madison square garden

2/1/2020 – Michigan 69, Rutgers 63 – 13-8, 4-6 Big Ten

This space has been complaining about the repetitive scripts of this season's basketball games, so it was nice to get a different one even if it was a script recycled from previous years: the Rutgers brick factory. The emblematic Cable Subscribers possession ended after an interminable period of backboard volleyball that saw six different point-blank attempts get up. None went down.

Michigan got pounded on the boards and had six more turnovers than Rutgers for a whopping –26 possession differential. The only way to win that game is by watching the opponent heave up waves, nay, oceans of bricks. Rutgers provided, in the Rutgers way.

This was not weird at all in the context of watching Rutgers play Michigan. It's what happens. Rutgers paid fair tribute to that game a few years back by acquiring all of six assists. Not quite the one from back in the day. Not too far off.

The familiarity of the game made the context of the game downright bizarre: Rutgers is ranked. Michigan is playing them in a packed, partisan Madison Square Garden. Michigan is 12th in league play and in desperate need of some quality wins to keep them off the bubble. The situation entering the game is the exact opposite of even the recent, feisty Pikiell Rutgers teams. And then the game is the same way.

Rutgers has gotten good by turning the feistiness up to 11. They still can't shoot: they're 311th in 3P%, 324th in FT%. And while the 2020 Michigan three point curse gave it a run, not even it was up to the task of guiding Rutgers mortars into the net. For the first time in a month Michigan finished a game with a significant advantage from beyond the arc. It is possible.

[After THE JUMP: Johns emerges]

THE ESSENTIALS

THE LOCATION

This should've been a Michigan home game. Instead it's a "home" game at Madison Square Garden. While the program has had a lot of success at MSG, winning nine straight there, you usually want the home team to take a bus to the game while the road team flies there, not vice versa.

Because of the neutral site, Rutgers is favored on both KenPom and Torvik. I'm peeved. Peeved, I tell you!

THE US

Seth's graphic, now with CJ Baird Zavier Simpson again [click to embiggen]:

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We have a non-update on Isaiah Livers (injured) regarding his availability.

DeJulius says Isaiah Livers has been practicing a little bit. Says the injury is not nearly as bad as the previous one — but he and the staff are being extra cautious.

— Max Marcovitch (@Max_Marcovitch) January 31, 2020

I remain skeptical Livers is close to returning given the similarities between his first and second injury. Simpson's status doesn't look good; Dotman is reporting on the 247 board that he isn't traveling with the team.

UPDATE: Simpson has been reinstated just in time to travel with the team:

Breaking News from 〽️?

Juwan Howard reinstates senior guard Zavier Simpson#GoBlue pic.twitter.com/NQ3tvTtYC7

— Michigan Men's Basketball (@umichbball) January 31, 2020

So that's some good news.

The Nebraska win steadied Michigan's spot in the Bracket Matrix after a bit of a freefall. They're the last nine-seed at the moment and listed on 92 of 98 brackets; critically, they're two seed lines ahead of fellow Big Ten bubble teams Purdue and Minnesota. If the Big Ten gets ten teams in the field instead of the current projection of 12(!), those two are on the chopping block before the Wolverines, at least for the moment.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

Harbaugh speaks! Harbaugh's 15 minutes at the mic at Big Ten Media Days have come and gone with a couple of items of note. One is that Harbaugh declined to elaborate on the Media Kerfuffle Of The Week:

On his comments about Urban Meyer's controversy that follows him and if he would add any context

No, I don't see any -- no context you should know about. I don't think it was anything that was anything new or anything of a bombshell. It's things that many of you all understand and have written about.

A second is that Harbaugh came out in favor of a one-time transfer:

My opinion is that every student-athlete should have a one-time ability to transfer and not have to sit out a year, and then if they were to transfer a second time, then the previous rule that we had, where you had to sit out a year of eligibility, and with that, I would also keep the graduate transfer rule that we have in place right now, where you can graduate and transfer and become immediately eligible.

FWIW, many NCAA sports already have this rule.

And finally:

On Michigan being picked as the favorite to win the Big Ten East and conference title game

I think that's where I would pick us.

All righty then.

Oh, one last item:

This is almost certainly a bad idea. There are limited ways in which this can be a good idea.

"we're really close to announcing playing a team on foreign soil" -- Harbaugh

— angelique (@chengelis) July 19, 2019

Neutral site games are bad. Neutral site games when you have the largest stadium in the country are worse. If this is something like Washington moving a home game to Vancouver because their AD has been infected with Pac-12 disease, whatever. If it's Michigan playing someone in France, hard pass.

I guess a one-off with Syracuse in Toronto wouldn't be the worst.

[After THE JUMP: Rutger offers up some batting practice]