Hmm. Michigan Basketball

Ohio State 63, Michigan 58

I figure I could blog about this game since I was actually there...

After finally seeing Beilein's team in person for the first time, there's no denying that they are immensely improved over both the Amaker years and last year's horribleness. The problem is thusly: when Michigan's scorers can't hit a basket for minutes at a time like on Saturday night, they dig themselves an early grave that they'll never get out of. They tied cut the defecit to four going to halftime, and then tied it within the first three minutes of the second half. And that was despite not making a shot for what seemed like 10 minutes.

Novak, Grady, Lucas-Perry, Sims: 22 combined points
Manny Harris: 21 points
Stu Douglass: 12 points

I'm smart enough to know that an offense dependent on 3-point shots and getting scorers open for jumpers that doesn't get hardly any production from four of their five main scorers, it can't win a basketball game. Beilein made a great adjustment for the second half by switching to that brutal 1-3-1 defense that seemed to force Ohio State to take longer shots that Michigan was able to grab off the rim...but when Novak had almost as many rebounds as Sims, the conference leader in rebounds, something is amiss. I'll leave the rest of the game analysis to people who actually know what they're talking about. However, if it were me, I think I would make some lineup changes that can help Michigan get points instead of clangs on the rim:

Guard: Harris, Center: Sims, Scorers: Douglass, Jevhon Shepard (who I have not seen on the court since the first few games), Grady/Lucas-Perry (who I think may be getting a little gassed, he was yanked from the game several times)

Meanwhile, at halftime, the 1989 National Championship team showed up! Oh, and the Michigan players wore these slick throwback uniforms that Adidas made:
I may have only been 3 at the time, but the 1989 Michigan basketball team is a pretty remarkable story. Read a flashback from the AA News and the Daily, and then relive the Bill Frieder saga! That championship became the wedge in between some very rough years of Michigan basketball. Bill Freider had assembled a team that could beat anyone, and then he was fired by Bo Schembecler, who told the team that no Michigan Man would leave his school, and made Steve Fisher the interim coach for the '89 season. It is because of that championship that Fischer was able to bring in some guys named Webber, Rose, Howard, Jackson and King for the 1991-'92 season. Michigan was in the NCAA title game with four freshmen, and then made it back the very next year when they were sophomores. For some reason, I always remember those legendary baggy shorts. Everybody who loved basketball wanted a pair of those baggy maize shorts. They became a status symbol...and it was at that point that the Fab Five were icons, and they made Michigan the center of the basketball world for two glorious years. Four years later, in 1997, all the members of the Fab Five were gone, and Steve Fisher had been fired by Tom Goss for a bizarre off-the-court issue...and Michigan basketball fell into the eternal damnnation of college basketball. The '89 team is a reminder that the most unlikely of teams can climb to the top, and that's what Beilein has on this court, is the foundation for a dangerous, dangerous team.

Sidenote: Crisler Arena is a crazy mad hoppin' place to watch a basketball game again. Finally. The place was packed, the court looks great under the new lights, and the new score/videoboard is a behemoth. Not to mention they have the guy that does the PA at Comerica Park now! When it's loud, it is damn loud, and Ohio State was rattled a few times when they had some miscues and got everyone pumped up. I expect Crisler to be a major factor in some coming Michigan victories.

Final note: Charissa Thompson of BTN is officially the hottest sideline/courtside reporter in the country. Pic goes here:
Watch, now Michigan will turn around and stomp Michigan State in the next huge home game on the schedule. I'm just glad that Michigan basketball has some credibility to its name again...even though looking up into that black hole in the Crisler rafters where the 1992 and 1993 Final Four banners once hung makes people hang their heads in shame. No longer can we just joke that the best thing Michigan Basketball had going for it was the new Crisler Arena lights...