I have to qualify that by saying that Virginia Tech isn't the best of teams nor has it played any real competition until Thursday (a 36-point win again Elon is well...expected). Still, the Wolverines have seemed to piece together Coach Kevin Borseth's "Team Defense." They recorded their 4th double-digit steals game this season. To put that in perspective, Michigan only gained double-digit steals five times last year. But to quote what Krista Phillips said to The Michigan Daily:
"We are going to have to step it up defensively come Big Ten (play).”
True that.
Speaking about the Big Ten, it lost once again to the ACC (7-4) in the third year of the Challenge. Admittedly, that's a bit expected given the five ranked ACC teams and its overall dominance. Yet intrigue happened near the top of both conferences - No. 3 Ohio State and No. 4 North Carolina went down.
The Buckeyes couldn't score a field goal for seven minutes in the later stages of the second half, which I'm sure will not happen again this season under Coach Jim Foster's watch. MSU's Alyssa DeHaan is finally starting to impress me with her 14 points after just 18 minutes on the court.
Northwestern lost a heart-breaker against Clemson, but the Wildcats seem to be much improved already, especially with the win against DePaul.
A more extensive post about the Big Ten will be worked on later this weekend as we head into the conference opener on Sunday. For now, know that most teams are in the same boat, making for another interesting season.
