Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Michigan 80-67 Penn State
12-4, Big Ten 4-0
I must have been traumatized by last year's defeat at the hands of the ferocious Nittany Lions, because my heart filled with dread each & every time they made a basket, even as the valiant Wolverines remained in firm control of the game.
Saturday, 18 January 2014
Michigan 77-70 Wisconsin (№ 3)
13-4, Big Ten 5-0
Thus began murderers' row, three games in eight days against three high-caliber opponents, two of those three games on the road. As it turned out, the valiant Wolverines had the perfect game plan to defeat the pesky Badgers, who time & against gave up easy baskets off of ball screens. The toughest stretch of the season yet was off to an auspicious beginning.
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
(№ 21) Michigan 75-67 Iowa (№ 10)
14-4, Big Ten 6-0
I hate playing against the tenacious Hawkeyes because I love they way they play: they fly up & down & around the court & are lean & long & everywhere, trying to disrupt the opposing offense. Disciplined play & good shooting carried the day for the valiant Wolverines, who earned their second consecutive victory over a Top 10 opponent.
Saturday, 25 January 2014
(№ 21) Michigan 80-75 Michigan State (№ 3)
15-4, Big Ten 7-0
There is nothing I didn't love about the victory over the dastardly Spartans. There was even a delightful, not M.S.U.'s fault parallel to a game held three years earlier, almost to the day. On 27 January 2011, things were bleak in the Wolverine Nation. Rich Rodriquez had recently been fired as head coach of the football club after the worst three seasons in living memory, & the dastardly Spartans were riding high. The Entertainment & Sports Programming Network coverage & the illiterate "Moo U." students themselves were obsessed with the number 1,181. It had, apparently, been one thousand one hundred eighty-one days since the valiant Wolverines had bested the dastardly Spartans in either football or men's basketball. In front of a frenzied mob at the Breslin Center, Michigan's Zack Novak had what the usually worthless bums at MGoBlog.com memorably nicknamed the "Aneurysm of Leadership" as he exhorted his comrades onto victory, & Michigan prevailed 61-57. Fast forward three years: With the drooling Green & White faithful still buoyed by their football club's Big Ten championship & Rose Bowl victory, come too-clever-by-half so-&-so put the graphic on-screen that it had been over three hundred days since the dastardly Spartans had lost a conference game in either football or men's basketball. Once again, Nemesis would not allow such low-rent hubris to go unpunished.
Michigan Agricultural College head coach Tom Izzo's clubs are always able & well-prepared, always dangerous opponents & legitimate contenders for both the conference title & a berth in the Final Four. The game was a damn close-run thing, even with two of the better dastardly Spartans sitting out with injury. Michigan State's Gary Harris had a monstrous night (twenty-seven points, a career high), exactly what one would expect (& fear) out of a rivalry game. The valiant Wolverines responded with balance, with sophomore guard Nik Staukas & freshman guard Derrick Walton Jr. scoring nineteen points apiece. The victory continued one of my favorite statistics: When scoring at least eighty points, Michigan has never lost a game under head coach John Beilein. Never.
I admit that I credited the valiant Wolverines as having almost no chance of winning all three games of this murderers' row; in fairness, neither did I think their much likelihood of losing all three games. They set a new mark for Wolverine excellence, defeating three Top 10 clubs in a row, & defeating two different clubs ranked № 3. It's always great to be a Michigan Wolverine, but this Saturday-to-Saturday interval was particularly pleasant.
Thursday, 30 January 2014
(№ 10) Michigan 75-66 Purdue
16-4, Big Ten 8-0
I very much dislike watching basketball with my father, as he is prone to all manner of inane asides & panicked, despondent pronouncements about his own club's woefulness. What I dislike about watching sports with him are the very same things I dislike about myself when I watch sports; I share most of his worst habits. I was pleased by the victory over the ill-starred Boilermakers, though—& this presaged our doom against Indiana—I was mildly disappointed that the valiant Wolverines did not win by double digits.
Sunday, 2 February
Indiana 63-52 Michigan (№ 10)
16-5, Big Ten 8-1
Drat! No disrespect is meant to the wily Hoosiers, but the way we played last night, we couldn't have bested a club composed exclusively of blind, three-legged, octogenarian tortoises. Though the thought makes the blood run cold in my veins, I fear that we had "read our own press clippings" in the lead-up to the game, that we failed to prepare adequately & accord the wily Hoosiers the wariness & respect they deserved as opponents. A less worrisome explanation is that we had a collective "thud," one of those nigh-inexplicable instances in which Murphy's Law holds sway & our club was doomed not to perform at their best. If the valiant Wolverines are as well-coached as I believe them to be, lessons will be learned from this misfortune, complacency will be swept away, & the leaders & best will return to the court reinvigorated & looking for redemption. Of course, that is itself suspiciously wishful thinking.
Next: Nebraska, at home. The valiant Wolverines topped the unwelcome Cornhuskers by just a single point at Nebraska; the unwelcome Cornhuskers played ugly, inelegant basketball, but they also simply refused to go away. There are no easy games in the Big Ten, & there is danger here if the valiant Wolverines play half as poorly as they did at Indiana.
The internecine carnage of Big Ten play continues to take its toll. In the latest poll, while the valiant Wolverines held on to their № 10 ranking, both the pesky Badgers & the hated Buckeyes fell out of the A.P. Top 25 after having been ranked all season.
Go Blue!
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