I really don’t care what they call him as long as he contributes in the manner in which most expect; someone who can not only beat his man off the dribble but also defend it.
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GRIII definitely got bullied a bunch over his career. He tried his hardest and definitely had some highlights defensively at times (versus Texas and Tennessee stick out most noticeably), but he was very much overmatched throughout his career. Dawson ate his lunch whenever they played.
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Can’t agree.
Marcus Lee abused us in that game, and much of it was GR3.
Shane Bohanen did it the year before.
Nik’s inefficiency? He killed it against Kentucky. Best player on the floor. Go back and check the box score.
Obviously, GR3 was great offensively against UK, or at least very good. Didn’t do much against the Ville.
Sure, if we have guys like Nik, Caris, and Trey at the PG and wing positions, Mathews at the four makes some sense.
Assuming we don’t, I like the size DJ gives us at the four.
I think we start next year going Simpson, Poole, Mathews, Wilson, and Wagner, with Brooks potentially supplanting Simpson, MAAR working in, and Duncan Robinson off the bench at the 3/4. Could potentially see Davis overtake Teske as the backup center. Things will probably change if we get Bamba or potentially Elliott (long way to go there, it seems - gotta offer first).
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GRIII went 3 and 2 against MSU, with one of the losses being in B1G tourney final. Those were some pretty good MSU teams. In Trey’s year, Dawson had 12 points and 8 rebounds – over two games. GRIII was quiet with 10 and 4 over two games. The next year Dawson missed the regular season games and GRIII went for 24 and 8. Dawson had 15 and 6 in the tourney final, but the third game in three days format would favor Dawson and the refs allowed MSU to maul us.
Point is, a 6’6, strong, superior athlete with a decent shot might not be the perfect 4, but you can have great success going that route.
Yeah I wasn’t denigrating GRIII, he was valuable. But he was not some shut-down defender. His D/rebounding was a definite weakness on the team that had to be overcome by the offense. That 13-14 team was the worst defensive team in the Big Ten.
I’d guess that Matthews would be somewhere between Irvin/GRIII as a defender at the 4 spot. Doesn’t have GRIII’s strength (which was the only thing that could keep him passable defensively at the 4 spot) but a much better athlete than Irvin.
GRIII got pushed around sometimes, but also created mismatches the other way. And his freshman year we were 39 in kenpom AdjD over the year, which was pretty good.
I think Matthews will be at least as good a defender as GRIII based on mentality. Anyway, like I said, not ideal but you can still do pretty well.
I’d rather have DJ at the 4 and Matthews at the 3 though. Hard to project too far down the road about when DJ leaves.
I understand GRIII at the 4 for Mich. JB was putting the best talent available on the floor. But I bet GRIII was not happy at the 4. He saw himself as a wing and probably want an opportunity to create like Zak, although I am not sure those were his optimal skills.
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6/14 with 2/7 from 3 is inefficient (no debate about that) and was a step down from what he was doing in the B1G. He wasn’t even the best player on the team in that game.
Lee and Bohanen killed us because of the lack of rim protection no different than UL and UK guards getting penetration whenever they want. Definitely not some GR3 centric issue.
And I hope you aren’t posting that hypothetical lineup like its ideal. If you’d read, the argument was CM at the 4 AFTER DJ leaves.
Look, here’s why I take issue with you sometimes - you can’t admit you’re wrong.
Yes, 6-14 isn’t as good as Nik normally was. Of course, playing against Kentucky is a little different than playing against Northwestern. But you conveniently fail to mention he went 10-11 from the line, and had 24 points, while our next highest guy was GR3 with 14 points (and also 6-14 from the floor).
Here’s the boxscore - not only was Nik easily our best player that game, he was easily the best player on the floor. How can you credibly claim otherwise?
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=400549857
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Because I watched the game? An inefficient 24 due to high usage and no defense on the other end isn’t more impressive than what Lee or Randle or either Harrison did in that game.
You know, it’s OK to admit you’re wrong. I don’t think the vast majority of Kentucky fans would even agree with any of that.
I once said, three years ago in response to you, that I thought Zak Irvin would start taking minutes away from Levert. Obviously, a completely dumb and misguided statement.
I’m not an expert on basketball analytics, but most people would conclude 24 points on 14 field goal attempts is pretty damn good. I don’t care if you want to be a contrarian, but dude, I don’t think anyone would agree with your take on this particular subject. And who played a better game on our team?
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I literally don’t care about what you or any other hypothetical people feel about “my take.”
Yes you do. You wouldn’t show up on a message board offering opinions all the time if you didn’t care whether people thought they were valid. We would have lost that game by 15 points without Stauskas, heck maybe more.
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I give my take and generally laugh at a large chunk of the “takes” on here. There are a small handful of posters on here who have opinions I value to the point I consider them. Nik wouldn’t even rank in my top 5 most impactful players in that game…in fact that game was a perfect display of why he was never a lotto talent.
24 points on 14 shots is efficient. You do realize Offensive Efficiency includes Free Throws, right?
Like, it’s literally part of the equation for offensive efficiency.
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Nik put up an inefficient 24 and gave up as much as he scored. Definitely not the top player in that game…deal with my opinion because it isn’t changing.
I have no dog in this fight but I just wanna say that I also was 100% proclaiming to all my friends at the time that Irvin should be getting more minutes than Levert. LOL god I wish I could go back in time and have that be my biggest concern with UM basketball again
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What’s the formula for offensive efficiency?
Free Throws being part of offensive efficiency isn’t an opinion. It’s a fact. I don’t get how some people here can think their opinion trumps fact.
Objective view, and using your link on Nik’s output (I checked this b/c I was there, and was actually really let down by Nik and wanted to see why i recalled it that way): 1-6 in the second half. some free throws (4-4 i think), but thats not all-american output on the biggest stage. Maybe his first half puts him on some list of most effective players in the game (which is somewhat arbitrary), but elite 8, and in normal michigan fashion giving away a lead before half, and comes up empty in the second.
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