March 29, 2024

Playoff madness heats up

March 14, 2010
Playoff Madness Heats Up
As we reach the home stretch of the college basketball season,
Michigan State’s team is even more of an enigma than usual. Recent
disciplinary actions taken against several
Spartans’ players and an ankle injury to star guard Kalin Lucas have
left MSU fans wondering how good this team COULD have been.
Will they get knocked off early in the NCAA tournament or surprise
their detractors with another run to the championship?
Heading into the Big Ten Tournament, the team has been playing better
defense of late and senior Raymar Morgan is finally playing up to his
abilities. My gut tells me Coach Izzo can will this talented squad to
play well when it really counts: the NCAA tournament. My crystal ball
shows Sparty making another run to the Final Four – just barely. The
team has too many question marks to win it all.
Coach Beilein of Michigan is under increased criticism for his team’s
performance this season. Expected to be a top 15 team, the Wolverines
have imploded at the end of a losing 2010 season without even a whiff
of a NCAA tournament bid to come.
Beilein is a good coach with the X’s and O’s of strategy, but hasn’t
recruited any elite players in his few years at the U-M helm (Sims and
Harris enrolled under the previous coach). Ominously, so far
Michigan’s basketball program has only one recruit from the nations
Top 150 high school seniors for next season. Beilein is a class act,
but if he doesn’t attract a couple of elite players – and soon – he
might be saddled with more pressure to go back to West Virginia than
even Rich Rod.
For all of their injuries this season, the
Detroit Red Wings are now fighting for their hockey lives to make the
Stanley Cup playoffs. If the season ended today, they would fall just
short.
I hereby and forthwith guarantee this team will qualify for the
playoffs. When they do it, we hockey fans should all pay tribute to
the resilience of the Red Wings and Coach Mike Babcock. Detroit’s
experience in recent playoffs will make them a frightening matchup for
any of the top-seeded teams.
Unfortunately, though, the Stanley Cup will not reside in Detroit at
season’s end. The team isn’t as deep in quality players as in recent
years. Their frequent collapses at the end of games are indicative of
thinned-out talent. Prediction: Detroit will lose its first playoff
series against San Jose in seven games.
What can you say about the 2010 Detroit Pistons? It will be the first
season since general manager Joe Dumars’ first season running the
Pistons (2000-2001) that his team has not been in the playoffs. Joe’s
magic in Detroit has vanished – poof. Injuries have wrecked the
team’s season and high-priced, underperforming free agents Ben Gorden
and Charlie Villanuevea don’t brighten the future at all. When young
stud Rodney Stuckey recently passed out during a game, his long-term
status in the NBA and the prospects of Pistons success dimmed even
more.
Because the Detroit Pistons franchise will be sold soon and the team
is destined to experience losing seasons for the foreseeable future, I
believe Dumars will be gone by the end of the 2010-2011 season. It is
the end of another triumphant era for pro basketball in Detroit - we
all need to get used to it.

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