Michigan Stinks Up The Old Spice Classic

I was lucky enough to be in Orlando this weekend to watch the Wolverines live in the Old Spice Classic. I saw Michigan's first two games but missed the Alabama game today.

I am not a basketball expert by any means and I'm sure Coach Beilein has a plan for Michigan's probems, but I will give you my two cents on the Wolverines 1-2 performance in the Old Spice Classic this past weekend.

I think the Michigan basketball team has a little bit of "Jordan Syndrome". Early in his career for the Chicago Bulls most of Jordan's team-mates would sit back and wait for Jordon to win or lose the game. I think Michigan has a similar situation with Manny (and no I'm not comparing Manny to Jordan). On the offensive side of the ball, I don't see a lot of movement and I don't see plays for Stu Douglass or Zack Novak to get open shots. It seems Michigan has two options on offense: 1) get the ball to Sims in the low post or 2) let Manny create something.

Manny is clearly not 100% back from his hamstring injury and is not shooting the ball well from the outside, but is still an incredible player nearly putting up triple doubles every night. Sims is getting double teamed in the low post and not finding a shooter for an open 3. DeShawn is also taking way too many outside shots, when he does that Michigan has zero shot at getting any boards.

Michigan clearly still has trouble rebounding on offense and defense, but Marquette basically scored every time on the offensive side of the ball. With the lack of free throw shooting, Michigan is firing on 1 of 6 cylinders right now.

The other thing that I noticed was that Michigan seemed to be a little fatigued against Marquette. Before this tournament Michigan had played two games in two weeks and playing 3 games in 3 days seemed to catch up with them.

This tournament showed Michigan is still pretty rusty and hasn't found the right momentum that lead them into the NCAA tourney last year. There is a ton of talent on the Michigan roster and picking up the pressure on the defensive side of the ball will lead to more easy baskets. Stu did struggle with his shot during the tournament and Zack Gibson always plays hard but Zack Novak who is a great "scrappy player" is working his ass off on the defensive side of the ball is not getting many good looks on the offensive side of the court. I can't remember him looking at a three pointer during the Marquette game.

Michigan needs to find a way to score when the opponents try to take Manny and DeShawn away, because everyone is going to try to do that. I would like to see Matt Vogrich get some more time when Stu and Zack are struggling from the outside, but I expect he is a liability on defense since he is still learning the Beilein system.


The schedule doesn't get easier with Boston College coming to Crisler on Wednesday and upcoming trips to Utah and Kansas in December. I also expect Michigan to drop from the rankings this week.


****For those that are wondering, I didn't have anything to do with the Tiger Woods crash. Though, I do have an explanation of what happened. Tiger was meeting me at Best Buy on Black Friday to stand in line for a 4:00 AM special on a 50 inch LCD TV for $500. (Even a guy that has made a billion dollars likes to get good deal). I told him to bring me a new Nike Driver and when he got in his SUV at 2:30 AM he forgot the club and called his wife to bring it out. She did and tossed it to Tiger but the window was up and club broke the glass. With all the commotion, Tiger took his foot off the brake and backed into the tree and fire hydrant. The rest is history.

He never did show up at Best Buy!