Saturday might have been the best sports day in Michigan history. The softball team kept rolling down south with 2 more victories, the baseball team kicked off its season with a win, the hockey team won on senior night to move up to number 2 in the nation. That is a pretty standard Saturday in February right there, but it is not what put 2/18/12 over the top. College GameDay was in town for the first time to take in Crisler Center and a basketball game. 1,500 fans were rocking from 10-12 am while the game was still 9 hours away. The many 2013 football recruits in town for unofficial visits made their way into Crisler to take in the events and throughout the day 6 top notch recruits committed to the Maize and Blue. Then fans flooded the arena for the game against Ohio. It was the loudest basketball game I have ever been to. It seemed like the entire stadium was into every moment. Brady Hoke was honored at halftime as the National Coach of the Year, and even Coach Hoke was fired up while watching the basketball team take on that 4 letter team down south. Oh yea… and the basketball team played its best game that I remember since the December 2008 game vs Duke (Stu and Zack’s freshman year).
I will start with the recruiting for a bit. Never before has any team gotten so many recruits in a day that isn’t National Signing Day. And Michigan added 2 more top players yesterday bringing the total to 8. The 2012 recruiting class was a consensus top 10 class this last year with 3 top 100 players, the 2013 class already has 5 with 2 more likely to move up in the rankings. It is likely that 3-4 of these guys will get the elusive 5 star ranking. We currently have one of the best QBs, TEs, 4 of the best OL’s, Safety, and then 3 players with a ton of potential that are just raw talents right now. Out of the 11 total commits currently, all but 1 is a 4 star, and that is a TE from Detroit to keep the recruiting lines open for future prospects. It is also expected that 1-2 players will commit within this week.
Back to basketball… it was one of those games that just felt like the players made up their mind they weren’t going to lose and then did whatever was needed to make that happen. It was one of the best defensive efforts against OSU this year (top 12 offense in the nation). Every player besides Thomas had lower than average points. Burford was locked down by Stu for the entire night and was limited to 6 points (he is likely to become one of OSU’s top scorers EVER). Morgan battled Sullinger down low all night long. He stayed out of foul trouble, and if it wasn’t for 2 terribly cheap calls in a row to begin the 2nd half, he would have ended the game with 0 fouls. Morgan recorded his first double double in a Michigan uniform. Sullinger was held to 14 points in the game, which is pretty impressive considering OSU runs their offense through their big man when they need points. In the 2nd half, there was a stretch of 9 straight possessions that OSU passed the ball into him. Michigan still got outrebounded for the game, and gave up too many offensive rebounds again, but they countered that with creating turnovers. Michigan drew 5 charges and forced 15 turnovers for the game, and outscored OSU 8-0 in transition points.
Hardaway continued to break out of his slump by scoring 13 points on 5 shots. He didn’t take a single bad shot during the game and contributed in all areas of the game. Michigan continued its balanced scoring efforts with 17 from Burke, 13 from Hardaway, 11 from Morgan, 7 from Stu, and 6 from Novak. Burke continued to impress on national tv, and now is considered the best freshman PG in the nation. The players just wouldn’t let Michigan lose. In the last few possessions Stu, Zack, and Trey all made near impossible shots with the shot clock winding down to keep the lead at 5 points. Morgan battled for an offensive rebound to set up one of these shots, and Tim closed out on Thomas to alter a 3 point attempt which resulted in one of his only misses of the 2nd half. It was an incredible team effort. It was the kind of effort needed to win NCAAA tourney games. And regardless of the bracket matchups, if this team plays like that it will be unbelievably fun to watch them play together.
It truly is great to be a Michigan Wolverine!
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