Springboarding off of a comment I made on the Blog’s UCLA preview, I thought it appropriate to come over here and make a 2017 Drinking Game Thread since I keep seeing the same takes over and over and over again.
Of course, this is a far bigger problem on social media and cesspools like M-Live than it is here (that’s why I’m here more), but I still see these here so I’m choosing to have some passive aggressive fun with it.
Here’s my start. Feel free to add your own entries.
This might be a dangerous game for some people. I have assumed that those people who are not calling for more Teske, Livers and Poole are already drunk.
Understood, but the overriding factor in every point is the lack of positional flexibility on this team at this time. Right now, more Teske means less Moe, more Poole means less Matthews. That won’t always be the case, but that’s the way it is at the moment, especially when Michigan’s not playing in their guarantee games.
Maybe I should have named this thread MLive Comment Section Mouthbreather Gold:
“Getting Duncan Robinson going shouldn’t be your 1st point about makin Michigan’s offense better. It is pretty simple to understand what Robinson is in terms of how he can impact any team. He is a specialist and nothing more. You need to use him as a guy off the bench not a starter. As a starter no matter where he plays SF or PF (in Beilein’s system), he isn’t good enough to have contributions. Off the bench you can get lost in a scouting report. Especially if you rarely play.”
Andrew’s doing God’s work trying to address the recurring commenter talking points in his pieces on MLive:
Robinson has not forgotten how to shoot, and there’s no evidence that his struggles are related to being a starter. While he came off the bench as Michigan’s designated sniper last season, he started 27 games the year before. Attributing his woes to starting – or assuming they’ll be fixed if he becomes the sixth man – miss the mark.
To be fair to the M Live Commenter, Andrew is not completely right. Duncan did have similar struggles when was a starter before. 35% from 3 in Big Ten play his first year.
If you want to split hairs on Andrew’s opinion, that’s fine. We can talk about whether the dip in 3% in conference play was due to better coaching/scouting and defenders denying Robinson open looks or his increased minutes and role (not just having the luxury of camping out on the wing and looking for kickouts). That’s a conversation that I wouldn’t mind having here, and I’m sure someone less lazy than me might even crunch those numbers.
I wouldn’t give any credit to the commenter, though, who seems to come from the growing army who somehow think less Duncan is good and no Duncan is even better. This is a comment in an article where Andrew suggests that getting Duncan off the schneid is one of several ways for Michigan to optimize its offense. It’s no great leap of logic, but one that was still met with several folks saying “nah”. Perhaps I should have emphasized the end of his argument (Off the bench you can get lost in a scouting report. Especially if you rarely play.), since that was the part that really boggled my mind at the time.
The “No Duncan = good” part is the one that makes no sense. And less Duncan = good is only good if those minutes are mostly taken by Matthews at the 4, which they haven’t been. Livers is just not good right now. He maybe gives a rebounding advantage over Duncan but thats it.
That’s why the next three games look hugely important to me, and come at a great time; almost looks like a bye week for a football team. They’re raw, but Beilein really has rich resources at his disposal here. If he can figure out a little further what he can get from these guys down the stretch. . .
What does Duncan give? Livers already gives the exact same with better rebounding and iso defense, yet he has the potential to give a hell of a lot more.
This would be a lot more true if he wasn’t one of the worst major conference players at everything besides shooting.
I will say this, Duncan Robinson is the first Michigan player whose high foul rate I enjoy.