SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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-We set ourselves up for not getting the calls down the stretch by not coming out and playing the type of basketball that got us here in the first half. We let them get the ball into the high post at will and dominate the boards. The drives to the basket against the shorter defenders were absent until MCW got one late in the half. I thought it would be the Indiana game all over again. Instead it was what I originally thought the Indiana game would be.
-In the second half we played the sort of defense we had been playing and held Michigan to 25 points. We got back into the game but then couldn’t get the big shot we needed to even it up or take the lead.
-This left us in a desperate situation down the stretch. But Michigan was doing nothing to put the game away so we still had a chance. Then the same ref made three straight calls that didn’t go our way. The one where MCW got arm-barred to the ground was an obvious offensive foul. (ironically, it’s something he uses a lot and often doesn’t get called for it). The only contact between the players was initiated by the offensive player. The foul right after that that sent Michael to the showers could have gone either way. The call on Triche should have been a block because the defender was moving sideways at the point of contact. This is very frustrating but without the bad first half or the key missed shots in the second, the game doesn’t come down to those calls.
-I posted late in the first half that both teams had only one foul called. No one was going to foul out in this game! But our starting backcourt was gone at the end.
-Is Trey Burke the worst National POY we’ve ever had? He made one long three and got some assists on fast breaks. But he did nothing to impose himself on the contest. Every time Michigan had the ball, I wasn’t looking at Burke. He was no threat to do anything. It was McGary. I thought Zeller of Indiana would have a field day from the high post against us. He did little. McCary was a beast, getting 10 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, a couple of blocks and tipping several balls to his teammates. He’s a far better player than Zeller- or Burke.
-- Two of our three centers are McDonald’s All-Americans. Couldn’t one of them be anything like McGary?
-But maybe what I’m not realizing is that both Carter-Williams and Burke are excellent defensive players, (and they got plenty of help. They may have just neutralized each other. If you’d told me that Burke and Stauskas would go 1 for 13 in this game, I’d have predicted a Syracuse blow-out. If you had told me that MCW and Southerland would go 3 for 15, I’d have predicted a Michigan blow-out. Instead the game was decided by other players.
-Two of them were Caris LaVert and Spike Albrecht, two guys averaging 3.8 points per game combined. Both hit two threes in the first half and they wound up with a total of 14 points. Albrecht hit a 25 footer and Burke’s only make was a 30 footer. Those are the kind of shots that go in when you are going to wind up losing and we did.
-I was really, really hoping that Triche and Southerland, members of the 2010 and 2012 teams that might have won national titles if their centers weren’t lost to the team just as the NCAAs were starting, would cut down the nets in the end. That would have sutured those two wounds but they remain open and bleeding.
-Brandon Triche had a decent final game but poor James Southerland will have to live with coming up empty in his final game. If you feel bad right now, imagine how the kids feel.
-We got to the Final Four once a decade while schools we regard as our equals go to multiple Final Fours in between times. Will we have to wait another decade?
-You’d like to end the season, if you don’t win it all, with a good performance in which you lost a close a game to a team that was just a little better in a game that had no controversies. It doesn’t happen very often and it didn’t happen tonight. It was close. But that was it.
-In the second half we played the sort of defense we had been playing and held Michigan to 25 points. We got back into the game but then couldn’t get the big shot we needed to even it up or take the lead.
-This left us in a desperate situation down the stretch. But Michigan was doing nothing to put the game away so we still had a chance. Then the same ref made three straight calls that didn’t go our way. The one where MCW got arm-barred to the ground was an obvious offensive foul. (ironically, it’s something he uses a lot and often doesn’t get called for it). The only contact between the players was initiated by the offensive player. The foul right after that that sent Michael to the showers could have gone either way. The call on Triche should have been a block because the defender was moving sideways at the point of contact. This is very frustrating but without the bad first half or the key missed shots in the second, the game doesn’t come down to those calls.
-I posted late in the first half that both teams had only one foul called. No one was going to foul out in this game! But our starting backcourt was gone at the end.
-Is Trey Burke the worst National POY we’ve ever had? He made one long three and got some assists on fast breaks. But he did nothing to impose himself on the contest. Every time Michigan had the ball, I wasn’t looking at Burke. He was no threat to do anything. It was McGary. I thought Zeller of Indiana would have a field day from the high post against us. He did little. McCary was a beast, getting 10 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, a couple of blocks and tipping several balls to his teammates. He’s a far better player than Zeller- or Burke.
-- Two of our three centers are McDonald’s All-Americans. Couldn’t one of them be anything like McGary?
-But maybe what I’m not realizing is that both Carter-Williams and Burke are excellent defensive players, (and they got plenty of help. They may have just neutralized each other. If you’d told me that Burke and Stauskas would go 1 for 13 in this game, I’d have predicted a Syracuse blow-out. If you had told me that MCW and Southerland would go 3 for 15, I’d have predicted a Michigan blow-out. Instead the game was decided by other players.
-Two of them were Caris LaVert and Spike Albrecht, two guys averaging 3.8 points per game combined. Both hit two threes in the first half and they wound up with a total of 14 points. Albrecht hit a 25 footer and Burke’s only make was a 30 footer. Those are the kind of shots that go in when you are going to wind up losing and we did.
-I was really, really hoping that Triche and Southerland, members of the 2010 and 2012 teams that might have won national titles if their centers weren’t lost to the team just as the NCAAs were starting, would cut down the nets in the end. That would have sutured those two wounds but they remain open and bleeding.
-Brandon Triche had a decent final game but poor James Southerland will have to live with coming up empty in his final game. If you feel bad right now, imagine how the kids feel.
-We got to the Final Four once a decade while schools we regard as our equals go to multiple Final Fours in between times. Will we have to wait another decade?
-You’d like to end the season, if you don’t win it all, with a good performance in which you lost a close a game to a team that was just a little better in a game that had no controversies. It doesn’t happen very often and it didn’t happen tonight. It was close. But that was it.
