Villanova 79, Michigan 62

Villanova 79, Michigan 62


April 3, 2018

I just have some quick thoughts on the basketball game we all watched tonight. I know you don’t come here for basketball coverage, but this will be cathartic for me (and maybe for you).

  • Congratulations to Villanova. They were the better team, both in the tournament and in the regular season. They deserved to win, and the “experts” were correct to predict them to win the game.
  • It was a bad time for a bad game. I said before the game that Michigan needed to have a Texas A&M-like game, and obviously they didn’t. Charles Matthews had his worst game of the tournament, partly because of some mental mistakes, and partly because Villanova had the athletes to match him. This was not a good matchup for Duncan Robinson, and he played like it. The Wolverines needed to be firing on all cylinders and, well, a couple of those cylinders were misfiring.
  • This was a good matchup for Zavier Simpson. Simpson probably took some motivation from the way people were talking about him before this game, but I was confident all along that he would do just fine against National Player of the Year Jalen Brunson. Brunson had 9 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 turnovers. If you can hold any NPOY to those numbers, you’re doing a good job.
  • Donte DiVincenzo was the X-factor. The guy had 31 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocked shots. He was 5/7 on three-pointers. What can you do when a guy is in the zone like that? I thought Abdur-Rahkman did a good job on him defensively, but he was too quick for Simpson and Matthews; Matthews, in particular, looked to be surprised by DiVincenzo’s quickness and athleticism, both offensively and defensively.
  • The referees were not the reason ‘Nova won the game. Again, the referees were not the reason ‘Nova won the game. BUT. I was still frustrated by the way the game was called. People talk about Michigan being handsy and physical, but Brunson should have sat out the vast majority of the game with foul trouble. He flopped on defense and threw elbows on offense, and the refs didn’t do a thing early. I think somebody got in the referees’ ear and/or they just realized all the bulls*** emanating from Brunson, so they came to their senses, called him for 4 fouls, and eventually removed him from relevance.

Congratulations to John Beilein and the Wolverines on a great season. They set a school record for wins in a season, won the Big Ten Tournament, and won 14 games in a row leading up to the national championship game. I don’t know if Wagner will come back, and both Robinson and Abdur-Rahkman are finished, but the future is still bright for these guys. I’m excited to see Charles Matthews, Jordan Poole, Isaiah Livers, Zavier Simpson, and others mature in the coming years.

Go Blue!

2 comments

  1. Comments: 276
    Joined: 2/6/2018
    17years
    Apr 03, 2018 at 1:33 AM

    I rarely watch NCAA basketball. So I never saw Brunson before. The voters got is wrong to make him player of the year. His type of play should not be rewarded. It should be penalized until it’s out of the game, like should be done to Gregg Williams and Mike Tice in the NFL. Brunson struck a bad note with me. He reminded of James Harden. He is un-likable to me. His type of play is why I don’t watch basketball. But the voters like it. They can have the sport.
    /end of rant

    After about 8 minutes in it became clear Villanova was better. But if Michigan could have hit just a few more shots early it would have been worth watching later on.

    BTW, where would Michigan have been in the tournament without Mo Wagner?

    • Comments: 18
      Joined: 9/28/2015
      Asquaredroot
      Apr 03, 2018 at 2:11 AM

      I completely agree with you about Brunsen. He’s a gamer, gaming the refs. Creating contact and embellishing, with physical but graceless play. Reminds me of that bruiser of a pg/sg for the Pacers who made the game so unwatchable in the 90’s and Oughts. Forget his name thankfully.

      I think Villanova was better only in the respect that they were better shooters with what seemed to be a more clutch/killer mentality. We played like ass on offense all tournament (Texas A&M excluded obv), but this was the only team to make us pay for it by overcoming our still solid D.

      Also, not sure that I agree that it was a bad match-up for Duncan Robinson. He got a quick foul for getting what looked like an all-ball help-strip on Brunsen, then got a silly foul for sticking his butt in the way of DiVincenzo Redhotfrom3Headzo (immature name-play, I know), in a lame box-out attempt that easily would not have been called most of the time and didn’t effect the play outcome… but he was done for the half at that point.
      Then in the 2nd half… he horribly missed wide open 3’s like most of his teammates and that was more about our lack of mental toughness than his shots being contested. They weren’t.
      FWIW, he was one of the few to make that red-head miss a shot for ably contesting it in the 1st half. His 2 questionable 1st half fouls were huge in my amateur opinion.

      We couldn’t hit wide open threes and they did repeatedly. That more or less sums it up. That and the human torch DiVincenzo. Hell of a game for him. I hope he goes pro tomorrow.

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