We here at Bear Necessities HQ do not pretend to be experts on knowing ball. For actual expertise, you can consult The Bucket Problem to figure out what on earth happened at Iowa and Ohio State, or Land-Grant Holy Land, if you understandably want to forget the Iowa game ever happened and just read about Wednesday's game instead. What we are good for are graphics, sometimes useful, sometimes silly:

After doing this for a couple of months, I know a little more ball than I used to. I even know enough to realize there are levels I can imagine, but will never reach. With Senior Day happening, it's a good time to review the:

Levels of Ball-Knowing

Level -∞. Unfortunately not theoretical or practically ignorable, this level applies to weirdos who only care about women's sports at an excuse to be shitty to trans people. Despite their ignorance, they can rise to important positions, e.g., governor of a traditional Big Ten state, such as California.

Level -1. Has silly beliefs, such as "WNBA players are adequately paid." Not only not a ball knower, but also not a capitalism knower.

Level 0. It's perfectly fine not to have interest in women's basketball, but don't be a ass about it.

Level 1. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. On the one hand, being introduced to WBB through a player like Caitlin Clark may lead to deeper fandom. On the other hand, you can stop at this level and falsely believe that the only good players are the ones you've heard of. A Level 1 Michigan fan might only know about Syla Swords after UConn.

Level 2. Solid basic familiarity. Can look at a box score and determine Olivia Olson and Mila Holloway are also really good.

Level 3. The BQD Zone.

Maybe you look a box score and noticed something odd. More offensive rebounds than Lauren Betts? Hannah Hidalgo held to a season low in points? Or maybe you watch teams struggle to bring the ball up the court again and again? And you see how there's more to the game that shows up in the highlight reels. How hustling after loose balls and challenging ball-handlers results in good things that don't end up on the score sheet.

Soon you're randomly posting Q. DANIELS, BRO on social media and no Level 0 fan knows what the hell is going on. With the growth of women's basketball this decade, in the future the 2020s will be peak "remembering some guys" (gender neutral) era, and no guy will be more fun to remember than Brooke Quarles Daniels. She's planning on law school, so T's & P's in advance to any opposing counsel.

Level 4. You could learn a lot about Alyssa Crockett this month. You could listen to the podcasts and learn about her least favorite course at Michigan and how one day she'd like to own an ice cream shop.

Or you could see, at the end of a game that went to hell and back and back again, what Crockett means to this team. Down 6 and with 3/5 of the starting lineup fouled out, she feeds Macy Brown to cut it to three. One minute later, she does it again and it's all tied up. Then she calls the play to set up a screen for Olivia Olson to get 1-1 against Elsa Lemmilä for the game-winning bucket. We don't see Crockett often in critical situations but this shows much her leadership and readiness mean to the team.

Level 5. Crockett is the only senior who played all four years for Michigan. Grand Rapids-area native Ally vanTimmeren returned home after transferring from Boston College after sophomore year. In fact, the oldest piece of information I could find about her on the UMich website was a story about overcoming dyslexia. (Other athlete success stories on that site include A'ja Wilson.)

vanTimmeren doesn’t have an obvious game-saving moment like Crockett had this week. But the team knows when a small contribution is pivotal. I'm not a level 5 ball-knower, so I don't fully understand how much spark she provided against Northwestern. I can't see what happens in practice and can only read the press-conference quotes about how she stays ready for when she's needed and how she leads by example.

Levels 6 and beyond. These exist. I don't know how many there are. But BQD, Crockett, and van Timmeren do.

Can I Predict Ball?

A little. Can I predict how tightly Big Ten officials will call a women's basketball game? Of course not, no one can.

Iowa 62, Michigan 44

Vibes-based prediction: ... But it’s a road game at Iowa, who knows what will happen? The score will be close, but the underlying stats should be in Michigan’s favor.

The Wolverines actually had more shots than the Hawkeyes (59-56), and more rebounds (36-34). They even hit 100% of their free throws, which sounds more impressive than saying three-for-three. Were any of those extra shots good, or the shots Michigan wanted to take? Not really. Iowa backed off the offensive glass to hold Michigan to zero fast break points and only 9 assists, against 24 turnovers.

I'm not looking forward to a potential rematch in the BTT semifinals, but this game statistically seems like a little bit less of a disaster than the score indicated (it was a four-point game with 10:01 to go then Kylie Feuerbach banked in a three, alas.) Michigan, like the rest of the country, will need a way to keep Iowa from spamming the Stuelke-to-Heiden connection indefinitely.

Very specific prediction: Charlie Crème says Iowa doesn't have a natural matchup for Olivia Olson. Let's say he's right, and that Liv finally puts up 30 for the first time this year.

Nailed this one! Three days ahead of schedule too!

I'm never trusting Charles Entertainment Crème again.

Michigan 88, Ohio State 86 (OT)

Vibes-based prediction: There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned yet: rebounding. Even before Kitts’s injury, the Buckeyes would lag in rebounds and shot volume. Michigan takes advantage and wins by 10-13 points. OK, I can still make fun of Ohio State football.

Michigan did out-rebound the Buckeyes, 46-33. They won something by 13! This didn't lead to a shot volume advantage, due to committing 20 turnovers and causing only 13.

No amount of vibes could have predicted Macy Brown single-handedly erasing an 8-point deficit in the final 1:33 of overtime. Or BQD fouling Jaloni Cambridge at the end of regulation. Or a million other things that happened. Vibes hit resonant frequency, the game exploded.

Very specific prediction: Charlie Crème says Michigan might have a difficult time matching up against Jaloni Cambridge. That’s clearly wrong, but Cambridge’s usage will be so high that her numbers will be superficially outstanding. Cambridge will score at least 25, twice as much as any other Buckeye. She also will only sit if she fouls out.

Jaloni Cambridge is impressive, even in her off days. 22 points and 9 assists does hide an inefficient 6-20 day shooting though. Chance Gray had a similarly inefficient, but superficially productive day, putting up 19 points on 8-18 shooting, include 1 for 7 from three. We're all grateful she took one more dribble that she had time for just before the overtime buzzer, turning a potential officiating Chernobyl into a mere Three Mile Island.

My prediction was a complete whiff, and Cambridge only played 41:28. She missed two minutes in the first with what appeared to be a wrist issue and sat for the final minute and half of the third.

The Week Ahead

Let's put the seniors in the starting lineup! I don't have the stars configured for bench spots. I trust you can remember that Liv and Syla are good.

Barring a massive Wisconsin upset against Iowa, Michigan is locked in as the #3 seed for the Big Ten Tournament.

Maryland (2/28, 2:30 EST, Fox, Mich -7.0 Torvik)

With a win Saturday and some breaks, Maryland can still get a double-bye in the BTT, but the odds are only about 8%. They'll finish no worse than 7th, and there's about a 3-in-4 chance they end up on the Michigan/Iowa side of the bracket.

Coach Brenda Frese is in line for a truly convoluted numerical milestone, as she sits at 299 conference wins with the Terrapins. That's 129 in the ACC and 170 in the Big Ten, which feels wrong since Maryland joined the Big Ten only two years ago, right? Right?

Players to Watch

• The centerpiece is Duke transfer Oluchi Okananwa, who leads the team with 17.7 PPG, shooting 66% when she gets to the rim. She is the only player under six feet in the conference with a better offensive rebounding rate that BQD, and directly behind Daniels in steal rate. Sounds fun to watch!
• Yarden Garzon is the primary three-point three, hitting 39% on over 7 attempts per game.
• Maryland is missing two of their expected starters from the beginning of the season. Slovenian freshman Lea Bartelme started the first four games before tearing her ACL against Towson. Fellow freshman Addi Mack slotted in her place, where she has been dependable and put up 10.9 PPG.
• Maryland is also missing Kaylene Smikle, who was suffering from knee problems in the preseason and needed surgery in December. In her place, Londoner (via Gulf Coast C.C.) Isi Ozzy-Momodu has given the Terps a strong post defender, who’s among the B1G leaders in block rate and rebound rate at both ends of the floor. However, she has missed the last two games, and while Marya Boiko is also available to play the post, Maryland has opted to go smaller instead.

Maryland’s roster website includes delightful facts about a lot of their players:

• According to her bio, Saylor Poffenbarger “wants to play basketball as long as she can and then work at her dad's distillery.” This one sentence is both delightful and sufficient to understanding why Geno Auriemma was not the coach for her. Poffenbarger leads Maryland with 7.1 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game.
• Mir McLean can speak Arabic fluently and joins Maryland as a grad transfer after completing her degrees in Middle Eastern Language and Literature at Virginia.
• Rainey Welson likes F1 racing. She missed the entirety of the Terps’ four-game losing streak due to injury. Maybe she’s more
• Breanna Williams’s teammates call her Monty. The official site doesn’t say why, but I presume it’s because she’s from Montana. I’ve heard through the grapevine[^1] that Syla’s teammates called her “Onty” for the same reason.

Vibes-based, yet very specific, prediction: After the officials let them play against Iowa and refused them to let them play against Ohio State, the officials will be just fine in this game because it almost certainly has no effect on Michigan's BTT seeding and likely will have minimal effect on Michigan's NCAA seeding. Michigan will finish the game with a normal number of fouls, between 18 and 20.

After last week, I'm too scarred to predict an actual basketball outcome.

Very specific prediction: Some senior night hijinks: 3 points for vanTimmeren, 3 rebounds for Crockett, and 3 steals for BQD.

The Road Ahead

The Big Ten tournament! With more games and stuff! Forcing me into an irregular newsletter schedule!