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Baston paces Michigan in shooting percentage

Maceo Baston's 7-for-10 shooting performance Saturday seems impressive, especially compared to the 12-for-50 effort by the rest of the Michigan men's basketball team. But such games are nothing new for Baston.

The Wolverine center came into the game shooting 67.5 percent from the field. That's a slight improvement over last season, when Baston made 67.4 percent of his shots.

That's the good news for Michigan. The bad news is that nobody else has come close to duplicating Baston's accuracy.

Maurice Taylor's 3-for-21 shooting in the past two games has dipped him down to the 50 percent mark. Ryan DeKuiper is the only other Michigan player making half his shots. And DeKuiper has only taken four shots.

Robert Traylor was hitting 55.4 percent of his attempts before breaking his arm last week. Traylor is out for the season.

Willie Mitchell and Jerod Ward have actually taken more shots than they have points, a rare and dubious feat. Ward is out for the year with a knee injury.

Freshman Louis Bullock, who has been one of Michigan's most reliable players from the moment he put on a Wolverine uniform, has been mired in a slump. Bullock has made just 12 of 48 shots in the past five games.

MUDDLED PICTURE: It is still too early to tell how many Big Ten teams will earn NCAA Tournament bids. Purdue (13-2 Big Ten, 23-4 overall) will almost certainly win the conference and thus earn an automatic bid. Penn State (10-4, 19-4) and Iowa (8-5, 19-6) are also locks for the tourney.

After those three, it gets confusing.

The 1-6 showing by the Big Ten in last year's tournament isn't likely to convince anyone that six bids are warranted again this year. The conference may only get to send three teams to NCAAs. More likely, four or five Big Ten squads will earn spots.

Indiana, which dropped to 15-11 (8-6 Big Ten) by losing to Purdue yesterday, appears on its way out of the picture.

Michigan State (8-7, 14-13), Minnesota (7-7, 15-11) and Wisconsin (7-7, 15-11) are probably already out of the picture. Illinois (6-8, 17-9) is sneaking back into the picture, but the Illini will need at least a 9-9 Big Ten mark to make it. Ohio State and Northwestern are so far back, they can't even see the picture.

All of this leaves Michigan (7-7, 17-10) as the most likely team to earn the Big Ten's fourth bid. The Wolverines need at least two and possibly three wins in their last four games to make it.

That is certainly a feasible task. Michigan hosts Michigan State Tuesday, then travels to Illinois and Northwestern before hosting Wisconsin. The Wolverines will likely be favorites in all but the Illinois game.

GOPHERS' WOES: Minnesota just can't figure out how to win in Crisler Arena. The Golden Gophers have not won in Ann Arbor since the 1981-82 season, when they captured the Big Ten title.

Prior to that, Minnesota had not won at Michigan since 1962-63.

SCHEDULE NOTE: Michigan's game at Illinois, which has been listed as "March 2 or 3" on schedules, finally has a date. The game will be played March 3 at 2 p.m. It will be televised by CBS.

As of last week, CBS was not going to televise it unless the Wolverines won at Penn State last Thursday. When Michigan lost, the game was tentatively scheduled for March 2, with Creative Sports televising it. But CBS decided to televise it despite the Nittany Lions' victory.