Great Expectations, Specifically
To hell and back. After 11 years of the former, few would argue against the latter being where we are. Not only have our glasses flipped from half empty to half full, we’ve upgraded from drug test piss cups to this. What’s not to like?
In a word: timing.
You’re in high school. Your dream is to sing in the school musical, but you’re not quite good enough so you spend your entire summer at Rooty Tutti Frutti’s Song & Dance Camp. You’re a shoo-in for the lead… until your school district is rezoned and you’re now a student at High School Musical High Academy. Nice try, understudy.
The ’09-’10 Big Ten is basketball’s High School Musical. Much like M has its best team in ten years, the conference is the best it’s been in ten years. Nine teams (sorry, Indiana and Iowa) are dance-tastic, but most likely only seven will jitterbug, and lest we forget this is a team that had beaucoup terrible games last year (Savannah St., Wisco, IU, OSU twice and @PSU) before eeking into the tourney the last two weeks of the season.
Alas, when you’re good, you benefit from conference muscle both from schedule strength—and M’s is brutal (the first two games of the year are the only two consecutive cupcakes on it)—and the experience of playing good teams that make you dance-ready.
Conclusion: this is the year you vocally root for every Big Ten team until January. Even Sparty (unless Mateen Cleaves is in the crowd—no one wants to see this or this). We’ll learn a lot 11/30-12/2 as the conference vies to win (and should, nay, must win) its first Big Ten/ACC Challenge (currently 0-10).
***THE BOTTOM LINE POSTED AT NOT THE BOTTOM***
I’ll spare you the suspense: my hope is 3rd in conference and a dancing 4 seed, and here’s my Rx for it:
MANNY HARRIS
ZOMG he are shoot good and make points!!! He could’ve taken a more serious look at the NBA last year if his ball handles were better. Fix it. Hard to quibble elsewhere. Improve three-ability? In a way you have to hope he goes pro after this year, because that means he’ll have impregnated everyone’s daughters (if everyone is lucky).
PEEDI
If he cashes in on his dark (but not that dark) horse candidacy to be first team all conference and/or if he establishes himself as a solid 2nd round NBAer, you’ll need cigars on hand for the dance selection show. Play big, medium-sized fella.
SOPHS
Most think college athletes improve the most between their frosh and soph seasons, and Novak, Douglass and Lucas-Perry (aka “LLP,” aka “Limited Liability Partnership”) were just dandy last year. Generally: sophs + more consistency = figurative sexy time for us, literal sexy time for them. Novak is our Brian Cardinal: we’ll bleed for him, everyone else will respectfully (but violently) hate him and it’ll seem like we have him for seven years.
Last year we lived and died by the three, and considering how well we lived, even more surprising was how average we were at buttering our bread. Average three-ball improvement (and the first rule of college basketball is that if patient enough you can get an open three every trip down) will translate into the good kind of expletives.
DARIUS MORRIS
Athlete. The flashiest point M’s had since… Jalen? There will be behind-the-back passes and alley oops. And bad turnovers. My hope is that he has a year similar to Kevin Gaines’ lone M campaign: good handles, good passing, heady play, score-ability when needed and clutch free throwing down the stretch. If he flirts with a Horton-ish frosh year, I’ll take two tickets to Erection Cove .
Losing our only three pure PGs (Lee, Merritt & Grady) should be tolerable considering the three sophs have proven themselves capable of running the point when needed. Darius won’t have to post big numbers for this team to succeed; he just needs to play not dumb.
ZACHARY GIBSON
Oft lost in the Decade of D’Oh is Peter Vignier’s senior year. By then he figured out what he did well, and he did it with reckless efficiency and consistency. Gibby: box out, play competent defense, and have 12 head-spinning dunks this year. Do that and I approve of you shooting one wide-open three per game.
We’ll start with a ten man rotation, and the Beez expects that to whittle itself down to 8ish. If you care to see how deep that makes us, peep a guess at a minutes-per-game forecast:
Manny: 35
Peedi: 35
Novak: 30
Morris: 30
Gibby: 20
Douglass: 20
LLP: 20
Vogrich: 10
Wright: 5
Cronin: 5
Yes, mathemagicians, I know that’s ten minutes too many. Ever heard of OT? Wright and Cronin are my odd men out assuming we end up raging eight. More realistic is that Manny and Peedi only play that many minutes in close games and end up averaging a minute or two less.
Hello, bandwagon! Season ticket sales are up fivefold (500 to 2500), and last year’s 500 done did us proud. They have weekly meetings! Crisler will be feared. Respec’ and protec’.
4 SEED
In the last few years, four seeds have had between five and ten losses, with most in the six to eight range. Assuming the Big Ten warrants the hype, let’s assume (i.e. pray) M can comfortably do it with eight losses (hopefully with room for one more), which means the goal is 23-7 pre-BTT.
Twelve non-conference games, in which M should be favored in every one but @Kansas. Still, 10-2 would be monumental (the Old Spice Classic, BC, @Utah and UConn will all burn barns).
Eighteen B10 games, with Purdue and @Illinois off the schedule (losing a potential W versus consensus top ten Purdue is a rough draw, but M doesn’t win in I-L-L so call the draw a draw—schedule’s plenty tough without them). Elite teams win at home, and that’s that so call us 8-1 in Crisler. That leaves 5-4 on the road, which again is realistic but would be monumental considering @Iowa and @IU are the only two you could call “should wins” with a straight face.
In the last few years, the third place B10 team has had between four and seven losses, and with the conference as deep as it is (where everyone beats up on each other) I expect 13-5 to be good enough for the BTT three seed.
Ta da!* It’s that easy.
Of course, we’d still be wondering what percentage of Americans think it’s fashion savvy to wear a turtleneck under a sport coat if not for the man behind the curtain:
*The views expressed above are necessarily those of www.ryanstayton.com.