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By Ace Anbender
 Manny Harris led Michigan with 22 points and 9 rebounds. Well, it certainly wasn’t pretty, but Michigan came away with a win today in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, defeating ninth-seeded Iowa 59-52 in a game that probably shouldn’t have been that close. Early on it looked like Michigan would turn the game into a blowout, as the Wolverines opened the game on a 12-4 run and held a 28-13 lead partway through the first half. Iowa would battle back to within eight at halftime and close to within four early in the second half before the Wolverines seemingly blew the game open again, holding a 56-41 lead with four minutes remaining. Again, Iowa would make it a game, closing within five points and having several opportunities to get within one possession before Michigan finally closed out the game.
The difference in the game was the ability of Michigan’s stars, Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims, to get inside and either finish or get to the line: the duo combined for 36 points on 12-27 shooting, hitting 10 of 19 shots from two point range, and Manny knocked down nine of ten free throw attempts. Michigan probably would have been able to run away with this one if it hadn’t been for Iowa’s Cully Payne, who scored 25 of the Hawkeyes’ 52 points, including hitting five of ten three pointers. No other Hawkeye had more than ten or hit a three pointer (in ten tries), so it was essentially a one-man show for Iowa today. Luckily, Michigan mustered just enough offense to hold him off, or the season would have ended on a decidedly sour note.
No player notes for this one, since Michigan has another game at noon tomorrow against Ohio State, and I was watching the game while working on a paper (I know I said I would go to class instead of watch, but yeah, temptation kept me in front of the TV and I had to get some work done today). Harris did a tremendous job of lifting Michigan while getting very little help from the supporting cast: Wolverines not named Harris or Sims combined to go 7-23 from the field, and nine of Peedi’s 14 points came in the first 6:28 of the game. It would have been nice to see Michigan try to get the ball to Sims more — after his initial burst of points and his first sub out, he seemed to get out of sync with the offense and didn’t see nearly as many touches down low. I won’t complain too much, however, as a win is a win, especially come conference tourney time. The team will have to step up the performance, however, if they hope to hang with the co-conference champs tomorrow.
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By Ace Anbender
 Much of Michigan's success next season will depend on the return of Manny Harris. I realize that Michigan has a game on Thursday against Iowa, and crazy things can happen in March. However, Michigan beating Iowa, Ohio State, the Wisconsin/Illinois winner, and either Purdue or Michigan State — essentially, what the Wolverines need to do to make a tournament run — goes beyond crazy and into the realm of the completely impossible, so I’m going to go ahead and address something more relevant: what will this team look like next season?
First thing’s first: I’m assuming that Manny Harris, who said he’ll be back next season in the midst of a year where his NBA draft stock has plummeted, will in fact be back next season. If he’s not, this article could be extremely short: we will be bad, there will be blood, and the hockey team will be our only hope of having a decent spring. Kind of like the whole Ellerbe era. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen.
Second, I’m becoming less and less convinced that Michigan will be able to land Trey Zeigler: he’s got great offers from better schools, and if he wants to stay close to home he has the option of playing for his father at Central Michigan, something that seems to be a very real possibility, or playing for Michigan State, only one of the best programs in the country. With Harris probably returning, and the Michigan program not looking nearly as good as it did a year ago, nobody would blame Zeigler for heading to MSU, UCLA or Duke or taking the opportunity to be the star on a team his dad coaches. In short, I’m not optimistic that John Beilein will be able to convince Zeigler that Ann Arbor is the place for him.
So, what does that leave us? Something like this:
| Point Guard | Shooting Guard | Small Forward | Power Forward | Center |
| Darius Morris | Stu Douglass | Manny Harris | Zack Novak | Jordan Morgan |
| Laval Lucas-Perry | Matt Vogrich | Tim Hardaway, Jr. | Evan Smotrycz | Blake McLimans |
| Eso Akunne | | Jon Horford? | |
Obviously, the actual lineup could appear much different next season, but the cast of characters remains the same. Darius Morris will have the point guard position locked down, and Manny Harris will obviously be starting on the wing. Other than those two top-100 guys, Michigan will be rolling out a shooting guard who has completely lost his touch (Douglass), a shooting guard masquerading as a Big Ten power forward (Novak), and in all likelihood an untested redshirt freshman at center (Morgan, probably, or McLimans, but he’s more of a power forward).
Freshman Evan Smotrycz has a solid shot at starting, which could help this lineup immensely: if he can play at power forward, Michigan can shift Novak down to the three and play Harris at shooting guard, which would suddenly give Michigan a decent-sized lineup and great rebounding from their wings and guards, something the team will probably need given the situation at center. The added bonus would be being able to bring Douglass from off the bench at point guard, instead of leaving him in the starting lineup despite his struggles on both offense and defense this year. That hangs on a huge if, however, and that is if Smotrycz is ready to step in and play at power forward in the Big Ten.
There are some wild cards. I included three-star prospect Jon Horford on the above list, although Michigan has not yet extended an offer. I would expect, if Michigan loses out on Zeigler, for Beilein to grab Horford in this year’s recruiting class, and he could add some depth and possibly compete for a spot at the four or the five (he’s listed at 6-9, 185, so hopefully adding weight would be in order before he took the court next season). The younger Tim Hardaway is an interesting prospect at the wing — the guy is scoring like crazy in high school, and could be the type of instant offense this team has desperately needed outside of Harris and Sims the last couple years. Again, however, he will be a freshman. Matt Vogrich will have a full offseason to get physically prepared for Big Ten college basketball, but it would take an enormous leap for him to be a big-time contributor after spending the majority of this season riding the pine.
Maybe this year has beaten all the optimism out of me, but I have a hard time looking at that lineup and seeing a team that will be better next season. Maybe the system will finally take hold. Maybe the shots will start falling. Maybe Zeigler bolsters an already-solid recruiting class and adds another scoring threat on the wing. Maybe Evan Smotrycz is Kevin Pittsnogle 2.0. Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like Michigan will be depending on a lot of maybes if they hope to be an improved team next season.
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By Ace Anbender
 Ohio State was able to control the game with high-percentage buckets like this. There’s not a whole lot to analyze about this team right now: heading in to Saturday, few thought Michigan could hang with Ohio State, a team contending for the Big Ten title. They were right. The Buckeyes could roll out five former top-100 recruits and know that they’d get solid contributions from at least a couple of them (in this case, 18-11-7 from Evan Turner, 24-9-4 from William Buford, and 14 from Dallas Lauderdale). Michigan would try to counter with their duo of top-100 players, but with neither Manny Harris nor DeShawn Sims bringing their A-game, the Buckeye run in the second half to put the game away felt like an inevitability.
The frustrating part about this team is that, as far as I can tell, the offense, schematically, is working: Michigan has done a great job of limiting turnovers (just six this game) and getting some decent looks, but their shots just don’t fall (in this case, 17-47 from the field and 5-17 from three). I was arguing with a Michigan fan the other day about whether giving John Beilein an extension was a mistake (he said yes, I said no, for the record), and both of us agreed that this team would be really dangerous if we could just his 35% of our threes. This is not exactly asking the world of Michigan — shooting 35% from three would put a team at 144th nationally — but it’s a far cry from what Michigan is putting up: 29.8%, good for 320th in the country.
That’s what’s so frustrating about this team: in a slightly alternate world, where Michigan becomes just an average three-point shooting team (not crazy, since they shot 33.4% last year and brought practically everyone back), this is a dangerous team vying for another NCAA tournament bid. Instead, we’ve been treated to a lot of games like Saturday: 40 minutes of hoping the shots will fall, but knowing we’ll probably come up short. Can this season be over already?
Bullets:
- For once, Michigan got some decent, balanced scoring, with all five starters breaking double-digits. Unfortunately, when Sims and Harris combine for 21 points (on 5-20 shooting), Michigan has almost no chance of winning. This team got about as good a contribution as they could hope for offensively from their role players, but the stars didn’t step up this game.
- Yes, Darius Morris’ three-pointer was banked in, but he’s still making great strides as a point guard: 11 points on 4-8 shooting, three rebounds, three assists, and just one turnover. If he can continue this kind of improvement in the offseason, Michigan will have a very solid point guard for the next few seasons.
- Novak and Douglass had similar games: decent offensive output mitigated by defensive struggles against bigger, stronger, faster players. See the above picture for an example of why Zack Novak is not a Big Ten power forward, and Douglass was absolutely abused by Evan Turner (who, in fairness, is one of the two best players in the country) when he was forced to guard him.
- The bench, once again, had no impact: Zack Gibson had the only bench points, with two, to go along with four rebounds and three fouls in 11 minutes. Laval Lucas-Perry has mastered the on-court disappearing act, going 0-3 and not recording a single other statistic in 14 minutes. Ant Wright and Matt Vogrich barely saw the floor, combining for six minutes.
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By Ace Anbender
 DeShawn Sims poured in 27 points -- including the game-tying three -- to lead Michigan over Iowa. Rarely does a narrow overtime victory over a 3-10 Big Ten team inspire confidence or hope in a fan, but I’d be lying if I said that last night’s performance by Michigan didn’t have me excited, at least temporarily. It may have been Iowa, it may have been meaningless to the Big Ten standings, and maybe it shouldn’t have been that close, but I can’t be angry when I see Michigan pull out a road game in dramatic, come-from-behind fashion. With the way this season has gone, nobody would have blamed the Wolverines for letting up down the stretch, when Aaron Fuller kept making big shots and Iowa held a five-point lead with 22 seconds to play. Instead, Michigan’s big man hit some big shots of his own, and the Wolverines were able to pull out a great overtime victory on the road. The fans may have given up on this team a long time ago (I know I’ve said some things to that effect), but this team continues to fight to the bitter end. You have to tip your cap to John Beilein for that.
If you told me before the game that Michigan would hit over 50% of their threes, I would have expected a blowout victory. Instead, Michigan had to battle with an equally-scorching Iowa squad that was lighting it up from outside and riding the hot hand of Fuller (30 points and 13 rebounds) inside. This wasn’t anywhere close to Michigan’s best defensive effort, but the offense carried the day. We haven’t been able to say that much this season. While you’d certainly hope that the team would play better D, it was nice to see the team find its shooting stroke (at least from the outside).
Player bullets:
- This wasn’t DeShawn Sims’ best effort, as he struggled to hit his inside shots (10-25 from the field), but he hit the biggest shot of the game when the team ran a play specifically to get him an open jumper, and you can’t ask for much more than that from your senior leader. Sims managed to battle through the game despite not quite having it all night, and he ended up with 27 points — to me, that’s the sign of a really good player.
- Manny Harris also struggled from two-point range, going 3-10 on the night, but he finished 4-7 from three (including a few pull-up shots that had every Michigan fan cringing until they went in), pulled down 10 boards, and added seven assists. When Manny was struggling to create his own shot, he was able to find open teammates and help the offense with his passing. Again, it’s great to see your stars finding ways to make the team better when they’re not having their best game — Manny managed to be effective despite not having his bread-and-butter (getting to the hoop) and made some big plays in overtime to help lift the team to victory. Yes, he had six turnovers, but Manny’s good plays offset his poor ones.
- Stu Douglass started hot, hitting two early threes, but then disappeared from the stat sheet until he hit a huge three in overtime. While it’s nice to see him hit that late shot, we need more production from Douglass — three rebounds, no assists, and two turnovers is not what you want from a guy playing 42 minutes at guard.
- Zack Novak put up a nice overall stat line — 3-5 from the field (all his attempts from three) for nine points, four rebounds, five assists, a steal, and no turnovers, but you can’t talk about his game last night without mentioning that he was the main guy guarding Fuller, who routinely abused Novak in the post. It’s tough to put too much of that on Novak — on any normal team, he wouldn’t be guarding power forwards — but you’d still like to see Novak hold his guy under 30.
- Darius Morris has made a lot of progress in the last few weeks, but last night he was a complete nonfactor — 26 minutes, no points, 0-3 from the field, two rebounds, two assists. Games like this make you remember that he’s still a very raw, freshman point guard getting his first taste of Big Ten basketball.
- Laval Lucas-Perry briefly caught fire in the first half, hitting three consecutive three-pointers to help stake the Wolverines to a nice first-half cushion (that completely disappeared by halftime). He finished with his best stat line since early January, scoring 13 points on 3-5 shooting, hitting 4-4 free throws, and adding five rebounds and two assists. I’ll never understand how LLP can have games like this and then completely disappear for a month, but it’s always nice to see him step up.
- Zack Gibson finished with three blocks in just 12 minutes, but didn’t haul in a single rebound, which is somewhat unacceptable for a 6-10 college basketball player. Michigan went with Sims down the stretch, obviously, and it’s way too late in his career to complain about how limited Gibson is — at this point, he is what he is, which is a guy who can block a couple shots, eat up some minutes in the middle, and is a very inconsistent offensive player.
For more on last night’s game, check out the recap from UMHoops.
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By Ace Anbender
 Darius Morris has earned the starting point guard role as a true freshman. With the Michigan basketball team hitting the home stretch of the regular season with little to no hope of an NCAA Tournament berth, it’s time to start looking ahead to 2010-11. There are just six games remaining before the Big Ten Tournament (@Iowa, PSU, ILL, @OSU, MINN, @MSU) but still a lot of questions to be answered about this team and their potential next season. Here are five things I’d like to see out of the team before the season is over:
- The continued improvement of Darius Morris: This is an obvious one, but also very important. We’ve watched Morris grow in the last couple weeks from an offensive non-factor to the guy John Beilein trusts as his starting point guard, and the true freshman appears to be getting better with every game. If he can continue that improvement, Morris could be one of the stars of the team next season. If his game doesn’t develop, we could have another season with a point guard who won’t score more than 5-10 points in any given game. I’d like to see Morris, who has been deferential sometimes to a fault this season, look to create his own shot a little more — if Manny Harris ends up going pro, Michigan will need someone to step into the role of slasher/creator, and Morris is the most likely candidate. If he can show an ability to get to the basket and finish consistently, Michigan’s outlook for 2010-11 gets a lot better.
- Manny Harris playing within himself: Let’s assume, at least for the time being, that Manny Harris will stay true to his word and come back next season. If he does return, Manny may have to shoulder even more of the offensive burden for Michigan without partner in crime DeShawn Sims. We’ve seen what happens to Manny when he tries to do too much for the team: turnovers, poor shot selection, and unnecessary risks on defense. Harris has made strides in the turnover department, improving in turnovers per game and turnover rate every season of his career, but his overall efficiency on the offensive end hasn’t made the leap that Michigan fans were expecting heading into this season. If he can start showing maturation now, I’ll be a lot more confident that Manny can be an efficient and effective player while still carrying his supporting cast.
- Someone — anyone — find their shooting stroke: I guess I should amend that to “any returning player” but you get the point — as a team, Michigan is shooting 29.8% from three, and only three players (LLP, Stu Douglass, DeShawn Sims) who have attempted more than 25 is shooting better than 30%. John Beilein’s offense is predicated around the three-pointer, and that’s not going to change anytime soon, so it would be nice to see someone step up and start consistently hitting shots. If I had to pick a player I’d like to see find his stroke, it’s Zack Novak — he does everything well for this team right now except score, the other players feed off of his energy (and when he plays well, you can feel how he boosts the team), and he’ll almost certainly be starting next season, so having him become a bigger offensive threat would really benefit this team.
- Stu Douglass regain his offensive confidence: It’s been tough to watch Douglass playing against himself for much of the season, and you can tell that his inability to hit jumpers has caused him to lose confidence in his all-around offensive game. With Morris now manning the point, Michigan doesn’t need to keep Douglass in the lineup going forward — few teams should be desperate enough to keep giving 30 minutes per game to a guy who shoots 31.5% from the field, doesn’t rebound well for his height, and can be exposed defensively against quicker guards. I’m not ready to give up on Stu, however, because of his ballhandling, passing, and his potential as a shooter. If Stu starts getting more aggressive, like he showed against Minnesota with that great backdoor cut for a layup, he could be an integral part of this team for the next two seasons. If he plays like he did earlier in Big Ten play, when he was passing up open layups and tripping over himself to avoid shooting, he may find himself getting passed over by younger players starting next season, when Evan Smotrycz and Tim Hardaway get to campus.
- See what Matt Vogrich can bring to this team: When this team was still battling for a (meaningful) postseason berth, I had no problem with John Beilein keeping the freshman Vogrich mostly out of the rotation (6 mpg this season). At this juncture, however, I’d like to see how Vogrich responds to a bigger role — in very limited opportunities, he has shown a Novakian ability to get to rebounds and loose balls as well as an effective three-point shot (9-for-24 on the season). Especially if Manny Harris turns pro, Michigan will need Vogrich to take on a bigger role next season. With nothing to lose this year, it would be nice to get him some experience getting big minutes in Big Ten play.
Michigan has a good opportunity to continue their momentum from the Minnesota win tomorrow night when they take on cellar-dweller Iowa on the road. Given how their first game against the Hawkeyes went (a 60-46 victory that wasn’t that close), the game could be an opportunity to see some experimenting with the rotation if John Beilein desires, and a chance to see guys like Vogrich get some burn off the bench.
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By Ace Anbender
 Stu Douglass was one of several Wolverines to hit the deck hustling last night. Watching Michigan defeat Minnesota 71-63 on the road last night, you could see why this team was supposed to make the NCAA Tournament in 2009-10: when both our stars are on, and the supporting cast, well, supports them, this is a team that can play some really quality basketball. If Michigan doesn’t fall into foul trouble early in the second half (helped, in part, by some dubious officiating) and miss some late free throws, this could easily have been a 15-20 point victory.
The story of the game was the performance of DeShawn Sims, who was benched just a minute into the game and finished the first half with just six points, then exploded in the second half for 21 points on 10-12 shooting. To say that was the whole story, however, would be to shortchange the efforts of the whole team — Michigan managed to take a one-point lead into halftime thanks to some very solid man-to-man defense, which they kept up throughout the whole game, and the team received very solid performances from Manny Harris, Darius Morris, and Zack Gibson (!) on the offensive end.
Before I get to the player bullets, I thought I would introduce a new feature to the game recaps: stealing a little thunder from UMHoops, I decided to head over to StatSheet and see what other charts they had. I like the one below, which is essentially a bar-chart box score, which is nice for visualizing the overall impact of each player.
Player bullets:
- John Beilein didn’t like what Sims was showing on defense early, leading to a lengthy first-half benching, but Sims responded exactly how you’d want a senior to respond: by playing like hell when he got another opportunity. Even though Minnesota had a big size advantage in the post, they had no answer for Sims, who showed off his entire array of post moves and threw in a couple mid-range shots and a three-pointer for good measure.
- You can’t talk about Sims’ performance without mentioning the effect Manny Harris had on his game last night. Manny wasn’t shooting particularly well (5-14 from the field), but he was able to consistently get to the basket, leading to a lot of free throws (8-10 on the night) and opening the lane up for Sims, who Harris found with several great passes in the second half. Manny finished with seven assists and only two turnovers, playing within himself for most of the game and creating offense for himself and the team.
- Darius Morris is really getting better with every game, and this may have been his finest performance as a Wolverine. He finished with five points (2-3 shooting), three rebounds, five assists, a steal, and just two turnovers, and for the most part was able to handle Minnesota’s full-court press like an experienced point guard. He had a couple really gorgeous plays, including a highlight-worthy behind-the-back dish to Harris on a two-on-one fast break. Morris is responding really well to the extra minutes he’s earned, and we’ll likely see him for 30+ minutes a game from here on out.
- Although he had a few really ugly shots and only finished 2-7 from the field, Stu Douglass played a solid all-around game, dishing out four assists (to zero turnovers), adding five steals, and scoring a critical second-half bucket on a beautiful backdoor cut. That last play was really nice to see from Douglass — he was able to earn himself a layup (and an and-one opportunity) by playing smart and having the confidence to look for his own offense.
- Zack Novak didn’t have much of an impact on offense, in part because of more foul trouble, but he was his usual gritty self on defense, hitting the floor multiple times for loose balls. His hustle appears to be infectious — Douglass dove for loose balls a couple times, and even Laval Lucas-Perry made a really nice play on the ground to get control of the ball and call a quick timeout for Michigan. When you see a player put in the kind of effort Novak has all season, it makes the rest of the team want to step up and match that level of intensity, and Michigan did a great job of doing that last night.
- When Zack Gibson came in early to replace Sims, and immediately got called for traveling at the three-point line, I must admit I immediately called for Beilein to put Peedi back in. After that snafu, however, Gibson put in a great game, scoring eight points (on 3-3 shooting, including two threes) and hauling in two rebounds in just nine minutes, mostly in the first half. Without Gibson stepping up like he did, Michigan likely goes into the half with a deficit. Instead, Gibson provided an unexpected lift to the team, and Sims was able to build on his success in the second half.
- Anthony Wright and LLP both played somewhat sparingly (13 minutes for Wright, 11 for LLP), and each finished with zero points. Besides one bad turnover by LLP when he couldn’t handle the Gophers’ press, neither had much of an impact — positive or negative — on the game. Frankly, during a game when Michigan’s other role players really stepped up, that’s fine by me.
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By Ace Anbender
 Could Texas be joining the Big Ten in the near future? Well, this is interesting: Tom Keegan of the Lawrence Journal-World is reporting that a source with ties to the Big Ten has told him that the conference is in “preliminary exchanges” with the University of Texas about becoming the 12th Big Ten team. Yes, that University of Texas. While this rumor, by virtue of not being started on Twitter, seems to have more credence than the “Pitt to Big Ten” rumors from a couple weeks back, it’s still very early in the expansion process for the Big Ten, and I would not expect to hear anything concrete on this for a while. Still, it’s fun to speculate: Brian has already posted a wild 14-team, three-tier conference alignment proposal (with the addition of Pitt, Missouri, and Texas to the Big Ten, presumably) that uses soccer-style relegation. It is, admittedly, completely insane, but it’s tough to deny how fun that setup would be.
In football news, Touch the Banner has posted a three-part geographical breakdown of Michigan recruiting, looking at offers, commitments, and percent of accepted offers by state. Not surprisingly, Michigan puts most of their offers out to players from Florida and Ohio, while pulling the majority of their commitments from Ohio, Michigan, and Florida. It would be really interesting, if the date were available, to extend this research over Rich Rodriguez’s full time at Michigan, as the small sample size (just the Class of 2010) makes it hard to draw any big conclusions from this, but it’s still interesting to look at.
The Big House Blog scored an interview with Jeremy Ross, a kicker from my alma mater (Ann Arbor Pioneer) who will walk on to the team next season. He’s tiny (5′5, 145 pounds) but has some really nice high school numbers (warning: lots of third-person self-referencing ahead):
BHB: If you were a evaluating Jeremy as a kicker what would you say about him?
JR: If I was evaluating Jeremy as a kicker I would say that he is very consistent. His form makes up for his lack of size and he proves it with every kick. He shows his worth with his consistency. If he was asked to go out there and make 10/10 kick he wouldn’t shy away from it.(Unless it was from 37 yards, in my career I’m 22/25 and every one that I missed has been from 37 yards, its really weird and when I go out on the field I don’t even think about it.
BHB: What is the longest field goal you have kicked in a game or at practice?
JR: In a game my longest field goal is 45 yards, in practice I’ve hit from 55 yards, and out of my 22 field goals in high school 8 are from 40+ yards.
Ross will be enrolling in June, and his stated goal is to earn a starting spot and become Michigan’s version of Reggie Ho (the former Notre Dame walk-on-turned-starting-kicker). Best of luck to the kid — it’s always nice to see Ann Arbor talent on the Wolverines.
Moving on to basketball, Dylan takes a closer look at what most Michigan fans are calling a disappointing season for Manny Harris. You wouldn’t guess it from watching the games, but Manny has actually been just about as good in Big Ten play as he was last season (in fact, his offensive rating has improved slightly). The issue, says Dylan, is expectations:
So perhaps nothing is wrong with Manny Harris at all. This is the same Manny that we saw last year during Big Ten play. He will have his great games but he also has his off-days when nothing seems to work. Every player has his bad games, that’s undeniable. The problem is that even if this is the same Manny Harris, Michigan was hoping for an improved Manny.
Expectations were high this year because improvement was expected. Harris and Sims would become more consistent. Michigan’s role players would slightly refine their games to become less one dimensional. Looking at Manny specifically, I firmly believe that if he could shoot ~35% from three point range he’d be a lock first round draft pick.
Over at Burgeoning Wolverine Star, Chris calls for more Darius Morris — who appears to have assumed the starting point guard position — as he begins looking ahead to 2011:
I assume Morris’ start against Wisconsin is the beginning of the Morris era and we rarely see him start games on the bench for the rest of his time at Michigan. A lot has been made of the fact that he can’t really shoot from the outside, to which I say, bullpuckey. I don’t want Morris shooting threes anyway. I want him to be a point guard, something that he’s increasingly proving he might actually be. I’m exceedingly pessimistic about the 2011 season but that might change as Morris gets more and more playing time and we get to see just how well he can run the offense.
Also, UMHoops chatted with the Minnesota blog From the Barn in preparation for tonight’s game against the Gophers.
Finally, ESPN has an interesting piece on a Michigan name I hadn’t heard in a very long time: MaliVai Washington, the former M tennis star who made the Wimbledon final in 1996. As it turns out, Washington wasn’t exactly a model student-athlete at Michigan, as he talks about showing up to class late, sleeping during class, and leaving early on a regular basis. He did not graduate before turning pro, but now, post-playing career, he is taking academics much more seriously as a finance major at the University of North Florida. He has also become very active in his community:
Washington also devotes himself to the MaliVai Washington Kids Foundation, a nonprofit based in Jacksonville’s rough-and-tumble 32209 zip code. Dropouts, teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse — this neighborhood has it all. It also has, thanks to the efforts of Washington and his colleagues, a 9,000-square-foot youth center, eight tennis courts and a program that combines tennis and education.
Great to see Washington representing the University well, even if he’s moved on to a different school.
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By Ace Anbender
 Michigan's defense also appears ready for the season to end. As the season wears on, it’s getting tougher and tougher to write these game recaps. I think, for the sake of my sanity, my mind has stopped allowing me to get emotionally invested in Michigan basketball games. On Saturday afternoon, as Michigan’s deficit hung somewhere between 16 and 20 points for what felt like an eternity, my friends and I took entertainment in seeing which referee would make the most animated call (Ed Hightower, of course, emerged as the champion). We left when the clock ticked below eight minutes. Call me a fair-weather fan if you want, but at some point, you have to cut your losses and move on with the rest of your day.
Despite the score, the team didn’t play particularly bad, at least in the first half — Wisconsin simply didn’t miss, shooting 15-22 from the field (and a ridiculous 9-13 from three) in the first 20 minutes to open up a 49-26 halftime lead that would not be relinquished. For the latter stanza, Michigan seemed resigned to its fate, as DeShawn Sims (15 first-half points, 2 second-half points) and the rest of the team (12-20 on field goals and 2-2 from three-point range in first half, 5-19 — including 0-9 from three — in second half) cooled off considerably.
- Manny Harris continues to slump — and kill his 2010 draft stock — with some ugly shot selection and a broke jumper. He scored just 11 points on 4-11 shooting, and just doesn’t look like himself. It’s tough to tell how much of Manny’s woes are mental and how much are physical, but it’s clear that he’s not playing on the same level he was early in the season, and this team can’t afford to have one of its two stars not playing like one. I guess the positive here is that Manny may have no choice but to come back next season.
- DeShawn Sims did all he could in the first half to carry the team, dropping in 15 points on an array of fallaway jumpers and inside post moves, but was likely discouraged by the lack of support from his teammates — with only two second-half points on five shot attempts, it didn’t look like Peedi was working as hard to get in position like he was earlier in the game. It’s tough to blame him on this — after that kind of first-half effort, only to see those results, I’d be discouraged too.
- The (only) bright side of these past few games, Darius Morris has made some encouraging progress at point guard, where he has now earned the starting spot. Morris was efficient in all facets on offense, scoring eight points on 3-4 shooting and dishing out three assists against only one turnover. Since he doubles as Michigan’s most athletically gifted perimeter defender, expect to see Morris get even more playing time as the season wears on.
- The rest of the team was nowhere to be found. Zack Novak and Stu Douglass combined for three points on 0-5 shooting. Those two players comprise 40% of this team’s starting lineup. That wouldn’t be so bad if this team had any bench production, but only Laval Lucas-Perry scored among the reserves, with four points on 2-3 shooting. You can’t expect your team to be competitive if only five players score in a game. You just can’t.
I haven’t even bothered to check if this team has a chance at postseason play (and when I say postseason, I mean the NIT or that other random postseason tournament that nobody watches), but at this point, I’d like for this season to mercifully end as soon as possible, so we can regroup, assess what went wrong, and gear up for next season. This team is clearly ready for this nightmare to end, as DeShawn Sims is the only player you could say has remotely lived up to expectations, and he’s an outgoing senior. Hopefully John Beilein can get this team to put together a few decent games down the stretch, Manny will reaffirm that he’s coming back, and we’ll move on.
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By Ace Anbender
 Brandon Graham took home Senior Bowl MVP honors with two sacks and a forced fumble. The normal basketball recap will be a bit abbreviated today, because, in the interest of full disclosure, my friends and I left the game with about ten minutes left when it was clear that Iowa had attempted to sneak a D-II team into Crisler Arena dressed as the Hawkeye basketball team. Instead, I’ll give my thoughts on an interesting weekend of Michigan sports.
After a week of practices that turned a lot of heads in the NFL, Brandon Graham earned MVP honors in the Senior Bowl with five tackles, two sacks, one TFL and a forced fumble. The week began with Graham projected as a late first/early second-round NFL draft pick, but his outstanding week has almost certainly solidified him as a first-round pick and one of the top defensive players available. I think Graham had to overcome the (patently false) perception that he was a decent player on a bad defense, and he exceeded the expectations of everyone who hadn’t seen him play at Michigan to show that he is, simply, a great football player. The only thing holding Graham back is his size — at 6′1, 263 pounds, Graham could be either an undersized 4-3 defensive end or a big, pass-rushing 3-4 outside linebacker. Personally, I think his future is with his hand on the ground, but a lot depends on what team grabs him in the draft. Either way, Graham showed this week that he is one of the elite prospects in the draft this season.
 Yeah, the Iowa game was about that easy. In basketball, Michigan beat Iowa 60-46 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score would indicate. I’m really not sure how much can be taken away from this one — Iowa is now 2-7 in the Big Ten, with their wins coming against Penn State (winless in conference play) and Indiana (3-5). Michigan scored the game’s first 13 points, held Iowa scoreless for nearly seven minutes, and kept the Hawkeyes without a field goal until almost ten minutes had elapsed. We spent half the game joking that Iowa guard John Lickliter — son of head coach Todd Lickliter — looked like he had been given his spot on the team as a Bar Mitzvah gift. It was one of those games.
DeShawn Sims carried the scoring load early, and finished with 20 points (on 9-18 shooting) and 12 rebounds (including nine offensive boards), as nobody on the Hawkeyes could really check him on the block. Manny Harris also finished with 20 points, but that number is deceiving — most of his points came in the second half, and he shot only 6-16 from the field and turned the ball over six times.
Other than that, it was your standard performance on offense from the Wolverines: nobody else finished with more than six points (Douglass and Novak), the team shot poorly (36.2% from the field, 26.9% from three) but came up with a lot of their own misses (15 offensive rebounds out of 27 missed shots), and the only consistent offense came when Harris and Sims were creating for themselves. Michigan dominated on the defensive end, however, holding Iowa to just 17-55 shooting and allowing just nine offensive rebounds, which allowed the Wolverines to rout the Hawkeyes.
One final thought on the game: Zack Novak was in foul trouble for most of the game, finishing with four fouls, and when he was replaced by Anthony Wright it really showed on both ends of the floor. On offense, Novak gets his hand on seemingly every miss that comes into his area, and even if he doesn’t pull down the offensive rebound he makes the defense work to get the ball back. Wright tends to hang out by the three-point line and occasionally throw up a brick. On defense, Novak has solid positioning and displays the same tenacity that makes him a great offensive rebounder for his size. Wright appeared lost on defense and doesn’t rebound as well as Novak despite a considerable height advantage. In short, let’s hope Novak stays out of foul trouble from now on — this team can’t afford losing him against a competent opponent.
I was actually able to catch both hockey games against MSU, as this was the rare weekend when both Michigan hockey games were televised. Michigan salvaged a split, losing 3-2 on Friday at Munn and taking a wild 5-4 decision Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena, but the team was robbed of a chance for a sweep thanks to a very untimely whistle in the opener (from TBTYB):
So now Michigan has a man-advantage with just over two minutes to go and a chance to pull off a huge comeback on the road. Just after the penalty expired, Chris Brown was standing in the slot. The puck hit him and bounced down, through the legs of Drew Palmisano, and into the net. Like, straight through the legs of Palmisano. We’re not talking pinballing. We’re not talking the puck died between his legs but was still loose and someone jammed it in. It hit Chris Brown, bounced down, went right through Palmisano into the net.
Shegos somehow missed this and blew the play dead within milliseconds of the puck going underneath Palmisano. The whistle may not have gone until the puck was in the net (I’m not sure), but thanks to the most retarded rule in sports–the play is dead when it’s dead in the referee’s mind, not when he blows the whistle–you can’t review it.
That’s a missed call. You can see from the behind-the-net cam that the puck was never even remotely covered. And the guy who is widely considered the best ref in the conference–as if that’s not like saying someone is the prettiest ugly girl (by the way, there were options in the crowd tonight….for as many good-looking girls as there are supposed to be at Michigan State, they must have found every fug in the bunch during the crowd shots tonight….holy buckets)–completely blew it.
The same “intent to whistle” bull has cost the Red Wings a couple games this season as well, so sadly I wasn’t even remotely surprised when the goal was waived off. It was a terrible call, and I don’t want to exonerate Shegos in any way, but that rule is a black eye for hockey at every level it’s enforced — one of these day someone is going to get sick of answering angry emails and actually change the damn thing, and I hope that day comes as soon as possible. The controversy of the third period overshadowed a completely lackluster effort from the Wolverines — they couldn’t get any sort of offensive rush into the zone or set up a power play until the game was nearly out of reach. The goal that put MSU up 3-0 was vintage Bryan Hogan of the worst kind, a juicy rebound on a routine shot that was hammered home by (argh) Corey Tropp.
Saturday’s game was just crazy. Michigan appeared to put the game out of reach with three goals in the first period — A.J. Treais drove the net hard and knocked home a rebound to get the first goal, Chris Summers netted a laser from the point for the second, and Brian Lebler’s wrister gave Michigan a 3-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
Then State scored four unanswered goals. Michigan gave up an inexcusable shorthanded tally at the beginning of the second period, and Hogan allowed another rebound goal halfway through the period to cut the lead to one. State tied the game up just 50 seconds into the third period, and I think I speak for all Michigan fans when I say that I was resigned to a loss at that point. When Dean Chelios netted the go-ahead goal with a little under seven minutes to go, I almost shut off the TV. When Michigan took a penalty shortly afterward, I almost threw the remote through the TV, which probably would have been an effective way of permanently shutting it off.
Good thing I didn’t. On a seemingly innocuous play in the Spartan zone, Carl Hagelin made a great effort to force a turnover and took two shots on Drew Palmisano. The second shot bounced off to the side, where Matt Rust was able to hammer home the rebound. Just two minutes later, Chris Brown refused to budge from the side of the net, and whacked home the game-winner past both Palmisano and a Spartan defenseman on a great, gritty play.
This weekend’s series was a microcosm of the season for Michigan: very inconsistent play, a lot of chances, some soft goals allowed, and a weekend split. The Wolverines now are in great danger of missing the NCAA Tournament — Brian thinks Michigan probably needs to win eight of nine (or, of course, take the CCHA Tournament) to get a spot in the tourney. With Michigan’s shaky goaltending situation, I don’t really see that happening.
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By Ace Anbender
 Shit. Sorry. I have a hard time thinking about last night’s game without bursting out into a stream of expletives. Up three, with a minute and a half on the clock, with the ball — even the most cynical of Michigan fans would’ve had a hard time betting on MSU at that point. If these past couple years have taught Michigan fans anything, however, it is that cynicism is the only protection against crushing disappointment.
Sonofabitch.
A couple points on the last play before I get into player breakdowns:
- I was not just okay with the play drawn up at the end, but thought that was by far our best chance of getting a basket in 1.5 seconds from near midcourt. I’ve seen or heard several people say they would have rather seen Michigan get a look at a jump shot. Have you seen Michigan’s ability to hit jump shots? We shot 19-58 from the field against MSU, and 7-29 from three. We managed to get our best inside player a shot from within three feet of the basket. It didn’t fall. Barely. Of all the things to c0mplain about, the final play call is not one of them.
- Yes, DeShawn Sims was probably fouled on that last play, as this screenshot from UMHoops shows. If you expect a ref to do anything but swallow his whistle on the final play of a game, however, you haven’t watched a lot of basketball — it would’ve taken a full-fledged assault to draw a foul on that play. That’s basketball. In this instance, we lost. Those are the breaks of the game. If you really want to complain about something, complain about the two airballed three-pointers in the final two minutes, when we could’ve made a last-gasp effort unnecessary.
Motherf******.
Let’s get to the good part about the game: Michigan, with a converted shooting guard and a true freshman manning the point, only turned the ball over four times. I’ve watched a lot of basketball, and don’t remember many games where a team held on to the ball that effectively.
Of course, there’s the bad part about this game (or this team, really): They can’t shoot. At all. I’d love to have an easy explanation for this, be able to say that John Beilein’s offense isn’t getting open looks, isn’t creating chances, and we could all point fingers and play the blame game. When your team goes 7-29 from three, you should be able to say that they were forcing bad shots, and this is a poorly coached team. Except it isn’t. The vast majority of those 29 attempts were good, open looks. But, just like the rest of the season (Michigan is now a stellar 29.7% from three on the year), the shots weren’t falling.
Quickly, before I give up on life, or at least sports, let’s get to the player bullets:
- Even with the two late misses from DeShawn Sims, you can’t put this loss on either of Michigan’s two stars. Yes, Sims wasn’t efficient on offense, scoring 19 points on 7-18 shooting, but the Wolverines didn’t exactly have a lot of other options to go to. He hit a couple of huge threes down the stretch, and actually went 3-5 from downtown in the game. Manny Harris, after a bit of a slow start, finished with 16 points, four rebounds, five assists, five steals (!), and two blocks. After struggling on the defensive end in his last couple games, Manny came out focused and put in his best defensive effort of the season, cutting off passes like a free safety. The two stars came to play, which leaves, well, the rest of the team…
- Stu Douglass just can’t get on track, and you can tell from his play that his confidence on offense is completely gone. He had a few plays where he beat his man off the dribble, but instead of going up strong for the layup, Douglass would stop and either force a pass or, in one case, travel. He accounted for three of Michigan’s four turnovers and went just 2-7 from the field (1-5 from three). Michigan’s lack of depth appears to be the only thing between Douglass and the bench — there just isn’t a reliable alternative. He’s going to have to break out of his slump at some point, or his starting spot will be in serious jeopardy when Evan Smotrycz, Tim Hardaway, and potentially Trey Zeigler hit campus next season.
- I love the way Zack Novak plays — I’m not sure how many more ways I can say I like how much he hustles. This game was no different, as Novak pulled down five offensive rebounds and seemed to get a hand of half of Michigan’s (numerous) misses. However, he shot 2-9 from the field (1-7 from three), and that’s just not going to get it done.
- Like Novak, Laval Lucas-Perry played a solid game if you took shooting entirely out of the equation. But, since the object of basketball is to put the ball through the basket, it’s tough to praise a starter when he puts up a goose egg on the scoreboard — LLP was 0-4 shooting, and his misses were not pretty.
- The reason Douglass remains on the floor, as evidenced last night, is that Darius Morris is simply not a threat on the offensive end. Morris played just about how he’s played all season — 20 or so minutes, two points, two assists, one turnover, decent defense, no offensive impact. He had an open look at a three from the corner, and clanged it off the side of the backboard. That about sums up Morris’ offensive acumen at this point in his career. I expect him to get much better, but he just isn’t someone the defense has to account for right now.
Nobody else really got significant minutes, which is merciful, since I’m getting really sick of writing about this game. For more pain recaps, check out UMHoops, MGoBlog, and The Only Colors (an MSU blog, so you’ve been warned).
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"When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing."
- Bo Schembechler
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him to do the opposite. To live clean, come clean, think clean.
That he stop doing all the things that destroy him physically,
mentally and morally, and begin doing all the things that make him keener, finer and more competent" - Fielding Yost
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