Indiana Recap

The regular season game of the year came and passed, and I am left with joy that the Super Bowl was also this past weekend so Indiana is no longer on some four letter network’s front page.  Michigan traveled down to Bloomington for a heavyweight battle with the Hoosiers, and on the national scene the game did not disappoint.  However, for those of you that follow the Wolverines as much as me, you were likely left with a bad taste in your mouth.  Now take a step back and think of where that frustrated feeling is coming from?  You, like me, probably expected our Michigan team to go into the most hostile environment that most of these guys will ever play in, and win.  Then when they didn’t play up to the expectation you set for them in your mind, and Indiana finally pulled away for good, you are disappointed.  Hopefully that didn’t make you feel like a bad fan, because that is not my intention at all.  I was with you on Saturday night.  I kept looking at the clock after noon just counting down the minutes until tip-off, but by 11:15pm I was frustrated, cranky, and wishing Mitch McGary body slammed Oladipo after his Spartan-like dunk to end the game. 

Thankfully I decided to let myself cool down before writing the recap.  Yes, losing is never fun, especially on a national stage with first place on the line.  But I cannot restate just how much fun this team that we get to root for really is.  Some of us actually expected a team with 5 contributing freshman to win in Assembly Hall.  A team without its starting center to be able to slow down the best big man in the country, and likely the number 1 pick in the next NBA draft.  A group of players in their first 9pm weekend game to be able to stay mentally poised to handle the biggest crowd that most of them had ever played in front.  On top of all of this, Nik Stauskas was apparently battling the flu as well.  The chips were stacked against Michigan to say the least.  Yet we waited hours to experience something unprecedented, something great. 

I honestly don’t know how much better Indiana could have played in this game, but in the hours following the finish, most of us thought of any missed opportunity the Wolverines couldn’t convert.  It was just one of those nights that the best shooting team in the country couldn’t knock down shots efficiently, yet somehow they only lost by 8 points; on the road against one of the country’s best teams.  Michigan is still in the middle of their toughest stretch of the season, so they need to bounce back in a big way against Ohio State tomorrow.  But today I am left to look at Saturday night’s event and know with as much certainty a Big Ten-biased blogger can and say Indiana and Michigan are the two best basketball teams in the country and should be Final Four favorites.  The Hoosiers did not expose the Wolverine’s as a fraud number one team.  If Michigan can move forward, focus on their next three opponents, and play basketball like they expect to, I think Saturday night’s came actually cements them as the nation’s top team. 

The recurring theme of the Indiana matchup was that the Hoosiers were able to exploit any offensive mismatches and Michigan could not do the same.  Cody Zeller, Christian Watford, and Jordan Hulls were all able to outscore their opponent.  Hardaway and Oladipo played to a near enough stalemate, and the player of the year (Burke) put the Wolverines on his back and almost single-handedly kept the game close.  Before the game we knew Zeller and Burke would dominate their positions, and in order for Michigan to have a chance Hardaway would have to draw even with my new enemy number one.  The two remaining matchups were, ultimately, going to decide the game, and they did in Indiana’s favor.  Saturday night left me with an instant craving to see round 2 in Ann Arbor (and rounds 3 and 4 on neutral sites).