Scott Bell

Spring break time w/ the fam. Back on Sunday. Hopefully with Michigan’s men in the Sweet 16, Michigan’s women about to do the same and the Michigan hockey team freshly minted as B1G tourney champs as they head into the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed. Godspeed. 🫡

I hope Michigan wins today’s basketball game. And Saturday’s, since I don’t know what time to schedule that tweet for.

Season ticket holder every year on campus. Flew to multiple Frozen Fours to watch U-M play, even when a broke undergrad not getting comped travel. Dedicated more column inches to hockey than probably any Michigan Daily SportsMonday columnist in a decade. That’s me: #MrBandwagon.

Link below

Absolutely disgusting behavior. Hoping a team outside this list of mercenary-led college programs can win the title and bring some ethics back to the sport I once loved.

Is that good?

LFG

I’ve never seen a fanbase get some much mileage from people being happy to win the Big Ten Tournament last year. The lineage of straw men born from that event rivals that of the offspring from Abraham.

Already mentioned to newsletter folks, but just an FYI — spring break for kids next week, so we’re traveling internationally. Won’t have internet Tues-Sat, so I selfishly wanted Fri/Sun games, too. That means no R1/2 tweets from me. But should be good to go for Sweet 16/beyond🤞.

No Philly for Michigan. It’ll be a Thursday/Saturday opening round. Not ideal.

68/68✅

Michigan’s draw is more than fair for the No. 3 overall seed. I flagged Alabama and Iowa State as teams I’d be scared to see when I did a subscriber chat earlier this week. But a lot of other landmines were dodged.

@cmhtrain Five seed ✅

@cmhtrain UConn is the only ranked school St John’s has played since November. And St John’s went 0-3 vs ranked opponents in November. Nice win yesterday and they’re in good form heading into March Madness but I just don’t see it with the resume compared to the teams I have above them.

Why wait for the bracket announcement later tonight when I already have the answer key now? Here’s my projected NCAA Tournament bracket. Full breakdown below via link (no paywall).

@kd2578 I made my projections under that assumption

@sbell021 I thought the pairings were already decided before the Big Ten tournament title game every year?

If Michigan losing to Purdue is what pushed Michigan State off the 2 line and onto the 3 line into a region with Duke as the 1 and UConn as the 2, it’s almost worth it just for all the meltdowns it’ll be responsible for.

hahahahahahahaha

@joelrich4goblue Michigan should have played better today. Some annoying calls/no-calls? Absolutely. But Purdue 100% played the better game.

@sbell021 Michigan averages over 17 free throws a game and shot 6

Purdue played great and deserves the title. Michigan very much did not and hopefully gets a wake-up call before the Big Dance. Still going to be the No. 1 seed in the Midwest with a great geographical path toward the Final Four. But the margin of error is gone. Time to get right.

I hope Michigan wins today’s basketball game