Gavitt Games Preview: Creighton at Michigan

GAME INFO

Game time: 5:30pm CT

Location: Ann Arbor, MI

TV: FS1 / Fox Sports App

Radio: 1620AM / 1620 the Zone App feat. the voice of Xmus Jaxon Flaxon-Waxon Bishop.

OPPONENT INFO

Michigan comes into the year with a 1-0 record after beating Appalachian State 79-71. The leading scorers in the affair were Eli Brooks (24 pts, 5-11 3pt, 5-6 FT), Jon Teske (17 pts, 6-9 2pt, 13 rebounds), and Isaiah Livers (14 pts, 2-5 3pt, 5 TOs).

The Wolverines started the half with a 17-3 run and never looked back after that, aside from allowing App State to go on a 30-5 run to close out the game. Had Michigan not completely blown the doors off of the Mountaineers, this would’ve had a more exciting finish.

Juwan Howard is in his first season coaching the Wolverines after longtime program builder John Beilein made a b-line to the NBA to coach the rebuilding Cleveland Cavaliers. Howard spent six years as an assistant on the Miami Heat’s bench.

After losing to Texas Tech in the Sweet 16 last season, Michigan saw a great deal of turnover from last year’s squad to this year’s. In all, they return just Jon Teske and Zavier Simpson and have filled the void with Brooks and Livers, along with 6’6 sophomore Adrien Nunez.

Although it’s a small sample size, Michigan looks to run the floor a little bit more and play a quicker style of play compared to last season. On average, the Wolverines possessed the ball for 18.5 seconds per possession last season and averaged 15.3 against Appalachian State. Again, it’s hard to say if this is truly a biblical reading of the tea leaves, but that’s a sizable difference from one year to the next, and may be attributed more towards the personnel than philosophy as a whole. These early season renderings of a collegiate basketball team resemble a few fragments of a pixel compared to a 10 game sample where you can start to see a picture forming. That’s not nothing; that’s just hardly anything.

Even though Michigan managed to beat Creighton in game 7 of the Corvallis regional last spring, they did happen to blow a 7-4 lead in the 9th inning of game 6 in which Jordan Hovey worked a walk with the bases loaded to push in the game tying run and Jason Allbery doinked a single into right to score the go-ahead run. It was really fucking cool.

Michigan ended up losing to Vanderbilt in the College World Series final.

Verba de Ludis

Winter fucking sucks. I spent a good part of the day looking at new coats on the internet, looking for ways to spend my hard earned money to end the suffering brought on by this bullshit season. I never look on the internet for a summer coat. Is there such a thing as a summer coat?

I mean, my current winter coat is fine but the zipper is fucked up so it won’t zip up and it leaves my chest exposed. Do I just become a vest guy? I’ve never wanted to be a vest guy. Hell, I never wanted to be a quarter zip guy until my mom bought me one for Christmas. I can’t be a quarter zip and vest guy. I refuse to devolve into that state of being, a state of how the modern shitty white guy is supposed to look when the temperature plunges below 40 degrees fahrenheit. No fucking way.

So I’ve been looking for a tailor to fix the zipper on my coat but I have no idea how much it’s going to cost. What’s a zipper repair cost? Like, forty bucks? Or am I looking to spend more than that, thrusting me into the market to buy a new winter coat.

That’s the other thing. Jesus christ are winter coats expensive. I saw a few that were over $300. $300! What the fuck has this economy done to us poor schlubs where we have to sell our kidney to stay warm for four months out of the year? How are these companies able to get away with this.

I know what you’re thinking, I know that you’re blaming me for not capitalizing on summertime sales and buying a winter coat when they’re dirt cheap. Who the fuck is thinking about winter coats when it’s 95 degrees outside and the humidity makes walking around outdoors a life or death scenario?

Which ultimately brings me to my next-to-final thought: why did my ancestors think it was a good idea to settle in a place where, for roughly 7 months of the year, the outdoors are actively trying to kill you? I know the ground is fertile. I know land was cheap. I get it. There’s probably fertile land in the Pacific Northwest, too. Places to grow something other than soybeans, corn, have some cattle, and maybe have an opportunity to grow an apple orchard or grow grapes and build a winery. You know what’s more fun than raising pigs and cows to inevitably slaughter? Getting drunk on wine that you’ve had in a barrel in your basement for the lifespan of your border collie. That sounds like a much more pleasurable experience. Plus you can milk almonds now so what the fuck do you need a cow for? Just grow some fucking almonds and milk their teats or whatever. Almonds don’t get upset when they need to be milked. Less drama there, too.

So here’s my final point: if there’s still gravity instilled in the game of basketball, keeping the sport grounded forever, by the time I’m 65 I’m going to build a spaceship, fly into space, and jettison myself into the listlessness of the cosmos. To do this, I’m going to need a lot of money. Please contact your local billionaire and put him in touch with me. My twitter is in my byline and I receive notifications for when people are trying to contact me through the app.

Please give me a billion dollars. Somebody. Anybody. Just a cool billion so I can start putting my plans of gravityless basketball into motion and maybe get a winter coat.

Song of the Day - Every Little Bit Hurts by Barton Carroll