Oh, and for all your UM>OSU in the pecking order, OSU is 148-36 overall, 66-24 in B10, 5 tourney appearances, 1 F4, 1 Elite 8, 2 Sweet 16s the last 5 seasons.
UM is 119-58 overall, 56-34 in B10, 4 tourney appearances, 1 F4, 1 Elite 8
So yeah, regardless of your opinion, the objective data says OSU>UM, and it gets much uglier if you want to go back 10 years
MattD,
It is cool. Believe what you want. I believe as a GROUP they will “hit it out of the park”. Individually Spike and Doyle will have some “homeruns”. Doyle will be very good! Our top 4 will be great. Maybe the season will prove that you are not a very good evaluator of talent!?!Out of curiosity, what did you think about Caris the first time you saw him play?
C’mon man let’s get real here and enough with the UM is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s not about me as a talent evaluator, it’s just about being realistic in terms of our outlook for this season and beyond and our standing as a program on the national scene.
If you think we will be great, you’re entitled to you opinion, but unless you define greatness as a middle of the pack big ten team, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
We only beat out elite teams for Mitch. Point is we simply aren't going to win a head to head recruiting battle with elite teams
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MattD,
I understand the main thrust of your argument regarding historical standing. I agree with you that we are not elite in terms of historical standing right now. I do think we are rapidly moving in the right direction and I believe this year’s team will be ranked in the top 12 by the end of the year. You seem to believe that the program will be losing some momentum this year. You are basing your opinion on what if not your evaluation of our rosters potential (this year)? If you can’t give me another reason then I feel comfortable putting your ability to evaluate talent into question. When I asked you what you thought of Caris in his first few games it was not a rhetorical question: Did you see a kid who had NBA potential?
As far as beating out elite programs for kids, as you correctly note we beat out Duke, UK, and Florida for McGary. Additionally, Kansas was very interested in Stauskas, Chatman was down to Michigan and Arizona, MSU was trying to get Walton on campus for a visit/offer when he said no and committed to Michigan, Teske picked us over OSU, and MSU was also trying to get Irvin to visit when he committed. But I know those situations don’t fit with your narrative.
Again, if your horizon is 10 years, OSU has no doubt been better than us. If your horizon is the 1980s until now, Michigan has been better. OSU was a pretty dead program for much of the 1980s and 1990s.
The Louisiana Tech example is misguided because (as far as I know) they haven’t been relevant since the 1980s. Right? (I don’t really follow women’s basketball). Same with USC too, no? The men’s counterpart to that might be NC State. If Michigan weren’t also good now, I wouldn’t argue that the 1980s and 1990s meant something. The point is that we were a once-great program that has returned to prominence, as opposed to a once-great program that hasn’t been good for 20 years.
I’m not suggesting that Michigan is at the level of Duke, Kansas or Kentucky - though I would note that UK missed the tourney entirely two years ago, Duke lost in the first round this year, and Kansas got knocked out by Stanford. But you seem to have this weird, anti-Michigan sentiment. For a “fan,” it doesn’t seem like it.
I also find it odd that you think ESPN is really good when it comes to college basketball recruiting, but apparently not that great at college basketball analysis, even though the two seem to be pretty closely linked (I mean, for example, in ranking the top 10 programs one criteria was recruiting).
In any event, we’ll just see how the next few seasons play out. I have a feeling you’re going to be eating a fair amount of crow. But if you’re right, I’ll give you the credit you deserve.
To answer your questions - I don’t see us as a top 12 team by end of year. General rule of thumb is that when you have more questions marks than answers for a team, is that this most likely doesn’t bode well. I see no exception in these circumstances - we simply have too much youth and inexperience in the frontcourt, and I think our interior defense will take a step back, and considering how bad it was last season, I’d say that’s an area for concern considering we aren’t likely to get much from that group on offense. I think we have a great creator in Caris, Walton will take a step forward. I’m not sold on Irvin being anything more than a shooter and nobody really knows what to expect from Kam. So we know we have an above average/good backcourt, but I don’t think it will be as good as last years edition. The frontcourt will most likely take a dip. So that leaves us with a slight decrease in backcourt quality and and a reasonable decrease in frontcourt productivity - so I can’t fathom us approaching what we did last year in light of those circumstances.
Caris - in no way did I think he was NBA material during his freshman season. But what does that mean - obviously you are implying that im lacking in the evaluation department. But I’ll ask you the identical question - what did you think. On the flip side, I am actually willing to throw my objective opinion out there instead of taking this retrospective approach that many around here like to do. Im also the one that said Irvin was vastly overrated out of HS as a 5 star, and I still believe that. I guess we’ll see how it shakes out
MattD,
Thanks for your response.
I was really worried about our bigs until I saw Doyle play. He seems special to me. I loved Mcgary but I thought his being ranked 2 out of highschool was weird. Where Mcgary was overrated, in my opinion, Doyle seems very underrated so I am very hopeful. When I first saw Caris I thought Caris would be the best player in the Big Ten by his Senior year. He was young, seemingly still going through puberty (!), had insane quickness, great handles, and length…Hopefully he sticks around another year to have a chance to prove me right…I think our backcourt will not be just good but very excellent! Anyway, predictions are fun if not silly. Looking forward to watching the season unfold. Also, I am sorry if I came across as argumentative. I appreciate your insights and reading your posts helps to enhance the experience of being a fan…Sometimes I am surprised that you are a bit critical but it is all good!
The only reason why I thought Caris was potential NBA material is that in the early practices, Jeff Meyer opined that he was one of the five best players on the team. He had a few moments of brilliance that year, but sure, I did not see last season’s incredible improvement coming.
I’ll throw some predictions out, just for fun:
Irvin will lead the team in scoring this year, and will be a prolific three point shooter. He won’t score much driving to the rim, but will have a good enough dribble game that he’ll be able to create open 15-footers for himself pulling up for shots off the dribble. I think he will have such a good season that there will be real discussion about him leaving after this year.
Caris will be the jack-of-all trades, averaging around 15/5/4. When we need it, he’ll create and be a true scorer.
I also think Walton takes a big leap. I’ll predict 13 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds from him.
Wilson will earn minutes at the 4 and occasionally the 5, and will display “wow” athleticism. I know you didn’t think he was much of an athlete; I think he’s going to prove you wrong, big time. I think he’ll flash potential as a true shot-blocker, and will have some highlight finishes at the rim.
Chatman, I think, will have a quiet but effective season. I see 7 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, but a guy whose contributions will go well beyond the box score. He’ll spend next summer in Camp Sanderson and will be the next Michigan sophomore to show huge improvement all around.
I think Doyle and Donnal will be better than people think, because they have more length and overall size than Morgan did. Defensively, I’m not too concerned because in the Big Ten, other than Kaminsky, I don’t see anyone with a dominant post game. Other than Wisconsin, the only team that will really hammer us inside will be Arizona, and they will do that to a lot of teams this year.
I actually think our perimeter defense has a chance to be much better. I think Irvin will be a much better defender than Nik, Caris and Derrick will be improved, and I think Chatman will give more effort on defense and on the glass than Glenn did, though he’s not nearly the athlete.
Overall, I see 23-26 wins this year, and finishing anywhere from 2nd to 5th in the Big Ten. Wisconsin wins the Big Ten IMO, and the teams competing for 2nd through 5th will be Michigan, MSU, OSU, and Indiana, with Illinois, Maryland and Minnesota just a little behind.
I think Caris will be first team all Big Ten, Irvin will challenge for it, and Walton will be second team. Chatman will make the all freshman team. First team will be Caris, Kaminski, Dekker, Dawson and Yogi Ferrell.
We just have 2 different eyes for basketball…Doyle special? Serviceable, yes, good as a junior/senior, maybe. But special and Ricky Doyke are not 2 terms I would ever use together. Special is reserved for elite talents like Kobe, CP, etc.
Caris has insane quickness? The standards for elite quickness must be pretty low these days. Caris is average laterally, but he is long. Insane quickness is Yogi Ferrell, Levert isn’t even approaching that level.
No offense, but this type of exaggeration is what makes me skeptical of the objectivity, or lack thereof.
I don’t ever take it as argumentative, I just know that for most it is hard to separate UM from your better basketball judgment. Im in the same boat as you on game day, but in between games I try to stay as objective as possible.
I am not sure why debates even continue when MattD comes down from the heavens to grace us with his opinion. He is obviously the best basketball mind in the forum and we are all morons for having the audacity to think he could possibly be incorrect about anything in regards to the game of basketball.
I am not sure why debates even continue when MattD comes down from the heavens to grace us with his opinion. He is obviously the best basketball mind in the forum and we are all morons for having the audacity to think he could possibly be incorrect about anything in regards to the game of basketball.
Once again the almighty has graced us with his presence with nothing to offer other than crying about me. Not one post of constructive basketball talk in the past 3 months. All you do is antagonize
Here is reality - the great majority of posters in this thread simply can’t understand how anyone would think UM is not an elite program.
This is also reality - most of the educated basketball population does not consider UM an elite program because we haven’t satisfied the durational and consistency requirements. Are we on the rise, don’t think anyone can deny that. Are we truly elite in the sense that expectations for us are to win a championship every year, bring in top flight recruits, do we have that intimidation factor, etc…I think we all know that we aren’t on that level yet.
The next 2 years will go a long way in determining whether we continue the upward trajectory or remain respectable but not elite. Recruiting will play a very large role in that determination in my view.
That’s a bit of a straw man. The majority of posters in this thread think we’re a tier behind Duke/Kentucky/Kansas in terms of prestige. So that’s the entire disconnect you espouse in your first two sentences. We just also think Michigan can win a recruiting battle here or there (even without the “tactics” that others might use) based on what we do have, that we’ll continue to win big even if we don’t, and that we’re still generally on the rise, which I’m glad you agree with.
Man, the standard these days are low…first Caris has “insane” quickness and Wilson is a “wow” athlete. A wow athlete for a big is Dwight Howard. Wilson isn’t approaching that level in any regard, whether it be verticality, lateral movement, or straight line speed. We really have to stop being so loose with these terms because it’s just not fair to the guys that actually fit the description.
Wilson is above average vertically, average/below average laterally , below average strength, and average speed.
Just don’t see how he helps us this year. He doesn’t do anything well on offense and he’s a below average defender and rebounder. He thrives in transition but we don’t run much in terms of pure volume so I don’t see utility for him this year. Long term I like him at the 5 because he is a decent weak side shot blocker to bridge the gap to Teske.
I don’t think we are elite yet either. But define “elite?” You seem to define it above as follows: “[the] expectations for us are to win a championship every year, bring in top flight recruits, [and an] intimidation factor.”
If that’s the definition, then elite should be restricted to Duke, Kentucky, and Kansas. Last year, for example (and the year before when they were far worse), no one expected UNC to contend for a title. This coming year, programs like MSU and Syracuse are rebuilding and no objective observer thinks they will be strong contenders.
LA - hard to truly define elite, but I guess the best I can come up with on the fly is expectation level. At an elite program, failing to reach a s16 is a failure, and failing So does intimidation factor - some teams just have that aura that other teams fear. I certainly don’t think anyone fears UM at this point.
MattD,
If you don’t see Doyle as the next Kobe then we seriously have nothing else to talk about… But seriously, I do think he is going to be very good, “special” is an exaggeration on my part–you are right–but I have a lower threshold for categorizing a player as special–I thought Gary Harris was special for example. I think Caris will be special. Stauskas was special offensively…Finding a good Big is hard. I think Doyle has a chance to be one of the better Big men in Big Ten by next year. I was most impressed with his sense of purpose at every moment in Italy. I remember Mcgary looking confused all the time most of his Freshman season. I get. a sense that he has a high bball I.Q.–Doyle seems to “get it” but maybe I am basing too much on the weak competition in Italy.
I definitely see Caris as having elite quickness given his length. On offense he seems to put second moves on dudes before they have reacted to his first move. If anything he will be better if he slows down and is more purposeful…But I will take a more critical eye regarding caris’s quickness. (I am surprised you disagreed.)
Good. I am glad I didn’t offend you. You might be right about my bias–oh well.
Caris has elite hesitation/brakes (Trey had it as well) - this distinct from lateral quickness.
I thought Caris was very quick laterally too–I will take another look and try to re-evaluate.