Does that mean you think the roster makeup is Big Ten Championship caliber? Nice to hear 
Testament to how much talent was on that team. . . he said grudgingly. Iâm not down on too many coaches but I dislike Crean.
2016-2017 Big Ten Basketball Conference is setting up to have the least amount talented players in 2 decades. So yeah, I expect Michiganâs current roster to compete for a championship.
If Blackman leaves, Michigan and Michigan state should be at the top with Wisconsin Iâd like to think.
People will believe what they want DRatings of IU players per 100 possessions ignoring walkons and guys that donât get much PT
Anunoby 97.1
Bielfeldt 98.1
Williams 98.4
Morgan 99.5
Bryant 100.3
Blackmon 100.6
Blackmon had a better D rating than Hartman, Zeisloft, Ferrell(awful at 105.5) and Johnson. So at the end of the day Blackmon was probably middle of the pack. People will believe the narratives that they want though.
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But Blackmon going down allowed Anunoby to get more run. Thereby improving the defense. No?
Get more run? He averaged 13 mpg and didnât start a single game all year. Johnson, Zeisloft and Hartman all started games after the injury and all 3 were worse defenders than Blackmon. Like I said people will believe what they want.
But Blackmonâs rating comes strictly from non-conference games, where the quality of competition was, in many/most games, well below that of competition faced after Blackmon went down. Are those rating adjusted for competition level or not? I can say thisâfrom watching IU live against the better teams they faced in the pre-season (Duke, ND, Wake Forest, UNLV, etc.), Blackmon is truly a bad defender from an anecdotal standpoint.
No theyâre not adjusted for conference play. Hereâs the problem with making a correlation though we all know that thereâs better competition in the B1G. So Blackmon had a neutral D rating as far as 100 possessions go people believe heâs a bad defender. How does a bad defender end up with a neutral rating and they did face elite offenses like Duke/ND? By the same token wouldnât it be easier just to point to Indiana having the easiest conference schedule? It just seems lazy to say Blackmon was the reason they were awful on D and they won the B1G conference because he got hurt all the while there were a few worse defensive players. Next thing you know people will say Ferrell was a great lockdown defender. Did better completion in the conference expose guys like Ferrell, Johnson, Zeisloft and Hartman? IU was ranked 73 in DRating still hardly a lock down team though. I think having the easiest conference schedule, a great PG, a very good big in Bryant and lanky athletic 6â7 guy in Williams contributed more to this than Blackmon being hurt.
Before Blackmon was injured OG was averaging 8.33 minutes per game (largely inflated by a lot of run in 3 blowouts) and then after the injury averaged 16.63. Seems like more to me but my math skills arenât a strong suit.
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Two decades? Thatâs a tough call.
Either way, it shows weâre not getting creamed in recruiting by our contemporaries, right? And it also shows teams in the Big Ten are not the type to just âreloadâ with a bunch of one and done guys every year. Good lessons for those who think we should be routinely hauling in five star guys every year.
Without weighing in on DRtg or IU/Blackmon, I will agree with ASF that sometimes losing a player is more coincidental to a teamâs improvement than a cause, or at least not a reflection of that playerâs value. For instance, in '13-14, UM lost McGary after starting out 6-4, including a somewhat perplexing loss to Charlotte. Then they went 22-4 and thrashed the B1G. You can come up with ideas for why McGaryâs absence helped, like maybe it thrust Nik and Caris into bigger roles, or maybe it forced Michigan to play smaller, which was actually better (theyâd been starting Mitch and Morgan, I think), but Iâm not sure the improvement reflects on McGaryâs value as a player. Indeed, you could argue the contrary, that UM wins the national championship that year if McGary stays healthy.
This thread is veering way off topic, but I think just about everyone that covered Indiana would agree that Blackmon was a poor defender and IUâs defense improved after his injury. Not to say he wouldnât be an important part of their team next year.
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Well only 2 players have entered the draft early and signed with an agent(Davis/Stone). There are many more that have just been testing the waters. Far too early to make any prediction.
Again, for the record: You think Beilein has constructed his 2016/2017 roster well enough to compete with how other coaches have constructed their 2016/2017 rosters at the top of the conference? Iâm pleasantly surprised. I wouldâve taken you for insisting our roster pales in comparison because of poor recruiting.
I think what heâs trying to say is that on paper theyâre going to be starting seniors and juniors. It hasnât exactly competed as well as people have envisioned the past couple years. Itâs all relative based upon how coaches view their roster these are all guys Beilein has valued itâs up to him to get the most out of this roster. It doesnât matchup well with a Wisconsin or MSU for instance and if Purdue gets Swanigan/Edwards back we have already seen that matchup. Heck we even saw Michigan get badly outplayed by OSU this past year and those players who did large damage are all returning. I donât think anybody would pick this Michigan team for a top 2-3 finish but the expectation should be with a majority of seniors and juniors for that to be the case.
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If Michigan is so outmatched, then this sentence is odd:
âThere is absolutely no reason Michigan shouldnât be playing for a league championship in early March.â
So Iâm going to assume everything you just said is not what he meant.
Well if Michigan has the most experience out of any team why shouldnât that be the case?
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If Michigan is as outmatched as you say we are by as many teams as you say we are, then those are reasons we probably wonât be competing for a Big Ten title.
âThere is absolutely no reason Michigan shouldnât be playing for a league championship in early March.â
You are providing reasons.
Like with anything you can gather reasons that support either position. Some just have more merit than others. Do you value experience over actual recent results?