There should be absolutely no reason for him to play a single minute at the 5 this year, with Teske, Castleton, Faulds and Davis in place there.
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Beilein has a great track record of unearthing lightly recruited players that become good players - Novak, Levert, Rahk, Spike. There are also inevitable misses - Colton Christian, Ibi Watson, Bielfeldt (ymmv may vary there obviously). Itās the nature of the game.
My only point here is not that Nunez wonāt work out - we all agree itās āwho knowsā. Itās that I do t think we should have a high comfort level with the idea that heās a major rotation player next year given:
A) his light recruitment profile
B) no sign at Michigan heās ready
I think all evidence is that Beilein also wants other options at the position - heās recruiting a slew of guys that can play the 2, or at least enable roster shifts that will cover the 2.
None of that is to say Nunez is a bust or wonāt make it. I am saying that he hasnāt demonstrated heās a player we just hand minutes to.
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Itās proving hard for Beilein to hit that Ethan Happ/Cassius Winston sweet spot of players who are good enough to be all conference multiple years in college, but not good enough that they are prospects for early departure. Thatās not necessarily bad, just the kind of guys Beilein recruits and develops.
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In the spring of 2012, Caris Levert seemed like a project to most - when John Groce moved on from Ohio U to Illinois, he didnāt even recruit Caris to join him.
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This is 100% accurate, in my view. No one should write Nunez off yet, but I donāt believe the staff thinks heāll be a big contributor next year.
Of course, in Levertās case, even as a true freshman, he was too good to keep off the floor, despite the coaching staffās initial inclination to redshirt him. Nunez was certainly behind that for his first year. But even if his ceiling is a solid backup at the 2/3, heāll be worth the scholarship.
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Lol, is this hyland thread or nunez thread?
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It seems like sometimes there is no space on this board for an opinion of āthis guy still has plenty of opportunity to get better, but maybe he wonāt be greatā. Iām just saying I donāt understand the, to quote The Big Lebowski, āCalmer nā you areā attitude taken about a Brooks/Nunez tandem at the 2.
I mean, thatās VERY possibly a major problem.
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If youāre referring to my comments, please donāt misconstrue them. As it stands right now, I think Bajema is our best two guard, and thatās a scary proposition in the sense that he probably needs to gain 25 pounds. Iām not confident about Brooks and I think Nunez is a year away from being a rotational bench player.
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Not about any specific individualās comments, and more things said by a number of people.
I would put X and Teske in that category, as I think they were undervalued in the āall conference multiple yearsā discussion, but the way heās doing it is working out OK for everyone so far.
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Iām not sure thereās a way to be particularly good at that. Also Beilein recruited Cassius a ton and instead got X who is about to be a 4 year guy. We are still consistently recruiting the 50-150 spot which should be the maximum shot at a really good 4 year guy.
Thereās no secret recipe to getting those guys unless you want to strictly focus on undersized and less athletic players.
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He also averaged 15.5 at the prep school and he was averaging 4 sitting behind a kid who went to cincy. I agree heās no lock but I think itās too early to be expecting nothing. I didnāt love him two years ago when we took him , but when I watched his film this time around after the Jordan news I was pleasantly surprised and thought to myself I wonder why I was down on him so much before?
I donāt either, really. Itās largely a matter of luck, but we just donāt seem to be very lucky at it, compared to a team like Wisconsin.
For what itās worth, thoughā¦if Winston had come here, he would possibly have been gone after his 2nd year, and definitely after this year.
Not sure if itās luck, often has to do with the kind of guys we recruit. We recruit for a style thatās going to translate to the NBA. You could see the NBA potential in DJ the second he was recruited. Similar deal with Colin Castleton right now. Iād be shocked if he played 4 years because if he is able to to produce and be a starting-caliber college player, his skillset will be exactly what NBA teams want. For comparison, Nick Ward is never going to be what a NBA team wants as a 6ā8" pure center who canāt move his feet.
If you want guys to stay 4 years you need to have either
- Worse players
- Guys with major flaws or styles that arenāt going to translate to the NBA. In college, weird skillsets can often thrive more than they do in the NBA. So finding āweird guysā is the key to having elite players stay 4 years. And I think it can be pretty easy to determine that in the recruiting process.
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The tricky part about this is that finding guys who donāt translate to the NBA might be easy, but a lot of those guys donāt translate to college for the same reason that they are weird. Identifying the ones that do is a bit trickier.
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You saw nba potential in dj when he arrived on campus?
There were a few of us that saw the height, athletic ability, the ability to shoot and could see that he very much had a potential path to the league.
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I thought that his possible peak would be a late first/early second round kind of guyā¦ but if you are tall, long and can shoot the NBA WILL draft you.
He also had a high bust rate since he was so skinny and wasnāt a great athlete coming out of high school, but I think it was clear he had the skillset to go pro it if he could put it together and mature physically.
We also, at least in the past, were very good at developing playersā offensive skills, and quickly.
Tom Izzo, on the other hand, emphasizes defense above all else, and his players often develop much slower on the offensive end of the court. Payne, IMO, is a prime example. Thereās no way that guy would have stayed at Michigan for four years, because he would have been a big time scorer in two years. Iād say the same about guys like Appling, Langford, and McQuaid - all of them would have been much better scorers earlier in their careers at Michigan.
Similarly, a guy like Stauskas probably would have been a four year player for MSU. Same with DJ Wilson.
Xavier Tillman will be an interesting test case. If he gets enough touches next year - both inside and outside (heās shown some ability to make threes) - he could crack the first round in the 2020 draft. Honestly, he had declared this year, I think heās the type of guy who would have really made a name for himself in workouts and at the combine.