Northwestern hadn’t lost a road game all year. Good win
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I try to think like Ernie in times like these but the darkness is too strong. the evil inside always wins. “Hunter Dickinson is soft” the voices tell me
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What if Jett goes and Dickinson stays? I feel that’s more likely.
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I’m out on that starting 5
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Lol, I came into post something similar. So jaded but it’s true.
Season would just feel so much better with that one w
I’m in on Dug/Kobe/Reed on their own. That trio is going to be great next year and seasoned. Hopefully Cheddar does enough as well to be penciled in as at least a major contributor but also find next year’s Terrence Shannon.
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I love Tarris, but in a game where Dickinson grabs 15 (three on the offensive board) I think he gets the thank you.
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This may be the exemplar of a UMHoops game thread comment. Yes, let’s berate the guy with 15 rebounds for the one he missed. I know, that was the only rebound that mattered.
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Seriously. An uncomfortable number of Seven Warriors level takes up in this piece.
Makes me wonder whether this thread is open to non-subscribers or if people actually pay to be this miserable.
He’s had to grow up fast he was thrown to lions at a young age. The positive side of this is he’ll be a better point guard than we’ve had in a while. He’s got a much higher ceiling than Llewellyn by far. I think we’ll see improvement throughout the year with McDaniel.
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I think the phenomenon/trend is that “disastrous” Dug plays are happening less often and Dug is playing better and better as the year goes on. Do you disagree with that?
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Just a case study in in-game emotional posting 
I know a lot of people like it so we keep doing them but the in-game toxicity seems to get worse each season. Maybe I am just getting old.
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Well, we probably all are. But I also think the product on the court has gotten more inconsistent and frustrating the past two seasons. So the emotional roller coaster is more extreme.
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The “toxicity” levels here are still much lower than in other forums.
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Yeah, mgoblog is an absolute cesspool during games. You’d think Michigan is winless since the inception of its football and basketball programs going by the majority of reactions in game threads.
Still, I could do without some of the toxic hate toward Dickinson during games.
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He’s definitely playing way better than before and I’m encouraged for his future. But, even taking just his conference play numbers he’s shooting 40% from 2 and has a 25% assist rate vs 20% TO rate (Dug is mostly propped up by amazing 3 point shooting right now). So in the context of “best Michigan freshman” point guards of the past decade, I’d take Walton. And, his play is still a significant reason why Michigan is struggling.
I would just put it like this: Michigan is playing better basketball with Dug McDaniel as starting PG than it was with Jaelin Llewellyn as starting PG.
He’s not perfect – he’s a true freshman PG – but he’s getting better at a quicker rate than I expected, and I’ve always been a fan of his game.
I don’t think it is really about his shooting at all (of course making threes helps the stats) as much as it is about his passing and growing understanding of the offense.
He looked unplayable as a backup and now looks legitimately on the right course to be very good.
I’m not sure where the Walton comp comes from, but obviously their roles are very different.
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It isn’t a comp, it is just comparing Dug to other freshmen PGs since usually they stink. X, Eli, Frankie, Morris…all rough as freshmen. Only Burke and Walton were good. Walton is a little bit of a cheat since he was mostly standing in the corner while Stauskas and LeVert ran the offense.
I didn’t realize there was only one thank you to be doled out, and in no way was my comment meant to denigrate any other player’s effort (if you look through my comments - usually in game threads - you’ll see that I’ll get on refs from time to time, but never on the players).
My thanks to Tarris was simply an acknowledgement of his best game to date, in which his contribution (relative to expectations) was significant, including 3 OREB’s of his own.
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The caveat here being that if JL never gets hurt, even if he continues to play poorly, we likely never see Dug in a larger role this year and the narrative is probably that he is yet another freshman PG who stinks.
Just being given a larger role and the ability to play through mistakes and know you’re not getting yanked seems to have done wonders. Looking back on freshmen who stunk at Michigan, there’s a few names I think we would have seen move from “unplayable” to “pretty good” if they had been forced into a 30-minute role out of necessity like Dug has been.
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