There were also pretty significant health issues that clearly played a part in how all of that went down.
I donāt think so. Bo Ryan was a great coach his whole career and it took him 13 years to get to a Final Four. Matt Painter has never been to one and only been to one Elite Eight but heās close to an elite coach IMO. Also, less than half the coaches in the conference have see their first class at their current job graduate. I donāt know if thatās in favor or against my point lol. But overall, I look at the coaches in the conference and if Juwan Howard disappeared tomorrow and we had to hire a coach, only a handful of coaches in the conference are coaches Iād cringe at hiring.
I donāt really value Final Fours as much as some might. I think the NCAA Tournament is the most entertaining sporting even maybe in all of sports outside the World Cup. But itās a mediocre evaluation tool due to the nature of single elimination tournaments. Obviously the longer you coach, the more opportunities you have and Izzo getting to 8 Final Fours is incredibly impressive and shows its not a fluke when they get there. But John Beilein has been to two national title games but I think Michigan winning the regular season title by 3 games in 2013-14 is his single most impressive accomplishment, much more so than either Final Four. JMO
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Dylan definitely agrees with that, but it speaks to the point about none being elite guys. How many of those guys can you even see putting together a Chris Beard-esque 3 year run like he just had at Texas Tech where you have really good teams that have the talent to be an elite team and are clearly well coached?
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To answer this most accurately I actually have to re-frame it as āhow did I end up a Butler fan?ā I actually grew up with Michigan in my blood. Both my parents are Pioneer HS grads and three of my four grandparents were professors at UM. My mom and my younger brother are graduates as well. I actually just barely remember Tractor Traylor, Robbie Reid, and LaVell Blanchard
I applied to UM for undergrad and it was dream school. Iām in music and there just happened to be a small number of available spots on my instrument and I was the first one on the waitlist, but everyone else wanted their spots. The School of Music offered me a spot in the middle of summer, but by that point I already had a roommate and had developed a really good relationship with the professor at Butler. It all worked out though. I arrived in the Fall of '09 and I got to see plenty of great sports moments along with a great educational experience.
When grad school came around I had a GA offer from UM, but had a situation that fit me much better at another school. Definitely a bit of wondering about what could have been, but Iām happy with how things have gone. I get fandom dual citizenship that has worked our really well over the last decade or so.
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And to your point in those 2 runs to the title game, it took 2 rather miraculous shots for M to get there. Those 2 shots donāt go in, Beilein is another guy who ācanāt get it done in March.ā
NCAA tournament is a crapshoot and success canāt be judged entirely or even mostly on that.
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Yeahā¦ I wasnāt trying to argue that it is the best metric. Iāve made the opposite argument quite often here. It was just an easy way to point out how unproven a lot of coaches in the league are at the highest level.
Pretty sure you could come up with a similar stat about top ten KenPom seasons though with the current crop. I was just too lazy.
We used to have Izzo, Matta, Ryan, Beilein, Painter, Crean in the early 2000s.
I just donāt think it quite compares right now. Also there are basically only 3-5?? programs that recruit nationally at a high level.
Yeah, there are a lot of roster-building / recruiting deficiencies in the B10. Like, if Matt Painter could put together as talented as Beardās Tech teams, then heād probably get similar resultsā¦ But, he has never been able to do that with any level of consistency. Painterās successes have generally been around two recruiting classes that generated a couple stars and stayed for 4 years. Not consistently getting talent.
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Quite right. Itās weird, since for me personally if you gave me the choice Iāll take the tourney championship over the conference championship even though the latter is a more impressive feat. But, having gotten to the FF twice in the past decade, and won the conference outright just once, if you give me the choice for this year specifically Iāll take the latter.
One thing to be said about all of this is that itās nice to have a few different goals that can make a season great.
Recruiting is an important part of coaching. Coaches that recruit well but sometimes have disappointing seasons get blasted as bad coaches while coaches that recruit poorly but have a disappointing season get a pass because the team still performed to its talent level.
Purdue does have 2 top 50 recruits coming in next year. And the 2020 class looks like a good one so they may have another couple very good teams here soon.
I think that 13-14 season that Iām so proud of was part of that era. All those coaches you listed were coaching. Couple of those coaches are gone, but other schools have made upgrades IMO.
I think the B1G is always going to suffer when compared to the ACC and old Big East because there were/are several elite, blue blood programs in that group. Whereas the B1G used to have Indiana as a blue blood but MSU is the closest. Top to bottom, I would think the B1Gās coaching looks better than alot of other conference right now and would compare favorably over the last decade.
Overall, B1G has few elite programs, so maybe that means fewer elite coaches. But we have alot of very good programs and to me, what look like very good coaches IMO.
Yeah, my point was that the Big Ten had much better coaches then. I think you have to measure the league based on the top more than bottom teams making upgrades.
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I donāt think weāve dropped off all that much from that era, in terms of coaching. How many of the schools have significantly worse coaching than they did in 2013-14? Indiana?
We have also added two more teams since then in Rutgers and Maryland, both of whom have quality coaching.
Either way, my argument isnāt 13/14 v 20/21, just that the league have very good coaching in this conference IMO.
yeah Painter is taking his lumps now but heās setting up a monster down the road. Purdue plays 10 guys at 24% of minutes or higher and five of them are freshmen.
Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Indiana lost coaches who were consistently capable of fielding a team that could win the Big Ten and finish in the top 10.
Juwan has been great but still hasnāt coached in the NCAA Tournament. Gard has been solid but definitely not better than Bo. Miller has been thoroughly mediocre. Holtmann has been OK.
Minnesota downgraded and then you add Turgeon and Pikiell to the mix.
My greater point is just that there are a lot of top 50 programs in the league but Iām not sure there are many coaches who elevate their programs to a top 10-ish ceiling.
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this is Jim Ferry erasure
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Dylan mentioned in the pod, but if Michigan wins tomorrow their next 6 games are : @ Minn, Maryland, @ Purdue, Indiana, @ NW, MSU.
@ Minnesota is probably the toughest game on there. Michiganās possibly looking at 11-1 or 12-0 if they win tomorrow 
with 10-2 being possible but less likely than the other two
Also doing some tweaking on Torvikā¦ If Michigan does indeed go 12-0 theyāre looking at 86% chance to at least share the conference title. 11-1 is 72% chance to at least share, and 10-2 is 52% chance to share. Then toss in a loss tomorrow and 9-3 is 23% to chance share with Wisconsin as a big favorite.
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Home vs. Maryland is a guaranteed loss
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Dylan, reading the section here on Rutgers and listening to your pod about MSU transition offense makes me wonder how Juwanās Michigan teams have done in preventing transition offense, something that John Beileinās teams were pretty consistently great at due to choosing that over offensive rebounds.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. Looks like Naptown was ideal for you
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