Vince Baldwin who is very tied into the family aau program and Michigan prep hoops told Sam Webb in September of his senior year Cassius Winston was coming to Michigan. Beilein lost his patience after he tried to move the official so he could go to homecoming though and the rest is history.
3 Likes
It’s kind of like Draymond. Draymond is a dick now, especially about Michigan, but Beilein offered/believed in him before Izzo. There were rumors at the time that Izzo offered Draymond to keep him from going to Michigan. Obviously the story changes after the player becomes indoctrinated into the program though. Winston is a nicer guy than Draymond, but the point is that recruiting stories get altered in hindsight.
This was even suggested by some sparty insiders at the time of his commitment. Draymond was beileins top priority as soon as he got the job while MSU was pretty wishy washy on him. Greens mom definitely wanted him at um too, I believe green even confirmed that recently.
1 Like
IIRC, Winston was Plan B for Thornton. Amazing how it’s turned out.
1 Like
I know the history and I know what people have said. I still don’t believe Cassius was ever coming to Michigan.
1 Like
Cassius was a marvelous college basketball player, but if I’m trying to decide who has more dog in them, Cassius or X, I do not spend long in coming to a conclusion. There might have been times early in Beilein’s career in A2 when MSU bullied his teams, but would that really have been true during the last four years? When we lost, it seems to me, it was for lack of talent or matchups, and there were several times we walloped (sic) them.
Were Appling and Payne still there?
I wouldn’t be blaming Winston for any of those losses. He owned us as a junior and carried the team basically, and split games as a senior. As a soph and frosh they weren’t his teams and it wasn’t his fault Nick Ward was played off the floor or that Izzo didn’t know how to use JJJ or that Bridges was an athlete who wanted to chuck long twos rather than be the attacking bully MSU wanted him to be.
I have a lot of respect for Winston. He played hard and drove us nuts with his ability, and he carried himself with a lot more class and dignity than previous Sparty leaders like Ward, Valentine and Green, who expected to bully Michigan but failed as often as they succeeded.
They were not. Would have been Valentine, Trice, Forbes, Costello, Dawson, Harris, Schilling, etc.
1 Like
I don’t know that I would say he was a Plan B. We probably would have gladly taken a commitment from either one. But then Thornton reclassified and went to Duke, and Cassius wouldn’t pull the trigger so we grabbed Xavier instead.
Derrick Walton certainly schooled him three years ago in our 86-57 win - Walton had 20/5/8, Winston had 3 points.
3 Likes
I mean…Cash played 19 minutes off the bench and Tum Tum played 30 that game. That would be like saying Cassius schooled David DeJulius this year when Cash had 32 at the Bres
I remember X discombobulating Cassius in that game with his defense,
2 Likes
I’m just responding to the suggestion that he didn’t come to Michigan because our players were too soft, and saying softness was not ever really the issue.
1 Like
I’ll have to check and see how many times Cash was guarding Walton. Either way, him calling us soft is funny given the fact that he was a defensive liability his first two years.
2 Likes
Yeah I can confirm that everything coming out of UDJ was that he was going to go to UM as well. Made a lot of sense at the time since stylistically UM is a way better fit academically and style-wise for him. But turned out that he was so good it didn’t matter. Enforced his style of gameplay on MSU eventually.
2 Likes
It is a fascinating story and would be an interesting “alternate universe” story to think about. Winston’s style fit so well with what Beilein liked to do and he would have been running 30 ball screens per game early in his career. Simpson’s hard-nose defense and relentless effort fit the Izzo approach better and it took him time to figure out how to be effective in Beilein’s system. Winston’s ball screen skills essentially forced Izzo to change his approach on offense. Simpson’s shooting limitations forced Beilein to adapt.
What happens if their roles flipped? Is Winston a Burke2.0 NBA candidate? Is Simpson TumTum2.0 who never learned to shoot?
8 Likes
I know people will scoff at bracketology in July, especially while in the middle of a pandemic, but I can never get enough! Below is the link to Lunardi’s latest projection. Michigan listed as a six seed. MSU a one seed?? They didn’t even have a one seed with Cassius, an all time great PG.
http://m.espn.com/ncb/bracketologyByRegion?&year=2021&iteration=28®ion=1&wjb=
Emoni is reclassing to 2020. He wants to play 4 years for Izzo
17 Likes
In seriousness, Torvik has them 5th right now with Tillman and Henry back. If they are both back there is certainly a path for MSU to be a 1 seed caliber team, tho it may rest with Rocket Watts.
Also, an aside, Sam Vecenie had an interesting note in his Bog Board today. He said he spoke with some NBA execs and he said if a players wants to, they can declare they’re staying but then will have a couple more weeks to declare if they want because the NBA deadline isn’t until later.
If they get Tillman and Henry back, they’ll certainly be a very good team. I don’t know if they’ll be a one seed, but I think you could look at our squad too and think “they lost X and Teske and they’re still expected to be a six seed?”
1 Like