at 8:16 AM ^
I don’t think we are the best team in CBB, but hope I’m proven wrong.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:02 AM ^
We can be. I think we have the potential to win it all, but our offense is scuffling right now. We are a good enough defensive team and have enough talent to be very good regardless, but for this to be a team to live up to its potential we need a true go-to player to emerge and need to make more open shots when they present themselves.
Beilein is averse to true post up situations, but I think that both Teske and Matthews have post up games that could be at least teased when they have size advantages to try to draw some doubles and create more organic perimeter looks. A lot of our threes are really low percentage looks right now.
Additionally, I saw DD live three times in high school. One thing he can do is flat out fill it up and has notable range. I’m sure JB has his reasons why he isn’t seeing the floor, but I would not hate seeing him for a few minutes here and there.
January 28th, 2019 at 9:54 AM ^
DeJulius isn't seeing the floor because he's looked horrible when he's been out there. Hopefully just freshman jitters but even for a freshman he's looked overwhelmed. Brooks is definitely the better option at backup currently.