I think the most interesting thing will be whether Ball or Alford play the lion’s share of the minutes at the PG spot. Presumably Ball is a one and done who isn’t going to come off the bench. On the other hand, Alford basically gives his son free rein to do whatever he wants, and he tends to dominate the ball – I seem to remember Zach Lavine getting buried in the rotation behind Bryce, who is now a senior. My guess would be that Ball – as a big, athletic guard – moves to the 2 somewhat like Jamal Murray did when he played beside Ulis. Not necessarily the best use of him however considering his passing ability…
Looking closer at their returnees they should actually be a top 15-20 team. With Ball coming in they should be a very good passing team. Their top 3 assist guys return.
Alford 167 assists-63 turnovers
Holiday 127 assists-92 turnovers
Hamilton 106 assists-76 turnovers
One area that caused Michigan problems was a team that could really move the ball. Alford has a lot of options in what kind of lineup he wants to put out there. He could put out 2 bigs Welsh-Leaf along with Hamilton-Ball-Alford, Holiday a guy off the bench that can shoot it.
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They have a great class…Leaf and Ball will be good and so is their other recruits…I just think that our team can compete with them if we add the right pieces for this roster.
There’s a very good chance the team Michigan currently has at this moment will be the one you see for the majority of the minutes this year. Guys usually don’t fall out of the sky here 4 months before school starts to make an impact this year. People talked a lot about Wagner but he hardly got any time until the final couple games of the year.
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I hope we play them at noon on CBS. There will be around 2,000 people in attendance.
They have lots of talent, but most of it’s young and undisciplined. They also don’t play very good defense, and Alford seems to be a subpar coach. Assuming we can get our own defense together a little, this is usually the type of team we don’t have problems with - similar to Memphis in 2011, or Tennessee in the 2011 tourney.
UCLA has always had good talent. The problem is the coach.
Reminds me of the Tennessee team we played in the tourney some years back.
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