Michigan vs. Detroit Discussion

Coach Beilein preaches a lot about balance and the importance of. Jon Teske is so very often off balance, especially on offense, which is why he often throws up awkward shots or gets his shot blocked. The speed of the game often gets Teske to rush things and when he rushes he looks horrible and gets off balance. Work in progress who will get better and better.

I agree with Coach Beilein that as an upper classmen Teske will be very good, efficient player. Always going to be a role player but he has the makings of a good one.

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I thought Teske was good, but I thought he missed a lot of opportunities to be great. He has a long way to go in regards to finishing. I’m glad we could get him some big minutes though.

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You don’t think he can take his game past role player status? He looks to have a nice stroke and he is a great screener. Looks like he knows how to get open a lot off of it too. I was thinking he maybe able to develop into a pretty big force to be reckoned with. Already a serious defender. It will be intersting to see how he looks as an upperclassmen.

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Yeah, I think Teske has a chance to be a real difference maker as an upperclassman. As JJ3 and wolverheel say, he still looks rushed and off-balance and needs to improve his finishing – but I think he could get there. He’s got plenty of skill and clearly the size.

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I agree that Teske gets lost under the basket from time to time, and certainly looks awkward/rushed at others, but he’s shooting 77% at the rim last I checked. That’s pretty solid all things considering. He’s far exceeded my expectations this year.

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Yeah, I think another off season under Sanderson will have him ready for those kind of minutes against good competition. I think people tend to forget it’s not exactly common to have backup centers who can come in and not have too big of a drop off from the starter, and I think Teske provides that (I think Donnal got a lot of unnecessary hate in hindsight after seeing the backup centers of some other Big Ten teams).

I also spent a lot of the Detroit game watching individual players on defense and I must say, Robinson looked like an extremely intelligent defender. He’ll always be incredibly awful 1 on 1, but I was underselling his defensive IQ by a decent amount, at least based on that game. And to be honest, that makes perfect sense. I see a lot of people saying “Oh it’s amazing that Michigan is top 25 on kenpom defense with two black holes at the 4 and 5” but I don’t think that’s true. Off ball I think both Wagner and Robinson are quite impressive.

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“Robinson looks like an extremely intelligent defender.” Thank you, wolverheel. Duncan Robinson is an extremely intelligent BASKETBALL player. He generally plays good, smart, position defense. Is he blessed with great athleticism, quickness or speed? No, he isn’t, but he is a smart basketball player. He creates great space on offense, and when his three point shots start falling…with Charles and MAAR and Z…that’s going to be fun to watch. There are those who say he can do nothing but shoot. Shooting is a pretty good skill to have, by the way. But I have seen him, several times, put it on the floor and take it to the hole! And finish! It IS fashionable on here and the other blog to say he’s a horrible defender, but he works hard and he’s smart and he knows how to play. Thanks for giving him some credit in your comment. Oh, and like SO many Beilein players, he’s a GREAT kid!

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I don’t feel as though he is very smart on the defensive end. If he was just getting beat off the dribble or outjumped, outran etc, it’d be one thing. But from my watching of the games, he gives up just as many baskets due to poor positioning and biting on pump fakes.

Agree to disagree. I DO wish he would keep his hands off people. Although, it’s hard when you aren’t as athletic or quick as the player you are defending. Does Duncan makes mistakes? Of course he does. I don’t know too many players who don’t. Is he a great on the ball defender? Nope, he really isn’t. Of course with all the switches on ball screens he often finds himself defending smaller and quicker guards than your typical power forward type. I think the criticism he takes on here and other boards is not always well founded. It IS fashionable, I have found, to criticize Duncan. It started, really, from the time Coach B brought him in. There are those who comment and really have little clue. You do. I’ve found from reading your comments that you have more than a clue. I respect your opinion. What matters most most, though, is what Coach B and his assistants think, not the opinion that you or I may have. I appreciated wolverheel saying something nice about Duncan’s defense. That’s pretty unusual on any of the boards I read. But if we sat down with Coach B and his staff, and if we had the privilege of picking his brain, I KNOW Coach would say, while Duncan is far from perfect, far from being a GREAT defender, far from an athletic defender, he has made excellent strides in the past couple of years. He would say Duncan has worked hard to improve his defensive abilities. He would say Duncan is a smart player. He would say he is glad Duncan plays for Michigan. I KNOW he would also say, he needs to “keep his hands off people!” Which means, you are right, his position isn’t always as good as it could (should) be. So, while it’s fun for us to express our opinions, and to sometimes agree to disagree, as you and I are doing here, I just feel privileged to watch this coach and these kids. And, frankly, while he sometimes frustrates me and I yell at my TV, I’m pretty happy Duncan Robinson chose to play for the “good guys.” Just the opinion of an old guy (really old!) who LOVES Michigan basketball, just as I KNOW you do, too!

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I don’t disagree with some of what you say. He gets a lot of schtick from M fans for things he’s not capable of. But i am also not going to give him credit for things he’s not and I don’t think he’s that good of a positional defender.

To my eye, and I’m just a guy who played for awhile, never coached, a lot of Duncan’s irritating defensive plays would go away if he just kept his hands high and tries to take away passing lanes or sight lines. He rarely produces steals, but he keeps trying, and picks up fouls instead.

He has a knack for picking up charges, and has improved his box outs and rebounding.

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Fair enough.

I think you should consider watching closer over the next several games, his positioning was quite good.

Yeah, he needs to fix the foul rate, although his steal rate is actually better than Matthews and MAAR. I’ve noticed he gets a good amount of deflections. I wish he’d stop going for on ball steals so much, like you said.

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I login here and @tarverine is defending Duncan Robinson’s defense. What is the world coming to.

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I figured three guys couldn’t single-handedly make our defense top 25 [edit: 27 now] in efficiency with two supposed black holes, so I put aside my prior prejudiced gripes and started anew. They’re certainly not good, but I think “Bottom 5% in power 5 conference” was something I’ve said before about Duncan’s defense and I don’t feel that way anymore.

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I feel like his bad positioning leads to a lot of his and 1s. And going for steals when he shouldn’t is part of bad positioning.

You could be right as I don’t know if a way this is charter or tracked, but it’s my perception that he doesn’t help himself out much

I think Robinson has slowly and steadily improved his defense from awful (his first year) to bad (last year) to below average (this year). He’s not a good defensive player, but he is light years better than he was. Similarly, his defensive rebounding awareness has improved — still below average but significantly better than where it was.

And if he can re-find his 3pt stroke and be a high volume 42-45% 3pt shooter in conference play, he’ll be a very valuable player for this year’s team.

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100% agree. Based on the ESPNU broadcast, he basically missed a dunk opportunity because he got legitimately hacked, then later missed a tough put-back dunk (was probably too deep but still made great effort), and the narrative became “Teske needs to improve his finishing at the rim”.

I truly don’t see his finishing as a concern, I see it as a strength

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The reason I am excited about Teske is he is already quite effective and It is easy to see room for improvement. If he is able to improve his weaknesses he is an all big ten type player. For example, if he can just gain four more inches on his vertical it is going to make a huge difference for him. He already checks so many boxes…The boxes that are still not checked seem realistically attainable.

He had a double double with no fouls and no turnovers in 28 minutes. That is about what Wagner is averaging per game. Pretty damn good if you ask me.

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