Depth and future rotations

But Ibi has been playing the 2/3 this year, at which Nunez will be literally his only competition for playing time. Iggy and Johns are both combo forwards.

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I’m not sure that Nunez will be Ibi’s only competition for backup minutes at the 2 next year. I would hope, and I stress “hope”, that if Poole is the starter next year he’d be alleviated at the 2 by Matthews moving over there and Ignas to the 3 with Livers/Johns at the 4. Other than that I could see Brooks beating Ibi out for backup minutes at the 2. It’s just speculation but I don’t see guaranteed minutes for Ibi just by attrition next season…

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Yeah, Nunez and/ or Ibi are not the only possibilities to backup the 2.

You’re free to disagree with my “takes” without calling me an asshole and a troll. Or is that expecting too much civility from you?

So you already know what position Brazdeikis is going to be filling next year in Beilein’s offense? Wow…YOU must be the one who’s time traveling. As more than one person (and not me) on this board has noted, he’s capable of playing anywhere from the 2 to the 4.

And seriously…could you do a lamer job of cherry-picking stats? You failed to answer any of the points I made about Watson’s contribution and progress this year. Whatever stats he has managed to post were mainly in blowouts, and mainly against very weak NC competition. In the Big Ten, he’s played a total of 21 minutes in 12 games, and scored a total of 3 baskets. He is not shooting 37.5% on threes against teams with a pulse, when it matters. He has not been a significant contributor in any game this year, and he has not improved as the season has gone on. Those are simply facts. If you’re going to let your personal animosity towards me motivate you to keep denying them, go ahead, but you won’t look good doing it.

I just haven’t seen enough of a handle from Ibi to think he can give us meaningful minutes at the two. But I could be wrong.

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Teske would be another - he averaged 3 minutes a game last year, had numerous DNPs, and made one shot all season.

It would be really nice if you two PM’d fought instead of sharing it with all. I have zero interest in your spat

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Coach Beilein gave a good recap of why he’s recruiting small guards.
Paraphrasing: “when you have a guard like Nate Mason; with the shot clock; with how quickly they are calling fouls; you can stay in any game”
A little later on Minnesota’s guards… “they have what we need to go and continue to recruit is guys that can make tough two’s”

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Yea I don’t see it either for Ibi without a DJ like leap. He may get passed over by another set of freshmen Wings next year.

So in other words, he wants a Trey Burke or Derrick Walton. As much as I love MAAR and Z, that is a huge missing piece to this years team is somebody who can put that pull up 2 in somebody’s face.

This quote does somewhat surprise me in that those long 2’s don’t seem to be what Beilein wants. Plus I think that gives credit to Pitino, when he deserves no credit. His offense consists of “go play”. Look at how confused they were with our zone!

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Coach Beilein doesn’t want those long twos, simply conceding with time clock constraints, you’re going to have to take them on some possessions; good if you have somebody on your team that can make them.

Poole is candidate 1A on this roster. Matthews is another possibility. Doesn’t have to be a small guard, but small guards often have the ability to get enough separation to get shot up with clock running down. DeJulius looks very capable.

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I have never thought of Walton as someone who was good at making difficult 2’s, certainly not good over his career at finishing anywhere around the rim. He sees the importance of having more guys like MAAR, Burke, Morris—at least that was my takeaway. (I suspect Poole and Iggy are of the “able to make difficult 2’s” type.)

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Was gonna say. For one thing he was injured; it was only toward the end of the season that he became fearless again and started consistently making those tough layups. We’ve got two guys that do it with real consistency.

I’m not much of a Pitino fan, but I don’t think his team being put off their game by our zone defense is entirely coaching. Look how long it took Michigan to adjust to Northwestern’s zone last week.

I’m almost certain a Michigan zone was NOT on Pitino’s scouting report. But we did play it pretty darn well considering it’s not a primary defense for us. Once they DID figure it out they got some easy dump offs for layups, but it sure changed the momentum of the game in our favor, thankfully!

He’s not as tall as DJ Wilson.

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I think any references to Walton, that dont explicitly refer to his first 3.5 years, now reference his post-Illinois prowess and production. Golden God Walton was canning pull-up 3s and 2s, with nasty crossovers and hesitation moves creating separation; and he was doing it a Burke-level, if not higher, efficiency.

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Fair enough. Those were a very good couple of months.

Yeah, and some of those “tough twos” can actually be tough threes – Walton, last year, was very good on making his pull up jumpers behind the line instead of a couple feet in front of it. We’ll likely see that from Poole and guys like DeJulius going forward.

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I mean if he keeps posting his hot takes I’m going to keep pointing out why they’re wrong lol. But yeah, if it’s gonna continue to be made personal for whatever reason I too would rather not clutter the forum.

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