2017-18 Roster Breakdown

Do you believe the results of past years can have a ripple effect on the roster breakdown and the type of players you recruit in future years?

Why donā€™t we see how Donlon changes the D before we reach conclusions about the defense moving forward? Plus Matthews alone should give us a defensive stopper on the wing that we havenā€™t had in years

Sure there are, but for most of them that are having any success at small ball, they have at least one high quality, starting caliber big. We donā€™t. Very hard to win a tough conference or go far in the tornament if all of your bigs are bench caliber.

Donnal is decent and Wagner could certainly be a high quality big. You are writing Wagner off after one year?

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You didnā€™t answer my question.

Who for 2017-2018 is a proven starter at PG?

Stone was a one and done, five star guy. Swanigan is about 6-7 (and again, a five star).

Iā€™d say Matt Costello fits the definition of a Big Ten big man. Nick Ward probably will, too. I see no reason why Young canā€™t be as good as either.

The Big Ten conference as a whole lands very few elite big guys, and the ones that come usually stay 1-2 years at most. Michigan has won two Big Ten titles with Jordan Morgan as its starting five, and our starting fours on those teams were Novak and Robinson.

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Listen MChem- Itā€™s time to drop it. Itā€™s apparent that nobody here agrees with you on this, and to be quite frank I donā€™t think youā€™re doing a great job of convincing us.

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And? Look, you may want us to do that, but weā€™ve had a LOT of success not doing that. Small ball is a trend at all levels of basketball these days. Florida trotted out Patrick Young and Erik Murphy against us in 2013. They tried to dump it down low a few times, it didnā€™t work (and the 6-6 Robinson did a great job on the 6-9 Murphy, who started the game 0-7 if I recall correctly), and by the time they looked up it was 41-17.

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I donā€™t really see Young as similar to either guy. Young is a modern four man through and through IMO, both of those guys are fives.

Michigan has guys that are expected to play the five, maybe they disappoint this season, but right now looking at the roster break down I think the need is a 6-8 type of guy to play the four and another bigger wing that could maybe play both.

Related, this new film of Justin Smith makes me think that he could play one of those roles pretty easily.

And interestingly enough, Chatman played some great defense against Swanigan in one of the Purdue games this year, he just simply couldnā€™t get it done offensively.

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Thereā€™s no question we are a team built around offense and if the guys we recruit donā€™t turn into really good offensive players, weā€™re unlikely to compensate for that by being a great defensive team. Almost no team is great at both. But it is encouraging that JB brought in Donlon to help fix the defense.

Ward, I would agree. Costello, though, has certainly played plenty of four and shoots it from the outside on occasion. We recruited him hard (as Iā€™m sure you recall), and whether he played the four or five for us, I think his offensive game would have included lots of outside shooting. Jake Layman is probably a better example - another inside/outside four who can easily guard other fours.

I like Smith too. I wonder if Cain is still in the picture, and Iā€™d assume if Smith commits, thatā€™s it for Cain.

Precisely. I think a pure 4 type like Young and then a decently athletic and skilled wing like Cain would give us one of our most balanced rosters under Beilein with depth at all positions.

PG: Simpson, Brooks
G: MAAR, Poole
G: Robinson, Matthews, Freshman,
F: Wilson, Freshman
C: Wagner, Teske, Davis

Obviously some people might be switched but the balance is my point.

IMO, this is shaping up as a critical year for our basketball program and for Beilein. The pieces are falling into place for this to be a well balanced and talented roster. If we can add one more impact recruit (stress impact - meaning an athletic 4 or even 5 star caliber), this is a roster that has final four potential. Excited to see how this shakes out.

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ā€œDecentā€ and ā€œcould beā€ arenā€™t what win championships. And no, I havenā€™t written Wagner off, but he has a lot of improving to do to be a starting caliber player, and given Beileinā€™s track record for developing bigs, that improvement is far from certain. How many bigs can you name since Beilein got here who have had undistinguished first seasons and then broke out to be really good players?

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And since we have a 10 pt and 6 rebound guy in Donnal, Wagner can still develop for another year of he needs to.

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Okay ā€“ letā€™s get back to the 2017-18 roster. @MChem83 thinks we need another big, most others think we need a 4 and a 3.

Where do you guys see Charles Matthews playing? Originally I thought the two was possible, but three seems much more likely now with addition of Brooks into the backcourt mix.

Yeah I see him as the backup three his first year behind Robinson and then heā€™ll slide into the starting role his junior year. If Wilson doesnā€™t get better at the 4 I think Robinson starts there and Matthews starts at the 3.

I also think weā€™ll have a nice 1+2 punch at the center position with Wagner and Teske. A great mix of offense and defense with similar effectiveness to the 2 headed Morgan and Horfordā€™s monster.

For Matthews, the three would seem to be a good place to take advantage of his ability to slash, finish at the rim, and grab the occasional offensive board. And also based on the current depth at guard as opposed to forward, thatā€™s where Iā€™d expect him to go. Of course things could change with additional commits.