Thursday Quick Hits: Michigan Escapes Bloomington with 72-66 Win

By Sean · Thursday, January 8, 2009 · 1:53 AM |  Share | 2 Comments 

• Michigan has made it a habit to play down or up to its opponents this season. Proof of that is in the upset wins over UCLA and Duke and the scares against Savannah State and most recently Indiana. The Wolverines took on the Hoosiers at Assembly Hall last night and managed to pull off a comeback win in overtime. Despite trailing by 20 points in the second half, Michigan slowly cut down the lead and tied the game with 25 seconds left on a Laval Lucas-Perry three-pointer. In overtime, Indiana missed quite a few free throws to help Michigan win 72-66, even though the Wolverines did their best to give the game away with a couple turnovers.
• Regardless of how ugly this game was — and trust me, it was as ugly as it gets — what matters is that Michigan won. In the past Michigan couldn’t play badly and win, but that is what they have done multiple times this season. It helps that Indiana is a really bad team, but all that counts is that Michigan won. A loss to a team like IU would put a black eye on Michigan’s tournament resume, which is why a win was so important.
• This was Michigan’s first win at Indiana since 1995.
• David Merritt apparently had the flu and only played for two minutes. Kelvin Grady started in his place.
• Laval Lucas-Perry led Michigan in scoring with 18 points. Manny Harris was next with 17 points and DeShawn Sims had 14. Harris also had 11 rebounds.
• C.J. Lee only had 6 points, but they were 6 very important points. Lee came off the bench and nailed two 3-pointers near the end of the second half to keep Michigan’s chances of winning alive. His shots were huge and allowed Michigan to send the game to overtime, where they eventually won.
• Michigan’s next game is on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. against Iowa. The game will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network.
• Speaking of which, the Big Ten Network has always done a poor job of broadcasting basketball games, but tonight it was noticeably bad. Note to the camera man, it is sort of important to keep the ball in the frame, especially when the ball is being shot at the basket. There were multiple times where you had to rely on the sound of the net to determine whether or not a shot went in since the camera was out of position.

  Also, note to color commentator Shon Morris, a player can get a shot off with half a second left in the game. For some reason, Morris thought that Michigan could only win the game on an alley-oop when there was half a second left in regulation. The rule is that there needs to be at least three-tenths of a second left on the clock to actually shoot the ball. I don’t know why Morris thought half a second wasn’t enough, but it would be nice if Big Ten Network announcers knew the rules and were corrected if they were wrong on something.

• Mark Mitera, who tore his ACL in Michigan’s first game of the season, is going to skate on Friday for the first time since the injury. According to Red Berenson, he isn’t expected to return to a game anytime soon, but this is great progress nonetheless.
• Michigan’s David Wohlberg was named the CCHA Rookie of the Month.
• Ann Arbor Pioneer quarterback Nader Furrha opted to enroll early as a walk-on at Michigan rather than take a scholarship offer at Grand Valley State or Saginaw Valley State.
• The Michigan athletic department confirmed that this year’s spring game will be held at Michigan Stadium on April 11.
• Michigan pitcher Chris Fetter is Rivals.com’s fourth-best returning senior.
• Marcia Pankratz, who coached the Michigan field hockey team to a national championship in 2001, has once again been hired to coach the U-M field hockey team.
• Michigan soccer player Peri Marosevic left school a year early to enter the MLS draft.
• Varsity Blue posted highlights of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.
• The M-Den is going to replace the vacant Steve and Barry’s store on State Street.
• Former Michigan and Lions quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler officially is headed to the University of Florida.
• Boston College recently threatened to fire head football coach Jeff Jagodzinski if he interviewed for the New York Jets job, and Boston College did just that on Wednesday after Jagodzinski went through with the interview.
• Wednesday was a rough day for the Boston College basketball team as well. Just days after upsetting undefeated North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Boston College got beat by the Tommy Amaker-coached Harvard Crimson.
• I finished first in the Big Ten Bloggers Pick’em thanks to a perfect bowl record.