You guys are doing a great job. Unlucky timing but I hope the podcast continues as I enjoy the deep dives into problems and solutions. You two being a little bit confused on some things makes me feel alot better because I’m sure the coaches are a bit flummoxed as well. Michigan is having a “whack a mole” season.
Probably a good year for the Pin Down pod with so many issues to correct (and thus things to talk about) and a bad year for the Moving Screen with the fan enthusiasm down.
Half the moving screens audience is excited
This is maybe Pollyana-ish, but I think the Pin Down episode was a bit too negative. There are obvious reasons why.
However, when I look at the team, I still see a fair amount of upside this season. This comes mostly from your segment on Diabate. It’s clear the coaching staff has settled on him playing major minutes. So far, we’ve seen almost all of the offensive downside of that decision. As you discuss, the defensive upside is so far unrealized. I don’t think it is hard to project that Diabate will get better at switches, walling up down low, rebounding – basically hitting singles instead of swinging for the fences. This is classic progression of a player getting more experience. Eventually, I would be surprised if Diabate fails to make an impact on the defensive end.
Feel similarly re Caleb, although not as strongly. His shooting is really at the low end of any reasonable projection, but he is playing so many minutes and is so much less prepared physically that expected that his within-year growth is harder for me to project.
Zooming out to a very high level, it’s really hard to think of an area where Mich has outperformed expectations (maybe Eli is regressing after he played as a creator for first handful of games) and while clearly overall expectations need to be reset, we just seem to be at a really low point right now. Of course, the looming Big season and especially next week mean we could get substantially better very quickly and not see a difference in the record, because right now, it’s late early in Ann Arbor.
Yeah, but normally both teams are good so the whole moving screen audience is excited
I highly doubt half of their audience is MSU fans.
One person on the podcast certainly feels that way…
Love the work you two are doing and I’m one of the sickos still tuning in for an hour-long pod dissecting a two-game losing streak in a .500 season. (That was much more embarrassing to write than to hear y’all say).
If i could make one suggestion though to I think really improve the product: I find the ad breaks so jarring. Not complaining about ads generally as I want you guys to make tons of money and succeed every way you can. But they aren’t scheduled or anything so Dylan or Eric might get cut off in the middle of a word. I don’t know anything about podcasting so maybe I’m assuming too much when I guess this is easy to fix, but can’t you plan the ad breaks around topic switches or something rather than just having them interrupting you at random?
I might have mis-inserted the one today, but generally I’ve tried to put them between segments. Apologies if today’s was not. It should just be at one spot during the pod, right?
I thought it happened twice but I’m not sure, and honestly, it felt really familiar when it happened today (i.e., I wasn’t noticing it for the first time) and I think I’ve only been noticing it from this podcast. I admittedly started listening to more podcasts since I was traveling over the holiday season so maybe it wasn’t from the Pindown, but I don’t believe I’ve ever noticed this happening in the other pods I listen too (which are other Athletic pods, including the Moving Screen).
Probably just a lazy job by me of inserting the ad on this one. There definitely should have only been one ad slot during the pod (not pre/post). The Moving Screen ones are the same, so there shouldn’t really be a difference other than maybe more natural breaks because its MSU / UM split.
Since you commented that podcast listening drops off when the team isn’t playing well, I want to comment that I listened all the way through and it was well worth my time. Thanks for doing these. I like the content and analysis. Due to my work schedule, it usually takes me a few more days to listen than most of your audience.