The Michigan Basketball team defeated Elon last night, 88-68, raising their season record to 1-0. Wolverine officials have convinced the sports media that their season record is actually 2-0, but they are counting a win last week over Northern Michigan University as a regular season game.
The Wolverines played Northern Michigan last week in what must have been an Exhibition Game, since NMU is a "Division Two" basketball program. It's the same team that played Michigan State on November 4, losing to the Spartans, 94-53, in an EXHIBITION GAME.
UM pulled a similar stunt last season, playing Division Two Hillsdale, and counting it as a "regular season victory" to record 16 wins against 16 losses. Their true NCAA record was 15-16. They avoided the "losing season" designation in the sports media by portraying their overall record last year as 16-16. But to do so, they counted the win over Hillsdale. The sports media has generously (or ignorantly) allowed them to report themselves as a .500 team for 2014-2015. Now they're kicking off the 2015-2016 season by injecting a fake win into their record.
MSU has played both Hillsdale and Northern Michigan several times each over the past couple of decades. Every time the Spartans play them, it's an "exhibition game". The reason is because those schools are Division Two basketball programs.
There are well over 300 Division One men's college basketball teams each year, most with programs that span many decades, many willing to play pre-conference games against major college teams. It would be no problem for any B1G school to fill up their schedule with actual Division One teams. Michigan is counting the NMU game as a regular season victory despite the fact it will not count towards post-season eligibility. Why would they do that?
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WJR Radio - The blow torch station in Detroit and flagship station for Michigan State University sports and news - reported this morning that Michigan is now 2-0 in NCAA basketball. It is amazing the eagerness with which the media pumps up Ann Arbor College or at best the laziness with which they swallow whatever the chUMps PR department dishes out.
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