If Duncan is being face guarded, you also have to look at it as opening up space for Matthews and Wagner. He’s still helping the offensive spacing by being out there.
He’s just not going to be able to play as big a role until the PG situation is cleared up. There’s nobody who can break down the defense and kick out right now. MAAR can do it but as we’ve seen throughout his career, he’s a more head down scorer when he drives.
I agree that Brooks should start against Chaminade, but we don’t get to make that decision. I thought Eli played pretty well. I’ll not comment on the other two point guards because I refuse to criticize our players, even if they, sometimes, deserve it. I will say this, hypothetically of course, if a player who is considered to be our best perimeter defender is put into a game at a critical time, winning time, and immediately gets beat and compounds it with a foul for an and 1, I would be having a serious conversation with that young man…at a minimum.
Actually, he did get fouled. He was knocked to the floor from behind and lost the ball. I thought he had two hands on it and was knocked down. That being said we were beaten to loose ball several times all night.
Z has had two nice games. Simmons has had two games where he had some nice stretches. Eli comes in for 1 good stretch (followed by a bad stretch) and suddenly he’s the starter? No. Two games he didn’t even play PG and there’s a reason for it.
I’ve been criticizing Robinson a lot in this thread. I agree Livers hasn’t shown any reason to play him above Duncan, however that doesn’t make Robinson’s total lack of development any less frustrating IMO.
He makes a few freshman mistakes because he IS a freshman. He certainly has the talent to be a player for us. Frankly, this is the time to give him opportunities. I believe he’ll learn from those “freshman” mistakes, and down the line, help this team. I have been a huge supporter of Duncan’s, and I refuse to critique his current struggles. I’ll leave that to others and the coaching staff, but I’m in the camp with those who believe he is best suited to be the sixth man, a sniper off the bench. I really think Coach B believes this, too. Is Isaiah Livers the answer? I don’t know, but I do know that if he’s not given opportunities now, he won’t be ready to help us later.
Bad Loss. LSU is not good.
Season isn’t over tho and JB will have the team able to compete with about anyone by the end of the season. Have to win the next 2 in Maui IMO before heading to Chapel Hill.
I would like to see Livers, Brooks and Teske play more moving forward. 20 minutes per game at least in the early going. They are talented. They are the future. We really need to be thinking about the future with this team even if costs us a bit in the short term.
Didn’t see the game but heard people saying when MAAR and Brooks were together we had MAAR playing the point guard. How did MAAR look playing point guard relative to the other guys?
Have said for 2 years that JB should be training MAAR to be point guard/lead guard as a backup plan…
Did anyone get the sense that MAAR might be our best option to be a playmaker (for others)?
MAAR was the only one who of them who wanted to shoot, but he did take some awful ones.
This seems like a hard way to discuss basketball. We aren’t criticizing players personally but analyzing how they play. I don’t really understand the moral stand here.
One thing about Duncan. Will Wade’s whole game plan was to take him out of the picture. There’s a value to that even if he isn’t scoring because it creates the space for the two man game that was so effective.
But at this point I think it’s clear that two guys can’t lead us to victory. If you’re getting face guarded it should just make it easier to backdoor cut and get space off screens. He has done that in the past but apparently that part of his game is gone right now.
Hard loss. But I guess I didn’t take it as hard as some here. Largely new team, and Beilein teams always take a lot of time to get sorted out. Just want to caution, though, against the tendency to decide any player is a finished product after a fourth game. When I think back on the kind of slander DJ Wilson endured I STILL wince. The only player who I regretfully am not convinced can bring us a lot more long-term is Simpson; hope he proves me wrong.
Remember that the 2013-2014 elite eight team lost similarly on neutral court to UNC Charlotte, that finished 8th in Conference USA, and that team turned out to be incredible, winning the big ten regular season outright and making it the big ten tournament finals. Now I’m not saying that this team is even close to as talented to that elite eight team but the fact of the matter is that bad losses happen, I believe this team is extremely talented, but nonetheless needs work. I have lots of faith in coach B to turn this around.
It seemed more like he just brought the ball up, then maybe MAAR/Brooks swung it from one side to the other, then vacate so Matthews/Wagner could play their 2 man game.
There really wasn’t much “offense” run when Z was on the bench. I’ll be impressed when JB can figure out how to coach offense with the players that he has currently on the roster. Until then…
I think Eli played a lot of pg yesterday for a few reasons; one being he’s the best shooter, also exhibits the most composure, and Z was saddled with foul trouble.
Michigan on the whole got out scrapped, then #3 was spectacular down the stretch
Teske showed once again he deserves more minutes. Unless Coach Beilein wants to play Wagner at the 4 (not likely) I don’t see Teske playing more than 10-12 minutes a game.
Wagner’s development is noticeable; he carried the team for stretches.
Going to be a lot of games with Wagner and Matthews scoring in the 20’s
Well, it’s your board and you’re entitled to your opinion, but I’m pretty sure you read every comment posted on here, and I really find it laughable that you would say, “We aren’t criticizing players personally.” I don’t have the time nor the inclination to go back and document all the personal criticisms that have been thrown at our players on this board, but suffice it to say if we went back and looked we’d sure find them. General categories include, Derrick Walton last year before he blew up and carried the team to the B1G Tournament Championship. Zak pretty much throughout his entire career at Michigan. D.J. Wilson at times last year and certainly prior to last year.
Duncan Robinson on several occasions, but criticisms this year alone include, “If he’s not making shots he’s nothing more than a Division III player,” and worse. By the way, I’ve coached DIII basketball and I can honestly say I’ve seen players at that level who could handle better, pass better, go to the basket better, and shoot as well as Duncan can, but NONE of them were 6’8 and playing against high Division I players! The young man may not be perfect but he’s a valuable player who is going to help us more times than not this year, in many ways. If you don’t think these criticisms meet the the test of being “personal” then you really don’t understand Division I college basketball players, because for them basketball IS personal. It’s a VERY important part of who they are. So, do I think we can discuss basketball and analyze the play of our team? You bet. Do I think it’s hard? I don’t know, maybe, but I think it’s worth the effort. I also think we can do that in a positive way that doesn’t get overly personal, and I think usually we do. There are a lot of posters on here who remain very positive about our kids, and I, for one, appreciate that. Thanks for what you do. I really do appreciate your efforts!
Zavier is tum tum reincarnated and if his d is not working also then he is a total liability. Duncan is what he is, a shooter with no other redeemable quality on the court as he can not guard, rebound or handle good enough. I am in the camp that Livers needs to be force fed and learn from his mistakes. More important for him to get up to speed with defense and rebounding and take a lesson from Matthews on crashing the offensive boards. Brooks will make mistakes (freshman) but he has a scorers mentality that Zavier does not possess at this level. This has to be Simmons wake up call. If we have to rely on MAAR to consistently create a late game opportunity for himself or others (trouble).
VCU is up 26 at the half on Cal, so they should be our opponent (assuming we beat Chaminade). They’re picked 2nd or 3rd in the A10 and played Marquette and UVA reasonably tough, so hopefully we can get a decent road win against. them
At the end of the day, it may work out as a push if the team can beat a solid VCU squad.
Probably not much difference between a LSU loss and VCU win versus a LSU win and Marquette loss. Of course, never know if they beat ND and we assume they could’ve beaten Marquette. (Not concerned about strength of schedule facing Chaminade given the rest of the non-conference.)
2-1 would’ve been a great success but they can avoid 1-2 now. (Again, assuming the if they beat VCU)