Crisler Center
Michigan 79-56 Penn State
12-3, B1G 2-0
I'm fat & happy, entirely satisfied with a twenty-plus-point victory over a Big Ten foe in a game without leading scorer Caris LeVert (senior, guard)—sidelined with a "lower left leg injury" sustained in the (possibly Pyrrhic) road victory over Illinois—, a game in which Derrick Walton Jr. (junior, guard) struggled mightily, seeming to have more turnovers than points, more turnovers than the rest of the team combined. The valiant Wolverines relied on depth: the ferocious Nittany Lions were able to shutdown individual Wolverines, but every time they did so another Wolverine became open & made his shots; pick your poison. The offense worked exactly as it is drawn up, with the threat of perimeter shooting making for easy baskets on the inside & inside drives to the basket opening up outside shots. The victors valiant were a sheer joy to watch today, with Aubrey Dawkins (sophomore, guard) coming off the bench to drain threes from the corner & Mark Donnal (sophomore, forward-cum-center) enjoying another big game, scoring sixteen points (to tie Zak Irvin [junior, guard] as the Maize & Blue's leading scorer) after his career-high twenty-six in the opener against the feisty Fighting Illini. The inside-outside game is a pleasure to watch, when it works as smoothly as it did today.
Next: № 14 Purdue, on the road at Mackey Arena next Thursday, 7 January. The ill-starred Boilermakers lost to the tenacious Hawkeyes this afternoon, an Iowa squad staking their claim as giant-killers after back-to-back victories over Purdue & № 1 Michigan State, albeit a shorthanded squad of dastardly Spartans, absent their leading scorer. The valiant Wolverines will be at a distinct size disadvantage against the ill-starred Boilermakers; my hope is that useful lessons might be gleaned from studying Purdue's losses to the tenacious Hawkeyes & the epithetless Bulldogs of Butler (№ 17). Purdue is formidable, but then so are we.
The Victors
My hope is to spend the next week catching up on the backlog from the football season, capped off as it was with a brilliant 41-7 victory over the epithetless Gators of Florida in the Citrus Bowl. The valiant Wolverines are now 3-0 against the epithetless Gators, all time, including a game under the supposedly invincible Urban Meyer. Everything's coming up Harbaugh!
Go Blue!
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