The Blue Board

Haha, I know, right. MSU got lucky last night, but that's okay. Need a little luck to win a conference title.

UM was lucky that their off night was against Nebraska and at home. I'm waiting to see what happens when they have an off night against a better team or on the road, b/c that's when we'll see more of what UM's made of. They're good, that isn't in question, but are they great? We may start to get a feel for that in the next 2-3 weeks, I imagine.

Keith's end of game performance was very encouraging. He played poorly pretty much the whole game but came through in the end with some clutch free throws. Psychologically, that's very difficult to do.

Believe those were by Harris.

Yeah, Harris made those 3 with 1:04 left, then Appling made an additional 4 in a row after that to seal the game (two at 0:20 and two at 0:09).

Surprisingly it's been the guards that have struggled with FTs. Payne's been very good and Nix has definitely improved.

So I was thinking about this today, and I decided that I really hope the Lions draft Denard. I wouldn't want him early, probably no earlier than the 3rd round, and maybe no earlier than the 4th, but he just seems to fit what the Lions are trying to do.

He's a potentially versatile player, and could definitely replace Stefan Logan, and could get up closer to a Darren Sproles type role. Furthermore, he has potential at CB, and could potentially fill a role there.

Also, I've recently seen quotes from Mayhew suggesting that they want more leadership in the lockerroom, and character type guys. This describes Denard very well.

Lastly, he represents ticket sales. While this hasn't been as much of a problem lately, I'm sure the team would appreciate assurances. And I'm sure the jersey sales would be absurd.

Idk, just my two cents.

If Michigan doesn't trip over their own Johnson, they'll have to be a one seed. Even if they lose some games or don't win the BTT I don't care what their RPI is going to be, they'll be a one seed.

How many of the players on Michigan's team were five stars? Trey was a three wasn't he? What was Hardaway? Or Rbinson III? I know McGary was hyped and a five star, but who else was?

I only ask, because sometimes a coaches evaluations of players trump stars. On 97.1 today Valenti was raving about how Beilen evaluates talent. (ooooooo, a "Sparty" complementing Beilein)

I don't know what the evaluations were for any of those kids. Somebody said Burke was going to PSU as a 3 star before Michigan offered. This team is obviously special. I was thinking I don't know if any of them were Mcdonald AA's. If not, I'd agree with Valenti, Beilein evaluated the hell out of those guys. Good for him. Credit given where credit is due. IT's not like Calipari at Kentucky. He gets a great team easy. Seems like Michigan has taken a different route, but what do I know, I don't follow the star ratings in football, leave alone Basketball.

Burke was a 3/4 star. Hardaway was a 3/4 star. McGary was a 4 star. Robinson was a 5 star. Stauskas was a 4 star. Levert was a 2/3 star. Morgan was a 3 star. Albrecht was a 1 star on espn. Those are the main contributors so that's all that I listed. None of them were Mcdonald's AA's that I know of.

I think Beilein has done an exceptional job evaluating talent, but I bet even he didn't think that Burke would turn into one of the best PG's in America, or that Stauskas would come in and be arguably the best 3 pt shooter in the nation.

PSU would have went from an easy win, to a somewhat difficult one if Burke and Frazier were on the same team.

He was #2 for a while but slipped by the time the final rankings were released. His stats really aren't bad for only playing around 15 min per game. His final ranking was a lot more accurate then the #2 ranking though. Stauskas should have been a lot higher ranked based on his production this year.

I believe the only 5 stars are McGary and GRIII. McGary slipped a bit right before NSD and GRIII moved up and jumped over him jn some rankings.

But Beilein is a good judge of under the radar talent. It's a talent he probably honed out of necessity while coaching at places like LeMoyne, Cannisius (sp?) and Richmond. He was in very early on Smotrycz, McGary and Stauskus. The same is true for Walton, Donnal and Irvin in the 2013 class. FWIW he also tried very hard to get Pangos from Canada but lost out to Gonzaga. And I'll give you one more ... when we were looking for a backup PG last Spring, we could have had either Albrecht or the Italian kid (can't remember his name) that Thad Matta later ended up signing at OSU. I would be shocked if Albrecht doesn't emerge as the better of the two. He was a late pick up and is nowhere near as talented as Burke, but he will become a solid backup PG and will pan out better than the Italian kid.

Edit: A #1 seed would be nice. It's flashy and would likely give us the Midwest region. But I will be fine with a #2. A #1 comes with tons of pressure while a #2 sort of flies a bit under the radar. Just don't put us in the same region with Indiana, Duke or Florida. Or Louisville. Louisville's press can cause problems for teams that see it for the first time.

Poster Andy_H does an awesome job every year with his B1G standings. Here are the latest ones and his thoughts.

http://i.imgur.com/ru2Uw.png

* There has been very little home court advantage thus far, with home teams going just 9-8 thus far.
* Once again, it appears MSU has the most difficult overall schedule in the league (just like last year) and Wisconsin has the easiest (just like last year).
* MSU seems to have the hardest home schedule (missing Iowa and PSU) and a middle of the road away schedule (missing Illinois and NW)
* Michigan seems to have the hardest road schedule (missing Iowa and Neb) and the easiest home schedule (missing Minn and Wisc).