Who’s one or two prospects that you wanted at Michigan the most that didn’t happen? In both hindset and at the time Beilein was recruiting those players?
The two that could have really prevented the dip in form (other than health) for Michigan were Devin Booker and Luke Kennard for me.
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Wow that’s a blast from the past. Whatever happened to Benzing? I assume just has been playing ball in Europe?
Yep, been one of the better players in German league over the last decade, also been a frequent member of the national team I think.
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He sure could’ve helped the Beilein era get off to a better start.
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Beilein lost
Klay Thompson to washington state
Draymond green to msu-word was his mom wanted him at um and that a big reason why Izzo took him was to keep him away from um(MSU was wishy washy on him forever)
Gordon Hayward to Butler
Beilein was very close to having some epically good teams early in his tenure
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Malik Hairston. Now that I think about it I have no idea if we really recruited him hard but as a teenager I always thought we missed out on him
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He also chose Beifeldt over Larry Nance Jr, which prob wasn’t the right choice in retrospect. A rare miss.
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Side Conversation:
Took Beilein a while to get the post position recruited to the strengths of his system. I would think, Benzig would have helped speed that process up quite a bit. Also wonder how a healthy Ben Cronin would have helped the early Beilein teams. Some unlucky circumstances during the early parts of the Beilein Era.
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Yeah, IMO even with McGarys injury we win the natty in 2014 had Beilein taken nance instead of biefeldt.
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He also thought Ekpe Udoh wouldn’t make it in the NBA. Another miss. He doesn’t have many but that is a pretty big misjudgment imo.
Amaker was coaching when we missed on Hairston.
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Udoh transferred after playing for JB for one year. There has never been any suggestion JB wanted him to leave.
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Not letting @LosAngelesWolverine1 blow up another thread with an off topic discussion!
You guys can all duke it out in here.
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Robin Benzing.
Thank goodness
Beilein literally told him he wasn’t good enough to play for him and he should transfer. My source can’t be any more direct
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That’s pretty brutal considering we had two players over 6’6” that next year and one of them was Zack Gibson.
The story I’ve heard is that his handler wanted him at Baylor, and that we barely got him in the first place over the objections of said handler. (I can’t imagine why anyone’s handler would want them at Baylor, LOL).
He averaged 26 minutes a game in JB’s first year (6 points, 5 rebounds, 2.9 blocks, even shot .375 from three), and it’s not like we had anyone at center in his second year, so it makes little sense to me that JB would run him off.
Well he did. Idk what else to tell ya. Ekpe wanted to stay. That’s how he became best friends with Beverly and his family was at UofM. I believe his current agent is a Baylor grad. But that guy’s entire family also went to UofM so he was a regular there. Got pretty much told he wasn’t apart of Beilein’s plans going forward and wasn’t good enough. It happens.
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