Where are you going with this? I simply asked mpbear14 if he likes how the roster compares to the rest of the Big Ten.
He literally said “there is absolutely no reason …” and you keep providing reasons. When you provide reasons (such as being so outmatched by Wisconsin, MSU, Purdue, and OSU) it contradicts “absolutely no reason”. Therefor, I think you should step back and just let me and mpbear14 have a discussion without putting words in his mouth.
I think Michigan by default has enough talent to compete in arguably the worst big ten conference in the past decade or two assuming the players testing NBA waters from other teams, leave.
I don’t want to hear a single excuse next season why Michigan isn’t competing for a league title. There shouldn’t be any. My expectation is for every game in March have league title implications.
So, just to be clear, if we have injuries to key players next year like we did the last two years, that would simply NOT be an acceptable excuse. OK…
We were bad before the injuries, but continue with the narrative that keeps you sane.
With 6-7 tenured top 100 guys (even one or two less if injuries) there is no way I would expect us to be outmatched by those teams (presuming Hayes/Blackmon gone) and thus we should be competing for the B1G title going into the final week.
So teams which are bad early never get better in January and thereafter? Purdue in '15 wasn’t bad early before coming on later? How about Wisconsin last year? Would those teams have shown the improvement they did if their all-conference level player (Hammons, Hayes) had gone down late in the BT opener and played 11 minutes total after that?
Indiana definitely looked like a B10 champ during non-conference, right?
I am glad people feel so confident that we’ll match up well with MSU. I’m circling that game (or two, or three) as a barometer of success. We should have a huge experience advantage, after all.
You can feel free to cower in fear.
Well the last 3 years every B1G champ has suffered some type of serious injury. Michigan with McGary, Wisconsin with Jackson and IU with Blackmon Jr. It’s cliché but it’s also the truth guys just need to step up play and perform. Nobody feels sorry for a team that has an injury. Did you feel bad for Indiana when they were without Blackmon Jr at Crisler this year?
Not one of those guys were even close to the most important player on their respective rosters. None of the three injuries have the same magnitude of impact as losing Caris. Maybe if the losses were Stauskas, Kaminsky, Yogi, then this would all fit under one “narrative.” And that’s ignoring that we also lost Spike.
Serious questions–where would Jackson have ranked in terms of players at Wisconsin last year? Do you honestly think it would have been above Kaminsky, Dekker or Hayes at least, and maybe Gasser and Koenig as well? And do you think that if you had told IU fans pre-season that they had to lose a front line player, they wouldn’t have chosen Blackmon before any of Yogi, Williams or Bryant? How does this remotely compare with LeVert, who was beyond question Michigan’s best player?
I would probably put Jackson ahead of Hayes at the start of the year and that’s what matters because you can’t predict who gets injured. Hayes had a nice frosh season but Jackson was probably still more valuable. Koenig was just coming off his freshman season as well so a senior in the backcourt would be more valuable than 2 soon to be sophmores imo. That team had depth though something Michigan didn’t have or chose not to utilize. Yes IU fans probably would have picked Blackmon. I love these discussions though as if to minimize the talent of a player to point to a couple others players who might be more talented. Back in 14 I bet McGary was viewed as more important to the team going into the year than Stauskas. Heck you could have made the point that Stauskas was 3rd behind GRIII as well because nobody knew at the time what Stauskas was going to do.
The LeVert loss hurt them but the remaining players like a 5 star recruit in Irvin, and a few 4 stars like Walton/Donnal/Chatman had the opportunity to fill the void. The thing is basketball is littered with teams that have faltered due to an injury and have rose to the occasion despite injury. That’s up to the players and how they respond.
We should probably just agree that the other is following their own “narrative.” Youve made it clear what you think the “Caris injury” excuse-narrative is, and you seem to follow the “good teams thrive despite injuries” narrative, which seems to pick and choose points and valued examples. It’s fine, agree to disagree.
If you’re saying that we had less room for error because our roster wasn’t as talented as other teams who rose above, that’s true. If you want to point to recruiting issues as the reason for that, that’s true as well. LeVert’s injury does not “excuse” recruiting issues. It does, however, explain many of the problems we ran into given the roster we had. Wisconsin had 2 first rounders 3 potentially with Hayes) after their loss of Jackson. Michigan in '14 had a first and a second rounder and LeVert who was expected to be a first rounder as well after their loss of McGary. IU had a future first rounder (Bryant) and 2 more draft picks after their loss of Blackmon. Michigan this year had no likely draft choices after their loss of LeVert. If you see those as even remotely equivalent situations in terms of teams “stepping up” and overcoming adversity, you’re entitled, but I strenuously disagree.
This is my point some of these issues could be eradicated if there was better recruiting, certain players developed or haven’t developed. I guess a good example would even be Indiana yes they lost Blackmon, they also lost Noah Vonleh early to the NBA and replaced him with Bryant. I still don’t believe Michigan has accounted for losing Levert even going into this year unless people believe Watson is going to be another Levert not highly recruited and will surprise and become a great player. Maybe some players who have upside will look at themselves in the mirror and ask if they truly gave a good effort last year consistently and what can be done to change that.
Exactly. In 2013-14, we were blown out by Duke, lost to Charlotte, and needed a crazy good comeback to beat FSU in overtime.
Then we went 15-3 in conference play and grabbed a #2 seed.
But yeah, because we hadn’t come together by the Xavier and SMU games (no Walton in that one, either), we weren’t going to be good all year, don’t you know?
They were down by 6 to Duke with 9 minutes left it might have ended up that way but they were competitive for 30+ minutes. They also took on number 1 Arizona and had a very close loss.
LA honest question what would you think of Michigan in 15-16 if Levert had a healthy 14-15 and left to go early? Since you want to play the what if game this question is fair game.
Hard to say. I think we would have been much, much better this year with a healthy Irvin. And if Caris were healthy in 2014/15, I feel pretty confident we make the tourney (albeit, around an 8 seed), and in all likelihood it would have helped our 2016 recruiting.
Well, your disgust in the lack of talent on the roster is well noted. If we have a roster as good as anybody else in the conference, what does that say about the other Big Ten coaches? Shouldn’t their rosters be better considering how much crap you’ve given ours?