Jeff Goodman has never been shy about hyping Michigan… but let’s get the discussion started.
“With return of Caris LeVert, I’d have Michigan as a Preseason Top 10 team next season. Return just about everyone. Health is key, though.”
“With return of Caris LeVert, I’d have Michigan as a Preseason Top 10 team next season. Return just about everyone. Health is key, though.”
I believe they have the potential to be in the top 10 range but probably not to start the season. Now if we still pull Jaylen Brown on to the team than yes I would say we definitely could start in that range. Without probably will be in the top 20 to begin and potential to move up. Health and development will be the key.
To me the keys: Walton and LeVert staying healthy;
Some smart play and solid contributions from Chatman or someone else at the 4; as much development as possible on D and with rebounding from Doyle. Beyond that, if LeVert, Irvin, and Walton keep up the intensity as much as possible and play at their potential for almost all the season, we’ll have a solid year.
I’d say a 20-30 type team at this point…just too many unknowns in the frontcourt. With Brown, top 10 no doubt.
20-30 range sounds about right… Definitely some unknowns and there are going to be a lot of moving parts. Front court worries me, certainly not top ten caliber.
Dylan I assume by moving pieces you mean possible transfers, medical, and recruiting of Brown and Williams. I’m going to say Williams will go somewhere he can play immediately and not come off the bench as he would in AA with Caris return. If we still get Brown what would you see as a reasonable expectation?
No I meant more in terms of roles, etc. You are adding five guys to the team that finished out last year. Those guys that finished the year are going to go from playing a lot of minutes to not as many. Moritz Wagner and DJ Wilson – no one is quite sure what to expect.
As for Jaylen Brown and/or Kenny Williams, that’s more of a separate issue that we can get to if something happens. If you add Jaylen Brown to the mix then I can understand the top ten talk. But that’s still a big if.
Agreed completely. Should be a interesting few weeks coming up.
Our starting lineup goes from
Spike MAAR Dawkins Irvin Doyle to
Walton LeVert Irvin Doyle ???
a complete new look.
Our starting lineup goes from Spike MAAR Dawkins Irvin Doyle to Walton LeVert Irvin Doyle ?????? a complete new look.
Our 2nd five could realistically be better than our starting 5 was at the end of last season.
Jeff Goodman has never been shy about hyping Michigan... but let's get the discussion started.https://twitter.com/GoodmanESPN/status/590533816143360000
“With return of Caris LeVert, I’d have Michigan as a Preseason Top 10 team next season. Return just about everyone. Health is key, though.”
Hilarious reading how pissed off people get about that tweet.
I'd say a 20-30 type team at this point..............just too many unknowns in the frontcourt. With Brown, top 10 no doubt.
I think that’s fair. People forget about how average this team looked last year even with Levert, Walton, Irvin on the court together. They didn’t run any type of offense it was a lot of iso stuff and none of those guys are great at getting the ball to the hoop.
Now out depth chart looks like
PG Walton, Albrecht
SG LeVert, MAAR
SF Irvin, Dawkins
PF Anyone could start here Chatman, Robinson, Wagner, wilson
C Doyle, Donnal
Great point ASF. Hopefully those 3 run the actually offense because if they do it could be potent.
I think some of the offensive struggles we saw at the beginning of last year can be contributed to guys adjusting to roles and freshman playing so much. LeVert becoming the alpha dog, Zak becoming a starter and more than just a specialty role guy as he was the yr before, Walton having to take a greater role in the offense and not just be a setup guy, and of course the freshman adjusting to the college game. As things were hopefully smoothing out the injury bug started hitting us. Hopefully it will be a much smoother transition this year as I think everyone has had plenty of time to understand their roles.
Now out depth chart looks like PG Walton, Albrecht SG LeVert, MAAR SF Irvin, Dawkins PF Anyone could start here Chatman, Robinson, Wagner, wilson C Doyle, Donnal
On the video recently posted on umhoops, Beilein said Robinson can play three positions, the one, two, and three.
Waltob’s health was an issue from the Villanova game forward, but more importantly everyone else really grew up. Early in the season Michigan (and LeVert) didn’t really trust any of those guys to make plays or the right reads and cuts. Now you can slot in Aubrey or MAAR and have a lot more confidence in them.
I tend to be pretty bullish with this program, and have generally, though not always, been reasonably fulfilled, though it depends on what “expectations” mean. If everyone’s healthy, being able to run out Walton, LeVert, and Irvin will be pretty good, and you’d have Spike in the backcourt too. You’d have the option of putting Dawkins at the other wing. The nice thing will be a lot of options. I think Chatman will improve greatly and contribute a lot at the 4, but you also have Robinson, Wagner, maybe Wilson. The biggest question for me will be center. Can Doyle and/or Donnal take a step, and how big?
It’s easy to forget with how things turned out that after 7 games we were 6-1 with a neutral court victory over Oregon, which finished 13-5 in the Pac-12 and gave Wiscy a good battle in the round of 32, a win against 'Cuse (who ended a little down due to injury and probably sanctions, but we a decent team), and went toe to toe in Brooklyn with a 1-seed. We can never know what would’ve happened if injuries hadn’t decimated the team. With another year of experience – a pretty big thing, hopefully, with so many freshmen, including the bigs – some more options, and better health, it would not surprise me at all if we ended up in the top 10. But neither Walton nor LeVert (nor Wilson) have played a game in months, Spike just had one surgery and may have another, all the freshmen were pretty up and down, we haven’t seen Wagner or Robinson against D-1 comp, etc. I “expect” – i.e,. tend to think – that enough things will work out that UM will be pretty good, and there’s a decent chance that UM will be very good, but there are a bunch of uncertainties, and last year reminded us that bad luck can strike repeatedly.
Of course, if we do land Brown, all bets are off.
Waltob's health was an issue from the Villanova game forward, but more importantly everyone else really grew up. Early in the season Michigan (and LeVert) didn't really trust any of those guys to make plays or the right reads and cuts. Now you can slot in Aubrey or MAAR and have a lot more confidence in them.
I guess the next question is if Aubrey and MAAR can succeed with smaller roles this upcoming year. This year there was zero pressure on them to play because of the injuries. With guys back can these guys carve out a completely different role than they had last year? I doubt you see Aubrey and MAAR out on the court with the 3 vets consistently.
As I assumed, Levert has no influence on Williams.
HS coach of top-100 PG Kenny Williams tells MLive that LeVert's return has no impact on Williams' interest in U-M. http://t.co/6IkPOkW8m8
— Brendan F. Quinn (@BFQuinn) April 21, 2015