And I’m not saying Smotrycz was a good 4. But to call him a 2 instead of a 4 is laughable. Are you going to call D.J. Wilson a shooting guard when he plays alongside Donnal/Wagner?
Am I missing something? This seems fairly straightforward. Your position is, if I’m understanding you, Wilson will not be on the floor at the same time as any of the following: Donnal, Wagner, Teske, or Davis. End of discussion. Coach Beilein has said Wilson will play at the same time as one of those four; you say Wilson will not be on the court at the same time as any of those four. Correct?
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So, the core of your argument is that DJ stinks?
Fair enough. You are entitled to your opinion. My bad.
Don’t put words in my mouth, dude. If you didn’t understand what I wrote very clearly, too bad. Nowhere did I say “DJ stinks”. And guess what…you know that darn well. The fact that you have to lie and pretend I did shows me that you’re just as full of it as everyone else on this thread.
I’ve made it very clear what I mean by a 4, but you seem unable to grasp it. Do you get that it’s obvious I don’t mean that a 5 is the biggest guy on the floor and a 4 is the second biggest guy on the floor when I say that? Do you get how foolish you look when you try to pretend that’s what I mean?
Your continued failure to answer my simple, direct question is noted again. Doesn’t it embarrass you to keep dodging? Doesn’t it embarrass you to keep thinking to yourself “damn, I know he’s right, but I have to do whatever I can not to acknowledge it, no matter how silly and weaselly I look?”
Do you agree or disagree that Beilein has not played two bigs at once for any significant time over the last five years? You can answer with one word. I’m looking you right in the face and challenging you, dude. Are you man enough to answer or not? I’ve answered all of your questions. What’s it going to be? Honesty, or weaseling out again?
Link to a direct quote where Beilein has said “DJ Wilson will play at the same time as Donnal, Wagner, Teske or Davis”. Then we’ll talk. And then we’ll see if he actually does it, because he has a long and documented history of NOT playing that kind of lineup here. He plays one big at a time.
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“According to Beilein, Wilson’s time at center is now officially over.
‘That’s where he’s going to be – he’s going to be on the wing,’ Beilein said. ‘That’s the only plan. He actually can play both wings.’”
This has already been posted but it honestly cannot get simpler than this. When Beilein says he’s not going to play center there not a single other interpretation to this other than that he will play the wing while Wagner or Donnal mans the 5. Unless of course you’d like to provide an example of Beilein playing a zero center lineup consistently?
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And that’s how the cookie crumbles.
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Well, this is completely different: Michigan basketball heads into season healthy
Knock on wood… Let’s hope this is the year we finally have some good luck with injuries after three straight seasons with issues.
Glad to hear everyone is healthy!
A healthy season could mean a great season ahead.
Most people that understand athletics understand what 1 injury in basketball can do to a team, chemistry, rotations, roles, etc… and we have unfortunately experienced the reality of that the past 2 seasons.
Excited for a healthy season ahead and lots of success!
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Doesn’t everyone usually expect a player or 2 to get injured during the year? It’s not easy to stay healthy for a complete year. Blackmon missed the whole conference year for Indiana, Jefferson missed a lot of the year for Duke, Tate got hurt at Ohio St, Nairn was hurt at MSU, Paige was hurt at UNC. Maybe the hope is not to have long term injuries instead of nobody getting hurt.
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You make a great point. My rebuttal would be that I believe all of those teams achieved less than they could have because of those injuries.
Speaking of injuries…
Sure, but Michigan has endured in-season injuries on top of preseason injuries and/or multiple inseason injuries. Not a good mix.
You’re right that a lot of teams suffer injuries. What you don’t expect is for two rotation players (including your best player) to go down at the same position (guard), as has happened the last two years for Michigan. When that happens, it impacts you. To use a football example, when Mone went down pre-season last year, we plugged in Glascow and were still fine defensively. But when Glascow went down, and we had to plug in Godin as a NT (a position he wasn’t ready for), we got torched on the ground by spread teams like Indiana and OSU. Depth at a position makes a difference.
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Exactly. It’s not just injuries, it’s injuries to the same position that force use to put Andrew Dakich in the rotation. Andrew. Dakich.
Pardon me for thinking it’s unlucky that for three straight years we’ve had a preseason All-American miss nearly all of the Big Ten season, plus our starting PG one of those years. You’re right that it’s rare to go through a season without injuries. It’s also rare for those to consistently be season ending injuries for your top players.