Friday, February 27, 2009

81% Shooting Will Get You a lot of Wins


It was senior night at Crisler Arena last night but a Junior and Sophomore were the stars of the show. DeShawn Sims scored a career high 29 points and Manny (being Manny) Harris went for 27 in Michigan's 87-78 win over #16 ranked Purdue.

Michigan shot an amazing 81% from the floor in the second half. Since most of them were short jumpers or lay ups by Sims and Harris. The only flaw in an all most perfect second half was the lack of free throw shooting in the last 3 minutes. Michigan continued to miss the front end of free throws and gave Purdue a little bit of life down the stretch.

So the big question is, Does this win get Michigan into the NCAA Tournament? The answer is not yet. Michigan needs to win one of their remaining two road games (Wisconsin and Minnesota) and at least one win in the Big Ten Tournament. I think they make a strong case at 20 wins and a really strong case at 21. Michigan has good wins against, Duke, UCLA, Illinois, and Purdue with their only bad losses coming last weekend against Iowa.

Great Win guys, let's keep the mojo going for a couple more weeks!
  • Seems the Gators are a still a little sore about losing Nu’Keese Richardson. Here are a few tidbits from the Gators Insider from the Palm Beach Post: Nu’Keese Richardson was a relatively unknown four-star receiver prospect out of Pahokee. - Tenn. WR's coach Frank Wilson appeared on a Knoxville sports talk radio show. Wilson was asked if any player on the roster reminds the staff of Reggie Bush, the Heisman winner who played for Kiffin at USC. “Yeah,” Wilson said. “Nu’Keese Richardson.” Nothing against Richardson, but Reggie Bush? Come on. Richardson, meanwhile, was a stand-out on Pahokee’s state championship team in 2008, but he may have not even been the best player on his team. He accounted for 20 touchdowns this year in 13 games and was named to the Palm Beach Post All Area First Team. But his teammate, running back Vincent Smith, beat him out for Player of the Year, while his other teammate, Brandin Hawthorne, won Defensive Player of the Year. Both are headed to Michigan. If Richardson had come to Florida, he would have been near the bottom of a stacked depth chart at receiver. He would have had to fight for playing time on special teams, and may have red-shirted his first year. BHB- First off for anyone that follows recruiting Nu’Keese was a talented and highly rated WR the entire recruiting season. To say he wasn't well know is complete fiction. I do like that he thinks both Michigan recruits Brandin Hawthorne and Vincent Smith were better players!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw the championship game. Richardson was good, but Smith came up with a couple of crucial plays to help win the game for Pahokee.

Smith was by far the best player on the field that day.