It is a sad reality of the women’s game that there are a handful of Death Star programs, and then there’s everyone else.  These are programs that rarely get beat by anyone other than their fellow Death Stars, year after year after year.  UConn is the the most familiar example of a Death Star, but there are always 6-8 programs that seem to be playing a different game than everyone else.  The sad, annoying fact is that you can fill out about 8 of the top 10 every year without even looking at the rosters.

Death Stars are the teams that might lead a D2 team by 65 points at halftime.  Michigan is not a Death Star.

Below the Death Star level, there are probably 12-15 teams that can be relied upon to give the Death Star programs a good shot and might knock them out of the sky once in a while.  They might win conference championships.  They have All-Americans.  They almost always make the tournament, they usually get a seed, and they might even make a Final Four here and there.  But they’re generally a clear notch down on the totem pole.

Michigan has not been a Tier 2 program.

Tier 3 is the rabble of generally good programs that maybe might beat a Death Star team, but it’s pretty rare, and they need a perfect effort to do so.  They usually have at least a couple of very good, all-conference-type players, but they just don’t have the bench to go up against an assembly line of 4/5 stars.  They’ll make the tournament more often than not and they get ranked once in a while, but the on-court difference between Death Stars and a Tier 3 is usually obvious from the opening tip.

Which bring us to Kim Barnes Arico and Michigan.  KBA’s teams have been a Tier 3 program since a few years before she arrived, back to the days of Kevin Borseth breaking clipboards in press conferences.  But we may be on the verge of some movement here.  One thing Tier 2 teams do is rain holy hell down on sub-Tier 3 teams: lower-half teams in a major conference or mid-majors that might compete for their conference championship.  Michigan has done that from time to time, but they also sometimes struggled (and sometimes lost) against lesser teams.

This year’s edition just finished a non-conference schedule in which they:

• Clearly outplayed a recent Death Star program in transition (Notre Dame),
• Bombed a mediocre mid-major (Oakland), and
• Rained holy hell down on three good mid-majors that could make a run at NCAA berths if things break right (CMU, Wright State, and Butler).

Couple those results with an obviously higher talent level, and we may be seeing a team on the verge of a leap to Tier 2.

Which is great, because I’m getting as tired of typing “Death Star” as you are of reading it.

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So what do you say after the most recent holy-hell-raining, on a good Butler team?  Honestly?  Not much.  Michigan scored the first 12 points, led 19-5 after a quarter and 49-27 at halftime.  This was a curb-stomping from the opening tip, and unlike the Wright State game, which devolved into something of a slog in the third quarter, the ladies kept stomping for the entire 40 minutes.  It’s hard to describe a 93-point outing as ‘ho-hum,’ but that’s exactly what this was.  Tiers.

Basketbullets:

• On her weekly WTKA talk with Sam Webb, KBA said she was surprised to see a stat that the women were in the bottom third of the country in pace, and it was pretty obvious that she’d put an emphasis on pushing the tempo as much as possible.  With this team, with the multitude of halfcourt and post options, that’s less about fast break points and more about getting into sets early in the shot clock, before the defense gets a chance to set up.  I’m not a hoops stat guy, so I can’t tell you if that was borne out in the numbers, but by the eye test it was pretty clear - pushing the ball was a priority.
• Amy Dilk continued her strange season.  For the second time, she played a productive game despite limited scoring; this time it was only five points on 2-9 shooting.  But she was the prime driver of the increased pace, and several times she pressed her height advantage to get good shots.  They didn’t fall, but the offense needs her to be aggressive more often.  She crashed the boards, dropped easy assists, limited turnovers…it was as good a 5-point night as you’ll find.
• Naz was Naz - she’s so automatic at this point that that phrase probably made you think she’d had yet another workmanlike yet unstoppable 20 / 10 night.  You’re wrong, but not by much.  It was 25 and 7 by the All-American.
• Michelle Sidor played the best offensive game of her career, dropping 16 off 4 threes and a couple of nice moves to maker her own shot.  Sidor came in as one of the top scorers in her class but has looked hesitant in her opportunities.  She definitely wasn’t hesitant tonight - there were a couple of shots that were pure heat-checks, which she’s never shown before but were great to see.  This is already a very good offensive team...but a shooting guard that could come in, Vinnie Johnson-style, and get hot quickly would bring it to another level.
• Meghan Fiso got her longest run, and looked as up-and-down as you’d expect from a freshman point guard…but you can definitely see it.  She’s coming.  Same with Cam Williams and Whitney Sollom.  Elise Stuck already fits in, which is really pretty remarkable.

So we close out non-conference play.  The ladies will be favored their next three, at Illinois and home vs Wisconsin and Penn State, before a trip to see a very good Northwestern team. 

Tier 2 awaits.