If Stone was so interested, why didn’t he send his transcripts to get his offer? He knows the deal. UM kids, especially under Beilein have to come play school too.
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I guess that’s exactly what I’m saying. Is it coincidence that we find these diamonds (or develop them) and they’re all guards and not bigs? What’s the difference? The position coaches.
We run a guard friendly offense.
And what’s a guard friendly offense have anything to do with the discussion?
You’re kidding me right?
We run a perimeter oriented offense. What do you think gets worked on the most in practice? Post moves? (That was sarcasm).
Guards are developed more than post players because they get the most attention from the coaching staff. Our bigs only set screens, occasionally get the ball on the roll and occasionally launch a three. There’s no back to the basket option in JB’s offense. Thus, that aspect of their game isn’t developed.
Occasionally unless your name is DJ Wilson! If your name is DJ Wilson, you are launching as soon as the ball touches your hands.
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Supposedly Stone wasn’t a typical Bo Ryan kid academically at Wisconsin. Bo’s daughter tweeted something about that last year after he committed to Maryland. Beilein really looks at transcripts to make sure they can cut it academically. He also didn’t visit AA. Have to visit to get an offer.
I am sure that he made at least one unofficial visited, as reported on this site with an interview with his dad after the visit.
But I’m not talking about who scores the most points or gets the most touches. I’m talking about overall development. Even if it’s within a guard oriented offense. A big can still develop. They can get bigger, stronger, better footwork, correct positioning, etc. even if it’s just setting screens, eating space, blocking out, attacking boards, rotational passing, inside-out kicks, put-backs, finishing easy buckets, catching the ball cleanly, etc.
I’m not talking about why we don’t have a 20ppg 10rpg big. I’m talking about why do we develop guards but not bigs. And is that not on the position coach (Bacari) to some degree? Just discussion buddy. Assistant coaches get brought up a lot in football but rarely in basketball.
Just not the way the offense is set up. This is the dead horse-flogging portion of your program.
We run an offense where bigs score primarily off screen roll action and, if they have the skill, jump shooting. We rarely post up. Donnal scored 26 and 16 in back to back games doing what we do. Interestingly, even with Carter and Diamond having good games scoring, Maryland lost because they didn’t get much from their guards, Trimble and Sulaimon, and they were 6-24 on threes. Their big lineup was tough in the paint on offense, but had trouble on defense guarding Irvin and Robinson. It’s what makes hoops so fascinating - the match-ups.
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Our bigs for the most part, do improve in all those areas you cite. Which Big in JB’s tenure didn’t get bigger and stronger from their freshman year until they left? Not sure how that falls on any coach outside Sanderson anyways.
Footwork? Who has bad footwork for what this offense asks our bigs to do? Do you have an example of a big that got worse from their freshman year until they left? I can’t think of any. The ceiling for our bigs is far lower than the ceiling of the guards JB has recruited in his tenure, with the exception of McGary.
I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from.
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Ricky Doyle might be headed down that track. Of course maybe the expectations were low to begin with that even the slight improvement people will see development. It’s quite the fall for him though with being a starter last year and early this year to hardly getting any time now.
Then discussion over if mpbear14 is okay with recruiting and development of the bigs.
That’s all I was wondering.
I’m not okay with the recruiting of bigs and that falls on JB and no one else.
Just like the recruiting of guards falls on JB and he’s been fairly good in that department.
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There are plenty of bigs who like to shoot from outside and handle the ball, things they will surely do at Michigan. And if JB & Co were to get upper-echelon bigs, they surely would give them more touches – as they did with McGary. They even tried to give Horford post-ups. And as for talent evaluation, Morgan (Xavier, when they were a midmajor) and Horford (Colorado maybe?), who had few offers and were the centers on a B!G champion, elite 8 team. Morgan in particular turned out pretty solid. McClimans was a bit of a bust but so was Brundidge. Can’t win them all. Cronin was injured. Donnal still has two more years of eligibility after this year and is doing okay right now. Let’s see how that turns out.
Also, elite big men are generally easier to spot and highly recruited by all the heavyweights, and with Michigan’s recruiting parameters that makes the pool of eligible targets pretty small and pretty tough gets. Guys in the range of Teske and Donnal, top 100 or 150 but not top 25 or 50, are decent gets for this program.
Sure, Michigan has been more successful with guards and wings than centers, but I’m not sure you look at Morgan, Horford, McGary, an emerging Donnal, and say center recruiting/development is so terrible. The strength of the program? No. But they’ve had pretty good success so far with the bigs they’ve had, and I’m not giving up on Donnal (or Wagner or Wilson) just yet.
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I believe that Horford visited and had an offer from Cal. McLimans was recruited early in Beilein’s tenure when we were still scrambling.
So assistants are puppets? I wonder why we’re spending so much money for them then…
JB clearly thinks his assistants are doing a good job executing his philosophy in both recruiting and development. That’s probably why they are paid as much as they are.
Assistants are the ones that identify the recruits and then when things become serious, Beilein steps in. There are a few exceptions to this when Beilein has a personal connection with the area where the kid is from, examples of this are Cronin and McLimans who are both Upstate NY guys.