Houston Baptist, No Problem

On Friday night in Crisler Arena the Michigan Wolverines took on the Huskies from Houston Baptist University (HB). Apparently HB is a member of the Great West conference. Because the Great West is a relatively new DI basketball conference its members won’t be able to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament until about 2043 give or take 20 years.  I know you’re all counting down the days. Anyways, it took UofM until the 10 minute mark in the first half to pull away from HB. If there was ever an example of a team playing down to its level of competition, that example was Michigan in the opening 10 minutes.  It wasn’t as if the Huskies were forcing Michigan to do anything they didn’t want to do.  I never got the feeling that it was going to be a repeat of last season’s Savannah State game.

Thoughts on the Game

• Ben Cronin already seems to be a crowd favorite. I don’t know if it’s because he’s 7 feet tall, or that folks feel bad for him because he’s not playing regular minutes, or maybe both. The plan for Cronin was definitely not for him to be in the scrub role, but currently that’s exactly the role he is in. I guess a really tall scrub is something to get excited about, I mean, I remember rooting on Amadou Ba every time he entered a lopsided game, never mind that he had the best last name in the history of last names.  But like I said, Cronin’s role this season is not to be a garbage time guy. Beilein says that hopefully Cronin will be fully healthy come the Big Ten opener. Note: my use of ‘scrub’ is meant in the most positive way possible, DI basketball scrubs are still pretty damn good.

• Michigan came out of the gate sluggish. Manny Harris must’ve missed 4 or 5 shots around the basket in the early going, Darius Morris blew a wide open layup, nobody could knock down a jumper or corral a rebound.

• I’m not sure DeShawn shooting 8 triples in a game is a recipe for success, but on Friday it was because he drained 5 of the 8.

• Stu Douglass’ jumper wasn’t falling for him but Stu found a way to contribute by leading the team in assists (7) while doing a nice chunk of the ball handling. He seemed calm and comfortable against the feisty pressure of the HB guards. I’m all for Stu Douglass getting more opportunities to play the point.  He definitely didn’t hurt his case on Friday.

• Zack Gibson followed up his 5 for 5 shooting against Northern Michigan with another solid showing, scoring 8 and grabbing 6 rebounds in just 14 minutes.  As Zack’s confidence grows hopefully Beilein can find more playing time for him.

• At times Darius Morris seems to coast a bit and careless mistakes result, but Beilein’s leash on Darius looks to be pretty long right now.

• While Anthony Wright didn’t hit a shot or get an assist, he bounced a perfect back door pass to a cutting DeShawn Sims in the second half.  It was textbook. Unfortunately DeShawn was fouled and wasn’t able to convert. The pass was almost as beautiful as when Anthony and DeShawn hooked up last season via the back door in Madison Square Garden.

Poking fun at the opponent portion

I did about 45 seconds worth of scouting on the Huskies online prior to the game. I didn’t actually look to see what HB’s key players looked like, but I took note of a couple names.   I remembered that HB’s leading scorer and rebounder was Mario Flaherty, a 6’9 forward/center.  I expected Mario to be ripped specimen of man flesh.  He wasn’t.  Instead Mario could have easily passed for Seth Rogen’s little brother.

Judging by some of DeShawn Sims on court mannerisms, he thought this Mario dude wasn’t fit to carry his jockstrap. But for the most part Mario held his own (even made DeShawn look silly when he made a sweeping hook shot over him) and gave Michigan fits on the boards the entire game.  The Michigan student section noticed. When you get the attention of the Maize Rage, you know you’re doing something right. Resembling Seth Rogen and having Mario as your first name sure doesn’t hurt either.

Then there was Remy Boswell.

I remember seeing his name and that his season stats didn’t exactly jump out at you. Watching him shoot some jumpers in pre-game warmups led me to believe he was the bench warmer of all bench warmers. Watching his lefty slinging gyration of a jump shot was more cringe-worthy than a Borat and Azamat asshole grinding session. Remy shuffled his way around the court like he just ate an IHOP Who-cake. He seemed like he was actually trying his darndest to give hard working practice players a bad name.  So it was much to my surprise when Remy was the first bench player to enter the game for HB. I don’t know how Remy did it, scoring 8 points and gathering 10 rebounds. His four baskets were layups mind you, and his misses were of the jump shot variety—I assume the Michigan players were well aware of his offensive capabilities because whenever Remy had the ball away from the basket they gave him the Ben Wallace treatment and sagged.  How nice it must be to be 6’7.

And that concludes the poking fun at the opponent portion.

Don’t Forget

Michigan heads off to Orlando to play in the Old Spice Classic beginning on Thanksgiving.  Creighton is first up at noon sharp.  A possible matchup with former Wolverine Ekpe Udoh looms as Baylor is in the field as well.  Udoh is currently averaging 16, 8 and just over 3 blocks a game.