3:59 pm: Winthrop wins Big South Tourney. Importance? At large bid quality mid-major wins conference championship.

4:01 pm: Forget my Blogger password and have to reset it.

4:04: pm: Washington Huskies just bean UCLA… waiting for the Michigan game to come on.

(Switch to time in the game)
18:53: Game comes on and Michigan is up 3. That’s a pleasant surprise!

18:21: Apparently Mich. St. is playing. Love the announcers. And… Jarret Smith loses his shoe as opposed to losing the ball.

17:40: There’s that Jarret Smith turnover!!

17:21: There’s another one!!

16:45: Turnover #3 for Smith in less than 4 minutes! But he makes a 3 pointer… so he’s even I guess?

15:30: First media timeout 8-7 Michigan. Interior defense has looked fairly solid. Lester Abram has drawn at least two fouls so far.

15:12: Petway is awesome. Blocks the ball all the way to the Big House. He also has the winged hair. Pretty sweet.

14:32: Michigan doesn’t do anything that looks like offense until there is 10 seconds left on the shot clock which leads to a Jeff Bowden-esque 3pt shot from Dion Harris.

12:53: Ohio St. leads 11-10. And Harris turns it over. 13-10.

12:00: According to Big Ten Wonk, Michigan turns the ball over on about 41% of their possesions. They might up that average toady.

11:30: Courtney Simms gets a sweet entry pass and actually goes up fairly strong and puts it in. The only reason I’m noting this is because he usually either doesn’t catch the ball or has some sort of magnetic repulsion to the hoop on the catch.

11:08: Michigan and Ohio St. are primary rivals in football only in my opinion. In basketball I would say MSU is a bigger rival, and ice hockey is probably MSU too.

9:21: I like the defense that C. Sims has been playing on Oden. There was a really weak call on him on an Oden post possesion. If the refs are going to let Oden be physical on offense, Michigan defenders ought to be able to push back.

8:55: Jevohn Shepherd scores? That doesn’t happen. Although, it seems as though he should be better. He has good size and made a good move to the basket. I bet it has something to do with the ultimate player development coach we have…

7:48: Petway bricks a 12ft jumper. He should have just dunked it from there. AG why you ain’t doin’ that?

6:35: This zone is killing Michigan. The Wolverines are just tossing it around the perimeter hoping for one of the OSU defenders to die of boredom. With 4 seconds left Dion Harris starts driving (presumably for a hopeful toss) and gets fouled. Maybe they should do that more…

5:23: Jerret Smith can make some great plays (3/4 court lob to Petway/hook pass to Petway down low this game) but then will have the inexplicably dumb turnover. He could be pretty solid if he had a little more consistency

5:00: AG WHY YOU DOIN’ THAT? Huge dunk from Petway off of another GREAT feed from Smith after he broke down the defense going baseline. Michigan up by 8 now.

4:07: The Basketball team looked like the football team’s front seven against Penn St. (don’t get that reference? Ask Anthony Morelli) on the offensive glass.

3:51: For Christ’s sake Dan Bonner! It’s Michigan! They are wearing Yellow which is not close to either White or Green.

2:42: Big OSU run with improbable 3 pointers and some poor defense from Michigan.

2:14: Petway has actually achieved some basketball smarts during his time at Michigan (not classroom smarts as he is routinely in the back of the class with music blaring so loud the lecturer can probably hear it). He catches the lob, stays in bounds and feeds it D. Simms, who can’t convert, but still a nice play by Petway.

1:27: Epke Udoh, much to the chagrin of announcers, draws the charge. He’s going to be a star at Michigan, and is probably the only person on this team who has a chance at getting drafted (obviously not this year). But Dion Harris sure is a deadly shooter when he has space.

0:33: Michigan doing what it does best, running time off the shot clock, and then they turn it over. That might actually be what they do best.

Half Time: Michigan up by 3 playing at a pace that is good for them. Good defense for the most part. They have weathered OSU’s runs fairly well, usually maintaining the lead. I get the feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of OSU’s zone in the second half. Michigan has looked horrible against that defensive look. They got bailed out by some fouls drawn by Harris and did a good job of crashing the boards, but overall Michigan looked very stagnant against the zone. Up two is not bad going in to the half against the #1 (no matter how legitimate) team in the country.

Posted under Basketball