I think the Coach Beilein prestige will be permanent now. What he’s done the past two seasons has been astounding. Clearly one of the best coaches in all the land.
This may be the best recruiting staff he’s had as well. A young, talented, energized trio.
He has earned it. In the last six years, the only teams with two Final Four appearances are Michigan, Villanova, UNC, Syracuse, Wisconsin and Kentucky. The only ones to make the finals twice are Michigan, Villanova and UNC.
Notice the absence of Blue Bloods like Duke, Kansas, Arizona and MSU.
Maybe so. I agree with this but kids generally don’t care about college as much at that high of a level. They want to be NBA first rounders immediately. The general perception still leans heavily towards Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and those teams more than Michigan, Villanova and teams that are generally as good in college but don’t get one and dones. Until a couple kids in a class can go against the grain, it’ll be tough for Michigan to get put into that discussion. I see two different interpretations of “blue blood”. One is the one where Michigan is towards the highest tier, the other is the strictly one and done blue bloods. This isn’t a great example in writing. It’d be easier to explain verbally. It’ll be tough for Michigan to truly reach the Duke, Kentucky, Kansas level in recruiting 5 Stars consistently. But Michigan is gaining more traction with those types of players for sure. They are getting much more serious looks from those caliber players. Getting them to commit is an entirely different matter. The article about Wilson even says that
I for one, care less and less about getting the one and dones. I would rather hang banners and see kids develope over a 2, 3, 4 year period than see a top 10 player wear the uniform for one season. The pursuit of the one and dones hasn’t been a guaranteed success for the blue blood schools and hasn’t even worked out that well for some of the players.
People were excited with the 2016 class because we were shooting for the stars with Battle, Leaf, Thornton kinda Bridges, Langford, etc. We all see how that went, and with the FBI thing we all know why it went that way. I personally love everything about our 2019 targets. I think they’re past the “definitely will get paid by someone” range while still being a jump up in talent. A lot of great fits that would blend in incredibly well with the roster.
Put it this way, I find it extremely unlikely that we are getting him considering who’s involved and that the FBI investigation doesn’t appear to have changed the recruiting landscape too much. Certainly there’s always a chance and ultimately Beilein and his staff have generally been good at identifying who they have a chance with and who they do not and in going so prioritizing their time. We’ll know soon just how serious of a player Michigan is in the recruitment. I’d love to get him but I know it’s not likely.
Like I said awhile ago, Michigan was never seriously interested in Beverly. Belein never personally contacted him until this week. He has visited multiple times which shows an interest on his end, but Michigan never really reciprocated it to a certain extent. I get it though. Michigan is also targeting Watts, Carton and others. In the past, Beverly would only be in contact with 1 or 2 of the assistants periodically, but never Belein from my understanding. For the first time in this process, Belein reached out Beverly himself. Coach Belein watched him when he matched up with DJ Carton last weekend in Dallas (Beverly’s team won and he led with 15 & 7 assists). And then apparently Belein watched him again last weekend. He must’ve came away impressed with Beverly cuz apparently he is going out to Minneapolis to watch him again. DJ Carton will also be in Minneapolis this weekend.
We will see what happens with Beverly and Michigan going forward.