Michigan fans are accusing Spartan fans of "making excuses" this basketball season when talking about the injuries that have ravaged the MSU lineup for most of the year. According to the UM camp, talking about injuries that put players in casts and boots, onto sick beds and using crutches, is just a glorified "excuse-making" session.
Okay, but what about their football team? As soon as their beloved striped-helmets starting flailing against the likes of Akron and Connecticut, we started learning that they have a "young offensive line", and later, that the entire team was "young". We didn't hear that story-line before the season, only after things started to slide downhill. It was at that point that the Michigan football team became "young".
Now we hear reports that two of those five "young" players (both fifth-year seniors) are about to enter the NFL draft and according to predictions, do quite nicely. Taylor Lewan is projected as a first-round pick, and his five-year playing partner, "young" Michael Schofield, is expected to be picked to play professional football as well. NOT BAD FOR SUCH YOUNG GUYS!!
Next season their vacated tackle positions will be filled by players who are not fifth-year seniors, making their offensive line......get ready for this......here it comes......YOUNG AGAIN! So the Wolverines will have another "young offensive line" next season after the one it had last season was also, well, "young".
So isn't that an "excuse" of some kind or another? If they started two fifth-year seniors and didn't mention their youth up front in August, then talked about nothing else for three months, does that sound like it may actually be an "excuse"? Is it possible that UM fans made "excuses" all during football season?
If their quarterback got beat-up every game because their coach kept running him up the middle to be body-slammed a dozen times each game, then he gets a few "boo-boos" and "owies", and their fans begin to point out on a weekly basis that "Devin's banged up again", especially after losses, is that an "excuse"?
When the MSU Football team wins the division, the league, and the Rose Bowl, UM fans point out that it was 25 years since the last time that happened. Then they say things like, "see you again in another 25 years" and dismiss the accomplishments. But when the Michigan men's basketball team wins the league title outright for the first time in 28 years, shouldn't we all be telling them, "see you again in another 28 years" and dismiss their accomplishments?
The answer is that we shouldn't say that stuff, as that makes us to be like them, and we wouldn't want that.
But we don't have to take a lot of crap about the basketball injuries being nothing more than "excuses". It's rather easy to imagine that if all the Michigan starters each spent 3-7 games out of action during the conference schedule, they wouldn't have been able to order that new banner to go along with the new trophy.
So if you're in a conversation with some chUMp who accuses you of making "excuses" about the men's basketball team, just shift the topic immediately to football. Give them a chance to make excuses and then point it out. Remind them that you'll be watching football next season and listening for the answers to the wolverines problems.
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No need to wait until football season to hear UM fans make excuses. Even though they somehow managed to win the outright Big Ten regular season basketball championship, while somehow dodging any significant injury/illness to a second or third starter, they constantly invoke the names Burke/Hardaway/McGary, and lament how awesome they would be if that holy trinity still played for UM.
ReplyDeleteThey have set the stage so that if they fall short of the National Title, they have the excuse already: just think if we had Mitch! (And Trey and Tim!) They will lament, and ponder, and whine, and make excuses. And even should they win it all, they will lament how with THOSE guys, it would have been the best team ever assembled! And then if they all came back, and managed to dodge significant injuries to multiple starters NEXT year, it would be multiple National Titles!
Just wait and watch their comments, when (if) they get beat in the tournament. And be ready to pounce.
Thanks for your input, MSUJIBBOO, we appreciate your comments.
DeleteI think the main point touched on here is the FACT that a lot of UM fans continue to talk about their dropouts from last year, as if kids who drop out of school are the same as those who came to play but got injured.
Also the FACT that a lot of UM fans want people to view Mitch McGary as a "lost starter" even though he has started only 25% of his career games played. McGary is a substitute player, and that's according to decisions made by John Beilein. It's not up for "debate".
Finally, to highlight the belief of many that it would take an injury to only one starter at UM to derail their storybook run. It wouldn't have to be Stauskas, but obviously, without him they are dead in the water.
I don't see this comment as a "straw man", nor do I see the article as a "straw man". We use actual points of reference from current reality and past history to lead our discussions.
You are obsessively, compulsively stupid. You and your buddies set up up one UM straw man after another and then pounce as though they were real.
ReplyDeleteAnd wow, your remark was so intelligent!
DeleteAnon - I have to assume that you'd prefer posting under a more specific pseudonym. Let me help you...
DeleteGo to "Comment As", select "Name/URL", enter whatever name you'd like to comment under. Easy as it gets, you'll not be signing up for anything, you won't be asked to set up a user name and password, and your fellow readers get to attribute a "name" to your commentary.
You wouldn't deny us that, would you? I mean, you are the guy who advanced the, "Yeah... well... You're SO stupid" argument from which I'm sure we've all profited.
I know this is a football article but jibboo turns the subject to March. I have watched a lot of basketball this year. With more talent than last year, State has been a big disappointment to me. Four home losses including Nebraska and Illinois does not make a championship team. You won't hear excuses from me but they will be out there when we make an early exit in the remaining two tournaments. As for the team representing the chUMps out there, they are a surprisingly good team. After their big losses to the NBA not many saw this coming. That guy from Canada can beat anybody. I think their success rests on his shoulders. If they get beat in March or April, it will be because he has a bad shooting night. I'll still be cheering for a B1G Championship and another final four but I'm sure not going to make any excuses if we don't get there.
ReplyDeleteWell, CMann, somebody had to say it, glad it was you.
DeleteThe MSU injuries have definitely been a negative factor limiting the team for the past two months. But they do not excuse some of the "other problems" that have led to our team failing to play to its potential.
To deny them as relevant is an idiot's argument, and many idiots are using it. To use them to explain every problem and failure this season is, in some ways, and to some extent, at this point, an "excuse".
(By the way, don't mean to nitpick, but I'm thinking MSU was actually "more talented" last year. The difference is Derrick Nix versus Alvin Ellis and Gavin Schilling. I'll take Nix over those two. The difference this year was that we should have been much better due to the extra experience, an expectation I obviously held along with you and many others.)