At least he doesn’t need surgery. I just hope it isn’t another year like the one Caris, D Walton and Spike went down.
If Franz would have been playing through rookie mistakes in November, won’t he now be playing through them in January? And isn’t January a much more difficult time to allow for rookie mistakes?
The doom and gloom seems a bit overdone here. This team has talent and will win some games. All that matters is the NCAA tournament and the Bigten. I don’t see us missing a beat in the NCAA tournament and the Bigten really kicks off in Jan. I am not even sure if he was a starter in November. I was fully expecting Teske, Johns, Livers, Brooks and Simpson to start. DDJ, Nunez and Castleton off the bench. It means more time for Nunez at the 3 probably.
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The Big Ten doesn’t kick off in January. Our two games at the beginning of December are against two of the top 7-8 teams in the league - Iowa and @Illinois. I’d think they still beat Iowa, but don’t want to start off 0-2. And gotta make the NCAA tourney in order to not miss a beat. Hopefully Brooks, Dejulius, Nunez, Bajema and Johns are ready for the prime time because some of them are going to log heavy minutes without Wagner. Need to win some of the resume building nonconference games.
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If this team doesn’t make the NCAA tourney, we have much bigger issues than Franz. This team is a legit top 25 team (I don’t care what the AP poll says). If we don’t make the tournament, it speaks a lot more about Juwan and it will cause me a lot of concern. There aren’t many teams with the experience and talent at 3 starting positions. Additionally, I believe Johns and Castleton will be significant producers and have big seasons. We need some other 2nd and 3rd year guys like DDJ, Eli and Nunez to step up. Not necessarily all 3…just 1 or 2 of them to step up. I guess I wasn’t seeing Franz as a big difference maker in November.
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It seems to me like you may be overvaluing the returning players (outside of the Big 3) and undervaluing Franz’s contribution. To be honest, I expected Franz to be one of the team’s leading scorers. Other than Livers, they don’t have many proven shooters on the team. Hopefully Nunez or Bajema step up in that role, but they are far less of a sure thing than Wagner. It is so important to surround Simpson with shooters or else the offense may struggle. Franz is also supposed to be an excellent passer. Martelli raved about his passing. I think he will be a big missing piece while he is out and recovering.
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I don’t mean to dismiss Franz. I am of the belief that he would acclimate over time and improve as the year went on. Missing 6 weeks will slow that progression. I do agree on the shooters being required. That said, DDJ is a shooter. Nunez is a shooter. One of those 2 need to step up. Better now than later for the injury. Early season in basketball is much easier to overcome losses than it is in football.
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No way that this isn’t a blow. Fortunately, Franz is a pretty seasoned kid, so may reintegrate more quickly than some kids would. But with him Michigan was starting to shape up as a team with a solid starting cadre; without him, as Dylan points out, room for flexibility–indeed, any plan for ‘positionless play’–becomes considerably more limited. An injury can always carry silver linings if other players step up; we have to hope that they do.
For me, Juwan will be playing with house money this year. I’ll be one of those weirdos not calling for his head until he’s at least a few seasons in. I regret Franz’s injury, though, because the chances of really overachieving in the early part of the season have taken a hit.
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One possibility I haven’t seen mentioned yet re Wagner’s absence –
This could be just the opportunity Austin Davis has been waiting for!
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Was Franz anticipated to start? I ask this as I haven’t been keeping up with this site lately. For how bad we feel, MSU lost Langford again. They have more holes to fill than we do and they are ranked number 1.
Nothing was for certain but based on how our wing talent looked, you would expect a borderline 5 star to start.
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As I wrote yesterday, at Media Day it sounded like Franz was probably in position as a 6th man considering that he was repping the same position as Isaiah. Don’t think starting was out of the question at some point.
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I assume he would be starting sooner or later. I just didn’t expect it sooner. That said, I know his defense was better than expected which helps. He is going to need to guard a SG and he is 6’9 ish. I wasn’t sure he would be able to handle the 2 defensively. That was 1 of my concerns. So if you slide him to the 3, then Johns needs to sit. Johns is also a highly ranked kid who is in year 2. I expected him to start. What is the biggest issue is depth. Franz would have probably rotated into the 3 as much as the 2 spot. Now we need someone to back up Livers. It is why I believe Nunez is going to get more playing time in the short term. Don’t take my comments as under appreciating Franz. I just had a different perspective of his development and I don’t worry about the month of November as much as the months of Jan through March/April.
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MSU has more holes to fill than Michigan? I’m not sure I follow. Michigan literally has 3 returning players who have showed anything of note. Based on your optimism, do you have some inside knowledge that Michigan’s unproven guys are going to take a big step forward this year?
I like Dejulius and Johns, but I haven’t seen anything at the college level that makes me feel they are ready to be difference makers. Castleton I’m optimistic about, but he plays the same position as Teske and Teske will command heavy minutes. If Castleton plays the 4 (especially with Wagner out), I worry about floor spacing. Nunez is basically only a stand still shooter and he hasn’t shown yet that he can hit 3s in game. All of these guys could make jumps, but I don’t think you can predict that at this point.
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Simpson, Teske, Livers
Cassius, Tillman, Henry
Who am I missing from MSU that is a sure fire player? Gabe Brown?
Kithier is probably a starter and they will need to start someone in place of Langford.
Foster Loyer is going to have to play. This just doesn’t seem like a prohibitive number 1 team. A top 10 team…yes.
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Yeah, everyone’s been talking from jump about the flexibility Franz could give Michigan. It’s like losing 1 1/2 guys. And–of course–having a really talented sixth man, an agile tall who can fill multiple spots. . . Hopefully he’ll come back healthy, soon, and prove a huge boon to the whole operation.
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Sure Brown, Kithier and Ahrens haven’t shown to be superstars or anything, but they have shown more so far than anyone on Michigan’s roster outside of the 3 main guys. And they don’t need to be superstars either with a PG like Winston drawing so much attention. They just need to hit open shots that will inevitably come like it did for McQuaid and Goins.
I love the optimism, but to make it seem like Michigan and MSU are almost on the same level this year is a bit disingenuous. I’m excited to see some of Michigan’s guys in action though and hopefully we get some real surprises.
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A PG of Cassius Winston’s caliber returning to school is pretty unprecedented in recent college basketball history. When you can count on >30% USG from a sure fire 1st team AA, having even two other players you think will be all-conference level players puts your team at a pretty crazy level.
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Sure, mostly agreed. But Franz shouldn’t be the difference between making the tourney and not. If Juwan is a good coach then Z/Teske/Livers/assorted pieces should be sufficient to make the tourney. For this year at least we still expect this team to win more with defense than offense. Maybe that’s why Brooks seems to be pencilled in as a starter right now, or maybe he’s that incumbent upperclassman that the coaches expect will be beaten out by January by a talented freshman. Sounds like the process will be just slower. That sucks in terms of tournament resume and maybe costs us a seed line or two, but reasonable expectations are that it shouldn’t suck much more than that. Maybe it translates into an extra 2-3 losses over the course of the season – a November game or two in which you needed more scoring punch, and maybe a conference-play game or two in Jan/Feb in which maybe a more seasoned Wagner would have made the difference.