And just when I commend umbob1 for an outstanding post, I read down a bit and see an equally great post from Dylan. Thanks Dylan. I personally just think we all need to take a breath and let this play out.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing what happens with our young men. I will wish them the best if they fulfill their dreams by going to the NBA, and I’ll hope they have a long and successful career.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this all plays out, and I’m excited to see what the maestro is able to do with our program and next year’s team, and the one after that, and the one after that.
I also know this, whoever dons the Maize and Blue, whoever puts on the MICHIGAN uniform next year and in subsequent years, whoever they are, they will be players I will be cheering for. Go Blue!!!
You’re assuming that he expects the incoming recruit to replace Poole’s minutes, but really he’s just trying to fill an open spot at the 2 with the best player possible. Nobody knows if that player will be ready to take Poole’s minutes.
I’d argue that Michigan is much worse in this regard and our guys are much more likely to leave based on their draft stock than the national average. There are a lot of guys with Poole’s general skillset who are not leaving after their sophomore to be a late second / undrafted player. Take a look at the team that just won, UVA, they have two guys who are approximately JP but objectively much better in Guy and Jerome and neither were rushing to get the hell out of dodge as sophomores. Michigan’s balance between stability and recruiting prowess is just way off and pretty much always has been over the past decade.
Just to differ a little–Michigan has lost a lot of guys to early entry over the last few years. It has to be disproportionate to other schools, outside of a very tiny handful. And it has to be stressful.
It makes Beilein’s wizardry even more astounding, to my mind, even if it may mean getting an NC is an awfully difficult mountain to climb. Over the last six years is there anyone with a commensurate achievement? I mean. . . Calipari does it with McDonald’s All Americans.
One of the many issues that I think it’s a challenge to deal with is that if guys at a school like Texas Tech are there for four years they become comfortable with their roles, and with the pecking order. A constantly shifting cast makes it harder to tell incoming guys how much and how they’ll be playing. The fact that it’s not always the locker room lovefest we sometimes thought we glimpsed should not come as a big surprise.
It’s all pretty exhilarating, but to me there’s no question it’s a high wire act.
Texas Tech basically reloaded its entire rotation in the offseason. That was due to graduation so a bit more planned but a similar offseason type of predicament.
Not saying it isn’t stressful, but most schools are dealing with it.
I think this year’s early entrants are an isolated incident that shouldn’t be lumped in with the past decade. Iggy has been a self-confident individual-focused slightly cocky player since before he got to Michigan and it’s not really a surprise that he is the first JB recruit to go one and done to me regardless of draft projection. Poole is another very complicated decision that clearly has basketball-specific and non-basketball motivations potentially driving it. These losses hurt badly because they would have been a consensus top 5 preseason team and now we could be looking at top 25 instead. But this level of attrition is rare even for Michigan.
Had Moe left after his sophomore year, Trey after his freshman year, GRIII and McGary after their freshman years, Hardaway after his sophomore year…those are decisions I would compare to the ones being made by Iggy and Poole.
In reality, Michigan got the appropriate amount of time out of most of these early entrants and had lined up the appropriate replacements. Teske after Wagner, Walton after Trey, Chatman after GRIII (yes he was a bust but he was a great recruit), Levert after Hardaway, even Livers after DJ Wilson. The only huge hole that’s been left after an early entry in my opinion was McGary, and that’s more due to misevaluations of Donnal and Doyle (and Horford transferring) than it was lack of preparation by the staff.
It will be hard to replace Iggy and Poole, but he already landed Jalen Wilson to replace Matthews. There’s a very real shot they land Quinones (in addition to Bajema) to replace Poole. And there’s a very real shot they land Justin Pierce or Franz Wagner to replace Iggy.
I know you weren’t. And I agree that it’s an emerging reality for everyone. But I think there has pretty clearly been a very high degree of seasonal upheaval for Michigan over the last five-six years. And it absolutely underlines Beilein’s achievement, in my eyes.
I get the point that’s trying to be made about Texas Tech. However, I think that’s a terrible example to use in this case.
You can use Texas Tech to make the point they had to deal with attrition and reloading almost the whole roster. Others can also use Texas Tech and say it proves their point as well - because Culver came back.
Culver came back when he was already draftable. At the same time, the pieces around a potential lotto pick fit in and that’s how you had a Texas Tech championship contending team.
I was only trying to respond to Texas Tech in the sense that they are a terrible example of “guys at a school like Texas Tech are there for four years they become comfortable with their roles, and with the pecking order”. That was not the case at all at Texas Tech.
Not trying to use them as an example of anything about NBA attrition.
I’d still argue it’s not the best example even in that case. Their main minute guys WERE there for four years on top of Culver and Zhaire Smith. That WAS the case completely with Texas Tech last year.
Then you had Culver come back, so you can fill the void with grad transfers and go for it while you have him for one more year. I would argue Beard doesn’t go after Mooney if Culver left.
It was a bad example for me to bring up in the first place. I thought it was a more senior-laden team, and there ARE four redshirt seniors on the squad and a returning Culver. But I know that a bunch of people left last year and I remember reading a piece about how Beard did a great job reconfiguring. . .
I do tend to think that cohesion is a useful property to cultivate!
Two of the three most important players on Texas Tech’s roster this year were graduate transfers.
Three rotation players played limited minutes the year before.
One rotation player was a freshman.
One rotation player was a JUCO transfer.
They lost four senior rotation players and a freshman to early entry from the previous year’s roster.
Literally everyone on that team had a new and different role this year. That’s all I’m saying.
They did a lot of roster re-tooling. If Michigan brings in two grad transfers and Brandon Johns and Eli Brooks have breakout years, it would be a similar situation.
I still think that’s a very different situation if Culver had left. I doubt you see that type of roster reconstruction without him coming back.
I mis-read the debate so my apologies on the messages above.
My point now is I think both sides can argue using Texas Tech. Sure, they had to really reload but they did so with a lotto pick who chose to come back and elevate his stock. Much much easier to reload and go the one-year rental route when you already have a go-to scorer with NBA lotto potential. Michigan just lost (most likely) their two go-to scorers with first-round potentials. Texas Tech didn’t. The Tech role players kept them in all games, Culver finished them for the most part. As much as I LOVE Zavier and Teske, that’s not really their games.
I get that Jarrett Culver is a lottery pick now, but no one thought of him as a potential lottery pick a year ago, did they? He was preseason honorable mention All-Big 12 before the year, his breakout season wasn’t really a lock.
I don’t think I follow what you mean by that kind of roster construction if Culver hadn’t come back. Wouldn’t they still have signed a PG and a big?
As I wrote yesterday, you know what Michigan’s offense is going to look like (Simpson high ball screen), the key is filling in pieces around him and Teske who can shoot.
I think the much earlier point above, or at least how I was interpreting part of it, is that this could be Poole next year. Michigan has been losing guys like this while other schools, like Texas Tech and Culver in this case, get them back. (I’m not for or against this argument or the guys leaving either, was just jumping in about the Texas Tech usage in the posts.)
My argument on roster construction is you probably don’t necessarily want/get Mooney and Owens if Culver was going to leave last year, even with a second round grade. Does it make sense to rent Mooney and Owens without Culver, instead of developing the younger players? They were going nowhere this year if Culver bounced to go second round.
I would think that they absolutely would still try to bring in a point guard and a big man on the grad transfer market. They needed to field a team.
i don’t think coaches look at their roster and say “ah, screw it we are going nowhere” … They try to improve the team as much as they can.
Was Culver given a second round grade last year? Was he on the NBA radar at all? I’m not sure to be honest but my impression is that he wasn’t really even on the radar. Say what you want about Iggy and Poole, but they are definitely on the radar.
Also we are way off base here. The point is that Texas Tech is not a good example of growing into senior roles. Michigan State would be. Texas Tech also probably isn’t a sustainable way to run a program (multiple grad transfers every year) but it does show that you can fill in some gaps.