UW-Michigan thoughts

What a nice win to go into the new year, very pleased with today's effort and result. After the lumps we took in the last week in both basketball and football, this one feels extra nice.

A bit surprised at how easy this one was, given how well Michigan had been playing coming in. Early on I thought the Wolverines' defense was just atrocious, we were getting good looks really easily, more easily than we have against other teams so far.

Having watched Michigan beat North Carolina Central Monday night, it occurred to me, as it did to the announcers, that they might have been a bit tired. But you know what? They're 20-year-olds who aren't going to class right now, they ought to be able to come out with fresh legs no matter what.

It's funny how one win completely changes your outlook on things. At the risk of overlooking or underselling Penn State and Northwestern, we should be 3-0 heading into the Purdue game.

-They said we're 29-1 when Landry reaches double figures scoring, presumably 30-1 now. That's a pretty incredible statistic if you think about it, given the balance nature of team's scoring. We'll probably lose a few games this year in which Marcus hits that plateau, but even so, it underscores just how important his post scoring is to everything else we do on offense. His offensive game was efficient today.

That said, he needs to to a better job of staying out of foul trouble. Right now he's in that Stiemsma-Mader zone of picking up fouls at an alarming rate. Marcus only played 23 minutes today, and while I thought two of his fouls were questionable, he's giving the refs the option of calling them. He's got to play smarter than that.

-Pop sure got hot there for a little while, didn't he? Reminded me of some of the one-man runs Kam Taylor used to go on. Hughes' shooting like that means it will take a really large deficit for us to be out of a game.

-Those two players' scoring performances aside, my players of the game were Krabby and to an extent Jarmusz for the job they did on Manny Harris, who had a terrible day. Harris's offense today consisted of driving wildly to the hoop and hoping the refs bailed him out, which to their credit they didn't. When Harris isn't scoring, everything else comes a lot harder for Michigan. Great job by Joe and Tim to not let him get going.

Krabby also had nine points and eight boards, and Jarmusz had three assists and five boards. Not tough to see the heir apparent to Krabby's "glue guy" role next year, is it?

-Jon Leuer is a deceptively good penetrator, isn't he? He doesn't look like he's moving that fast but with those long legs he covers a lot of ground in a hurry. At the risk of beating a dead horse, it's great that four of his six shots today were 2-pointers.

-Robby Wilson provided a spark off the bench with seven points, and Jordan Taylor hit a big shot at the end of the first half.

-Loved Steve Bardo's reference to former Badger Mike Heineman, a guy who would have fit in well under Bo.

Several nits to pick:

-It looked like Zack Novak wasn't even on our scouting report, and we lit him up. Not surprising, he seems like an excellent shooter and had really open looks.

-Leuer is still a bit too turnover-prone for my tastes.

-J-Bo missed two free throws in crunch time, and our lead was large enough that it didn't cost us, but it might if he doesn't get it together. He's still the player I want with the ball when the other guys need to foul, although Krabby is much-improved in this department.

Time for a couple days' rest, come back and play like this against Penn State on Saturday. Great win guys!