Assuming they finish 8-4 non-conference (big assumption based on viewing last two games), 9-9 in conference is not good enough. 10-8 is probably still bubble territory. LAW- I think you are underestimating the damage of these losses. The big ten may be down, but road games are still difficult. I haven’t seen anything yet to suggest our Freshmen are going to play well in hostile environments, so finishing 10-8 or 11-7 seems out of the question.
Any team with size or no fear is going to give us problems. This is a hesitant and small team, not to mention the youth. In a few months there will be more flow and trust in this team but we’ll struggle with size for a year or two (PROBABLY)… The talent is there but size isn’t something you can teach. I like Doyle but he needs time to develop. I like Donnal but he needs some protein shakes. But give the brothas, MAAR and Dawkins a chance.
Come on, it's "going to take a Herculean efforts just to make the tournament now?" No, it isn't. We'll lose to Arizona, I have no delusions about that. We should finish 8-4 non-conference (like last year, when we landed a #2 seed in the tourney), and then we head into Big Ten play. 10-8 or better and we're probably in. And the Big Ten is hardly imposing this year - lots of good teams, but only one (Wisconsin) that could fall into the great category.
Love the optimism ( and a seemingly advantageous B1G schedule ) but if this team can look so confused and befuddled by NJIT and EMU at home, how in the world at this stage of the season can anyone think THIS team will be 10-8 or better in conference this year? They’re a threat to lose any game they play this year with the kind of execution exhibited last night. As always they are WAY to dependent on the 3 point line to make an impact going forward without an above average shooting performance. This team has a different feel to me as far as being able to replicate another tourney appearance obligatorily. Far to many holes up front that were easily predictable for the realists in the crowd. Can they get better and improve? Absolutely, but there are far less pieces available to maneuver than there were last year. It’s going to be difficult to get 19-20 wins for sure.
@ajerome33: Yep this is the key part. Losing to Zona, then beating SMU and Coppin State, and then going 11-7 in conference would put us at 19-11. That’s exactly what Nebraska was last year and they just scraped in as an 11 seed. And they didn’t have two of the worst losses of any team under consideration dragging them down.
We are going to be out of it/on the bubble the rest of the season unless we blow up in a huge way in the B10 (12-6 record or better). There is no way to overstate how damaging this loss was.
Take a look at our record in 2011 and get back to me. We were a #8 seed that year too, by the way.
Nebraska just barely made it because they are Nebraska. Michigan has made the tourney four straight years and is a household basketball name. There is no chance we are a bubble team at 11-7 in the Big Ten.
Come on, it's "going to take a Herculean efforts just to make the tournament now?" No, it isn't. We'll lose to Arizona, I have no delusions about that. We should finish 8-4 non-conference (like last year, when we landed a #2 seed in the tourney), and then we head into Big Ten play. 10-8 or better and we're probably in. And the Big Ten is hardly imposing this year - lots of good teams, but only one (Wisconsin) that could fall into the great category.Love the optimism ( and a seemingly advantageous B1G schedule ) but if this team can look so confused and befuddled by NJIT and EMU at home, how in the world at this stage of the season can anyone think THIS team will be 10-8 or better in conference this year? They’re a threat to lose any game they play this year with the kind of execution exhibited last night. As always they are WAY to dependent on the 3 point line to make an impact going forward without an above average shooting performance. This team has a different feel to me as far as being able to replicate another tourney appearance obligatorily. Far to many holes up front that were easily predictable for the realists in the crowd. Can they get better and improve? Absolutely, but there are far less pieces available to maneuver than there were last year. It’s going to be difficult to get 19-20 wins for sure.
Couldn’t agree more. Love reading your posts, they seem to convey my thoughts precisely, with a more diplomatic approach. Diplomacy has never been one of my finer attributes.
Take a look at our record in 2011 and get back to me. We were a #8 seed that year too, by the way.Nebraska just barely made it because they are Nebraska. Michigan has made the tourney four straight years and is a household basketball name. There is no chance we are a bubble team at 11-7 in the Big Ten.
That team went 10-2 in the non-conference and didn’t have a single loss as bad as EMU was, let alone EMU AND NJIT.
Take a look at our record in 2011 and get back to me. We were a #8 seed that year too, by the way.Nebraska just barely made it because they are Nebraska. Michigan has made the tourney four straight years and is a household basketball name. There is no chance we are a bubble team at 11-7 in the Big Ten.
I know you would probably admit you are a “glass half full” type with respect to UM, but I really think you may be reaching here a bit. This team’s resume will be void of a signature victory over a ranked team in the non-conference schedule, combined with 2 ugly losses. Add in the fact the B10 is down with no great teams (Wisc is not great by any stretch)…doesn’t bode well for number crunching.
Very difficult at this time to see M having 10-11 conference wins. This team is to flawed as it is constructed today. JB has zero confidence in the Frosh, making it imperative to shoot above average from 3 to win. Those shots are much more hotly contested this year, and will continue to be as teams feel minimal threat to defend the post and employ the “umbrella” D. At crunch time against EMU our post “threat” ( Max ) was smaller than our shooting guard ( Caris ). These last two Ls ( at home ) will be impossible to defend on a tourney resume. With Syracuse and Oregon iffy propositions to make the field, we would have potentially 0 non-con Ws against tourney teams. Who knows about SMU? We’d have to win first. As much as I want to believe we will turn it around in the B1G, this team just isn’t talented enough to inspire that confidence going forward. I’ll be incredibly surprised if we have double digit conference wins. With potentially 13-14 losses and two brutally indefensible home defeats, it would be highly difficult to overcome.
Bottom line, we have always been overly reliant on the 3 under JB. The difference this year is that we lack the elite creators(IE Nik, Trey) to create easy looks for the bigs and kick outs to shooters. Caris is good, but not on that level in any way. Was really nice to have him as the ‘second’ guy. Lots of stagnation at standing around in the half court sets. Add in the fact that we lost a lot on the defensive end due to the significant downgrade from JMo to Doyle/Donnal. This is why recruiting instant impact players is absolutely imperative…when your NBA guys leave, the cabinet becomes empty. I think we will have an improved front court next year with nice depth, but if we don’t land Brown and Caris leaves…it could be a down year.
Any team with size or no fear is going to give us problems. This is a hesitant and small team, not to mention the youth. In a few months there will be more flow and trust in this team but we'll struggle with size for a year or two (PROBABLY).... The talent is there but size isn't something you can teach. I like Doyle but he needs time to develop. I like Donnal but he needs some protein shakes. But give the brothas, MAAR and Dawkins a chance.
This team’s average height is 76.9", 150th in the NCAA, meaning that we are in the top 50th percentile, so unless you’re talking about size in terms of bulk, we’re actually about average. In the aforementioned case, sure, I mean I guess Camp Sanderson is needed for some guys, but height wise we’re pretty not horrible. The issue is that our people with size can’t exactly defend and are limited on offense, both of which are kinda important.
Any team with size or no fear is going to give us problems. This is a hesitant and small team, not to mention the youth. In a few months there will be more flow and trust in this team but we'll struggle with size for a year or two (PROBABLY).... The talent is there but size isn't something you can teach. I like Doyle but he needs time to develop. I like Donnal but he needs some protein shakes. But give the brothas, MAAR and Dawkins a chance.This team’s average height is 76.9", 150th in the NCAA, meaning that we are in the top 50th percentile, so unless you’re talking about size in terms of bulk, we’re actually about average. In the aforementioned case, sure, I mean I guess Camp Sanderson is needed for some guys, but height wise we’re pretty not horrible. The issue is that our people with size can’t exactly defend and are limited on offense, both of which are kinda important.
What you are saying in a nutshell is that we lack athleticism in the front court. We simply don’t have anyone on the roster that can deter shots in the paint and play good position defense. I think Doyke will get there eventually, especially with position defense, but he’s not there yet. I know most thought I was way too hard on Wilson, but I’ve seen nothing to suggest he will be an impact player before he is a junior let alone a 2 (or 3 for that matter) and done as some predicted. He has some potential as a weak side defender, but he has a LOT to work on with respect to the offensive end.
On the other hand, we have Teske in the mix. He should provide that rim protection starting in 17 that we so desperately need. Can’t wait for Teske to be in the mix
Anyone who doesn’t think recruiting rankings matter in basketball is an absolute fool. They are so much more accurate than football.
Look back at all the old classes on Rivals, nearly every guy who ended up being good in the NBA was a 5 star, yes, even guys like Tony Wroten.
On the recruiting point . . .First of all, when we landed guys like Darius Morris, Jordan Morgan, Tim Hardaway, Trey Burke, Glenn Robinson, and probably even Nik Stauskas, I’m pretty confident MattD and the other “recruiting sucks” people were not jumping up and down and proclaiming we were about to make the national championship game. Nor were all those guys superstars as freshmen, either. I don’t know if this board existed when we signed Spike, but if it did, my guess is MattD ridiculed that signing.
This is just flat out wrong. Most fans, including me, where excited about all of those recruits. Every guy you mentioned was a rising player (Almost all of the guys you mentioned ended up being 4 stars by the senior years), with obvious upside and/or really fit what Michigan needed (i.e. Morgan and Spike).
I don’t think we can say the same things with anywhere near the same certainty about the 2014 and 2015 classes. And so far 2016 is mostly a pipe dream.
I’ll address a few of these points:
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No signature wins over top 25 teams so far? Agreed. Guess what - we didn’t have one in the non-conference portion of the schedule last year, either. Nor did we have one in the season I referenced, 2011. That’s not going to keep you out of the tourney if you win 11-12 conference games.
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No great Big Ten teams? Again, MattD, I know you’re a knee jerk guy who loves to draw conclusions based on a really small sample size, but it’s fricking December. The only argument you have against Wisconsin is that they lost to Duke. But Duke itself is an elite team. If Wisconsin is anything less than a 2 seed come tourney time, I’d be surprised.
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Lack of a post game against EMU? Yeah, duh. They play a zone. Now, should we have flashed Chatman to the center for some easy 12 footers like we did against Cuse? Absolutely. And I’ll be the first to say our zone offense against EMU was terrible. That is one area where I feel the coaching staff needs to improve significantly. Another area would be out-of-bounds plays.
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Recruiting rankings are “really accurate” in college basketball? No they’re not. I’ll find you plenty of high four stars and five stars that weren’t very good. Heck, let’s just look at Michigan recruits - Jerod Ward, Willie Mitchell, and Bobby Crawford were all McDonalds All Americans and Ward was ranked as the #1 high school player in the country. Daniel Horton was a McDonalds All American, too, and Dion Harris was ranked in the 25-35 range. None of those guys were star players in college (you can maybe make a case for Horton as a freshman and senior, maybe).
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When we get into this “lack of talent” stuff, let’s be realistic here. Levert is obviously talented - the fact that we’re debating whether he’s a lottery pick or “just” a first rounder makes the point. Walton and Irvin? Both highly regarded recruits. Whether Irvin should have been ranked in the 60-70 range, instead of the 20-30 range, is certainly debatable, but the guy was a strong recruit. Donnal was a top 100 guy, Chatman was top 25, Wilson top 100, and while Doyle wasn’t top 100, he looks promising.
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Are we capable of winning 11-12 conference games? No. We should just shut the program down right now. Come on. Look, there’s no doubt that if we play like we did against EMU and NJIT, we’re not doing anything this year. But apparently those are the only games that matter, and the close loss to #10 Nova and the win over Syracuse don’t matter. Folks, I can promise you Nova and Cuse are WAY better teams than NJIT and EMU. So, maybe before you throw in the towel, you should accept the fact that this is a young team, they need to learn they can’t take anyone lightly, they need to improve in many facets, but in two games, they have played strong competition to the wire. I promise Syracuse (though, like us, they’re young) is more talented than all but about 3-4 Big Ten teams. They are better than Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Rutgers, and Penn State. You get the point.
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Meanwhile, other than Wisconsin, we all agree the Big Ten may not be special this year. Yet in the same breath you think it’s impossible for us to win 11-12 conference games. OK.
One of the biggest weaknesses we are going to struggle with all year ( besides our non-experienced front court ) is having no athletic baseline finisher to keep zone defenses honest. EMU simply dared us to try and attack behind them with little or no concern. This allowed them to extend their D and readily challenge our scorers. That extension made it very difficult to swing the ball productively. Add in two smallish guards who have trouble seeing over that “umbrella”, and our offensive opportunities are very limited. Conversely, those smallish guards are dynamite finding shooters in transition, but we had few of those chances available against EMU despite 17 turnovers. The difference in the 'Cuse game was we had 17 ORs that allowed more possessions. I found it hard to accept JBs assessment of “that was the quickest zone he’s ever seen”. We played right into their hand by rarely attacking the middle, and being unable to go over the top, so that their recovery distance was minimal. We just passed it “around the world on the perimeter.” Not incredibly challenging to defend successfully if committed.
I think Caris’ limitations as a player and “go to guy” are starting to show more now that he doesn’t have Stauskas out there. He can score, but he doesn’t seem to make his teammates better. Whether we make the tournament or not, there may very well be a realistic scenario where we see all five starters back next season.
@ajerome33: Yep this is the key part. Losing to Zona, then beating SMU and Coppin State, and then going 11-7 in conference would put us at 19-11. That's exactly what Nebraska was last year and they just scraped in as an 11 seed. And they didn't have two of the worst losses of any team under consideration dragging them down.We are going to be out of it/on the bubble the rest of the season unless we blow up in a huge way in the B10 (12-6 record or better). There is no way to overstate how damaging this loss was.
The selection committee cares way more about who you beat than who you lost to. This isn’t college football. There is no way that a team that goes 19-11 and 11-7 in the Big Ten misses the NCAA Tournament.
I mean, just look at 2010/2011.
2010/2011
Michigan St. 17-13 (9-9)… 10 seed.
Penn St. 17-13 (9-9)… loss to Maine…10 seed.
Illinois 19-12 (9-9)… loss to University of Illinois-Chicago… 9 seed.
Michigan 19-12 (9-9)… loss to UTEP… 8 seed.
A 19-11 (11-7) Michigan team isn’t missing the NCAAT because of a bad loss to NJIT. The EMU loss is bad, but to consider it one of the worst losses of anyone being considered is wrong. The NJIT loss going to be the worst loss on anyone’s resume, but there are going to be dozens of bubble teams with losses worse than EMU.
If you want to say that Michigan isn’t going 11-7, then fine. That’s very believable at this point. Saying that even if Michigan goes 19-11 (11-7) they’d miss the NCAAT is just being silly, though.
Chezaroo - we’ll probably face 2-3 more teams all year that will play a zone against us. The only one I can identify for sure is Illinois, who did it with success last year. I don’t think zone offense (while it was awful against EMU) is a big concern.
The trend is the opposite this year ( note OSU ). The blueprint and film now exist to gameplan successfully against this edition of JBs offense. Be very surprised if opponents don’t roll it out more. We’ll inevitably improve, but this team doesn’t have the talent of last years squad, and far less weapons to adjust.