Moe Weasley, No Problems

Let's go, Moe!  (AP Photo/Tony Ding)

As many of you know, I am not, first and foremost, a basketball fan.  It's not that I don't enjoy it, as much as it's just not my favorite sport.  But my son loves it.  He started playing this year, and his love for the game is true.  He loves dribbling, he loves shooting, and he loves being part of his team.  As his season wrapped up on Saturday, we decided it would be fun to take him to the Michigan/Purdue game, especially when it ended up being a 4:00 PM tip.

My wife asked me if I had cautioned our son that Michigan may not win this one, that Purdue was atop the Big Ten standings and ranked, that Michigan has been well, inconsistent to say the least this season, but I was more hopeful after the last two weeks, even after the hiccup at Rutgers, that Michigan could keep it close.

My son has an amazing knack for remembering things and noticing things to which I am not even paying attention.  (To wit, he not only told me yesterday that Louisville and Syracuse were playing for a second time yesterday, he told me the restaurant we were at when they were playing the first time.)  "Daddy, Michigan has never been behind in this game!"  "Daddy, Michigan has made all of their free throws!"  "Daddy, Duncan is in the game!"  (His current favorite player since he wears 22, his favorite number.  That's how these things work when you're a kid.)

I was focused deeply on Moe Wagner, and how he just seemed to be so at ease in the first half.  He was locked in, and even from the high perch of the upper bowl of Crisler, you could just see he was active, focused, and feeling it.  He didn't even need heat checks because everything was clicking.  Michigan's game prep saw something in Purdue's bigs they could exploit with Wagner, and while that's a great plan, Wagner still had to make it happen and he did.  He had "a game in a half" to borrow a phrase from Sunday morning's episode of "The B1G Show" and even though Purdue's adjustments lead to foul trouble for the big man, he had got Michigan off to the start they needed for this game.

So, in some way, the second half became Derrick Walton time.  It wasn't that Walton had a huge second half, just two field goals and three free throws, as much as he made the biggest shot of the day, an absolutely dreadful looking three-pointer on a dying shot clock with 1:46 left to stop the bleeding (Michigan had led 66-44 at the 8 minute mark and now it was 76-67 thanks to a 21-10 Purdue run over five and a half minute.) and put a bow on the game.  Walton's leadership, rebounding, and confidence helped Michigan prevent a dreadful collapse and likely, hopefully, put Michigan on the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble.  There's a reason Walton was Kenpom's MVP, after all.

In the final analysis, it was a great day at the new Crisler, one that showed what Michigan can do when everything is clicking on both ends of the floor.  Michigan has now won five of its last six, a February flip of the usual Beilein script, and has two winnable (but also losable) games on the road against a very desparate Northwestern team (that will be very important for B1G Tournament seeding as well as Northwestern's NCAA tournament hopes) and the final game of the B1G regular season, an 8:00 PM tip against Nebraska on Sunday evening.  If Michigan can take its recent efforts and build upon them, maybe this season will be more than we could have hoped for just six short weeks ago.

HSR Exclusive: Mailbag!

Due to the recent email messages that have come to light, Dave Brandon has taken a leave of absence from responding to his email from various alumni and season ticket holders. In his stead, a number of guest authors have taken his place.


Mr. Brandon,

In the long history of my Michigan fandom, I have never been as disappointed in my alma mater as I am right now.  Not for the on the field product, but rather for the continuing litany of gaffes, both small and significant, that the athletic department seems committed to making on an almost daily basis.  I will not be renewing my tickets next year after 35 seasons as a season ticket holder and donor.

Thank you,
David Sanderson

Mr. Sanderson,

Pray tell whatever gaffes do you speak of for this great Meeechingan of ours?  While mistakes have been made, they have been made doing the great things, trying the bold and the innovative, creating a tradition and a future of which all Meeechigan men can be proud.  We hope that our new commitment to the moral benefits young men receive from playing foot ball will bring you back to Ferry Field next fall.

Sincerely,
F. H. Yost,
Coach
Foot Ball Department
Michigan Athletic Association

[Dictated to an urchin while running down State Street upon disembarking from a train]

Mr. Brandon,

My family and I have been season ticket holders since the early 1970's, and it pains me to say that we won't be renewing them this year. The price of the tickets, plus the "voluntary" donation, is just too much for us to bear on our fixed income, as my wife and I recently retired. Michigan Stadium has been so important to us, but squeezing every last cent out of the fan base has left us cold. We feel left out of the Michigan family.

Sincerely,
James Fairfield


Mr. Fairfield,

DISRESPECT. You feel left out? How dare you. I bet you don't respect football enough to earn the right to buy these tickets. This is a game for men, and men do what it takes to get the job done.

Pride goeth before the fall,
Mark Dantonio



Dear David Brandon,

I've been going to football games at Michigan Stadium since I was a young boy, so I've been through the lean times and the good times. But I can't say I've ever seen such a sorry stretch of football.  The RichRod years were a disaster, and hiring Brady Hoke has just made things worse. Until things change, you won't be seeing me on Saturday and my donations will go somewhere they make a difference.

Raylon Bedwards


Dear Raylon,

I think you're aware of my policy. I'm going to need you to bring me something from the dictionary for us to continue this conversation.

Yours,
Lloyd Carr


Dear Coach Carr,

My word is "autoclave". An autoclave is a pressure chamber used to sterilize equipment and supplies with high pressure steam.

Raylon


Dear Raylon,

Thank you.  I appreciate your letter, and I've given it a lot of thought.  It sounds to me like you and Michigan football aren't on the same page. If you want a situation where you can be #1, maybe you should transfer your allegiances to someplace more suitable. Central or Eastern would definitely appreciate you, or any other non-Big Ten institution would be acceptable to us. I've attached the transfer paperwork to this email.

Yours,
Lloyd Carr

PS: If you change your mind and commit to sticking it out, I have a group of young men who run the stairs every morning. It's tremendous.



Mr. Brandon,

It has occurred to me the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.  So here's to hoping for bowl eligibility.

Sincerely,
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

Mr. Fitzgerald,

I suggest, once again, you quit drinking and go to bed.

Sincerely,
Fritz

H.O Crisler
Football Coach
Board in Control of Physical Education
Ferry Field, Ann Arbor
University of Michigan



Dear Mr. Brandon,

I'm sick and tired of the athletic department rolling out these idiotic schemes and then having to walk everything back when the students and the alumni get wind of them. The noodle, the Coke incident, and the student ticket policy were just foolish.  Getting stuck with playing MSU and OSU on the road every other year is actively detrimental to our success and the athletic department's bottom line. Please be less embarrassing.

Thanks,

James Lindgren


Dear Mr. Lind,

Well, the noodle...I haven't been fully informed about that.  The Coke thing was something from the marketing...their marketing department which we never approved. The student ticket policy, I've been told that they're OK, just an ankle thing, though we don't usually comment on injuries. I don't think we're playing them both on the road every year, just this time. We wouldn't do  that every other year. Anyway, it's all part of big boy football.  I love our kids, we're just going to go out there and compete.

Brady Hoke
It's Michigan fergodsakes!



Mr. Brandon,

I think the time has come that you have to let Brady Hoke go. The mismanagement of the Shane Morris injury is the last straw for me. I would say anything less than 8-4 and you have to fire him anyway, but leaving a kid in there after a shot like Morris took is just unacceptable.

Thanks,
Al Stapleton


Mr. Stapleton,

The first thing you have to understand is that Adreain Payne has a child's lungs. He can't go like some of the other guys, he just gets gassed. And Gary Harris is out there playing on a wooden pirate leg.  Drew Neitzel has alopecia, and that lack of self-confidence really impacts his game.  Goran Suton is from a different galaxy and he's just getting used to Earth's gravity, so you have to be patient with him. Draymond Green, he gives everything he's got on every play, but he's playing with seal flippers sewed to his arm stumps.  What I'm trying to say is we're pretty banged up, and the refs don't give us the calls because we're Michigan State.

Sincerely,
Tom Izzo

PS: Next year I'm dressing up as Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf Too! The kids are going to go nuts!



Mr. Brandon,

After all the price increases and embarrassing incidents, I don't think you have what it takes to be the athletic director at the University of Michigan. Do everyone a favor and quit now, so the university can save the outrageous three million bucks in your buyout.

James Anderson


Dear Mr. Anderson,

I regret to inform you that we cannot answer your recent email. Coach Hayes is already quite incensed that it made it past his spam filter and has destroyed several chairs and a down marker; I suspect your use of "bucks" is what allowed it to slip through. He has had me print it out and burn it, his computer, and our servers, after which the ashes will be couriered to the state line and dumped, as Coach Hayes is loathe to pollute our fair Ohio with such detritus from That School Up North. Please accept this letter as my personal apology.

Yours truly,
Rachel H. Phillips
Executive Secretary to Coach W.W. Hayes, The Ohio State University
GO BUCKS!



Dear Mr. Brandon,

For all of Michigan's marketing of "legacy" and "history", the future which you so claim to love looks bleak and foreboding.  What steps are you taking to bring Michigan back to the pride of the good old days?  I hope you have a plan and a vision, because right now, it's as dark as midnight round here.

Hopeful for the future,
Sherman Williams

Mr. Williams,

Sincerely,
Gordon Berenson


Coach Berenson,

I've renewed my football season tickets and applied for hockey season tickets. I cut the grass, did the laundry, cleaned the house, helped my kids with their homework, paid my bills, balanced my checkbook, did my taxes, and rescued a puppy. I hope this is satisfactory.


Sherman Williams

First Rays of a New Rising Sun

The first thing that struck me at the game yesterday was the number of people in Duke gear at Crisler, as well as the number of people in Maryland or UNC gear. Hate knows no bounds I suppose.

We made our way to the seats and we began assessing our chances. I had said one chance in one hundred when I bought the tickets in October, but that one chance was worth it. When Michigan beat UCLA, that number jumped up a little, maybe one chance in ten, but that fell a little bit when Coach Beilein's team lost to Duke the next night at Madison Square Garden. All we wanted was for Michigan to stay close for a while, maybe make Duke play from behind a little, and let the chips fall where they may. What we got was somewhat more remarkable.

Take a look at the game flow and you can see that it never really was a game that either team seized control of at any point until very very late. But this game was also rare in that its signature moment ended up being the tipping point. Let us step back for a moment to see how we got there.

I've only seen Michigan a couple of times under Coach Beilein, and I liked the idea of what they were trying to do, and against UCLA, I felt that it was coming together, that maybe this could be the end of the drought in the Big Dance, and at the very least, maybe something that would be worth watching through the long winter. I was also still getting to know this team. I knew Manny Harris was special and I was excited to see DeShawn Sims inserted in to the starting line-up, but my knowledge of the Zack Attack (Novak and Gibson) and Kelvin Grady's stealth magic would only present itself during the course of the game.

Duke had just beaten a very good Purdue team in West Lafayette on Wednesday, so it was going to need a pretty much perfect game to beat them, I thought. The key would be simple, if Duke's threes didn't fall, Michigan had a chance.

I've always been convinced that opposing teams struggle to shoot at the tunnel end of Crisler, because it's a weird shooting background, and Duke's 2-for-17 shooting in the first half may have laid testament to my theory. But there we were at halftime and Michigan was up by two points. I was hesitant, but I wanted to believe.

The moment was simple though, with about nine minutes left in the second half, Duke had just taken a three point lead and it looked like Michigan was going to be forced to play catch-up for the rest of the game. All of their hustle, diving for loose balls, keeping rebounds alive, bouncing balls off Duke players to get the ball back out of bounds, it was going to be too little to get the win. But then Michigan set up their offense on their end of the floor, having beaten the Duke press, and found Zack Novak in the corner for a wide open three. Tied at 53, Greg Paulus missed a three, DeShawn Sims who looked like a man possessed grabbed the board, launched a beautiful pass down the floor and seven seconds later, Novak, again, in the corner, another three, and Duke took a time out. Crisler was loud, it was Yost loud. (Props to the Maize Rage for being there an hour before the game and for committing to the team wholeheartedly. Well done ladies and gentlemen.) The entire arena believed it could be done and sure enough, Michigan never trailed again.

It was not a cakewalk the rest of the way, it seemed like every time that the Crisler crowd was ready to blow the roof off the building, Duke would hit a big shot and quiet the crowd. But the boys never let it bother them, they counter-punched every time. They hit their free throws down the stretch, and soon enough, the court was stormed, the plaudits came in, and Michigan basketball signaled that it may, in fact, be back.

It will take some time to figure out if this game really means something. If Michigan falls down in the Big Ten season, then it's just a high point in another wandering year. But for now, I will prefer to think of this as Hendrix stated, as the first rays of a new rising sun, and hopefully one that will shine for a nice long day.