B1G/NCAA basketball

[iam416]

They have to show up and play. They've been playing pretty well since they got housed at The Barn. But, yeah, they could lose to Maryland or Indiana and could definitely lose at Penn State -- that's a pretty solid team, IMO. And then your final 4 are M, Sparty, Iowa, Illinois. So, they could easily go 3-4 in their final 7 and sitll be a pretty good team.

That said, they've really grown on the offensive end w/ a lot of different threats. Liddell is just superb. But, beyond that, Zed Key has emerged as a legit post scoring threat and Kyle Young keeps doing Kyle Young things. Their backcourt/wings are diverse and deep. Ahrens emergence is pretty big. And, hell, being able to play Meechie for real minutes is big given their PG situation (and, heh, he hit two unlikely 3s last night).

[lineygoblue]

When/if Michigan is allowed to play again, things are going to get very difficult for them. From everything I've heard, no games are going to be outright cancelled, so as of today, Michigan has four games to make up, in addition to playing its already established schedule. If all games are required to be made up, Michigan will be playing a game on an average of every 4 days, with some being played every 3 days. That's going to be a killer. Even the NBA doesn't do that.

Michigan is going to lose some games in this final month, there's no way to avoid that. I'm hoping they can win enough to get a fairly high seed in the NCAA's. Before the layoff, they were cruising to a 2 or 3 seed.

If there is a Big Ten tournament, it would be nice to see a couple wins there as well, but I'm not counting on it.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Maybe people on the street don't give a shit but the net impact of whatever played out wrt stopping M athletics for 2 weeks Flys in the face of looking out for our athletes. Someone should be held accountable for this malfeasance.

[iam416]

Better safe than sorry!

[THE_WIZARD_]

Flatten the curve baby!

Six Feet Baby!

Mask Up Baby!

Vaccine up baby!

Triple mask baby!!!

Trust the science baby!!!!

[lineygoblue]

What upsets me even more about this 14 day interruption is that its boiled down to a, "yes you did... no I didn't" argument between the state, and U-M. Manuel and U-M say that they were directed to shut down for 14 days, and the MDHHS says they only RECOMMENDED that they shut down. Meanwhile, MSU nobody on either the men's or women's basketball team, or the hockey team had tested positive. Again, this has Whitmer's fingerprints all over it.

[hack]

This is the athletic department's fault. It did not follow CDC guidelines, which are specific about what happens when you have someone flying in from the UK -- quarantine that person. For all the noise it makes about protecting student athletes, it did a shit job. I have not noticed very much coverage of that at all. Lots of talk about the state health department or whether it was an order or whatever, but if you're not even following basic guidelines, that's on you. To me it's cut and dry to me at least that Warde's AD failed. Goes beyond Warde though -- It's just the latest in a long series of AD fuckups that stem from a failure to be proactive. Harbaugh's extension, Brandon's process, Martin on a sailboat, on and on and on. No matter who is in charge, Michigan's AD is an institution with a very limited ability to anticipate problems and make plans to avoid them. But the lack of coverage of this obvious fuckup beyond the Michigan Daily is disappointing.

I counted -- there are 9 people in the AD in administrative roles and clearing $200k. Going by job titles, at least four of them including Warde seem like they might have been involved in designing any COVID protocols, and together they earn $1.9 million.

[THE_WIZARD_]

What upsets me even more about this 14 day interruption is that its boiled down to a, "yes you did... no I didn't" argument between the state, and U-M. Manuel and U-M say that they were directed to shut down for 14 days, and the MDHHS says they only RECOMMENDED that they shut down. Meanwhile, MSU nobody on either the men's or women's basketball team, or the hockey team had tested positive. Again, this has Whitmer's fingerprints all over it.

Trust the damn science numbnuts!

[iam416]

Suck it, Crabcakes! The Holt-Mann rolls on! WooOOOOOOT!

Meanwhile, M is curled up in a fetal ball desperately trying to never play another basketball game again.

[Mike]

We’re playing the long game.

Big Ten now has 4 of the top 7 in Kenpom.

[lineygoblue]

The Big Ten better be glad that Michigan was sidelined by its idiot governor, because they were poised to run over the rest of the conference. At the time they were stupidly forced out of action by politicians they were one of the hottest teams in the country.

[iam416]

Governor Gretch is obviously carrying M's water and providing them with shelter from the storm. M's "braintrust" learned their lesson from their cowardly escape from CRD in December -- gotta have someone else to blame. Governor Gretch to the rescue!

[lineygoblue]

I'll give Gretch some credit for saving Michigan's bacon in November. They were about to be fed to three slaughters that would have lived forever in Michigan football history. With Gretch being a MSU grad, I'm surprised she didn't allow the carnage to proceed.

However, basketball is another deal. M's guys can ball. Everybody knows it, and something had to be done to cool them down. Gretch to the rescue.

[iam416]

COWARDZZZZ!!!!!!

The Wizard said M is running SKEERED!!!! There can no further debate. Juwan begging Governor Gretch to save him and she did.

[Mike]

Sounds like they'll play at Wisconsin at noon on Sunday. That should be a fun game to play after a 3 week layoff. Oh well, home to Rutgers after that before we head to C-bus to play the #4 Bucks. Hopefully, they'll have their legs back for that one and the stretch run.