I have lots of respect for and faith in Juwan Howard. If someone is prepared to argue he’s a superior coach, today, than Matt Painter I will as you suggest give them a pretty big side-eye.
Eastern hasn’t demonstrated to be that he needs to be guarded, with or without the ball, on offense. That’s a problem!
I will admit that my largest concern about this team is “how do Livers, Brooks, Hunter, and to a lesser extent Franz play on offense without Simpson?”. The clearest answer to that question was “find another strong facilitator”, which we MAY have done with Smith (obviously an open question). I would have MAJOR concerns about who creates shots in an Eastern/Brooks back-court.
I think the comments Painter made make more sense now as well. He probably had an idea Eastern was going to Michigan and was pissed about it. He wasn’t nearly as upset about Haarms leaving for the Mountain West.
It’s weird and out of left field and we haven’t had the time here to work up an appetite like we do for other players, but this is great. He’s a multi-year starter in our conference and knows what it’s like. I trust Juwan to fit him in, and I see value in him next year or the year after. I like the Eastern-Brooks-Wagner-Johns-Livers idea for sure, though not too sure Juwan would.
I am big fan on this add. Yes shooting is very important in todays college basketball, but theres still a lot of value for a hyper athletic defensive wing with some passing ability.
Not saying he’s a directly similar player but the Miami Heat during Juwan’s time there did a great job figuring out ways to keep non-shooters relatively successful offensively — James Johnson, Justise Winslow, Bam, Rodney McGruder
Caveat being, Carsen Edwards took 20 shots a game and the surrounding non-Nojel wing players were:
Ryan Cline 42% 3FG
Grady Eifert 44% 3FG
Sasha Stefanovic 41% 3FG
Aaron Wheeler 37% 3FG
I’d love to see some film of how he was effective in that offense, he was absolutely terrible last year with a roster that has the offensive makeup similar to Michigan’s roster IMO, once Edwards’ shotmaking was gone and the elite spot shooters were no longer.
One area he can definitely be make himself useful: crash the offensive glass like crazy… its tough to box a guy out when you’re sagging completely off him
Oh yeah for sure. I mentioned it was a great offense. We won’t be that good on O, but we should have worlds better spacing than last year Purdue, especially if Livers is back.
And then if Livers is gone, well we have much bigger issues anyway.
That’s why I’d prefer him as a sit out I think. For this year he raises the floor because of his defense but certainly doesn’t raise the ceiling much. A year to develop in Juwan’s offense and building chemistry with other likely returners (Nunez, Zeb, Dickinson, Williams) would be ideal imo.
How did I forget Brandon Johns on my initial post? The team should be his next year.