Understand your position. I think if Derrick Walton was Poole’s point guard, his career looks quite differently in college.
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I don’t think the media or fans were accurately assessing on-court performance. I remember after the Florida second round game listening to Sam Webb defending Poole’s shot selection. It was as if Poole wasn’t the leading scorer by a wide margin, as if he hadn’t shot 4-9 from 3 and the rest of the team 3-12. People seemed to tweet every time Poole took a questionable shot but not, say, when X did.
Poole’s production may have “fallen off a cliff,” but it’s as if he didn’t have an ORtg of 105 or more in 8 of the last 11 games. X for comparison, had 7 such games over that span. Not to pick on X, but just as a reference given how positively he was covered.
And I think Beilein realized how things were going but too late. I remember him being asked about being unhappy with Poole’s performance, and he said he wasn’t unhappy, maybe the media was unhappy.
But hey, maybe you think the media’s coverage and the general perception of Poole was completely in line with his on-court performance. You certainly do a great job covering the team.
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If you’re going to compete X and Poole at least make it a fair comparison and include facilitating offense for teammates, defense, leadership, toughness, etc.
I don’t really think this is an either or.
There’s no doubt that Poole could have been featured more often as a PNR playmaker with a different roster. I love his potential in that regard and he was actually featured a lot more than a number of players you heard on the draft last night touted as a wing playmaker.
What I don’t really buy is that that is what caused Poole to struggle down the stretch. Or that playing off the ball was some kind of slight to him. I think that frustration from thinking he should have been in a different role led to him struggling a bit to play the role that Michigan wanted him to play effectively.
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That’s really fair. His mental approach may not have been what was needed to survive the situation. He made it more toxic that needed at times.
X is great at a lot of tangible things like defense and vision and passing that make a major impact. He’s also great at a lot of intangible things that make for great storylines like leadership and toughness that don’t necessarily result in wins against more talented players or an NBA career. He’s also very sub-par in one particular area of the game that has a direct impact on the players around him. All of these can be true, and I love X. But I also can understand the Poole side of the story and I think it sucks that he bet on himself, became a first round pick and half the fan base still holds some grudge against him
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You don’t think lack of floor spacers at the 1, 3, and 5 positions might have affected the offense of the two guard?
Yeah poor Jordan Poole. Glad things worked out for him, not glad that he shot us out of three championship games vs MSU or that he and daddy felt the need to shoot their mouths off.
Just so I understand, was it his father that did most of the post declaring for the draft talking or was it Jordan himself?
He shot 7-15 from three in three MSU games. Simpson and Matthews shot worse from the floor than Poole did
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I hope that happens as well, Steph can mentor him and they have a great culture. JP proved me wrong, I really wanted him to stay for selfish reasons and I thought he was sacrificing guaranteed money. I will never say stay if you’re a first round pick…you have to go, he made the correct decision.
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Lol “great storylines” like leadership and toughness that don’t necessarily result in wins. I can see how much you appreciate what X brings to the table.
I love when people get mad at fans who critique JP, but then proceed to blame another player for the team’s woes as if that is any better.
Ha, I believe that. FWIW, I wasn’t talking about game threads, which are kind of their own scary beast.
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I don’t think the team really had many woes… 30 wins is a team that could have won multiple titles with a little more luck involved. X and Poole would have both been huge parts of that. Poole “shooting us out of the MSU games” was less of a problem IMO than Cassius Winston being the best player on the floor all three times
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That’s… not what I said? I wrote a lot about this back in April when Poole declared. Don’t need to re-hash all of it.
Poole shooting 50% from three before Jan. 1 was a huge reason why Michigan started undefeated. Poole shooting 30% from three after that point was a significant reason why Michigan ran into some hiccups down the stretch. It wasn’t the only reason.
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We had them beaten all three times and then stopped scoring
And that’s entirely Poole’s fault?
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We stopped scoring because Tillman blew up our ball-screens by switching.
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If he’s as good as he thinks he is, then yes. He always had an excuse, never shouldered criticism
How good does Jordan Poole think he is? Did he tell you that?
In what sense did he “not shoulder criticism” or “make excuses”?
I saw him sit answer questions after games honestly. Don’t remember him making excuses.
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