3/20/2006 – Week #20 – A Successful Start To The NIT

The Week In Review

This past week, the University of Michigan men's basketball team played in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), and they beat Texas-El Paso (UTEP) on Thursday (03/16/2006) in Crisler Arena, 82-67.  UTEP is a decent team, and this was a quality win.  It also ends a 3-game losing streak for Michigan. The win raises Michigan’s record to 19-10.

The Wolverines started slowly, but once they got going, they got the lead and held it for the rest of the game.  They led by 10 points (44-34) at halftime, and they pushed the lead up to 20 points near the end of the game, then coasted to a 15-point victory.

Of course, Michigan had been hoping to get into the NCAA Tournament, but they ended up in the NIT instead.  It’s a nice enough consolation prize, but the cold hard truth is that an NIT championship is about the equivalent of winning one or two games in the Big Dance.  If you can’t make it to the NCAA Tournament, anything short of an NIT championship is a disappointment.  So, the Wolverines have their work cut out for them.

Game Statistics

Let's look at the shooting statistics from the UTEP game:

Once again, the shooting stats tell the story of the game; the game was a blowout, and the shooting stats show it, especially 3-point shooting.  UM shot a great percentage from the field, which more than made up for an unexpectedly low percentage at the free throw line.

Now, let's look at the non-shooting statistics from the UTEP game:

As if the shooting stats weren’t enough, the non-shooting stats are all Michigan as well.  The 23 assists is one of Michigan’s best performances this season, and 13 turnovers is also one of their best performances in quite a while.

Individual Statistics

On Senior Day (Saturday 03/04/2006 vs. Indiana), Coach Amaker couldn't start the seniors he really wanted to start, since Lester Abram and Chris Hunter were still injured.  He made up for it in the UTEP game, by starting 5 seniors again, including Abram and Hunter.  The fact that Abram and Hunter are healthy enough to start is very good news, since Abram has only played in 2 games since he was injured in the game at Minnesota on 01/21/2006, and Hunter has only played in 1 game since he was injured early in the game at Michigan State on 02/18/2006.  Abram had been listed as “day to day” for weeks, but Hunter was expected to be out for 3-6 weeks, which could have meant the end of his career.  Instead, he was able to start, and play well.  Besides Abram and Hunter, Amaker also started Sherrod Harrell, who usually comes off the bench, and regular starters Graham Brown and Daniel Horton.  Here’s how they did:

As a group, the starters did OK.  Their percentages are decent, and they scored a reasonable number of points.

Individually, it was mostly Hunter and Horton.  In his first start since his knee injury, Hunter scored a season-high 20 points, including 2 nice 3-pointers.  Horton had a solid game, except for missing a free throw.  In an eerie coincidence, he made exactly 42 in a row before missing one, for the second time this season.  He started the Big Ten season by hitting 42 in a row, before he missed one.

The other 3 starters didn’t do much.  Brown chipped in 6 points, but Abram and Harrell were both shut out.  Abram is still a step slow, and he hasn’t gotten his shot back yet.  Hopefully, he’ll benefit from a few days rest before the 2^nd round NIT game.

In this game, Amaker did something that I don’t remember ever seeing him do before: several times, he substituted 5 new players at once.  For example, near the first media timeout of the game, he pulled out all 5 starters at once, and put in Ron Coleman, Dion Harris, Brent Petway, Courtney Sims, and Jerret Smith.  It’s pretty cool that he has 2 complete, reasonable lineups.

Since the game was a blowout at the end, Amaker got a lot of bench players in, if only for a minute.  Here's how they did:

As a group, the bench players made a huge contribution in the UTEP game.  Other than free throws, they shot very well, and they accounted for more than half of Michigan’s points.

Individually, there were 3 stars coming off the bench: Harris, Petway, and Sims.  While Sims didn’t quite hit double figures, he had a good, solid game.  Petway had a very good game, slamming home 4 gorgeous alley-oop passes, including 2 in the first 3 offensive trips he was on the court.  But, the big star off the bench was Harris.  As you can see, he hit 80% of his 3-point attempts, and he was back in mid-season form, after a few subpar games since he returned from his ankle injury. 

Smith and Coleman did OK out there, but the other bench players didn’t do much.  Several of them were only in for the last minute of the game, once it was all wrapped up.  One of them was Troy Sanchez, who appeared in his first career game.  Good for him.

The Big Picture

Michigan played a good game against UTEP, and they deserved to win big.  As a result, they advance to the 2^nd round of the NIT, where they will play Notre Dame, in Crisler Arena.  Michigan has already played, and beaten, Notre Dame once this year, 71-67, in South Bend on 12/03/2005.  If they can get by Notre Dame, they’ll play the winner of the Creighton/Miami (FL) game, also in Crisler Arena.  We can only hope that it’s Miami, a team that Michigan beat handily (74-53) in Ann Arbor on 11/29/2005.  The 2^nd round game is on Monday (03/20/2006), and if they advance, Michigan will play again in Crisler Arena on Wednesday (03/22/2006).  That game would be for a place in the final four (lowercase) of the NIT.

Here's the complete bracket and results for the NIT: 

Here’s the updated schedule and results for Michigan's season: