Coach B's recruiting

Recruiting
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I know he’s been slammed pretty hard on here but I actually thinks he’s done a good job. That 2014 class is pretty stacked. Have we missed on our five star blue chip targets, yes. If you look at who he came away with though he has a real nice group. Robinson, Dawkins, and maar is real nice Doyle chatman and Wilson all have a shot still to have an impact.

You can’t have such a deep roster and say his recruiting has been bad. This class coming in has a lot of potential too. Something about Simpson leads me to believe he will be great. I think the style of player he brought in will mesh well with what we got. Some tough defensive types you might normally see with izzo

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I know everyone is disappointed in are high profile misses but if they play well this year and next yeAr which I’m sure we will with All these guys as upper class men, then they will land that 5 star that will put this group over the top. I like his targets this year too particularly Kyle young. Something like Simpson screams winner/ toughness.

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I’m a little thrown off why he hasn’t offered the Instate boys yet from Grand Rapids and Saginaw. I didn’t like how late he offered the kid from Flint who is going to MSU.

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Beilein went after both Green and Valentine very hard before Izzo offered, and they turned out to be two best players Izzo had in last 8 years. I am sure that Beilein does not hesitate to offer instate kids if he sees potential and fit.

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Denzel’s dad talked him into visiting Michigan. They were blown away, but the MSU ties were too strong. Mom said “no way.” We ended up with Stauskas instead, who was a similarly ranked recruit. There’s a story about Denzel and Harris at the FF watching Michigan play. One of them was reported to have said, “Guess I went to the wrong school.”

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Beilein runs the program in a squeaky clean fashion and puts him in disadvantage in the very dirty recruiting business. He compensates such advantage by finding underrated players from well-off families. That said, while JB is exceptionally good in finding gems for the backcourt and wings, his recruitment and evaluation of the bigs is very average at the best. Another factor is how JB uses the big in his parameter oriented offense, which deters many post-up players, e.g. Udoh.

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I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy that excuse for the majority of recruits. Sure it affects us with a few of the top players, but I doubt that most of the top 100 guys are committing to schools just because they play dirty.

I think the era of excuses for Michigan recruiting is over. It obviously did not stop the staff from their stellar recruiting in 2011/12. We now have the facilities, the recent track record of success, the proven development of NBA players, the academics, etc.

There is really nothing holding back the staff from recruiting at a higher level than their own recruiting abilities. They simply just need to do a better job on the recruiting trail.

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In some cases it is cheating. Why all of a sudden are LSU and Auburn recruiting top 10 classes? In some cases it’s because most one and dones have priorities that don’t match up with what we offer. Not interested in school, just max exposure, minimal class work, social life, etc. Some don’t have the grades for Michigan. Just biding time playing college ball until eligible for the draft. Some are amenable and don’t assume one and done, have the academics, are coachable and unselfish. If an elite big meets those criteria, we will recruit him. But so will every other elite program. I haven’t looked at which top 30 bigs in the last few classes might have fallen into the “recruitable” category. Not many, I’d guess.

Beilein this week said that he will take a less talented kid who is a good teammate, good student, with great work ethic over a higher ranked kid without those qualities. He said sometimes it works out, sometimes not. It is what it is. If “better recruiter” means compromising on that, you won’t see any change. I believe that Beilein and his staff will do everything they can to recruit the most talented kids available who are a good fit.

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We’re not going to be regularly pulling in Top 25 kids - though Beilein’s pushed further into contact that range than I ever expected. I figured we wouldn’t ever get contact with them.

He recruits well in the Top 50-100 range. And that’s fine. I think he needs to change the type of players he gets for the frontcourt.

My biggest issue is style of play/demeanor of the players he brings in. I do wish he would push harder for top talent because he’s a great coach and I think he could do more special things if he had the guns to do it.

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It’s amazing how one bad year, in which our best two players were injured following a ton of early departures, brings up all the old complaints and the old complaints. Let’s remember, in the past four years, Michigan has two Big Ten titles. In the past three years, Michigan has gone to the final game and an elite 8. Michigan has put 5 players into the NBA the last three years. Last year was bad, in large part for the stated reasons. This year isn’t over, and people ignore that LeVert and Walton were coming back from injuries, Zak was just finished rehabbing his back, Duncan hadn’t played D1 before, Spike was coming back then was gone, etc. This team has the potential to have quite a good season and do a lot of good things.

People are already sounding the alarm over next year but a perimeter of Walton, Irvin, Robinson, Dawkins, and MAAR will put us at a serious advantage over most teams. The bigs, who all have at least two more years of eligibility after this one, will have another year to develop, and let’s see what Donnal does the rest of the year. Meanwhile, we are bringing in a top-75 overall/top-10 PG and a four-star center from Ohio who had an OSU offer. Those are really good gets. Plus we are bringing in a guard/wing with an Indiana offer, and if Stauskas, LeVert, Hardaway, Dawkins, Duncan Robinson, even MAAR, don’t convince you that Watson is going to be at the least a good B1G player (remembering only Nik had anything ranking appreciably better than Watson), then we’ll just have to wait and see. And re: Davis, we’ve seen how valuable a wide-body with good hands and decent touch can be to this offense. Sure, it would have been nice to have Battle or Langford, and with a little different luck, or if JB had been willing to allow “overcommitments” – something most other coaches would for those talents – we could’ve.

Jordan Poole looks like a great get.

JB seems to be willing and able to tweak his recruiting. Teske is more of a shotblocker than we’ve had. We’ve offered some of the “2nd tier” guys maybe a little earlier than in the past couple years. JB has talked about the concern of having too many “nice guys on the court.” But overall, it’s a pretty great time to be a UM hoops fan, with a lot of success, a fun style, all with one of the cleanest programs in college basketball. JB and co have earned the benefit of the doubt for now.

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Exactly. I see a ton of talent here. I actually think we will only be better next year. Rahkman and Dawkins are going to do big things I’m confident in this. Robinson Walton and Irvin are obvious. That hesitation lay up maar did was disgusting. I see the program stocked with guys. We are having a hard time finding minutes for Wilson who looks solid too. This program is not bare. I like the guys he’s bringing in versus what we have. I still see chatman as a possible contributor next year. Guy can handle/ pass. Maybe missing some great players but I feel like we have a ton of good with room to develop into great guys.

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I agree we arent a fit for the guaranteed one and doners, but there is a lot of room between those guys and the other 75-80 guys in the top 100 that we should have a legit shot with.

Just look at Harvard’s class last year. How did that happen?

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You obviously have not read my posts. I have never once complained about the on-court results last year. I fully understood why we struggled and said so numerous times. This is about multiple years of major recruiting misses and a pattern of recruiting failures after the NC run. How anyone can deny that is amazing to me. Does that mean the program is doomed? Of course not, but I don’t think we should expect another Final Four run anytime soon.

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I’m talking about Brian Bowen, Xavier Tillman.,they offer Miles Bridges late in the process. and have never touch bases with Josh Jackson . If you lose out on them fine but to not go hard for them at all makes zero sense.

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I’m assuming that you know about Jackson’s mom and Under Armor. That’s one reason. Tillman is 6’7" and built but not a lot of skill. Bridges was never coming to Michigan, surprised that he even visited, most likely because Winston was liking Michigan. Don’t know much about Bowen recruitment, but I’d just as soon have Young in that class. Hard nosed, on the rise, 4 year guy. Has Bowen been on campus? He transferred down to Indy.

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Didn’t stop Izzo from recruiting him ,I’m so tired of the lets concede he wasn’t coming here anyways . Jaylen Reynolds from the horses mouth Michigan never recruited me. We need a mix of skill and toughness. We have recruited a lot of so called skilled guys and missed I won’t say names bc It will get deleted. Toughest guys in the J.B Era Zach Novak, Manny Harris, D,Walt, JMO if you want to throw Mitch in there I’ll give u that,. 3 of those kids were Inner City kids . Please stop with the its hard to get in Michigan During my life I’ve seen many Detroit and Chicago kids play for the Maize and Blue. It never Stopped Amaker , Fish, Frieder, or Orr from recruiting them JB on the other hand does not…

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The team went to the finals in spring '13. The class of '13 was secured by then, but Walton, Irvin, and Donnal wouldn’t be considered misses and failures. So you’re talking about the '14 through '16 classes, I guess? Chatman was a highly sought after recruit who hasn’t panned out (yet). The same with Wilson, to a lesser degree. Dawkins and MAAR don’t look so bad. Duncan Robinson looks pretty good. We lost Kennard and Thornton to Duke and Booker to KY, ending up with Simpson and I guess Dawkins or MAAR as replacements. We kind of got unlucky with Battle/Langford and we’ll see how Watson does. Like I said, I think the staff after the run spent more time and put a bit more hope in top 25 guys, and they might actually return to offering some slightly lower-rated guys a bit earlier. I think Poole will do very, very well here.

As for a final-four run, it’s not like MSU or Wiscy last year were full of five stars, or Wiscy the year before that, or Wichita State the year before that (not to mention Michigan). People weren’t enamored with Trey or Nik or Caris or Glen or Timmy when they committed. We shall see what happens, but I’m pretty hopeful that UM has some exciting March runs over the next few years.

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Then why did the school spend millions of dollars re-doing the arena, practice facility with all the bells and whistles if they aren’t doing their best to bring in the best players?

These one and dones do you believe a guy like Ben Simmons wouldn’t be a good fit for Michigan? How about Jamal Murray?

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I wonder if you remember all the troubles under Brian Ellerbe.

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I’m sure every coach in the country would love to coach Ben Simmons and obviously he’d be a great fit at Michigan. But for some reason he’s playing his one year of basketball for Johnny Jones… (LSU just happened to hire his godfather as associate head coach… He’s been an assistant for a few years so its not beyond ridiculous, but he’s also making almost 100k more than Michigan’s assistants).