I read a lot of stuff on this forum and though I don’t agree with everything Matt D says I do agree with this. Wagner has good upside but his lack of athletiscm and range is worrisome.
Belein is a great coach and I think Matt would agree with that. There are some issues with how he is building this roster though. We can’t keeping taking unknown recruits and expect them to turn out. Eventually theses type of players aren’t going to produce. Also our 5 position is a real problem. Not from an offensive standpoint but from rebounding and defense. I personally don’t feel Teske is the answer in 16 either. He is another raw project imo.
We are missing the athletiscm to compete for final 4s imo. Like Matt I’m greedy that’s what I want. Not making the tournament this year is unacceptable imo. I don’t care what we lost to the NBA. This team lost two crap teams this year at almost full strength(Walton wasn’t, a huge blunder by the staff not sitting him earlier in the year) everything is in place at Michigan to at least be in the tourney every year. We won when he stepped up the recruiting. Now I feel like we are back to recruiting guys like Smotz again.
"He will always favor the Donnals and McLimanses and Wagners." What does this even mean--the Irish and the Italians? With the exception of our last two stellar starting big men--one of whom would have still been in the frontcourt if not for stupidity of the NCAA--he favors. . . guys who do not excel? Where is the logic in this? Doyle conveniently left out of the equation because he couldn't fit in your brain at the moment you coughed this up? Opinions are cheap, but we are stretching for some new lows here. . . as if a (now Rivals) four-star with Wagner's promise can simply be dismissed out of hand.
What really pisses me off about all of this criticism is that if McGary, Stauskas, and GRII had been here this year, or if Caris and Walton hadn’t been injured, this lame stuff would be nowhere to be found–FIVE GUYS WE WERE DOWN this year (hello!). Absent McGary, none of these guys would have fitted the bill with the anonymous basement savants on this board.
Yes they had injuries this year but they also had some of the worst “bigs” play during the Beilein era. McGary was a top 20 recruit coming in was a bit older you can’t get blindsided if he was going to leave early.
I think it’s fair to discuss Beilein recruiting guards/sfs vs bigs. I bet he grades out much better with the guards. I watched a lot of the NCAA tournament and saw a big man that played his ass off, in fact at points in the tournament was downright dominant.
6’10
220
3 star ESPN
4 star Rivals
4 star 247
4 star scout
ranked between 22 and 27 as a PF on all 4 sites
He went to a very good school, same one as a current Michigan player. This said player would easily be the best Michigan frontcourt player and will certainly end up with a better career than say Donnal, Doyle etc… This player never had a sniff from Michigan and definitely not one of this highly touted guys his name Zach Auguste. I am well aware recruiting is not an exact science but do you see the same capabilities from Donnal and Doyle as you see from an Auguste.
Maybe Wagner will be a great player at Michigan but in general the play from the bigs at Michigan during Beilein’s tenure hasn’t been great. Michigan has a lot of bigs right now, some players are going to be stapled to the bench which isn’t a bad thing but they need a lot more support and production from the ones that are playing.
Beilein loves the stretch 4 hasn’t really had one to date maybe Wagner will be it but there is a philosophy in his recruiting of bigs that lends itself to getting beat on the boards, getting beat on physical plays. Maybe Wagner will beat those guys but Wagner will still need help from others.
Everyone with the exception of Minnesota and Northwestern have some type of glitzy practice facility. The advantage that Beilein has is that he has won in the NCAA Tournament. Amaker didn’t make it there.
On the topic. Wagner probably won’t redshirt (my opinion). Don’t think you bring a foreign kid to redshirt. Have to think the expectation is for him to contribute right away.
“6 if you count Horford…but who’s counting.” Cheers 93 Grad. I don’t even want to ask how our now departed Zen philosopher Horford does or does not fit into the obscure typology of Mclimans-Donnal-Wagner. . . I’ll admit that I expected him to be a pretty sturdy resource by his senior year.
Just maybe worth adding where ridiculous fan expectations are concerned that fans routinely LAMBASTED Morgan for missing bunnies, dropping the ball, and being a general bum even as he led or sat near the top of the conference in field goal percentage for two straight years. There is no winning with some people, least of all one’s own fans.
If you choose a super small sample size Beilein probably matches up well since he made a championship game and elite eight. Beilein in his long career still does not match up with your example. Beilein has missed the tournament more times in 8 seasons than Izzo, Coach K, and Calipari have in the past 33 seasons collectively.
But Beilein has only had a full roster in his image at Michigan for that time period. Yes, it’s small, but it’s also the only fully relevant comparison.
I’m on the train that says averaging two tournament wins per year over the long term is a reasonable expectation, and that Beilein will do that.
Everyone with the exception of Minnesota and Northwestern have some type of glitzy practice facility. The advantage that Beilein has is that he has won in the NCAA Tournament. Amaker didn't make it there.
On the topic. Wagner probably won’t redshirt (my opinion). Don’t think you bring a foreign kid to redshirt. Have to think the expectation is for him to contribute right away.
Have you seen Penn State’s facilities? Have you seen Penn State’s 2015 recruiting class? Oh I know, Chambers paid them all
Those players did not come to Michigan bc of Ed Martin ,Derrick Coleman ,Voshawn Leanard , Howard Eisley and many more Detroit Public school players had a relationship with the man. Most of those guys came to Mich bc they were home grown and U of M was the place to be. Orr was a great coach but what you don’t understand in the 70’s you had to win your conference in order to go to the big dance. 76 was the first year it changed Michigan played a undefeated Hoosier team in the ship. Bob Knight told Orr after the regular season game we will see each other again bc he knew Michigan was the next best team. Frieder was a average coach A1 recruiter he won back to back Big 10 titles , we lost to Villanova in the 2nd round who eventually won it all against one of the greatest teams of all time Georgetown . He also lost twice to some nice UNC teams in the sweet 16 . Fisher went to 3 final 4s in his 1st 5 years and won in 89 . With all that said I do think we have a great coach but I don’t like the fact he tends to shy away from inner city kids and more athletic bigs who are projects. I say this bc I grew up on the west side of Detroit off Puritan & Linwood I went to Michigan and did well with myself. He doesn’t have recruit Detroit but there are inner cities everywhere those kids posses a different kind of hunger. Glenn Robinson III had great abilty but he didnt have that hunger .
Why do folk continue to expect every single freshman will step on campus and contribute? Would I want that? I sure would, but that's not reality. Beilein recruits players who fit his system. He sees something in their game that he can use. Does it mean it will happen immediately? No it doesn't, Beilein wants/needs players to learn his system and have it down to a science. Is Wagner a project? Without doubt he is, Every player coming in is a project, one and dones are far and Inbetween. Beilein may have recruited Wagner knowing he was a project that needs polishing, but who is to say he could afford to wait on him? Beilein had an available scholarship and made the choice to use it to lock Wagner (a Beilein prototype player) in. A Redshirt is not the curse some make it out to be. Try looking at it like when a NBA team Drafts a foreign player but leaves him overseas for further development. If we didn't grab Wagner now he would not have been available later. I feel if fans learn to temper their high expectations they may learn to appreciate the game and their coach more.
It’s the Stu/Novak Syndrome. That first impression is inked in our minds forever. If we get a guy that can shoot it, we’re always going to think they can come right in and play and contribute. i.e. Dawkins
Now if Robinson and Wagner prove they can shoot it, it’ll be interesting to see where they fit in. Only so many shots after Walton, Levert, and Irvin get theirs.
I wonder why it seems like JB doesn’t seem to go after aggressive (hungry) players. To me, he seems to gravitate towards guys with personal trainers and shooting coaches. Of course, it could be that he gravitates towards ‘team’ guys on and off the court and shies away from the guy who is overly aggressive on the court because he is fighting he way out of some things off the court. I know this is going into a sociology discussion, so I’ll just stop here.
Expectations are higher now than they were 5 years ago, and understandably so. All credit for Beillein for setting those expectations in the first place, he will be the first person to acknowledge that not meeting those standards is unacceptable. We can be grateful that Beillein has elevated us from our pathetic condition 10 years ago, but we need to remind ourselves that Michigan Basketball is a top 15 program historically and was on the cusp of Basketball royalty 2 decades ago, we aren’t noveau riche like Wichita State or Butler or even Wisconsin. Not every successive victory for MBB has to be appreciated relative to the Amaker/Ellerbe era. And I agree somewhat with jsmith68, while I understand the shift in demographics in the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit, I miss the time when Michigan had a fighting chance with most top 20 recruits in the country. As long as we’re winning, I have no problems with Beillein’s squad management and recruiting. But the fact is that without Mitch Mcgary, a true top 5 player in his recruiting class, we would have never even made it as far as we did 3 years ago.
And it is interesting that we are not recruiting the inner city anymore. We recruit ‘good’ kids who come from wealth: Glen Robinson, Nik Stauskas, Aubrey Dawkins, Dakich, etc. I mean, whatever, recruit whoever you need to win but it’s definitely a trend that kind of goes against the entire narrative in the 90’s and 80’s about UM being a public school that recruited disadvantaged inner city kids vs. schools like Duke who would go after dudes from affluent backgrounds because they were ‘easier to tame’. Personally, I hate that we are trying to be Duke, and not, you know, the version of UM I grew up with. We will never be as good as Duke if we try to recruit like they used to.
One minor point that I haven’t seen mentioned is that he shot 30% from deep, but from the longer international 3-point line. With a shorter line (and some typical form refinement), mid-30s is certainly nothing to sneeze at for a 6’9" 4 man. So not sure I’d go so far as to call his shooting a negative.
How many programs in the country can realistically expect to reach consecutive Final 4s on a consistent basis?
I think there are many whether you look at an elite 8, then a final four like MSU did. Naturally if you reach 2 straight elite 8’s you have the ability to make a Final Four. This discussion is moot now though because Michigan didn’t even make the tourney. They took a few steps back this year.
Quoted for 93grad. (make sure you hit “show previous quotes”)
I still don’t see anyone saying they expect Michigan to be in the Final Four every year. In any event, is people need to be honest in these debates and check the hyperbole at the door, whether its in your own argument or in (mis)characterizing the other side.
Those players did not come to Michigan bc of Ed Martin ,Derrick Coleman ,Voshawn Leanard , Howard Eisley and many more Detroit Public school players had a relationship with the man. Most of those guys came to Mich bc they were home grown and U of M was the place to be. Orr was a great coach but what you don't understand in the 70's you had to win your conference in order to go to the big dance. 76 was the first year it changed Michigan played a undefeated Hoosier team in the ship. Bob Knight told Orr after the regular season game we will see each other again bc he knew Michigan was the next best team. Frieder was a average coach A1 recruiter he won back to back Big 10 titles , we lost to Villanova in the 2nd round who eventually won it all against one of the greatest teams of all time Georgetown . He also lost twice to some nice UNC teams in the sweet 16 . Fisher went to 3 final 4s in his 1st 5 years and won in 89 . With all that said I do think we have a great coach but I don't like the fact he tends to shy away from inner city kids and more athletic bigs who are projects. I say this bc I grew up on the west side of Detroit off Puritan & Linwood I went to Michigan and did well with myself. He doesn't have recruit Detroit but there are inner cities everywhere those kids posses a different kind of hunger. Glenn Robinson III had great abilty but he didnt have that hunger .
Small correction. IIRC, it was around '74 that the second place team could make the tournament. Campy and Kupec lead a couple non Big 10 champion teams to the dance in '73 and '74. Re: Detroit kids, which kids did Beilein not recruit but should have? There just haven’t been many B1G caliber players in the PSL in recent years. Re: Ed Martin, maybe he wasn’t the reason kids came to Ann Arbor, but he should have been kept at arm’s length and wasn’t. What transpired prior to the roll over accident is a case in point. I don’t believe that any of those players were disciplined by Fischer for taking a recruit to party, at Ed Martin’s expense, at a hotel in Detroit.
"He will always favor the Donnals and McLimanses and Wagners." What does this even mean--the Irish and the Italians? With the exception of our last two stellar starting big men--one of whom would have still been in the frontcourt if not for stupidity of the NCAA--he favors. . . guys who do not excel? Where is the logic in this? Doyle conveniently left out of the equation because he couldn't fit in your brain at the moment you coughed this up? Opinions are cheap, but we are stretching for some new lows here. . . as if a (now Rivals) four-star with Wagner's promise can simply be dismissed out of hand.
What really pisses me off about all of this criticism is that if McGary, Stauskas, and GRII had been here this year, or if Caris and Walton hadn’t been injured, this lame stuff would be nowhere to be found–FIVE GUYS WE WERE DOWN this year (hello!). Absent McGary, none of these guys would have fitted the bill with the anonymous basement savants on this board.
I wonder why it seems like JB doesn't seem to go after aggressive (hungry) players. To me, he seems to gravitate towards guys with personal trainers and shooting coaches. Of course, it could be that he gravitates towards 'team' guys on and off the court and shies away from the guy who is overly aggressive on the court because he is fighting he way out of some things off the court. I know this is going into a sociology discussion, so I'll just stop here.
You’re so right. Burke, Morgan, Stauskas, McGary, Novak, MAAR, Morris, etc just aren’t hungry enough. I just wish those guys were more aggressive. I mean, those soft players ruined our program
I see way more positives than negatives. He is young only 17 years old. He is long at 6ft9 (would love to know wing span as well). It is said he has a great motor and has the desire to get batter in all aspects of his game.
Could Michigan use an impact player right now especially one that could excel in the paint on both ends of the court absolutely. Could they use a creator especially if Caris declares absolutely.
And I tend to agree with MattD and a few others that I had higher expectations on the recruiting trail especially after our recent successes in the Tourney but it simply has not happened. So if our way to a winning program is via depth, development and longevity I will have to accept it.
I see way more positives than negatives. He is young only 17 years old. He is long at 6ft9 (would love to know wing span as well). It is said he has a great motor and has the desire to get batter in all aspects of his game.
Could Michigan use an impact player right now especially one that could excel in the paint on both ends of the court absolutely. Could they use a creator especially if Caris declares absolutely.
And I tend to agree with MattD and a few others that I had higher expectations on the recruiting trail especially after our recent successes in the Tourney but it simply has not happened. So if our way to a winning program is via depth, development and longevity I will have to accept it.
Well said all around. I agree that Wagner could turn into a really nice player. He is just so young and skinny that it may take a couple years which may be longer than some of us would like. If Wilson, Chatman, Doyle and Donnal can all make substantial improvements, then it won’t be as tough to wait out Moritz’s development.
Beilein brings in guards who make sense to most fans and who excel; with the exception of McGary and Morgan defensively, he brings in big men who seem questionable, who
drop an awful lot of passes in their careers, and who make fans cry for better players. The entire time Beilein is the head coach, this is going to be the case. It's not so much that he can't get the Diamond Stones, etc.--he doesn't offer them. He will always
favor the Donnals and McLimanses and Wagners. If Wagner works out, then great, but his tape isn't encouraging.
Beilein recruited Stone and there seemed to be some mutual interest for awhile. But Stone never visited. A LOT of people questioned the signing of Morgan.