JB’s philosophy to the game of basketball is flawed. He’s not recruiting at a level to make up for it. Let’s collectively dig our heads out of the sand and realize this.
So if last night was the ceiling for this team, what was the team we saw against Marquette this year?
Early in the season basketball. Michigan is no different right now than they were vs Marquette. That’s what happens when the core group of players you lean on hit their ceilings as Juniors.
I haven’t followed Marquette close enough to say for certain, but I assume those players are improving. Marquette would run us out of the gym right now.
I disagree. You could see the effort on defense earlier in the season. We weren’t a great defensive team, but you could see Donlon making a difference. That effort on that side of the floor has fallen off.
They need to try Teske to see if he can offer any rim protection and/or rebounding. They give up way too much inside which just compounds the rest of their defensive issues.
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Hmmm. Interesting new sign up we have here, feels familiar. Nice effort though.
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I just don’t see any major changes happening this year, so I think we’re going to see more clunkers on the road like last night, but also a few random nice wins that will keep us baffled about the team.
JB is not going to bench Zak or DWalt, and we need to keep Mo and DJ on the court for progression purposes. Maybe the rotation expands a little, but I feel like the only changes we’ll see are the minutes distribution for MAAR, Duncan, and X - which really don’t seem to have a rhyme or reason at this point. I also like the idea of Teske getting a few more minutes if Mark continues to go through the motions while Mo is getting beaten down low.
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Out of curiosity, why did he get suspended in the first place?
Mo and DJ need to get more than 0 rebounds combined in a whole first half to deserve to stay out there IMO. Even though they both played well offensively in the 2nd half, that should be unacceptable
I disagree with everything you have said. We are not a bottom four big ten team. We are a tourney level team based on our talent, of this I’m convinced.
Actually I agree we deserved to miss the tourney last year but we were playing pretty solid ball late in the year. A 12 seed was fitting. Honestly we blew that notre game badly. We were significantly better late in the year than early in a non conference ( we were horrible through the out of conference schedule), we had a solid Irish team on the ropes at half and we let them back in. I believe they went elite eight, no? We were running them out of the gym That easily could have been us and then we’d be the surprise of the tourney with a crap load of hype coming into this year. But we choked and here we are, so I digress…
To say this is our ceiling is absurd. This is actually our floor. This team really can’t play worse. Our ceiling was clearly MSG and the first half of ucla. I don’t see how out worst game of the year and worst little run of games could be our ceiling.
This is not the limit of these guys potential. This I know. Why? Because we have seen all of them play much tougher/ better all around, individually their all falling short of their potential. Except dj. I’m not sure if his offense he’s flashing is real. He definitely is falling short defensively lately. He flashed moments early in the year on defense where he was dominating on the ball , on the help and maybe most importantly at the rim. He was a one man wrecking crew.
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I agree, I think 5-10 minutes a game to start sounds in order. Let us see where’s he’s at and if he can be a defensive force. He didn’t look overwhelmed early in the year. He actually looked quite promising I was surprised.
As for a grad transfer coming in next year at the 5 I disagree. Could have been useful this year maybe but if we whiff on bamba ( I just don’t believe he will come now. We just can’t land these guys) I think we’re ok with 5’s. Teske will be the 5 off the bench and I’m quite comfortable in that. He was brought in for his defense and to protect the rim. I think it would be far more important to add a grad transfer pg. Hell we might need a grad transfer to come in and start. There’s a good shot x won’t be ready to start full
time. Same with Brooks. Brooks might not be ready to play at all even as a back up. Belein has to chase down a fifth year leader at the pg. tell him flat out the job is yours if you earn it. I’m much happier with our 5 spot in 18 and 19 then pg.
I also really like our wings future after this year, which was ok not great. Four spot too.
Maar, Poole Ibi, Mathews, Duncan is a group I like.
Wilson, moe at times, and livers at the four. Nice tandem for the next two years. Livers is my favorite 17 not counting Mathews. I think he will have a better career then Jordan or Brooks personally. He’s top 80 like ESPN had him not 124 or 130 which I saw in these threads from other sites.
What have you seen from Michigan thus far in the Big Ten season that you like? I think there’s a lot of limitations with the potential of these guys. Maar was good last night in the 1st half best game of the year or best half. Robinson/Donnal were no shows and Robinson has been a no show on defense since he arrived at Michigan. When you don’t recruit well it’s hard to get players to consistently play at a high level.
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My reasoning:
I like Teske’s upside and defensive potential. Counting on him to be the sole rim protector next year is unwise given the predicament JB has found himself in. We know Donnal nor Davis will help in that regard, and I think exchanging BOTH of them for another big with that skillset to compete for minutes can only help.
I agree, Wilson/Livers/CM is fine at the 4.
The wings are solid but I don’t see any certain high volume guy with PnR skillset. Adding a guy to the mix there cannot hurt. With that, you don’t need a grad PG and simply need X/Brooks to defend, knock down open shots, and mature…certainly within their abilities. But by all means if a stud 5th year PG should surface, JB should not hesitate to grab him.
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Creating fake accounts to agree with yourself on forums is already very dumb, but I think doing it when everyone is already on a similar page takes it to a new level.
On another note, it seems like you’ve refrained from comment either way in terms of Beilein. Do you have an opinion on where we should go as a program if this season keeps going the way it is?
Maybe his head is in the sand…
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I wrote a 1200 wd game recap last night, wouldn’t really call that silent. If you mean diving into with whatever thread you guys spent the night ranting in, well I haven’t really read that so I can’t really comment.
Do I think Beilein is going to get fired? Nope. I also don’t think Michigan is going to lose every remaining Big Ten game (as it appears some do). So I guess maybe if you believe both, it’s easier to believe that he’ll be fired.
The defense these last four games has been unacceptable and disappointing. Last night was a truly awful performance on a number of levels. This has been some of the worst defense I can remember and I’m not really sure where it came from because this group looked at least competent defensively early on. Guys are just completely lost out there and that’s not acceptable at this point in the season. They are making mistakes that they didn’t make earlier this season – that’s a bad sign. Wagner, MAAR, Irvin, Walton all either making stupid plays or just look lost out there time and again.
(In terms of strictly on the court play, I’m really worried about Wagner. His offensive moves have been fairly well scouted, he needs more counters and and teams are starting to really pick on him defensively.)
But if you think Beilein is going to get fired after missing the tourney 3 times in 9 years (assuming you guys are expecting them to miss this year) – including a stretch with two tourney runs and a pair of Big Ten titles – then I think you’ll be disappointed at the end of this year. When was the last time U-M made the tourney before he was here?
Right now, this group hasn’t found itself. I compared the current situation to the 2011 season in my recap. If you remember, that was about as dark as it got for Beilein in Ann Arbor during Jan. before that MSU game. That team turned it around, but as I said, I’m not sure who does what to change it or fix it, but obviously not good.
If this team fails to make the tourney, that’s a huge disappointment, probably one of the most disappointing seasons under Beilein. I’d compare it to the Manny/Deshawn team that went .500; much more disappointing than the last two years because it wasn’t injury induced – it would just be a team that wasn’t good enough but showed that it had the fleeting ability to be. But again, there are still 14 Big Ten games left – in this league, who the hell knows what’s going to happen. (I don’t think OSU, Indiana and Michigan are going to finish in 3 of the bottom 4 spots).
I also don’t think that John Beilein is just some senile man who forgot how to coach basketball. I think the list of coaches that I would look at as an obvious upgrade over Beilein is pretty short and I’m not sure how realistic the ones that would be are as candidates.
For better or worse, next year is going to be a very different team. Maybe that’s what this program needs, maybe next year will be horrible. It’s impossible to say right now. But if this year unravels and Michigan goes something like 5-13 in the Big Ten, then I would say that the importance of the 2017-18 season is magnified significantly and you start to think about some of these things more seriously.
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Everybody loves Mo because he has very good offensive skills for a big man, but it is the lack of defense that is killing us. Mo looked totally lost on defense last night, and this is half way through his second season. He rebounds like someone 6’7" not 6’11".
Teske is a good shot blocker and a better rebounder, which is what we need now. I think he and DJ together could shore up the inside.
Same thing for Duncan. I would rather have Watson’s athletic ability in there, especially if Robinson is going to foul out with 2 points.
While we are at it, put Simpson at the point and let Walton share time with MAAR at the two. Time to start getting guys ready for next year.
I’m with Dylan for the most part…Beilien isn’t getting fired mid-season. It would serve no purpose.
Where I differ is the 5-13 portion. If we finish 5-13 in B10 play, I think at minimum Warde is going to have some serious discussions with Beilien about his philosophy, trajectory, and recruiting practices. While a 9-9 or 8-10 record certainly isn’t acceptable, it can be rationalized to a small degree. 5-13 is 5-13, period.
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Yeah for all the folks that say he plays with energy, I just don’t see it at all. There is a huge difference between displaying emotion in the form of facial expressions, screams, etc and actual on-court physical energy. Wagner is just downright horrible in terms of reaction time on rotations, boxing out, and ball pursuit.
Oh I completely agree here. Not only will it not happen, it realistically shouldn’t happen.