David Brandon knew things could get tight this year for the Michigan men's basketball team. John Beilein told him he needed some help with the schedule this year, and Brandon cooked-up one more doozy of a deal before he self-terminated from UM.
Michigan took an exhibition game and turned it into
a real contest, right in front of everyone's eyes.
They hoped nobody would notice, and so far,
it has worked out real well.
Excepting us, of course, we definitely noticed. We saw the Hillsdale College game on the schedule and we called it like it was, an exhibition game against a Division Two school. We didn't carry that banner all through the season, as it wasn't clear how much of a difference it would make at the end of the year, if any. As it turns out, Michigan is banking on everybody believing in their little trick play in order to qualify for the National Invitational Tournament.
So we are beating the drum of reality, asking only for fairness in how the sports media and the major athletic institutions treat that school in Ann Arbor.
When Michigan State played Hillsdale College in 2011,
it was counted as an "exhibition game."
When Michigan played Hillsdale College in 2014,
it was counted as a "regular season game."
We don't like to call-out the individual sports reporters by name when they pay off their shadow-employer with media bias (although eventually, in this case, we will). But for now, let's recognize at least one reporter for acknowledging the unavoidable truth, that Hillsdale College is a Division Two school.
BRENDAN QUINN of M-Live made an accurate reference to the Hillsdale College game in his post-game article Friday. It's the first reference we've noticed in the sports media that describes that game accurately.
Congrats to Brendan Quinn for keeping it real*.
*Okay, he still listed the UM record as 16-16, rather than the true 15-16, but at least he noted the season record includes a "win" over a Division Two team.
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