That was a very good team, especially defensively, but it didn’t quite have the offensive firepower to be national title-caliber IMO. Poole had a streaky year shooting and when he was off, scoring could be a chore.
IIRC, we had the lead in the second half of all three MSU games but each time we hit a brutal scoring drought. And then against TT we couldn’t get going at all.
Oops way off.
https://wolverineswire.usatoday.com/2020/02/16/michigan-basketball-jordan-brand-shoes/
Must be nice to have the perks of custom Jordans. They do look clean
Yeah not going to refute that. MAAR could get to the paint and finish really well which has been Eli’s weakness. But I think he’s improved in that area this year which is why I said it’s close enough.
For ya’ll waiting on KenPom, I think the own goal is the bug. 
It never gets talked about but Mathews’ injury in the first MSU game really stayed with him the rest of the year. I I’m not sure that MSU team ever got our best shot.
Oh boy, I did a deep dive on this earlier as Buckets remembered lol. Here’s what I had (You can click the little arrow at the top right of the quote box to expand it fully):
Yeah the blown leads got worse each game IIRC. Two of them were 10+ point chokes as well.
Felt bad for Iggy because he came to play in all three of those games and obviously he ended up winless vs MSU. The rest of the team just didn’t play well, especially Poole. A Charles Matthews injury was a big difference in the game at Crisler too I think.
Just one win out of the three would’ve gotten us a banner. Unfortunate.
I thought it was pretty straightforward to deal with that, the offensive player who touched it last gets the bucket, right?
Well… They did
I got into too many arguments with MSU fans that year saying I’d take Michigan’s team over MSU’s even after Michigan dropped the first two games, but after the 3rd loss it just started to sound silly. That was a very good Michigan team, but I do think it lacked some scoring punch when the going got tough. Iggy was the best scorer by far, but he had his limitations. Great defense is nice, but I think to truly be a legitimate title contender you need to have a guy who can go get you a bucket when the team is struggling and you really need it. Against MSU and TT, Michigan just went through too many awful scoring droughts for me to put them above a couple of Beilein’s other teams.
They didn’t have a Burke or Stauskas. Give me the 2013 all day and twice on Sundays. I’d probably take the 2014 team too. I’ll give y’all the argument that 2019 > 2018 despite tournament results though.
That’s the NBA rule. Pretty sure it is a team basket in college.
I really do not understand how I get college and NBA stuff mixed up when I haven’t watched a full NBA game in like 5 years lol
I don’t think I even said that was the best Michigan team (someone else said that I said that)… I’m just pointing out that they are judged because they lost to two FInal Four teams.
Matthews got injured in the first game, missed the second, and and shot like 20% from the floor for the rest of the year when he returned.
I guess I was speaking in terms of hypothetical head-to-head matchups, so “best team of the decade” might’ve been misleading. I think If there was anyone built to shut down Burke, it would be Simpson. Matthews could make life miserable for THJ/Stauskas, and Teske could take away paint opportunities much better than 2018 Wagner could ever.
As limited as that team was offensively, they were still top-25 KenPom and I think they could have scored on the 2013 team pretty well. They had trouble going up against the best defenses, but the 2013 defense was far from elite. In a tournament between all 10 teams of the past decade, I’ll take 2019.
I would take 2018 over '19. Moe could put the team on his back and carry us to the finish. He wasn’t the defender Teske was, but Teske was available off the bench if we needed him. MAAR was the ultimate glue guy. And of course there was future NBA superstar Duncan Robinson!
But I would agree that 2013 was the probably the best, at least once McGary figured things out. The Big Ten was downright nasty that year.
Simpson had a really hard time with Winston in 2019. I think he’d have a really hard time guarding Burke too. And I like the McGary matchup versus Teske (plus they had Morgan and Horford to throw at him too). And Matthews can only guard one of THJ/Stauskas. I like the other guy versus Poole. I know the 2013 defense wasn’t as good as 2019, but 2013 just had too much firepower that I’m not sure 2019 could keep up with for 40 minutes.
(Also I love that this debate is happening in the 2021 Michigan vs Purdue game open thread)
We wouldn’t need to if Kenpom would get it together!
update: Kenpom got it together.
Michigan to 7th on Offense, 4th on defense, and 3rd overall.
Up to 3rd on Kenpom, 7th on offense and 4th on defense.
Is Kenpom broken or is that accurate
2019 team would’ve beaten the 2018 team comfortably imo. Same with the 2014 team. Basically I think the 2019 team was Beilein’s second best team after the 2013 runner up.