I was referring to Illinois
The leftovers on this roster are just not talented enough to hang banners. The promise that Castleton had seems to have vanished. Davis is a 3rd center on a decent team. Nunez is overwhelmed at this level. Brooks and Johns are not starters on a good team. I am not even sure DDJ is. I think it is time to see what you have in Bajema. It surely can’t be any worse than what they trot out now.
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In my mind, Teske or anyone that isn’t at least a 35% three point shooter should not be taking more than 1 or two a game. It’s not an efficient shot if you only hit 30% of them. It doesn’t matter if you are open or not. Maybe the reason you are open is because the other team knows you only shoot 30% and it’s a good thing to have you take them. A 30% three point shooter will end up with 9 points every 10 shots. You only need to hit 45% from two to match that.
I think one part of the fix for this team is having the right guys taking the right shots.
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The problem is that a lot of our guys are limited in general. Not too many can create their own shot. If guys are going to pass up wide-open threes to get something “better” inside against a sagging defense, we may end up committing a lot of shot clock violations.
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I mean… yikes.
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Hmm. Trying to figure out what positives to look for going forward. I don’t need to talk myself off the cliff, but it’s occurring to even my most positive inklings that this team will most likely miss the NCAA tournament and quite possibly be playing the 11-14 or 12-13 in Indy. The Livers re-injury makes all of this more imminent, assuming he’s gone for another six weeks. Considering that the lineup will be shaken up significantly next year, who do I follow? I don’t see many positive trajectories at the moment. I think Franz has a high ceiling and I enjoy watching him play, DDJ will be someone to watch moving forward. Juwan ain’t gonna play Cole for reasons only he and his staff know, so that’s that. Honestly, the rest of the roster is no slam dunk to return, be it transferring or graduation. I guess I can find interest in if Juwan can find a way to negotiate the team back to a perhaps a winning streak. Tough time to be a U-M hoops fan. Not bearing down in the late stages in almost every case where the game can be won late does not instill confidence nor make me anticipate the next game with great enthusiasm. Again…hmmm.
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This feels a lot like 2014-2015 to me.
14/15:
- Lost Stauskas, Robinson, McGary early. Recruiting was not able to keep up with those losses. (Hello Brazdeikis, Poole, Matthews)
- Two returning big minutes guys (Walton/Irvin) expected to make the jump to all-conference level and didn’t (Hello Simpson/Teske)
- Lose best NBA prospect midseason (Levert) (Hello Livers)
- True freshman expected to make a major impact but looks anywhere from overwhelmed to solid at best most games (Chatman) (Hello Franz)
- group of unproven underclassmen thrust into big roles that they aren’t ready for (Dawkins, Doyle, MAAR, Donnal) (Hello Johns, DDJ, Castleton)
- undersized 5 that keeps getting playing time because the talent is so thin and the fan base loses their mind (Bielfeldt) (Hello, Austin Davis)
- shiny object freshman that definitely isn’t ready but fan base proclaims “how could he be worse than what we have” (DJ Wilson) (Hello, Cole Bajema)
That team limped to 8-10 in the Big Ten and 16-16 overall. Expecting a top 10 (or even top 25) team from this group, particularly with a first year coaching staff is unrealistic IMO.
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Positives - It’s a good time be in a slump rather than early March.
Negatives - Everything else.
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Pretty spot on comparison
Z played all but 3 minutes of this game. We were +/- -7 in those 3 minutes.
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not that good
So this means Davis is going to transfer to Indiana and lead them to a BIG title next year?
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Some good news at least
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Thank goodness. If we can get him back, this season may yet be salvageable.
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Was that the year LeVert returned for one game and reinjured himself? Or was that 2015-16?
Man, this is going to be a year of hot takes…
Very good take
Can you explain “unpack your bags mentality”? That reference isn’t creating a connection for me.
I just don’t see it like that. I reserve “should have won” type arguments for cases where the refs don’t do a good job—or if a coach makes very bad decisions In a game. It would have been nice if they would have made some shots at the end but we have shooting issues and that is a big reason I think Illinois is a better team. In my mind our two big issues are shooting and petite guards.
Closing this thread… .Move over to the recap.
https://forum.umhoops.com/t/game-19-illinois-at-michigan-recap