Michigan Wins Its Second Consecutive Big 10 Tournament to Get Auto Bid
That John Beilein sure can coach, eh? Someone asked me the other day what does Beilein have to do in order to get more respect and frankly I’m not sure what else there is. Also, everyone I know around the game talks about Beilein as a top-15 coach in America and he’s really showing it here. For the second consecutive year, Michigan won four games in a row to win the Big 10 title. This time it was a 75-66 win over Purdue.
As I mentioned in the pregame blog, this is the best defensive team that Beilein has had at Michigan during his tenure. That showed today. The Wolverines were able to play Haas/Haarms 1v1 in the post because of guys like Charles Matthews (an ideal matchup on Vince Edwards), Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman (an ideal matchup on Carsen Edwards). By doing that it really bothered what Purdue was trying to do offensively.
On the flip side, Purdue’s biggest defensive weakness showed today. Purdue absolutely struggles in the pick and roll, especially when Haas is in the game. Don’t get me wrong, Haas is a good player and you need him in there for what he brings offensively, but when you’re as big as he is, it’s tough to hedge and recover in the ball screen setting. That’s what Michigan ran to get the lead and extend it. They just dared Purdue to switch or hedge softly and then rotate on the wing and bring up a shooter. It was a thing of beauty.
So here we are now with Michigan getting a week off and sitting on the auto bid. It’s another year of the Wolverines peaking at the right time. Last year it led to a Sweet 16 run. This year, it will be even higher expectations due to the likeliness of a 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. As for Purdue, it will still be a popular Final Four pick and a top-3 seed, but Michigan laid a blue print on how to beat them.
Congrats, Dave. 5 in, 63 to go.
NCAA Tournament bids:
Michigan (Big 10) – projected 3/4 seed
Radford (Big South) – projected 15 seed
Lipscomb (A-Sun) – projected 16 seed
Murray State (OVC) – projected 13 seed
Loyola (MVC) – projected 12 seed