Yeah, we should probably pull a Calipari and pass on this London event now lol. Could be a big mismatch in next year’s game and the nonconference schedule already sets up to be tough for an inexperienced team. Add the travel on top of it and I’m not sure it’s a great recipe for a young team. Would have been more fun to do with a veteran squad.
Just have a feeling that we will be a bit more veteran of a team than we currently think
What’s the downside? From a scheduling perspective and resume perspective, games like this or the Jumpman event are probably better practices. I’m a purist though and don’t like that Juwan hasn’t scheduled any real home-and-homes other than UCF which was … not good scheduling IMO.
The downside is we start the season with a lot of losses again and are climbing uphill the rest of the season to try to scrounge up a decent record. Now if you tell me next year’s starting lineup has Diabate and Houstan plus a transfer then my tune will change. But if it’s an entirely new starting five with nobody that has played more than like 10 mpg in this system, I think they need more easy games to build confidence and learn
This will probably be the 8th or 9th game of the year… so not really a Gavitt Games situation.
The Legends Classic field doesn’t feel all that daunting for an early-season tourney (ASU, Pitt and VCU).
Will we have a game in the Gavitt Games this year? Or is it a year off? If they have Gavitt, ACC, Kentucky, Legends plus the two December Big Ten games with an extremely young and inexperienced team, I just think it could be another year where we are heading into January with like 5 losses already on the resume before beginning the gauntlet of the conference season.
How long is the break after coming back from London? Do they get like a week off before playing another game or do they jump back into it?
The rule is at least 4 games which would mean Michigan shouldn’t have to play in the Gavitt Games again.
So you have two games against ASU, VCU, Pitt
Kentucky
Game against either UNC, Florida or OU before Christmas
Big Ten/ACC
I guess I’m just not a fan of scheduling like Indiana or something. Michigan wants to be a big-time school, play a big-time schedule.
I do think it is important to point out that Michigan is playing in a second-tier MTE.
I’m not a fan of scheduling that way either. But I’m also not a fan of going into a season with zero returning starters and zero players that played more than 10 mpg for the team. I just think it’s the one year where it might be a bad recipe for getting the young guys some confidence and winning enough games to be on a path to the tourney.
I’d assume they probably play a Big Ten game the following weekend? Maybe get the other Big Ten game pushed out beyond then? Hard to say.
I just don’t think a schedule that includes something like Pitt, VCU, Oklahoma and Kentucky on a neutral is that challenging or daunting.
Also playing in London is cool IMO.
Doesn’t Michigan still have to go to Oregon to finish that home & home?
No idea what’s going on with that one… At this point, I’m not really assuming that games wiped due to COVID are guarantees to end up back on the schedule (and I think UM/UK falls into that category for the home-and-home part).
It’s definitely not. But on paper UCF, Seton Hall, UNC and Minnesota didn’t seem bad either and we lost those games with a better team. If Michigan’s team is young and “green”, I just think they could pick up some early losses and set them back. Hopefully Houstan and Diabate return and then I won’t be as concerned
And I loved the idea of the London game two years ago with that Michigan team. Next year it could be really ugly though.
I think scheduling a December game at UCF was an example of bad scheduling. Don’t play road games against mediocre teams. I also think Gavitt Games results are usually pretty all over the map because they are so early in the season (UM killing Villanova, stuff like that).
Neutral games against mediocre teams are significantly safer.
Sure Michigan could lose some games, but that would just depend on how good of a team it is.
Even if you lose to Kentucky in London, it isn’t going to hurt your resume.
This is what it comes down to for me. Flash back to some of the earlier Beilein schedules, where I always hated that we played a string of bad teams while MSU was playing a great non-con schedule. I don’t ever want to go back there.
I feel like Beilein always played tough schedules. He stuck to the MTE with two home-and-home recipe for the most part.
His weakness scheduling was probably in not getting slightly more difficult buy games.
I thought there were some weaker ones early in his tenure, but maybe I’m misremembering. Yes, some of the buy matchups were crazy bad (Binghampton, the baptists from Houston).
This is probably a key feature of the schedule as well. Thought we were playing in a 2nd tier MTE this year and then Arizona happened. I don’t see an Arizona candidate out of that group and would be quite disappointed if Michigan doesn’t beat both of whomever they are playing.
So if your MTE is a good chance of success, probably no Gavitt (I would think they already know this???), even the Jumpman event while good competition isn’t THAT great of teams why not do an event in London? Plus keep in mind the B1G December games will probably end up being the likes of Penn St/NW/Nebraska. They aren’t throwing the top tier games in December.
This team would be safely in the tournament with a Beilein schedule. We bit off way more than we could chew this year.