Plus, I have huge concerns for next year too…
Rankings aside, I think we can all finally accept that we need a HUGE injection of athleticism to the roster irrelevant of rankings. Our overall team speed is SEVERELY lacking. Skill is great and all, but at the end of the day its just hard to compete when the guy across from you is bigger, faster, stronger, and just more explosive.
Definitely.
Gotta admire a guy who disappears when things aren’t going his way and reappears when they are. Takes courage. I’ll look forward to you disappearing when things turn around again.
By the way, 12’-13’ wasn’t an “aberration” when the year before we won the B1G and the year after we won the B1G and went to the Elite 8.
Keep on smiling!
Disappears when things aren’t going his way…complete BS. I stuck around throughout all the elite years, did not disappear until things went south (which would be going my way according to your logic). In other words, you are just flat out lying in order to push your personal dislike of my opinions/views. Also, I didn’t necessarily leave because I wanted to, left because no matter what I said it was quite obvious that a decent faction of folks were pre-disposed to disagree whether there was merit/objectivity to my views…in retrospect I think a decent faction of those same people would likely admit I was being objective in light of recent developments.
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So a person makes a carefully thought out, extensive post with research and all you can do is call him out? I could go for more posts like MattD’s and less threads of trying to call people out.
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A simple observation: MattD’s post correlates players’ value with their HS rankings. What JB was getting celebrated for until recently was his skill in identifying LOW-RANKED players and getting them to succeed, including going to the NBA. There is no denying these teams would have done better without the success/injuries. Argue till blue in the face and you won’t convince thinking people otherwise.
The skill v athleticism ? is more interesting–JB actually plays a fluid pro style, with his own wrinkles, that players should love to be part of, and word was that they DID until the last few years. It takes a certain degree of hoops IQ/acumen that maybe some players who have relied on athleticism alone have not developed. A tension there.
Beilein has two more years to get it right. If he fails next year, immediate improvement of considerable scale will be necessary. I agree that the current group of players looks to be at disadvantage compared to MSU or Indiana in terms of players. Beilein has done more with less before; I also agree that he needs to do more with MORE (maybe Manuel can help on this front)–let’s see what happens.
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I agree that JB plays an NBA style to a certain extent, especially with high PnR, but that’s about as far as it goes. JB is not mismatch oriented in the same manner as the NBA. In other words, NBA teams will simply identify a mismatch and literally go to that mismatch every play until the opposition makes an adjustment. Can’t blame JB for not running his system that way, because college teams simply don’t do that for the most part. College ball is much more about off ball movement and integrating the entire team. In the NBA, each player has a defined role for the most part. Personally, I think the NBA approach is more effective, but that’s not the way things are done in college.
Where JB really lacks in terms of NBA comparison is the lack of athleticism, in particular the frontcourt. If you’re going to play 4 out, 1 in, you better have a damn good perimeter defense or and at least 1 very good/elite rebounder.
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I wonder how much the 30 second shot clock throws off JB’s offense.
Sometimes it seems like it takes us too long to get the ball down the floor, then we do pointless rotation passes across the top, dog through the first cut or two, and BAM we’re down to the last 8 seconds really fast.
Seemed like previously we could run through more of the offense without being rushed, fewer turnovers, etc. More possessions plays to the advantage of athletic teams IMO.
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This is an excellent point, I was probably amongst the minority that thought a shorter clock would adversely impact us. I don’t have any concrete data to back that up, but its just a hunch.
Totally agree about the off ball movement, we simply don’t cut hard in the least bit. Don’t know if its lack of speed/mobility, or just players not going hard…but there certainly needs to be a change in that regard.
I know alot complain about our bigs and their screen setting. While I will never say we are above average in that regard, I think our perimeter players are worse at setting up and utilizing the screens. Just not sharp or smart at all.
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I am certainly an optimist when it comes to my basketball team, and I probably support JB even more than I do the team. I thoroughly enjoy having a coach who runs offensive sets and has morals. I am not too proud to admit that I am in the camp that believes it is hard to get elite talent without breaking rules or caring if the kid is ‘actually’ capable of passing college classes.
That being said, I appreciate how thorough your post was. It makes me sick to see people clamoring for JB’s head, when they’re simply frustrated with the here and now. JB’s prior–and in every sense of the word, recent–successes have already been forgotten in favor of the past two seasons’ failures; the shortcomings are now the “flavor of the month.” What I like about your post, is it is an attempt to look beyond this season, analyze trends, and thoughtfully project the future. I dont agree with many of your points, but I at least think they were well thought out.
The recruiting definitely hurts. If we were playing with Jaylen Brown and Coleman-Lands right now, then we aren’t on the bubble. And not only are we not on the bubble for this year, but we would be feeling better about next year’s roster AND carrying ‘recruiting momentum.’ And as much as I love JB, I do believe he is largely the reason that we aren’t landing the elite guys; I think he is the reason because of his moral and academic standards.
Despite the lack of new talent that has been accumulated over the last 3 years, I am still optimistic about next year. We will have an experienced team and the same roster that played this B1G’s season. JB deserves his knocks in terms of recruiting, and disagreeing with his scheme is a matter of personal preference, but one thing that you cannot deny is that JB develops players. I dont want to sell Trey, Nik, and Caris short, but I honestly think that a large part of their personal success is because they were being coached by one of the great player-developers in the game. Similarly, players like Novak, JMo, MAAR, Tim, and Spike have all been molded into players that no one thought they could be. So, I think that we are in a great position to return chemistry and minutes, and be a better team, next year. Also, I think that Xavier Simpson is a stud and Ibi could inject some controlled athleticism (Aubrey is a good example of someone who thinks their vertical is a good enough reason to get minutes and buckets).
However, with all of my optimism and JB-fanboy love, I think anything, for next year, other than a top 4 B1G finish, an extremely obvious NCAA bid, and at least one NCAA win, should raise red flags. JB has the roster and the consistency (from one year to the next) to implement his system and instill his philosophy. Barring another plague of injuries (I am in the camp that believe’s last year’s team should be disregarded), JB NEEDS to be successful next year. If he is as successful as I listed above, then I think he absolutely deserves to feel secure in his job.
My last question, for those who think Michigan needs to step away from JB and press the “refresh” button, who would be better for the job? I think there’s a chance that Lavall would step in. But it sounds like the best reason to fire JB is recruiting, so I want to know which replacement would bring a big enough upgrade in recruiting to justify firing one of the great, respected coaches and people in the sport.
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In trying to figure out why our team is so ineffective I really think it revolves around the fact that we do not have anybody that is good at high pick n roll. In the beginning of the year I blamed our bigs for setting horrible screens. The screens got better. Our guards are not very good at a) shooting off the dribble after the screen is set and the defense is under the screen; b) finding the roll man; c) finding the cutter; d) taking it to the rim and finishing; e) keeping the dribble alive and getting and/or getting out of trouble after over penetrating. The problem is that in order for a guard to be effective at high ball screens they need to be good at least some of these things. Burke and Stauskas were good at all of these things. Walton is pretty bad at all of these things. Irvin is ok at some of these things…Levert proved, this year to be pretty good at some of these things but got injured. Spike is pretty good at some of these things but ditto. Can a lot of our struggles be due to the fact that Walton and Irvin just aren’t prepared to execute the high pick n roll?
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oops, meant for Bacon, but I think our struggles with the 30 second clock are related. Walton always seems to take the path of least resistance when coming around a screen. Irvin, although sometimes has impressive results, probes after a high screen at a snail’s pace.
The drop in high PnR productivity is definitely a huge reason for the step back offensively. I think that Caris would’ve put up Valentine-like numbers, if he stayed healthy, because he looked primed to own the PnR and ISO. To get better next year, we need Walton, Irvin, MAAR and (maybe) X Simpson to become good PnR players.
I think that the even bigger problem, though, is our 3pt shooting. Our offense and shooting, by the raw numbers, still look okay because we played a soft non-conference schedule but also because we were scorching the nets. Some of the drop off in shooting can be due to an increase in competition and because we dont have the PnR facilitator to make sure we are taking wide-open 3 after wide-open 3. But we have also just been missing open shots. JB’s system has been doing what it is meant to do, get open 3s, but the guys havent been knocking them down. I think it is a bit of a wildcard, because I thin a lot of it is mental, but if we can get back to being a “good shooting team” then a lot of the offensive woes will start to go away.
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It might be that I just don’t have faith in our players as shooters but, when watching this years team, I have been very underwhelmed by the functioning of the offense to get “the shots we want” on the perimeter on a consistent basis. To me, a very high percentage of our perimeter looks, especially from three point land were of the type that are available at any moment of the game. Very ugly basketball in my mind. Kind of like watching an open gym with guys who have never played together before. I don’t see the offense operating well. I see guys jacking up 3’s when they are sort of open but not really. Just my opinion.
The problems with the pick n roll on this roster is that we don’t have guys who can consistently finish at the rim. In my eyes, MAAR is the closest to be able to do that and he disappears in games. Most teams stay on our shooters and the big rotates to him and when he gets doubled in the lane he turns it over quite often. Irvin, Dawkins, Robinson, and chatman all have the ability to attack the rim but it’s clear as day they’re all missing a key part. Whether it be strength, verticality, handling or quickness, one of them is missing a key attribute in attacking. Most of the time we run the pick n roll to get open 3s with no real threat to go at the rim. Now, it has worked in a few games, the only games donnal has played well when he gets wide open layups but when you look at the games we struggle greatly, our pick n roll is no where near where it needs to be to consistently play with good teams. Simpson is rather small so I don’t see him improving that a whole lot but maybe ibi can grow into a great pick n roll player or we are going to struggle again be tear the same way we are now. Here’s to hoping this offseason does wonders for our players.
Problem is two fold - lack of personnel that can finish at the rim (Walton, Irvin) and lack of personnel that can hit midrange off the bounce when hedging big plays it soft (Walton, Irvin is inconsistent). In order to create the pressure on the defense to commit one way or another you need to have players that are a threat to do at least one of those things at all times. Caris was vastly improved on the midrange J off the bounce this year, which created a true threat. Without him, all we had was Zak hitting Donnal, and once teams adjusted it was over.
On the bright side, Xavier is fully competent in shooting the midrange J off the bounce, especially from the right elbow. Additionally, he already has a reliable floater from 6-12 feet.
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Xavier Simpson is a major bright side. I’m not ready to say that he will be a better/more productive player than Cash Winston, but he is closer to the type of player that the fanbase has been calling for: a tough leader, passionate, and defensive effort.
I also have reserved optimism that Ibi Watson will land somewhere between Aubrey and Zak: more athletic than Zak but more refined than Aubrey.
I am also optimistic about Simpson. I like his film better than Winston’s. Even against high school competition, Winston’s athleticism was underwhelming. In at least one video, Winston could only get separation for his step-back jumper by very obviously pushing off. That said, Winston has a great feel for the game, is a very smart player, and shoots well. He just does not seem like an Izzo point guard.
All that said, had we secured Winston’s commitment, Bridges would not be going to State (UK would be his landing spot), and I doubt Josh Jackson would be as interested as he is. So even though I think getting Simpsons over Winston makes us marginally better, I think that whole sequence might have made State a lot better.
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