GBMWolverine: Michigan Basketball -- Michigan at Arkansas -- The Blue Streak Roller-coaster Ride Continues

Posted at 6:00am — 1/21/2012

GBMWolverine: Michigan Basketball — Michigan at Arkansas — The Blue Streak Roller-coaster Ride Continues

Michigan Basketball
Michigan at Arkansas — Saturday — 1/21/2012
2:00pm – 4:00pm
DirecTV Channel — Local CBS

Michigan plays a good Arkansas team on the road this Saturday. The next three weeks are not going to be warm and fuzzy. Trips to Columbus, East Lansing, West Lafayette, and Lincoln await after the SEC content.

The Blue Streak is a classic old-school wooden roller-coaster at Cedar Point. The previous week was a blue streak for Michigan basketball complete with quick highs and lows.

The Iowa game had to be a season low. Iowa played much better than the previous two weeks, but Michigan made the Hawkeyes look tournament bound. Michigan’s shooters fired early and often and more often than not blanks were the result.

As bad as the offense looked with bad shots, early shots, and early and bad shots, the defense was worse. Defense is effort and does not result from the hot and cold cycles of shooting. Michigan had feet that looked locked in cement at times and effort far from acceptable.

Some may claim that certain shooters were looking for points regardless of prior success early in the game and the game situation. Again, the inside play was sub-par and with the 25 percent 3-point effort the Wolverines were ripe to get knocked off on the road. Iowa gladly seized the moment and stayed in the mix to be in the mix.

As happens so often a bad Michigan loss on the road is followed by a nice Michigan win at home where Michigan continues to be a force. Michigan jumped a Spartan team who had road problems of its own losing convincingly to a decent Northwestern team who plays most teams very tough at home.

Michigan State again was cold and again made ball handling a little adventurous. As always the Spartans battled back on physical strength and will getting second chances that paid off. The second half saw Michigan’s play decline, but the Wolverines hung in the game. As the game wound down, the Michigan State offense options that put the Spartans ahead were stymied by a much better defensive effort by Michigan.

Hardaway played much better and with more control, his pass to Stu Douglass yielded the game winner. The Spartans had a great opportunity to win the game but the offensive option again was bogged down and the ball handling became a little bungled. Bang, zoom, Michigan posts a near must win to stay in the mix.

Arkansas features two young guards that can score big, BJ young and Mardracus Wade. The inside features junior forward Marshawn Powell and other veterans.

Arkansas is very tough at home, and over the last few years has beat several ranked teams. The hogs are undefeated at home and 13-5 overall. The game will be a sellout and the challenge will be significant.
Coach Beilein will be able to determine this squad’s mental toughness and tournament readiness after this tough mid conference stretch. Other conference teams have experienced big crashes on the road making the Big Ten an absolute blender. This uncertainty is fun to watch, unless of course your team is the one that gets the bite of humility.

Michigan State’s recent week puts Ohio State again in the cockpit to win the league. But let us wait two more weeks to see who finally rises above Disaster Lane.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

Go Blue — Wear Maize!

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