Cool. With the size of the incoming class, this is the perfect year for extra games and practice time.
On the educational/team-building side, I have to think this is a great chance for Nunez to pick up some cred. It’s crude profiling, of course, but I’m assuming he speaks Spanish well. That, combined with being a relatively old freshman, having a year of prep school, and having grown up in a big cosmopolitan city should combine to make him a natural leader in the off-court activities.
The same factors might help Brazdeikis, but Toronto’s not quite as big as New York and, even if he does speak Lithuanian, it’s not a language you hear spoken much in Spain…
November 6th: vs. Norfolk State (Crisler Center/Hall of Fame Tip-Off)
November 10th: vs. Holy Cross (Crisler Center/Hall of Fame Tip-Off)
November 14th: at Villanova (2018 Gavitt Games)
November 17th: vs. George Washington (Mohegan Sun/Hall of Fame Tip-Off)
November 18th: vs. Providence or South Carolina (Mohegan Sun/Hall of Fame Tip-Off)
November 28th: vs. North Carolina (Crisler Center/Big Ten/ACC Challenge)
December 8th: vs. South Carolina (Crisler Center)
December 15th: vs. Western Michigan (Crisler Center)
December 22nd: vs. Air Force (Crisler Center)
Current schedule right now. If Big Ten Weekend is between Nov 28 and December 8th, then we’ll probably have one more game between Nov 18 and 28 and another in late December
This is where it gets interesting, as Beilein adds: “We’re not going to worry about positions. We’re going to put the best nine or 10 guys on the floor.”
I think this pretty much shows that Beilein’s previous short rotations were due to available talent and not some coaching philosophy of his.
The point he’s making isn’t really about the size of the rotation though, it is that if Brandon Johns (for example) is a better basketball player than Austin Davis (for example) then Johns would be a rotation player even if he isn’t a ‘center’ or if David DeJulius (for example) is a better player than Jordan Poole (for example) he would be in the rotation even though he’s not a true two guard.
Like I said in my article today… I think everything hinges on the center position. Are you playing a backup five or going small? That decision will shake out a lot of the decisions further down the lineup. It also probably depends on more than just Davis/Castleton.
