Michigan had a huge need at the 4/5 during DJ Wilson’s freshman year. So much that they tried to play him but realized a RS was necessary to get stronger. It is hard to add significant weight when you are playing a season.
I would say that Bingham is a similar type of prospect in terms of that path.
Michigan was in similar predicament not only with DJ Wilson but also Caris LeVert. All this says to me is Bingham has yet to grow into his body and hitting weight room and eating better are top priorities. Michigan probably has similar considerations regarding Colin Castleton
A couple things on this:
The DJ situation was just very different because we were playing him at first, he got injured and we had guys who we believed could fill in. By the time it was clear they could definitely not fill in, the season was already lost and there was no point in burning the redshirt.
I just think they’re very different situations. And it’s a pretty big indictment for a top 60ish recruit with a clear position (PF) and road to playing time to get redshirted.
They were talking about potentially redshirting DJ from the jump. I know that he had the slight condition with his knee and whatnot, but that decision still was mostly to do with him being too skinny. John Beilein would have 100% given a quote that they were considering RS’ing DJ (and I’m sure he did if you look it up) and he’s given the same quote about Castleton.
It doesn’t matter where and why you were ranked once you get to college. The difference between DJ and Marcus’ ranking could boil down to things like when and where they committed.
MSU has Goins and Tillman that they plan to play at the four and I’d be surprised if Aaron Henry doesn’t see some time there eventually.
So that would make 3 of the 5 incoming freshmen at MSU guys that you basically cant play right away, leaving Aaron Henry and Gabe Brown. And I haven’t exactly seen glowing reviews about Gabe Brown either. I see no comparison between MSU & Michigan’s freshman classes this year. Iggy is far and away the best player, Johns is a clear second (no way he redshirts if he goes to MSU) and the rest of the players are all projects of equal potential in my mind, with Castleton = Bingham in terms of high ceiling and DeJulius with a way way way higher floor than Loyer.
Remind me again why MSU (with McQuaid and Goins as starters LOL) was the runaway conference favorite and a consensus top 10 team nationally despite a freshman class with minimal projected impact?
To be fair, Michigan might only have one freshman playing rotational minutes early in the year.
Seems like MSU could have 3 with Henry, Loyer, Brown.
I agree that Iggy is probably the best player in either class, especially in terms of being ready to contribute early.
Yeah but that’s due to the current depth and quality of both rosters, which again emphasizes my point that I think this MSU team is wildly overrated. Don’t you think if you swapped classes, MSU would play Iggy, Johns and DeJulius (possibly starting Iggy and Johns) and Michigan would play only one, we’d just feel way worse about whoever it is as fans than we do about Iggy. Bingham, Brown, Kithier and Henry ain’t getting minutes on this Michigan roster over Poole, Matthews or Livers, so there’d be scrap backup minutes left over for one of them behind Livers.
Iggy is a potential star.
Johns is clearly the next most ready wing of both classes to me.
Henry, Brown, DeJulius, Loyer all look like potential contributors that might need a little time but only Loyer projects as a black hole on defense.
Bingham and Castleton are high potential redshirt candidates.
Kithier and Nunez are year 1 afterthoughts on paper.
We probably don’t have as big of a need for Castleton this year as MSU does for Bingham.
I bought the one month all-conference pass for BTN+. Just got caught up to the MSU game and gonna watch a bit of the Maryland game next.
Depth Chart looks like:
Winston - McQuaid - Loyer
McQuaid - Henry
Langford - Henry - Ahrens
Goins - Tillman - Ahrens
Ward - Tillman - Kithier
Bingham and Gabe Brown only played very late in each half.
McQuaid was PG2 in half 1, Loyer was PG2 in half 2. For McQuaid they played extended minutes with a McQuaid - Henry - Ahrens - Tillman - Ward lineup.
Henry looked like a guy who might be able to drive off closeouts.
Goins, Langford and McQuaid look stagnant. Winston TBD, most of his points were in transition.
Looks like their may be real improvement between Tillman and Ward. Hard to tell since Northern was so bad (MSU ripped up their zone while shooting horribly from 3), but they looked good and in better shape. MSU offense looks like it’s gonna be primarily taking turns posting up Tillman and Ward.
Watched the first half of Maryland:
Cowan - Ayala
Morsell - Ayala - S Smith - Mona
Wiggins - S Smith
Fernando - Tomaic - Lindo - Wiggins
J Smith - Bender
Maryland ran a lot of full court pressure/trap
Maryland played A LOT of freshmen.
Jalen Smith is tall, can dunk and has no idea what’s going on
Morsell can maybe shoot now?
Eric Ayala appears to be the backup point
Fernando may have some nice moves on the block
Not impressed with Maryland D at all. Was all over the place
Gonna be a classic poorly coached athletic Turgeon team
Biggest takeaway is that the defense looks awful. Gonna guess they miss the tournament and Turgeon is fired
Good stuff, Reegs. Much appreciated.
This matches what they were doing in the scrimmage.
Brandon Quinn had some tweets towards the end of the game implying Bingham did some impressive stuff at the end. Obvious caveat of it being the 2nd half of a blowout against Northern Michigan.
Good stuff @ReegsShannon
I’m watching the replay now… I’ve always been big on Aaron Henry and am not surprised that he’s the most ready to play freshman. Think his versatility fits into what they want to do.
Nick Ward looks to be in great shape to me… his problem has always been staying on the floor in big games though so next Tuesday will tell us more.
A lot of Ahrens as the backup four with more focus on just getting one of the bigs on the floor. That might be a Northern Michigan thing, but probably how they would look against Michigan too. (Update: Early in the second half they go to Ward/Tillman so maybe I spoke too soon or missed it in the first half)
Hard to take much because NMU just can’t hang.
Made 2 threes. Finished an easy putback dunk and ran to the rim for a transition dunk.
Also got blocked by a guy who was 6’5”- 6’6” 
Foster Loyer’s defense got the “good shot, move on” treatment from the announcers that we always heard early in Duncan Robinson’s career. Sometimes those “really tough shots” are easier with a matchup advantage.
I’ve said that his situation reminds me of DJ Wilson’s situation and this is a great example. Why redshirt a kid if he’s not going to be there for five years? Once he adds the weight, he’s going to the be a pro.
The potential reason to RS him is that you can make those gains a lot quicker if you don’t have to be getting ready for games, etc.
Thanks for all the MSU info. I’d probably be more worried about MSU’s frontcourt than backup PG. A rotation of Ward, Goins, and Tillman seems fine but not great. Goins is limited, and is Tillman going to cover mobile fours? Is Izzo going to go small with Ahrens, and can he guard guys like Iggy? And will Ward play serious minutes – he played 20 or more once in MSU’s last 11 games last year.