We’ve seen a number of early polls come out with UM ranked by most in the 15-30 range nationally. Today, BTN posted their conference power rankings with UM checking in at 9 (!). Thoughts on how this season will play out? I’ll go first:
NonCon record: 11-3
Conf record: 12-6
Tourney seed: 5
Tourney finish: S16
Final ranking: 16
9th in the big ten? wow! lol. They have the 9th best odds to win the ncaa title which is a far better indicator imo.
Cripes, we were 9th in the Big Ten LAST year, with a decimated backcourt and freshmen at the bigs. The conference hasn’t gotten any easier, but I see us finishing no worse than 6th, given that everyone is back healthy, and we lost nobody but Beilfeldt.
10-3 non-conference certainly isn’t overly optimistic (figuring we only win one of three in the Bahamas, and also lose at NC State, but beat Xavier and SMU). I’d be fairly disappointed if we didn’t do at least that well.
I think this is a high floor/low ceiling team. Barring significant injuries like last year, I can’t see us doing any worse than at least 10 wins in B1G conference play given the experience and depth we are returning.
However, I’m not convinced Levert can be the alpha dog in the Burke/Stauskas mold, so realistically speaking I think a Sweet 16 exit is the best-case scenario. I actually think the team would be better off if Walton ends up taking the mantle and allows Levert to go back to a second banana role like he was two years ago.
I haven’t posted on here since the spring, but I’m getting excited for basketball now and can’t wait for it to start…
I’m generally a pessimist about our teams, but I find myself oddly confident about this team. I think 9th in the conference is hilarious, but I guess if BTN wants to start with where teams finished last season, you can’t argue that. And when I think back to last year, consider how many losses were flukes (Eastern, NJIT) or in overtime where we simply ran out of steam (Wisco, MSU, Illinois, NW). Not saying we would’ve won all those games, but I think we were better than our 16-16 record suggested.
Looking ahead to this season, we have the same team sans Bielfeldt and adding Wilson to the rotation. (I don’t see Robinson or Wagner making big impacts, but that would be fantastic if they did.) The freshmen have a season of experience and Walton/LeVert/Spike are back to full health. The outlook is good!
Ok on to my predictions. I think we go 11-2 non-conference with losses in the Bahamas and then at NC State. Then we go 11-5 in conference with two losses to Maryland and then standard losses at Wisconsin, Purdue and Ohio State. Keep in mind we don’t play IU or MSU on the road this year and the Wisco/OSU only once.
Won’t speculate on the postseason right now…
Might as well go all out on the optimism this year!
I think even 10-8 in the Big Ten is overly pessimistic for this team. Even with all our issues last year, we were 8-10, with 4 overtime losses. If even a couple of those flip the other way, that’s 10-8 right there. Our backcourt at the end of last year started MAAR and a crippled Albrecht, with walkons after that. This year, our BENCH is MAAR and a healthy Albrecht. With even modest improvement from Doyle, Dawkins and Chatman, and the return of Walton, Levert and Wilson, how can we not project as significantly better?
The pundits, when speaking about any veteran team that isn’t Michigan: “They return all their starters, so they are going to be amazing!”
The pundits, when speaking about Michigan: “They have basically the same team as last year, so I wouldn’t expect much.”
I think there’s also a bit of dissonance among Michigan fans, who are somehow both excited about the trajectory of the program while also seemingly resigned to being consistently worse than Maryland, MSU, Indiana, OSU, and Wisconsin. Personally, I have trouble getting excited for anything other than a conference championship contender – luckily I think we might have one this year.
I think Michigan splits with Maryland, beats Indiana in Ann Arbor, and wins in Madison. The non-conference could be rougher as they try to find the best way of leveraging their depth… but there is no team on the non-conference slate that is better than Michigan (except maybe Gonzaga).
In the Big Ten, Ohio State will unfortunately be better than predicted – they lose Russell but their recruiting class is absolutely loaded.
I found myself somehow excited about last year despite how narrow the path was to having a strong team (needed the starting 5 to stay pretty healthy, and that didn’t happen). I can’t see any way we finish 9th in the B1G, I am actually thinking top 4 right now. The only thing keeping me from feeling very confident is the February schedule, that is a tough month to navigate and will really be a test before March Madness.
22 win regular season. Top 5 Big Ten. Sweet sixteen.
12-1 non-conference
13-5 conference
Elite 8
11-2 non-conf
12-6 big ten
big ten tournament champ
4 seed
sweet 16
I think there’s also a bit of dissonance among Michigan fans, who are somehow both excited about the trajectory of the program while also seemingly resigned to being consistently worse than Maryland, MSU, Indiana, OSU, and Wisconsin. Personally, I have trouble getting excited for anything other than a conference championship contender – luckily I think we might have one this year.
Well, the fanbase knows that Beilein usually puts a quality product on the court. But the reason we’re always feeling like we have to play catch up with those other programs is that, possibly with the exception of Wisconsin, they regularly land the kind of elite recruits that we always seem to strike out on. That does a lot to dampen enthusiasm. Say what you will about one-and-done players not being what this program wants, but I guarantee you that if we were bringing in someone like Diamond Stone or Caleb Swanigan, people would be touting us as one of the money-on favorites in the Big Ten this year. Instead, we’re relegated to the status of dark horse, as we always seem to be. We have to hope (again) that someone like Burke or Stauskas or Levert emerges unexpectedly as a star to help us close that talent gap. So far, that’s worked out pretty well, but it always puts us in a wait-and-see, finger-crossing mode at the start of the season. If you stop and think about it, no Beilein team here has ever gone into a season with really high expectations, the kind that Maryland has this year or Wisconsin had last year. Even when we’ve done really well, it’s always been somewhat of a surprise. Hence the typical lack of full-bore enthusiasm from the Michigan fanbase around this time of year.
Thinking 11-12 conference wins. But the conference is certainly good enough that going .500 is a possibility. Very few “easy” wins in the B1G this year. But I think we’re better than that and finally experienced and pretty hungry.
I think this is a high floor/low ceiling team. Barring significant injuries like last year, I can't see us doing any worse than at least 10 wins in B1G conference play given the experience and depth we are returning.However, I’m not convinced Levert can be the alpha dog in the Burke/Stauskas mold, so realistically speaking I think a Sweet 16 exit is the best-case scenario. I actually think the team would be better off if Walton ends up taking the mantle and allows Levert to go back to a second banana role like he was two years ago.
Agree that they need a player with an edge, ala Novack, Burke & Stauskas and it probably won’t be LeVert. Maybe Dawkins can fill that role.
Um I think we were preseason #7 in both 12-13 and 13-14. We’ve definitely had expectations before.
Um I think we were preseason #7 in both 12-13 and 13-14. We've definitely had expectations before.
Yeah, we were loaded in 12-13 especially. There were definitely some pre-season doubters (who mainly cited youth and front court depth), but few teams in recent memory have had that kind of offensive firepower.
Um I think we were preseason #7 in both 12-13 and 13-14. We've definitely had expectations before.Yeah, we were loaded in 12-13 especially. There were definitely some pre-season doubters (who mainly cited youth and front court depth), but few teams in recent memory have had that kind of offensive firepower.
Yeah, starting back to back seasons in the top ten (with one year coming off of a trip to the National Championship) generally qualifies as high expectations.
In neither of those seasons were we even close to being the favorite even in our own conference. Even after coming off a trip to the NC game, we didn’t get a single first place vote in next year’s preseason poll, while State got 22. In the preseason 2012-2013 poll, Indiana got 43 first place votes to none for us, and OSU was also ranked ahead of us. That was the point. We always seem to be playing catchup to the other programs that WindsorBlue mentioned.
Agree that they need a player with an edge, ala Novack, Burke & Stauskas and it probably won't be LeVert. Maybe Dawkins can fill that role.
Walton is that guy.
Incidentally, sounds like Wagner will be in due time.
Still not sure what to think of this team. There isn’t a lot of turnover and they hope health will be the biggest difference maker. Of course relatively speaking it’s the same group that laid eggs against NJIT and EMU. They really need to be a better rebounding team and I don’t think anybody knows what to expect from Donnal, Wilson and Wagner. I think 9th is definitely low end but I see teams like Maryland, MSU, Purdue, Wisconsin, Indiana being better. I see being 4th in the conference as best case scenario, not an easy schedule.