I was and am still very high in these team if healthy. Walton is the key. Especially if he plays with confidence and attacks. So many options to kick to. I was also one guy who thought Dawkins would take over. I’m sad that he doesn’t seem to have confidence and looks lost. I’d actually like the team to try and get him involved and run some curls on the elbow like last year to wake him up. If he finds his range and confidence this offense could be amazing with Robinson.
Wagner is also going to be a big reason we could be very dangerous if healthy. He’s more than competent and you can trust him to catch and finish at the rim. Team needs to play hard and team rebound like yesterday to be successful. This is where Irvin is key. His role should be utility man. Yes his driving skills and threes are nice but his grit and rebounding will be huge.
I just pray Walton is healthy because with him playing well and getting in the paint it opens so much up. Also his rebounding is huge. I really like our potential if we can just realize it. I don’t want them to totally forget about Wilson though. Another guy who I think just needs some time to find his game in live action.
Also rahkman looked good yesterday. If Waltons hurt he’s gonna see a lot of time and I actually think he can do it. He’s great getting in the lane when he wants to. It seems like him and Aubrey might deferring now that the others are back. I hope they realize there’s no need to defer and attack as we can win in a variety of ways. Rahk could have gone to the rack more but hesitated. If he starts with Derrick down he has to step up and attack like we know he can.see his spin move last night.Also push the tempo sometimes with him out there. He drew a hard foul doing this. Very excited to see guys living up to their billing. We can win these upcoming even without Derrick that’s how good and deep we are. Just have to adjust and execute. But man having Derrick makes me feel even better. No true point but by sharing ball duties rahk levert can do it.
I’m hopeful the best is yet to come.
Wagner’s apparent ability to hit 3’s and drag opposing 5’s out to the 3 point line, is as of yet untapped. Not to mention his ability and audacity to then drive around them.
Irvin’s shot: once he starts shooting it better, this offense is lethal. There will be shooters spotting up everywhere and a wide open lane for drivers.
Defense, rebounding, and blocking out: this team has come along ways in this regard, has a long way to go, and should continue to improve.
Coaching: these guys know how to get it done. Coach Beilein is supremely confident in his ability and he should be, he’s been down this path many many times. I’ve been watching Coach Beilein for 9 years, I don’t understand some of his methodology, but he does, and it works. When he says he not frustrated with the team and he knows what needs to be done, I believe him.
Do we know how good of a shooter Irvin is? He didn’t shoot a lot his freshman year. He didn’t shoot very well last year and was healthy. This year he hasn’t shot well and we are chalking it up to his back surgery.
5-28 behind the arc
11-19 inside the arc
Why does he insist on shooting behind the arc when he’s much better and it’s not even close inside the arc?
I think Irvin has always been a streaky shooter, but he hit 40+% as a freshman with over 150 attempts. That’s a great shooting year. I don’t have a doubt that the back injury, more the time off, is affecting his shot right now.
This is also a guy who was 3 to 1 3PA to 2PA as a freshman and had single digit assists and barely rebounded. We’re seeing his floor game continue to improve and I think the long-range shot will improve (only way to go is up from 18%).
His shot will come back as his conditioning improves. This is a guy who basically went from non contact drills to playing in relatively no time. It’ll take him a while to catch up. I think our schedule will allow him to play himself into his normal game shape and work out any kinks in his jumper. He’s going to be a huge part of what we do in Big 10 play.
It’s nice to get 3 wins in a row. Saying this team is good is every bit an overreaction as when I said they were bad.
We beat arguably the worst team in D1 in Charlotte. We beat a Texas team bound for the NIT and we beat NC State who probably won’t play in a post season this year.
I like that we seem to have an established rotation now. Our Spacing seems to be better on offense. Wagner is an animal. MAAR can defend. Duncan can flat out shoot. 3 players this team needs to improve on a game to game basis to be a NCAA tournament team.
I’m surprised by Doyle’s slow start but I think we have a lot of guys figuring things out.
Duncan and Mo contributing.
Irvin coming back off an injury and finding his role.
Dawkins trying to figure out where his shots went and what to do now.
Spike hurt.
I would love to see Wilson play the 4 position now that Mo is plugging in at the 5.
He’ll take some adjusting but long term I think it’s a good flexibility move.
Not everyone needs to score, and if Aubrey can fill the role of a solid wing defender who can rebound (haven’t seen it yet), I think he’s find starting, and you use Wagner/Duncan as your catalysts if the starters can’t get the offense going (like last night).
Assisted 2s are the only metric I watch with this team. 3s will fall some nights, and not on others (UConn), so we need offense with at least one foot in the paint. Walton can enable that, but I think Caris at the 1 is perfectly viable if we have to do it for stretches until Spike is back.
Zak is the only one who can pass it softly enough for Doyle to catch, but those two had good chemistry end of last year. Ride that to get some easy points while Caris and others try to get the first unit going. If it doesn’t work, Ducan and Mo to the rescue. I think this can work sustainably except against teams like Purdue, Xavier, etc who have crazy size.
Still need to be better at the fundamentals of rebounding which anyone can develop if they focus on it. Lots of time to get better if we can get through SMU.
Would you agree, next season, Wagner and Wilson at the 4 is the best scenario? At least some portion of the game it would be nice to match the opponent’s size, without sacrificing shooting and skill. I think, potentially, Wilson and Wagner offer this.
It’s nice to see you backtracking now on your earlier comments. The difference between mine and yours is that I will never have to backtrack because I know that Michigan has a ton of talent on the team this year and we’ve got an exceptional coach. We are going to be a good team this year and barring some unusual attrition, we will be good next year as well. How good will we be is a question I can’t answer but I think the ceiling is very high given the talent on the roster.
For the life of me, I just can’t understand how people can jump ship so fast. It’s almost like people have never seen JB operate before.
Michigan does have more talent than the 3 teams they beat though.
What is the ceiling in your opinion? To me, we have a bubble team at best. I’m watching MSU vs Louisville and we are so far from these two teams it’s scary.
1-3 we have more talent than just about anyone in the country (top 5). 4 and 5 we are not talented (top 100) on a good day. I highly doubt we will not be in the tournament as is. if Doyle and Wagner can put some things together we will easily be a tournament team with a decent team. Our team has a lot of talented players but we lack balance big time!
I tend to agree with you. In their two games against highly talented teams “likely tournament teams” they didn’t show up and were clearly outplayed. When they faced other power conference teams with less talent than Xavier/UConn they looked better. There is still a huge gap between the teams they faced and we will learn more when they face the better teams in the conference. Let’s not get it twisted Michigan isn’t close to teams like Kentucky/MSU/Duke/UNC/Maryland/Kansas at this point.
Hope you’re right but that seems pretty optimistic based on what we have seen so far. The talent is there, at least on the offensive end, but still a lot of questions this team has to answer. Next weeks game against smu should provide a good barometer for this team. The big ten is pretty wide open this year which means Michigan could work their way to the top or have to fight it out to stay out of the bottom.
Team just needs to continue to build chemistry. Individual talent is there to be real deal problem in big ten. If coach b can get them to gel and realize their potential I don’t see us being over matched in many games.
I just haven’t seen anything from DJ that makes me think he’s ready to play the four. He hasn’t shown anything to say that he’ll be a significantly better rebounder and he’s not as offensive skilled as the others.