Secret scrimmage vs. Toledo

I don’t think we’ve had a team with so many question marks in a long time. The early games, specifically how much we improve from the exhibition to the last cupcake before Maui, will be interesting to watch.

3 Likes

When MAAR squares up his shot is beautiful to watch. Next to Robinson there is nobody I’d rather see shooting an open 3

Thanks WH…please, this is like fake news! Im not even sure they keep score…these are coachable and teachable moments. The coach can stop play in the middle of the action…more like a controlled scrimmage!

1 Like

Beilein’s teams have a lot of question marks starting out almost every year. When was the last time a Beilein team started the season already loaded for bear?

1 Like

They’re going to lose some early games, and we will have the usual grousing from fans. But hopefully we’ve learned something about Beilein’s teams and how they, so often, come together down the stretch. Maybe just maybe Beilein has finally bought some patience from the fan base.

1 Like

The last few teams were very different in the sense that we knew just about everyone who was going to play and knew what to expect from the main pieces in the offense. DJ Wilson was a surprise last year, but I’m not sure he was even a question because no one really saw it coming.

Not exactly sure what your point is here. We’re replacing >50% of our production. We have 2 transfers who could be starting. One was awesome against worse competition and hasn’t made himself an obvious leader in the depth chart throughout practice. The other played behind 5 stars at Kentucky and has a sample size of like 20 made baskets. We have three freshmen that are neither certain projects nor certain quality players. The other option for starting PG struggled to adjust to the college level but also has been rated as our best defender and showed random flashes of excellence for about one play per game towards the end of the season. Wagner has never been the focal point of an offense, and Beilein’s never had a center be the focal point as the coach of Michigan. MAAR probably will be tasked with more play making responsibilities than ever before if Simmons isn’t ready to lead right away. Our backup centers have played a combined 61 minutes in the NCAA. Ibi Watson is supposedly the most athletic player under Beilein vertical-wise, but we’ve seen 83 minutes of him and he shot 5.6% from three.

Duncan Robinson and maybe MAAR are literally the only players on this team that we know what we’ll get from. Maybe add Wagner but again, he’s never been a focal point in our offense before now. There are zero bench players who we can say with 100% certainty will be consistently in the rotation. This is the first time under Beilein where we don’t know who the starting PG is going into the first game. I get the feeling that your comment was simply disagreement for the sake of disagreeing.

3 Likes

He made me look dumb enough last year that I will never doubt anything he does again.

2 Likes

2012-13.

They were loaded the next year, too, but took a little while to hit their stride.

1 Like

No, I meant 2012 was the year where we knew we were loaded and going to be great.

Gotcha, we are in agreement then lol.

Knowing who the best player at a spot is likely to be and knowing how well they’re likely to perform are two very different things. That’s the point. The fact that we may know the former right down to the 7th or 8th guy doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of questions and uncertainties about how the team is actually going to do. We put Morris, Burke and Walton into the point guard spot as true freshmen because we had no one else, but we had no real idea how they’d do.

And it’s very funny that you say you don’t know what my point is, and then spend the rest of your post making it.

Can you answer my question?

Well, even going back to Derrick’s freshman year was 4 years ago. And that team was coming off of a run to the Final Four and had three starters from the previous team. That was a while ago for sure. Over the last few seasons you kind of had a very strong core of Derrick/Zak and then Caris was in there.

I would certainly argue that this team has as much uncertainty as any since probably back since Darius/Tim season maybe. Tough to say.

I’d say the 2014-15 season was pretty uncertain. Losing 3 1st round picks, ho-hum incoming class.

That’s fair, but you had an All-Frosh PG, Caris LeVert and Irvin had a very good freshman year. Then you were bringing in a five-star forward in Kam Chatman.

This year you bring back Moe, which is a lot, and Muhammad and Duncan. I guess you could sell that as comparable, but the big difference is that we are all penciling guys like Matthews, Simmons in for minutes and potentially as one of the better players on the team and we haven’t even seen them play (similar to Chatman in 2015 I guess).

Also… that year as a disaster. Woof.

4 Likes

How Kam ended up a 5-star is beyond me. Even at the time, he didn’t look athletic, a bit knock-kneed, questionable shot. 3-star.

1 Like

Really curious to see how he does at Detroit this year. I think he could have a huge year there and it would be great to see him land on his feet. He had some tools but limited athleticism hamstrung him here. A lot of times it seems like production at the highest level (EYBL, etc.) can cause scouts to overlook the sheer measurables. I think the notion is always 'well, he could do it against the best HS kids so even if he isn’t a freak athlete, he can do it in college). Turns out that a lot of Kam’s EYBL production was due to playing on a terrible team though where he just did everything.

1 Like

Yeah, very interested in seeing how Kam does. He might do much better as one of the top ball-handlers/playmakers on a mid-level team than a fifth option/complementary player on a top team – good passer, decent scorer, not a knock-down shooter or super-athletic guy (though I think his lack of athleticism was less a factor at UM than not being able to knock down 3s). He also got unlucky by being on relatively bad UM teams . . .

1 Like

I’m not sure what your point is in a “why is this guy trying to debate me on the exact amount of question marks we have vs previous years stemming from an innocuous comment” sort of way, if that’s clears things up.