8Dec 2013
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| Darius Morris reacts after missing the final shot (image via TheWolverine.com) |
Congratulations to the Michigan basketball team, which finally provided Wolverines fans with some hope after years of flailing. I admittedly didn’t pay a great deal of attention to Michigan basketball for the first couple months of the season, because football is my #1 interest and where I live, Michigan basketball isn’t on television very much. But the last couple months have been a great deal of fun. Maybe I’m good luck, because the first game I watched this year was the four-point loss to Ohio State on January 12th and I didn’t watch again until the January 27th victory against MSU, which is about when Michigan started to make its end-of-season run. The Wolverines finished the season with a 10-5 run after losing six in a row, and three of those five losses were by two points or less.
These kids have nothing to be embarrassed about, and they represented the university well. I don’t think anybody wanted to play Michigan toward the end of the season. And for anyone who didn’t think they belonged (*cough* Doug Gottlieb *cough*), take a look at Michigan’s 30-point victory over Tennessee and its near-victory against the defending national champions. This rag-tag crew of undersized, floppy-haired, barely-able-to-vote ballers had Dookies everywhere holding their breath in fear that a floater in the lane would send the game to overtime. And in a game that ended on a 28-15 run by Michigan, I’m not so sure the Blue Devils would have been favored to win in that situation.
I’m looking forward to next year. Go Blue!
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| The key to today’s game. |
Nobody really cares about football right now, but I put up a post over at Maize ‘n’ Brew about this weekend’s recruiting visitors.
But in case you didn’t know, Michigan is playing Duke in the third round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament this afternoon. It will be on CBS beginning at 2:30 p.m.
I think the key to the game (aside from Darius Morris, who’s the team’s most important player) will be Zack Novak. He needs to have one of his great shooting days in order to pull off the upset. If Novak has an off day, I don’t think Michigan will have a chance.
I think the game will be competitive, but Duke will end up with about a seven-point victory. I’ll guess 65-58.
Here’s hoping for an upset, though . . . Go blue!