I’m conflicted with this Oregon/Colorado game. Obviously I want Michigan’s loss to the Ducks to look as good as possible but I also detest Dana Altman and the sliminess of the Oregon basketball program.
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Ibi Watson with two beautiful looking threes tonight for Dayton and almost threw this down at the end of the first half: https://twitter.com/davidpjablonski/status/1212925320485122050?s=21
Shooting 50% from three on the year. Move was right for him, but he would be huge on the wing on this year’s team.
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Brutal road trip to Colorado. I believe Oregon has never won in Boulder since UC joined the Pac 12.
I’ve decided that I want Colorado to destroy Dana Altman and his bad haircut.
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Switched it to UCLA/Washington for a minute. Some ugly basketball on display in Seattle, specifically from the UW side of things. Jaden McDaniels looks really disinterested on defense.
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I noticed the same thing. He isn’t even putting his hands up in the zone. Did he know he was signing up to play in a zone when he committed to Washington? Haha /s
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McDaniels just got T’d up for tossing a dead ball toward a UCLA player while sitting on the bench. Four fouls with 3:00 left in the first half. It wasn’t a malicious throw nor would it have inflicted any pain but just a total bonehead move by a clearly frustrated freshman.
Michigan’s 1st Round opponent in the 2020 NCAA Tournament just improved to 3-0 in the Big Sky.
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I would take that matchup! Would have to mean we would be a 3 seed or better.
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Anyone here watch Texas basketball at all? I’m super curious about their meh defense. Lack of talent? They have the high profile recruits, but that obviously doesn’t always carry over to defense. Shaka not giving Yaklich as much control as Beilein? They’ve fallen from the low 20’s to 41 since the season started.
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I’m going to guess the coaching was overrated…
Yeah I love Yak, but I think most coaches are going to have a high level defense if they get to coach X, Teske and especially Matthews who may have been the best lockdown wing defender in the country.
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I don’t know. Looking at their profile, their main two issues seem to be bad defensive rebounding (235th in the NCAA) and a lot of free throws given up (233rd) to go along with only a decent block rate (92nd). I could see both of those being just a lack of good big men, which, looking at their roster, definitely seems to be true. Their 3PA/FGA shot way up from 82nd to 15th so that’s almost certainly a Yaklich thing.
I know it’s kind of hindsight now, but it was kind of insane how much credit Yaklich got for the defense. I’ve never seen an assistant coach get so much credit for something in basketball. I like Yaklich and think he’s a good coach, but much more credit should have been given to the players. His schemes are great (limiting 3s, forcing unassisted shots) and that seems to have carried over to Texas. But the players are still needed.
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Regarding how much credit he gets, Beilein himself constantly gave him extremely high praise, didn’t he? I thought I remember a couple quotes saying he was basically responsible for how great those teams were on D. Maybe I’m wrong.
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I’m sure he did. As he should have. Beilein likely praised the players as well. I’m just saying that I think people assumed having Yaklich meant a top 20 defense, in fact several people said that during the coaching search, and that’s obviously not the case. Like I said, Yaklich is a smart coach who coached 3 of the best defenders for their position in all of CBB. That’s a good recipe.
Yak’s more impressive feat IMO was taking a team that Duncan Robinson and Moe Wagner were top 5 in minutes played on the team and turning them into the 3rd best defense in America. Players deserve majority of the credit forsure, but that was unprecedented and happened in a season where X fluctuated from starter to bench, Teske was a backup and freshmen Livers/Poole played significant roles at times.
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The 2017-18 team was excellent defensively, but I don’t think they were #3 were they? I thought they were more like top 20. Last year was when they were rated #3. Your point still largely stands though.
17-18 was rated #3 on KenPom. 18-19 #2 on KenPom.
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Wow, I didn’t realize they ended up being that high. That’s definitely impressive. Also goes to show how big of an impact Matthews may have made.