Previewing: Kansas State

In Michigan's last game, they had all they could handle against Pitt.  Michigan was able to pull away in the later segments of the game to secure a win, but the Wolverines will definitely be looking to avoid such a close finish in their NIT Championship game against Kansas State.  This game has a few interesting story lines  but perhaps the most intriguing is the return of Bruce Weber.  Weber coached Illinois for the last 9 seasons, winning the Big Ten Championship twice, making the NCAA Tournament 6 times, the Sweet Sixteen twice, the national championship game in 2005, and holding a record of 5-5 against Beilein during that his tenure in Champaign.

Of course, Weber is now at Kansas State and his time at Illinois is in the past.  The Wildcats have actually been pretty consistent over the last few years.  Former coach Frank Martin decided to leave for South Carolina during the offseason, but he had secured 5 straight NCAA Tournament berths, a few solid tourney runs, and brought back a talented lineup for this season.  Personally, I'm not completely sure why he left, but the bottomline is that it leaves Weber in a pretty good place for his first season.

Pittsburgh Postgame & Thoughts

ESPN

Wow, what a game.  Even though there were a few point swings during the game, it was pretty close throughout and was a physical battle for both teams.  This was truly Michigan's first test of the season and as evidenced by the halftime score (Pitt 33-29), it was Michigan's first real challenge of the season as well.  During my preview earlier tonight, I had a few things correctly predicted, but there were definitely some unexpected aspects about the game and Michigan that should carry over into Friday's game and beyond.

First and foremost, it's pretty obvious that Pitt is not going to be a pushover this season.  I know this is just one game and it's going to take a lot more than just this game for Pitt to be a serious contender, but they easily passed the eye test.  They played quality defense, used their bench effectively, and did not give up until the clock hit zero, all aspects of a quality team.  Michigan wasn't getting many open looks tonight.  There were several times I wanted to criticize Michigan or Burke, but Pitt's defense was having a significant effect on Michigan's offense.  Along with this, you have to commend a team that has 9 players with points during a game (Michigan had 6).  That shows a deep team that isn't carried by one player.

Previewing: Pittsburgh

Tonight marks the first "legitimate" game of Michigan's 2012-2013 season.  Can the Wolverines back up their #4 ranking?  Nobody will have a true answer until later tonight when Michigan begins play in New York for the Preseason NIT, but there are a few interesting things worth watching when Michigan tips off against Pittsburgh in a few hours.  The Panthers are not ranked, but they seem poised for a good season, a NCAA Tournament berth, and maybe even a tourney run.

There's one player that Michigan fans should be focused on for tonight; Steven Adams.  Adams is a 7'0" center from New Zealand and is projected to be not only one of the best players in the NCAA, but also is currently slated as one of the top prospects in the 2013 NBA Draft.  Of course, height and draft prospects don't guarantee a player will be great, especially in his first big game as a true freshman, but I think it's safe to assume that he will be the biggest threat to Michigan.

Michigan will have a significant advantage in the backcourt with Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway, and GR3, but if the Wolverines are to win, they are going to have to play well up front and particularly down low.  Right now, Michigan has 2 starter quality big men (Jordan Morgan & Jon Horford) and a few legitimate backups (Mitch McGary, Blake McLimans & Max Bielfeldt).  Odds are that Morgan and Horford will get the vast majority of playing time, but I do think that McGary will get his fair share.  

Basketball Notes & Updates - Slippery Rock

There has been quite a bit of news on the basketball front in the past few days.  Although this isn't a news site and we aren't in the practice of simply reposting news stories, this seemed an appropriate time to post on some of these developments.  One of two minor developments wouldn't have been that important, but after a bunch happen, it's enough for an interesting post. None of these updates are that interesting alone, but there are definitely some recent developments that will be important both for this season and the future.

The first thing I would like to address is the injury to Nik Stauskas that John Beilein announced earlier today.  In my post following the Northern Michigan game, I talked about the impressive play of Stauskas and about how I thought he was going to be an important part of this team.  He has been having some problems with his back and will likely miss at least the Slippery Rock game.  This shouldn't be a major concern for now since Michigan should blow past Slippery Rock and the following two opponents.  After that, Michigan will get close to a week off before they face the quality teams in the Preseason NIT Tournament.  Let's just hope he's ready by then or Michigan will have to look for someone to make some big contributions off the bench.

Previewing Non-Conference: Preseason NIT

There are many early season opportunities for teams to get on the map, legitimize themselves, and help their seeding for the NCAA Tournament.  One of the most exciting opportunities is the Preseason NIT, which is an early season tournament involving 16 teams.  Not all of these 16 teams are legitimate opponents, but the top 4 seeds should be solid teams that should be able to do some big things this year.  These include Michigan, Virginia, Kansas State, and Pittsburgh.  All of these teams except Pitt made it to the NCAA Tournament last year and are in position for another solid year.

Michigan is undoubtedly the favorite for this tournament, but actually winning the tournament could be more challenging than many assume.  The Wolverines only have to win 4 games to get the championship and will be heavily favored through the first two rounds, but every game has the potential to be a trap.  Michigan's first opponent, IUPUI, will probably be blown off the map, but the next round matchup with Cleveland State should be a little more challenging.

Instant Analysis: 2012-2013 Michigan Basketball Schedule

Michigan basketball officially released their schedule for this season and much of the reaction was immediate.  We had a good idea of what was coming with some of the earlier announcements such as the game against North Carolina State, but there are a few surprises, both good and bad, in the Big Ten schedule that could make things interesting over the course of the season.  I'm not going to breakdown every game and every specific part of the schedule, but I am going to look at a few key segments and make some general comments about what I think could play out this year.

Non-Conference
There are a few things worth mentioning here.  Overall, there will probably only be a few games that get ample attention from the media.  Despite this, there are still 3 very exciting match-ups and the Preseason NIT, which includes teams like Pittsburgh, Kansas State, and Virginia.  All three could be quality opponents and Michigan will have the chance to play them.  So even if you are a bit concerned by the lack of "big name" teams on the schedule, don't fret because there are plenty of opportunities to see some solid match-ups in the non-conference schedule.

Michigan Basketball Gets Early Season Opportunity

The Wolverines may not be heading to Maui Invitational like they did last year, but they have a great tournament opportunity for next season in Madison Square Garden.  The Pre Season NIT may not be the biggest or most publicized college basketball tournament, but it's certainly one that is respected and will feature some competitive teams.  This tournament is going to be key for Michigan because it gives the team one of its few chances to have some key non-conference wins to boost the team's tournament resume.

The big non-conference games on the schedule (outside of the Pre Season NIT) are Arkansas, West Virginia, and the Big Ten/ACC Challenge match-up (has not been announced yet).  Two of these games will be occurring in Ann Arbor and the other game, against West Virginia, will be played in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY.  All three of these games should be pretty competitive, but it's doubtful any of Michigan's opponents in these three games will be ranked, unless Michigan's ACC opponent is someone like North Carolina or North Carolina State.

Regardless of Michigan's ACC Challenge opponent, the point is still clear.  Michigan has very few legitimate non-conference opponents next season.  Sure, this isn't that unusual for Michigan or other teams, but for a team in Michigan's situation these are great opportunities.  Michigan will certainly be ranked very high to start the season and is bringing in a great roster with some highly regarded recruits, but the team still hasn't made a huge presence in the NCAA Tournament under John Beilein.  With this in mind, performing against top-notch competition should help to alleviate some of the concerns.

As I've pointed out, until Big Ten season starts, Michigan doesn't have a lot of opportunities to prove themselves against top-notch competition.  Yes, Michigan doesn't have to prove themselves as they did 5 or 10 years ago, but they still need to prove that they belong among the elite teams in the nation.  The elite teams in the country typically do well against the tough teams and get good seeding in the NCAA Tournament as a result.  Let's take a look at the teams that earned #1 seeds and how many non-conference games they had against ranked opponents.

	Kentucky	MSU	Syracuse	UNC
Non-Conference Ranked Opponents	3	3	1	2
Location of Games (Home, Road, Neutral)	2-0-1	0-1-2	1-0-0	1-1-0
Record in Games	3-0	1-2	1-0	1-1

*Only counts teams ranked at the time of match-ups. For instance, Indiana did not count as a ranked opponent for Kentucky.


Although one would expect a better record against non-conference ranked opponents, teams like MSU and UNC actually finished at .500 or below.  This is pretty surprising.  However, if one looks at the analysis of these teams, they can see that some of the opponents were teams like Kentucky and UNC, which ended up being #1 seeds.  The other interesting thing to note is that some teams like Syracuse were able to get by without a lot of these games.  Obviously, conference play is the most important factor in NCAA Tournament seeding, but scheduling these types of games does seem important.

After reviewing the table and this information, one may think that these games don't matter to the top NCAA Tournament seeds.  However, I think it's important to differentiate winning and losing these types of games.  For instance, look at the Kentucky vs. UNC match-up at the beginning of the season.  Both ended up being #1 seeds in March.  Does this mean the game didn't matter?  Of course not.  There's no doubt that the result helped Kentucky, it's just that it didn't hurt UNC much.  Look at the Virginia game for Michigan.  It helped Virginia a lot in their seeding, but it didn't really hurt Michigan much.  To me, this shows why it's a great opportunity for Michigan.  Even if they don't do well against tough non-conference opponents and the Pre Season NIT Tournament, they aren't going to be hurt much.  However, if they do well they're going to benefit much in March.

Perhaps I'm overemphasizing the important of these early season match-ups, but imagine if Michigan can win or do well in all of its major non-conference match-ups.  According to CBSsports, the Pre Season NIT Tournament will include Pittsburgh, Kansas State, and Virginia along with Michigan.  None of these three teams are predicted to be ranked in the top 25 to start the season, but all three of them have the potential to be very good.  If Michigan can pull out an early victory over Virginia, Pittsburgh, or Kansas State, it's going to go a long way towards establishing them for March.

Last season, Michigan's only legitimate non-conference win was against Memphis at a neutral site.  However, Michigan also lost on the road against Arkansas and Virginia, which brought them down.  Every one of these #1 seeds had a victory against a ranked non-conference opponent and I think this tournament offers a great shot for Michigan to do that.  If Michigan is able to do well, or win this tournament next season, I think they have a great chance at being ranked very high during the season and getting a great seed in March.  These types of games can't hurt a team, as one can see from the table above, but there's no doubt that it can help a team.


Photo Credit: FantasySP