First of 2 Michigan vs. Duke Tilts (Today, 7pm)

I’m sure the 2K Sports Classic people didn’t expect the Michigan Wolverines to, dare I say, dominate the UCLA Bruins when setting up the brackets for this tourney.

Yeah I said it, DOMINATE.

– 17 UCLA turnovers mostly caused by Michigan’s feisty 1-3-1 zone defense

– DeShawn Sims abused the UCLA bigs all game long (by the way, keep Sims coming off the bench Beilein, it’s working)

– 8th grader Stu Douglass had his coming out party with 10 points and 5 feeds

– Darren Collison and Josh Shipp combined for 10 turnovers and only 1 three pointer

– Nikola Dragovic felt compelled to launch shots quite frequently. Nikola has a nice shot, but he’s no Memo Okur

– Manny Harris was 5-13 from the field, turned the ball over 4 times

Ok, maybe DOMINATE was too strong of a description.

Statement game might suffice.

That Michigan-Duke preview Kevin said I had in store for you…

Duke’s experience will propel them to a double digit victory. They played with a lot of energy against the Southern Illinois Salukis. The team is starting to gel and that Nolan Smith character will not allow the 3 guard rotation of David Merritt, C.J. Lee and Kelvin Grady to stifle Duke like they did UCLA.

As for Greg Paulus, eh, he might turn the ball over some, but he’ll probably hit some threes to make up for his dudness.

Nolan Smith going vertical

DeShawn Sims should be able to have his way again. But Manny Harris must explode for 25 plus points because Duke will certainly drain their share of triples and get their share of calls.

Duke is probably a much more disciplined defensive team than the Bruins. That alone should give them a decided edge over the young Wolverines, who, at times, got some easy baskets inside off of back door feeds and such against UCLA.

But honestly, UCLA should not have been rated #4. By the time February rolls around…? Well see.

By the way, Michigan hosts Duke on December 6th.

Note- Kevin mentioned it before, but what went on against Texas Tech and East Central is stupid.

STAT of the DAY

Texas Tech lets DII East Central put 116 on the board.

It’s so wild and insane that not even a single Mississippi Valley State joke is worthy enough to follow it.