Game 4: UCF at Michigan Open Thread

Hope Johns can be less of a foul magnet - absolutely delighted with his play today - think he and Williams played a huge role in turning that game around. That ball that he dove for and didn’t come up with in their backcourt was emblematic of the energy he brought to today’s game. Was on DVR catchup the whole way - huge defensive turnaround overall.

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Him and Johns. Johns had like 5 or 6 plays that were all excellent during a small stretch.

SP+ also has garbage time data filtered out

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I also would include BJJ for the energy brought in the first half for the kick start along with T Will.

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Start Dickinson already, PLEASE!

Went to get an xmas tree, so was late watching the second half, but I LOVED how locked in the whole team looked and in sync with Juwan coming out of the second half.

EDIT: Also, someone needs to turn Austin celebrating Dickinson’s dunk into a meme; that was anime-level exuberance right there. . .

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Good question. I don’t have an answer, but some thoughts that come to mind are…

A) Where do you draw the line on garbage time? Any line would be arbitrary and it might be best to avoid stuff like that in the calculations.

B) His formula isn’t linear on point spread, so a 50 point win isn’t as big of a difference vs. a 30 point win as a 30 point win is vs. a 10 point win. Perhaps he thinks that this inherently provides garbage time-proofing. If the game gets back to the point where 8 points makes a big difference you could argue it wasn’t garbage time to begin with and if it’s true garbage time then it’s already making little impact.

C) maybe he just figures it’s something that evens out over a season.

I’d have to go with B if I had to guess. Someone smart like Dylan probably has better reasoning.

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Let me just say this, there is no question HD is deserving of the start, but at this point I don’t think he cares. He just wants to play, and tonight he played 22, maybe 23 or 24 minutes, and those minutes are gradually increasing. He WILL start. Maybe next game, maybe not, but soon, and when he does, no one will be happier for him or more proud than Austin Davis. I know this to be true, and AD will play the minutes he gets with pride, and heart, and enthusiasm.

I’ve watched AD since before he came to Michigan and that’s the kind of young man he is. You want to talk about foxholes? You want to talk about “The team, the team, the team?” That’s Austin Davis. HD will start soon, whenever Juwan decides it’s time, and when he does, AD will not only be fine with it, he’ll be happy and proud of HD.

So, I’m just not going to question Juwan at this point. I think he knows what he’s doing.

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That’s fine, I respect and appreciate Austin Davis for his contributions to Michigan basketball. I agree that Hunter Dickinson does not seem to care one bit that he’s coming off the bench. I am not here to question Juwan Willy-nilly.

What Hunter Dickinson is doing in his short time on the court thus far is pretty unprecedented through four games from a freshman center. This isn’t about harping on Davis in a negative light, it’s about getting the absolute best product out of this Michigan basketball team. And while we all seem to keep saying “it’s inevitable, he’ll start soon”, in my opinion it’s starting to become a major missed opportunity for this team that it isn’t happening now.

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I just think it works much better for the flow of the game to start Hunter. Start and finish both halves with him, give center ‘B’, whoever you’d prefer that to be, a stretch in the middle each half. I’d prefer that to Davis playing 6/7 minutes and then Dickinson having to play 13/14 straight to finish out the game.

I thing facst relate to a topic and have influence on the thinking about it. Factoids are trivia.

I think they only traveled 10 players.

Again, none of my business, it’s a coaching decision and I’m not privy to the knowledge Coach Dawkins has about his team, but if he had ten players travel he could have had five subs in the game for the last 3 minutes or so when the game was over. But again, none of my business that’s a coaching decision, and it’s between him and his team.

The only reason I can think of for not subbing is that since they haven’t played many games, he just wanted to give his “playing group” as much game time as possible.

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I don’t disagree. I will say this, though, as a former coach, I tend not to question coaching decisions as much as others may. And, yes, I know this is a sports forum and questioning coaching decisions is fair game.

And now we wait for NC State. There was an update from a 247 mod basically saying “Michigan hasn’t been told yes or no yet.”

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Yeah, Ernie. At this stage I’m a little more weary of the complaints than I am of of Dickinson not starting. He’s getting his extending minutes, and capitalizing. And Davis’s early second-half stint the other night was arguably the best of his career.

This team goes deep, and we know that because Juwan has had the courage to give a bunch of guys extended run.

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The only person who can stop Dickinson from a double, double, maybe a triple double is Juwan Howard :grinning: Bringing the young big fella’ along at a slow pace. How would Howard like it if Steve Fisher did him like that?!?! Maceo Baston was much better than Austin Davis.

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Isn’t he exceeding expectations for minutes played?

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Not sure what the minutes expectations are/were for Hunter Dickinson but he should be playing all the minutes he can handle. Looks to me like he has more to give. Looks to me as if he isn’t maxed out on minutes; not even close.

I was tongue in cheek criticizing Coach Howard. I have no complaints with how he is handling Dickinson. It is still pre season. Coach Howard knows what he is doing with Dickinson. I like how Dickinson credited Howard with teaching him how to play low on D and what a difference it has made.

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Agree that he’s impressive as heck. Incredibly assured for a freshman.

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