I love John Beilein, but I do agree that he should have given the bench more minutes early in the season. In particular, after Johns performance against Indiana, he should have seen the floor a decent amount against Illinois (the next game), but it didn’t happen.
Sure, playing against Teske and Livers in practice is a good thing. But it’s not the same as a live game with refs. Both are important.
I think everyone agrees that it is disappointing that Johns hasn’t developed more as a freshman, but it isn’t like he’s really shown anything on the court consistently that makes you think he should be playing more. He almost always makes a mistake in the first 60 to 120 seconds he’s on the floor.
Except that Johns did show something against Indiana, and he wasn’t rewarded. Putting somebody in for 1-2 minutes, then yanking, is not a good way to build the player’s confidence. The short bench and the quick yank are the two things that JB does that I don’t agree with me. But don’t get me wrong, I think the world of JB. But I also don’t think he’s perfect.
If you were to go back and watch every possession that Johns has played this year, what percent do you think would be mistake free? How many mistakes should a player be able to play through on the court before you put someone else in the game? Not missed shots or something like that, but wrong place/wrong play/wrong rotation/etc. mistakes.
“How many mistakes should you be able to play through”, is the optimal thought here.
Only one person matters when it comes to this.
It’s all degrees and differences. At some point, sure, too many screwups and you get pulled. But after the Indiana game, I would have given BJ 10-15 minutes against Illinois, or until he fouled out. And what’s the worst thing that could have happened, that we lost the game??? At this point, losing @ Illinois would have about zero impact on our ability to grab a 2 seed (which has to be the goal at this point).
Tried not to think about Michigan basketball over the past couple days. Pretty down after that loss. Just playing for seeding at this point in the regular season and the team just isn’t playing well enough to win the BTT. I think it’s at the point where I’d just be happy to not get embarrassed in March (make it to the second weekend) and next year you have to regroup and hope the players develop offensively.
The problem is Michigan really struggled against the bad part of the schedule. Losing at half time to Holy Cross, barely pulling away against Western and Binghamton. As a result Beilein had to mostly play the major rotation pieces and guys like Johns, Nunez, and DeJulius didn’t get enough experience.
You schedule games like Western so Johns can play 10-15 minutes. When that doesn’t happen you can’t just throw him on the floor against Big Ten teams and wonder what went wrong (unless they’re a 5 star one-and-done).
We have a go-round like this at the end of every year, it seems, about some player who isn’t seeing the floor. I don’t know why people don’t think that Beilein wouldn’t want to have Johns in there playing if he could. And. . . could be wrong. . . but I think there’s also been a sense that it was the rare player who really excelled on a Beilein team in their first year.
You weren’t at practice.
El Chefe …
Winning the Big Ten regular season still matters. To me it’s worth at least as much as a sweet 16.
Coach b is great, no?
Johns has looked uncomfortable and nervous all year. Even in the IU game I would argue. It may be in part that he isn’t a 5 (or at least he doesn’t think so). I saw Johns play many times in high school. He rarely played with his back to the basket. What he can do though is shoot the basketball. And yet, he never picks and pops when he’s in. That too may be on him, but I think it only further limits his ability to contribute.
He hasn’t taken a jump shot outside of maybe 1 or 2 in early season garbage time. I wish we had tried to get him a pick and pop 3 at one point but maybe he hasn’t been hitting that shot in practice. He definitely seems nervous.