ESPN’s Pat Forde’s a good read but his latest column for ESPN.com, in which he scolds Michigan basketball, is misguided. Fronted by a tabloid-ready photo of a bleeding Chris Kramer, Forde piles on John Beilein suggesting, much as cohort Jay Bilas did earlier in the week, that Michigan hoops suffers from boorish behavior. While it may garner more hits and revenue for ESPN, its disingenuous to equate the Zack Novack elbow to PJ Hill (for which Beilein took a clear and hard line) to the Manny Harris/Chris Kramer incident. Elsewhere, Michigan State takes on the Gophers tonight… Breslin Center Magic
In losses to Minnesota and Purdue, The Kohl Center mystique has been cracked to the chagrin of the Wisconsin basketball team. Is the Breslin Center next? With losses in East Lansing to Northwestern and Penn State, both perennial also-rans in the Big Ten but now much more, one wonders whether if the setbacks are aberrations or indicative of something deeper. Perhaps, as Wisconsin displayed in its loss to Minnesota, overconfidence devolves into a lack of intensity
Spartans Weblog tends to take a more sanguine approach and chalk up the losses to huge games by opposing players. Makes sense, but no doubt, Izzo will use the latest loss as an opportunity to teach even if he publicly discounts the 30 foot bank shot Talor Battle nailed on Sunday.
Granted, Kevin Coble and Battle were unconscious but is that an aberration or more indicative of an inability to clamp down or overcome a hot player? No doubt, a big game by an opposing player hurts but it doesn’t necessarily kill you. From our perspective, you lose when a guy like Jamelle Cornely snags a rebound off his missed free throw or Andrew Jones slips in on a back door late in the game. That equates more to effort than anything else.
Alone in First
Thanks to Ohio State beating the Hummel-less Boilermakers last night, the Spartans are alone in first place entering tonight’s Minnesota game in The Breslin. The Spartans are deep and talented enough, even without Raymar Morgan, to compete with anyone (and beat them) in the Conference. If the Spartans are to win a regular season Championship, they’ll learn from the Penn State game and just go out and play to their ability.
Evan Turner is Very Good
So’s William Buford.
How Talor Battle Rolls
In March 2008 we wrote a piece called Waiting for Erin Andrews, in which we highlighted the talent of a freshman toiling in the obscurity that was Bryce-Jordan. At that point in the season, Penn State was still Penn State and struggling to cope with the injuries to Hoopraker favorites Geary Claxton and Jamelle Cornely. The upside of that downside was the opportunity those injuries gave the confident Talor Battle to fast forward his development. Now, Penn State is Battle’s team, Battle is a B10 Player of the Year front runner and Penn State basketball is extremely relevant.