Halftime: After discussing McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden, I ran back to my house and turned on the game. It was an impressive display of the “Motion” offense. I watched the last 5 minutes and saw a total of 8 points, four each. This is going to be tough to watch, but I’ll be here on the front lines.
19:26: I’ve become a fan of Jarret Smith lately. He makes a smart drive to the lane, draws the foul. Then he hits one of two, gets his own rebound, which he then summarily gives to Minnesota, but still… you like the hustle.
18:38: Could Harris be heating up? 2 straight threes. This one off of good penetration and kicks by Smith and Abram.
17:57: Courtney Sims gets the ball and doubled and finds an open Petway for an AG why you doin’ that? Dunk. Sims with court awareness? This could be a good thing, but I doubt that will keep up.
16:52: OFFENSIVE EXPLOSION! 14 points in 3:30 after only 36 in 20 minutes. Michigan has something that looks like offense. This could be encouraging. Michigan needs to play this game like they played against OSU. They can
15:46: Why can’t the Big Ten get good basketball officials. Michigan has an open man past the defense, good pass down, easy lay-up, BUT IT WHISTLED OFF. Why you ask? To call a technical foul on Minnesota’s coach. He’s not a puppy, you don’t have to T him up immediately for him to learn his lesson. Why would you penalize Michigan to penalize Minnesota? Damnit. At least Harris makes both to get it up to ten.
15:33: Karma. Petway makes a tough shot he normally wouldn’t off of the Technical foul.
15:05: With all due respect to Brian @ mgoblog, Minnesota’s PG just threw a post entry pass to Tacopant. Honestly, I think it might have gone over the back board.
13:43: Too bad it’s almost over, but I’m really started to dig this Smith, Petway pick and roll. If they had another year, I could imagine a TON of alley-oops coming off of that set. It just (good?) offense, which is always refreshing to see from Michigan.
11:57: Instead of the Jeff Bowden-esque 3pt shot, with the shot clock running down, Jarret Smith drives and gets a good look and gets fouled. He is really starting to make good decisions. He’s the most pure PG I’ve seen since Amaker has been here.
10:31: Minnesota can’t hit anything. 16pts in the first half, 7pts in 10 minutes in the second. Wow. I thought Michigan was bad.
10:06: What little rhythm there was in this game, the refs have completely removed.
8:34: FINALLY! After missing 9 straight field goals, DeShawn Simms gets a put back and Michigan equals it’s first half (which I thought they would about 3 minutes ago).
8:22: Courtney Sims needs to GO UP STRONG! He gets blocked from behind on a bunny.
7:08: Michigan is doing a good job crashing the offensive glass, but could do better converting, another turnover.
6:02: AGAIN. Michigan does a great job getting the offensive rebound just to turn it over. Michigan needs points, bad. It’s only a six point game.. Michigan hasn’t scored in almost 3 minutes.
5:12: Ronald Coleman (wtf?) nails a three from the corner off a sweet drive and dish by Smith. But Abu-Shamala answers right back.
4:15: Dion Harris shooting the head end of a one-and-one and hits it. Brent Musberger keeps and saying how Dion Harris “lowered the shoulder.” Having watched Harris for four years, I’ve noticed his shoulder on his ball handling side is always low. I think he does it to look gangsta’. But he did not
3:06: Coleman goes up for a rebound and a Minnesota player undercuts him (totally accidental, legal contact, just unfortunate) and he lands hard on his side. It looks like his wrist hit and then his body came on top. Ouch. I bet everyone in the United Center heard the thud. I don’t want to sound like a huge asshole, but at least it’s Ron Coleman.
2:11: Brent Musberger has a crush on Dion Harris? This is verbatim, I swear. “Dion Harris is a cutie.”
1:39: Abram fouls out. For some reason, I’m not immediately fearing for the win. Where has Udoh been this game? I missed the beginning, was there an announcement? I don’t remember him getting hurt in the OSU game.
1:12: Brent Petway is a rebounding machine. He skies up there and grabs the board over everyone else. I was really worried about Graham Brown leaving and who would fill his role. People mentioned Petway, but I was skeptical, but I was wrong. He does a lot of the little things, takes charges, makes blocks, just a good energy guy. But he also has the ability to do some of the most incredible dunks in college basketball.
54.1: Reed Baker SCORES! That’s all really, just thought that was worth noting.
6.1: So fitting. Michigan gets the offensive rebound with the shot clock off and then TURN IT OVER. I wonder what percentage of Michigan’s turnovers came after offensive rebounds.
Final: 49-40. Decent game by Michigan, but it really seemed that they weren’t playing their hardest. It could be understandable that Michigan was looking ahead to OSU, but luckily Minnesota is horrible. Jarret Smith needs to play out of his mind tomorrow, and I think he could do it.
Posted under Basketball
Tags: basketball, liveblog