Very simple - we don’t have the backcourt talent the same way we did in 12-13 and 13-14 to compensate for that negative margin.
In 2012 in the Big Ten (where, as noted, we finished tied for first with a -3.5 rebounding margin), our backcourt was a good but not great Trey Burke as a true freshman, Tim Hardaway having a down year as a sophomore, and Stu Douglass, with a little bit of Matt Vogrich thrown in. Not sure how Walton as a junior, Levert and Albrecht as seniors and MAAR as a sophomore compare badly as a group by comparison. We still have three of the same guys we had in 2013-2014, each with two more years experience. We may not have anyone equivalent to Stauskas at guard, but our wings in 2014 were certainly no better than they are this year, and we had two role players at the bigs and basically nothing else, which we’re also as good or better than this year.
And in any case, despite your original argument, poor rebounding would not be the only issue that would keep us from winning the conference next year…it would be poor rebounding AND backcourt play that also isn’t good enough. Well, if both are the case, Duh.
I said 12-13 and 13-14, didn’t mention 11-12. I can certainly see the comparison to 11-12, but quite frankly I thought we just had an average team that overachieved. Im sure you disagree and that’s fine. All that to say that I simply don’t think this group as a whole is talented enough to win a conference championship this year, nor do I think the ceiling is higher than S16. We have above average talent in the backcourt with good depth. In the frontcourt we have below average talent, with bad depth. Since we play 4 wings we’re able to mitigate the frontcourt issues to a certain extent, but we can’t completely hide it. All of that screams above average team with a ceiling of good, but not great.
There are way too many unknowns at this point to draw any real conclusions about our ceiling in league play.
Many of our players under JB have shown tremendous improvement from year one to year two in his system. That would include D. Sims, Manny, Darius, Trey, Nik, and Caris. Let’s see how Dawkins, MAAR, Doyle, and Chatman look this year.
Let’s also see what we have with a healthy Walton, who was very good pre-injury this year. Let’s also see if Irvin can play at the same level where he finished the year. And then there are three additional unknowns in Wilson, Robinson, and Wagner.
Really, about the only known quantities are Spike and Caris, and I also don’t have any real hopes for Donnal.
Very simple - we don't have the backcourt talent the same way we did in 12-13 and 13-14 to compensate for that negative margin.
Right, it was a poor shooting team last year. Maybe all those shots they missed last year suddenly go in this year but if they shoot the same then they better start rebounding the ball better. The interesting part is there are only 2 newcomers in Wagner, and Robinson. Will those 2 markedly improve the shooting% of this team?
Three newcomers with Wagner, Robinson and Wilson.
I would say that Robinson will definitely improve the shooting% of the team… Having a hard time figuring out what to expect from Wilson/Wagner though.
Three newcomers with Wagner, Robinson and Wilson.I would say that Robinson will definitely improve the shooting% of the team… Having a hard time figuring out what to expect from Wilson/Wagner though.
Forgot about Wilson. I guess my concern is that the 3-4 best shooters they had this past year were Ricky, Mark, Max and Aubrey. They lose one in Max, will Levert returning AND Robinson coming in cut down on the attempts those other 3 had? I want my best shooters to be shooting the ball and unfortunately Caris was not one of their best shooters.
Very simple - we don't have the backcourt talent the same way we did in 12-13 and 13-14 to compensate for that negative margin.Right, it was a poor shooting team last year. Maybe all those shots they missed last year suddenly go in this year but if they shoot the same then they better start rebounding the ball better. The interesting part is there are only 2 newcomers in Wagner, and Robinson. Will those 2 markedly improve the shooting% of this team?
Walton’s fg and 3-point percentages were way down last year. I think the injury played a big part in that. Once he and Caris went down, a lot of their shots went to Spike and MAAR, who don’t shoot as well.
Looking at the rest of the B1G, it’s not a reach to think Michigan could win it. There’s just so many question marks going into the season.
Is Walton 100%? (severe turf toe may never heal fully)
How good is Robinson truly? (I’m skeptical)
Levert accepting the fact he doesn’t have to put the team on his back to show his worth.
Does Doyle take the next step?
Can we get 10+ solid minutes from Cam?
I’m always worried about a sophomore slump. A lot more film out there on guys like Dawkins and MAAR. Will they develop other parts of their game this off season?
Our roster, for his upcoming year, is plenty good to compete for a B1G championship and get to a sweet 16 assuming the answers above are all yes.
Three newcomers with Wagner, Robinson and Wilson.I would say that Robinson will definitely improve the shooting% of the team… Having a hard time figuring out what to expect from Wilson/Wagner though.
Forgot about Wilson. I guess my concern is that the 3-4 best shooters they had this past year were Ricky, Mark, Max and Aubrey. They lose one in Max, will Levert returning AND Robinson coming in cut down on the attempts those other 3 had? I want my best shooters to be shooting the ball and unfortunately Caris was not one of their best shooters.
I guess we’re using different definitions of ‘shooting’… Three of those guys are finishers and Aubrey was a shooter.
Michigan’s 2-point shooting/finishing was a big step back last year, a lot because they weren’t comfortable in the offense. I expect that to improve, but how much? Wilson or Wagner being able to finish along the baseline could be critical.
I also think that the perimeter shooting could improve with LeVert, Robinson, Walton all in the mix.
Levert accepting the fact he doesn't have to put the team on his back to show his worth.
This is a very real question. Not so worried about Dawkins and Rahkman making the next step as long as they get enough PT to get into rhythm.
There are major X-factors at the 4 and 5, but I’m not getting my hopes up too high. I’m keeping the burden of my lofty expectations squarely on our guards and wings.
The notion that it’s just the same team coming back is misleading. (1) Injuries - Walton did not play the final 12 games and played the 15 games before that injured. LeVert didn’t play the final 14 games, wore a glove on his shooting hand at least a couple games he did play, and was out of commission much of the preceding summer. Spike played injured pretty much all year; (2) freshmen to sophomores - Chatman, Donnal, Doyle, Dawkins, MAAR - is generally the biggest jump in college hoops and we’ve seen pretty big strides among players at UM too. (3) Newcomers - Robinson, Wagner, and Wilson coming in, all of whom could potentially contribute right away at a position of weakness last year, the other 3-4. This isn’t like a bunch of healthy sophomores and juniors coming back for another year.
Of course, we may have injuries again, the freshmen might not make big strides, and LeVert/Walton maybe benefited more than we thought from playing with Nik and Glenn a couple years ago, etc. Part of how likely you’ll see the various outcomes is what you think of the staff and players. I tend to think they’ll do pretty well and that many, if not all, of the question marks will yield positive answers. Also encouraging is that there should be a number of options – think of all the 1-4 combinations: Walton, LeVert, Irvin, Dawkins; Spike, Walton, LeVert, Irvin; put in Chatman at the 4, or Robinson, at the 3, or Wagner at the 4, etc. There should be a lot of competition for time and a lot of options for the coaches.
And other teams have a lot of question marks too. Even MSU - I know they like Nairn, but they could really miss Trice, and Dawson as well. MD is losing Smortycz for pete’s sake! And Wells. Just like it’s easy to think of only your team improving, it’s easy to think only of the questions on your team. Time will tell.
I suspect Maryland will not miss Smotrycz (as Michigan didn’t in 2013). They will miss Wells. MSU will really miss Trice. OSU will miss Russell.
Reminder… No need for personal attacks. You can disagree, but don’t need to hurl insults.
Well, I tend to take coach hype/teammate hype/practice hype with a ton of salt. And I’d be somewhat surprised if we saw Robinson out there for more than 5-10 minutes a game this year, and probably all at a pure shooting 3. I see him as a bigger Matt Vogrich, and just hope he has a bit more of a game.
I don’t think there is any question the cleanliness of our looks will improve with Walton (transition galore) and Levert (drawing a secondary defender off PnR). Will adding those 2 (along with the freshman development) put us on a level relatively equal with 12-13 and 13-14…probably not, but I think it would be foolish to not expect reasonable improvement from last year.
IMO, there should be little to no learning curve in terms of how the offensive and defensive systems work, which is just so huge. It may not have shown in the results, but the last 2-3 weeks of this past season, I saw guys start to ‘get it’ in terms of knowing their jobs on both ends of the floor.
You can’t put a price on that. Instead of spending valuable practice hours teaching basic concepts…the majority of the team is at the average/advanced level of knowing how to run the offense and defense. This will allow the coaches and players to focus on higher level basketball thinking as well as give guys a MUCH better understanding of what they specifically need to work on in the offseason.
People talk about JB as a developer of talent…which I think he does very well with…but the jump guys like Nik, Caris, Darius, Trey, Tim, etc make is as much to do with their becoming more comfortable in the system than it is anything else.
IMO, there should be little to no learning curve in terms of how the offensive and defensive systems work, which is just so huge. It may not have shown in the results, but the last 2-3 weeks of this past season, I saw guys start to 'get it' in terms of knowing their jobs on both ends of the floor.You can’t put a price on that. Instead of spending valuable practice hours teaching basic concepts…the majority of the team is at the average/advanced level of knowing how to run the offense and defense. This will allow the coaches and players to focus on higher level basketball thinking as well as give guys a MUCH better understanding of what they specifically need to work on in the offseason.
People talk about JB as a developer of talent…which I think he does very well with…but the jump guys like Nik, Caris, Darius, Trey, Tim, etc make is as much to do with their becoming more comfortable in the system than it is anything else.
How much of them getting it the last 2-3 weeks changes with Levert and Walton around? Guys are going to have different roles the Irvin we say the last 2 weeks with the ball in his hand a lot will suddenly change because Levert and Walton are the ones with the ball in their hand. If Levert and Walton do have the ball does Irvin revert back to a puzzle that he was the first 25 games?
As far as expectations I need to see how they look because the last 2-3 weeks were good signs, there were other times where they didn’t look good at all healthy or otherwise.
I think Irvin’s improvement is just as important with LeVert and Walton back… This team’s problem early on was that Caris (and to a lesser extent Derrick) had very little help. Irvin won’t have to be No. 1 like he was at the end of the season, but he’s a lot better suited to be No. 2 or No. 3 now that he’s played that role.
ASF…before a team can develop real on court chemistry(flow, rhythm, whatever) guys need to know how to do their own jobs. What we saw at the end of the season is individuals having a clear understanding of their own jobs, which is an important first step in learning how to play most effectively as a team.
The next step is, learning how to play together with the idea that each player knows their own specific role. I thought in the Villanova game we started to see some glimpses of what last years team could have been. What we discovered after Villanova was how fragile the whole thing was because guys were either unfamiliar with the role they would be asked to complete and/or guys weren’t quite ready to take on a bigger role.
I expect this team will be able to handle more adversity and be able to find their on-court synergy at a much quicker and more consistent rate than last year. I don’t think you can put a price on experience. Irvin took on a more prominent role the last month and what I think he learned most was, let the game come to him. So in that regard, I think he’ll blend in just fine with Caris and Derrick. Frankly, I’m more concerned about Caris being ‘calmer’ than I am about Zak reverting back to old habits.