Wish this had sound so we could hear Beilein’s comments to the crowd as the scrimmage took place! Feels very weird to not hear anything. Nonetheless, awesome to get another glance at the team before the season in a scrimmage setting.
Sorry about the no sound… was very hard to hear what Beilein was saying and then there was cross talk. :-/
No hesitation from teske on the jumpers tonight, so him taking threes is definelty going happen.
I went to tonight’s open practice and here are my impressions:
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Iggy is an absolute bull and can seem to get to the rim against anybody. Overall he did not finish that great but he really gets to the rim! One memorable play was when he backed Nunez down from about 18 feet away from the basket. Nunez does not look weak out there but Iggy backed him down like he was a little kid. Iggy is just a load. He plays with awesome energy. Skilled ball handler. Very impressed. The down side: I don’t trust his shot.
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Brooks will be playing a lot. Honestly he looks like one of our better players.
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Poole. I am in the Jordan Poole fan club but he seemed to lack focus and a sense of aggression. I think he is one of our most talented players but he needs to make better decisions and just dial in if he is going to be a leader on this team. I am shocking myself by saying this but he looked like our 4th best guard behind Z, Brooks, and Matthews. To take it a step further, he looked like our 5th best guard if you count Iggy as a 2. Call me crazy. I would have called myself crazy if I would not have seen it with my own eyes. Poole is a high level talent, imo. I just didn’t see him playing focused and hungry at all. (Maybe it was an off night?)
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Z, Matthews, Livers, and Teske will all be taking a step forward. Not worrying about them at all.
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Davis showed a lot. Finished well. Was in good spots. He is going to be solid for us.
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Castleton is going to be good. He showed some aggression and natural ability to rebound, block, and score.
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Teske will be shooting 3’s. He missed badly on a couple but I was a little surprised by how comfortable he looked shooting from the outside. I think he can 35% or better all day.
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Johns. Maybe our most talented all around player. He just needs to figure it out in his head. All his decisions Are just lagging behind the game action. He is bigger than I expected. A legit 6’8"-6’9". Noticibly taller than Livers and Iggy. He towers over Matthews.
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Although DD looks like the best shooter of the 3, Z and Brooks are light years ahead of DD right now. DD struggles mightily to stay in front of the much quicker Z.
My big takeaways for the night: Poole might not be ready mentally to lead this team like I think he can, which is ok because he is young and I truly beleive he has pro potential…Brooks, Davis and Iggy exceeded my expectations…Bring Johns into the fold as the season progresses and we have ourselves a very good team.
Now for thoughts:
- Looks like Johns played exclusively at the 5. Interesting. They definitely want to get him on the court to space the floor and the 4 looks crowded, especially with Iggy’s immediate emergence.
- Not worried about Charles’ defense at all but he doesn’t tag the roller in the first offensive clip off the BLOB. Easy pass to Teske for the lay-in.
- Horrendous turnover (the kind that makes Beilein pulls his hair out) by Poole at the ~3:15 mark. Leads to an easy triple for Brooks in the corner. Good to see Eli knock that down.
- We all knew this but Iggy sure can get downhill to the basket. Uses his right shoulder so well to initiate contact and create space.
- Brooks misses Castleton on the roll at ~5:35, but nice backdoor cut from Isaiah.
- Perfectly timed cut by Charles and great find from Poole at ~8:17.
- Couple quick, early clock triggers from 3 for Poole. I get that he is one of the few shot makers, but he can get those shots whenever he wants them.
- Hell of a pass from X to Teske at 9:55.
- Don’t think Charles made any shots besides that cut mentioned above, but his handle does look a lot tighter.
Yes, Charles’ handle looked pretty great compared to last year.
From everything we’ve seen/heard this summer I’m a bit concerned that Charles has fallen in love too much with the mid range pull up.
From what I saw tonight, I was most impressed by Brooks, Teske, Davis and Johns.
Eli looks like the most improved. He looks comfortable, played faster and shot better than anyone in both the drills and the game action.
Teske is a mountain. He swatted away at least three lobs. He will present a problem in the middle for other teams. Looks confident shooting.
Davis was very active and aggressive, playing much faster this year. His team was looking to get the ball to him down low and he was converting.
Johns can really move and jump for a guy his size. He will contribute this year.
The best part of the night was when Beilein was introduced to a standing ovation. The fans love our coach.
Glad to hear that Eli is looking good, I always felt people wrote him off way to soon. Not only was he a Villanova priority but people quickly forgot that he was the freshman who got the most hype by a good margin last fall.
A few thoughts just from watching the video, Simpson looked good. Wasn’t looking for his jumper at all, which could be a problem, but was getting to the rim and passing it impressively.
You could see the effect of Simpson’s absence on the other team, a lot more one-on-one play from Poole/Matthews/Iggy. That whole group looked somewhat indecisive to me, kind of unsure when to make plays and when to let others, while not running quite as much offense. Hard to know how much is working with DeJulius and Davis/Johns.
Iggy is very aggressive and will get to the rim one way or the other, though he may need some adjustment finishing.
Task looked confident.
Brooks needs to keep his dribble alive, but if he can just be in the right place, make the right play, knock down open shots - and I think he can - he could be very valuable as the guard off the bench.
Looks like we all saw pretty much the same thing.
Eli was great. I am pretty sure that he was the scoring leader in the scrimmage. And he dished out assists. Also a nice 3. And a nice dunk!
Eli and Z played together well. And Z showed particularly good chemistry with Teske, with some very nice dishes.
DD and Poole were not very effective as a guard combo. From what I saw tonight, I would start Eli ahead of Poole (blasphemy, right?).
Iggy looked great in the drills, less great in the scrimmage. He made 5 of 6 free throws, so that should not be a concern. He’s very physically mature. Besides taking it to the hole, he can also pass.
The evening closed with a 3 point shootout between Poole and Livers. I was very surprised about Livers. Poole won, but it was close. If Livers can make threes (he made one in the scrimmage), he will get plenty of PT, starter or not.
Castleton showed promise, but has a way to go. I doubt he plays much this year. Ditto for Nunez. Not sure about DD.
Oh, one thing about Livers - still needs to be more aggressive/assertive. He had a nice play to get open in the lane and tried a little shovel pass. Go up with that!
Teske looks so much more comfortable out there (I know it’s practice) and it looks like Simpson loves the 2 man game with him.
He also had an open three pointer from the top of the key that he passed up on. I believe I heard Coach B say, “Shoot that!” He needs to be that threat from three. I also think he has a world of talent and needs to take it to the hole, ala, Brazdeikis, who really is gonna be special!
I agree with most of what you’re saying here, but I don’t agree that Eli should start over JP. Don’t get me wrong I love Eli’s game. I’ve been a fan all along. I think Eli’s role will be as a combo guard, and he will be very important in that role. He will play effectively when X needs a rest, or, heaven forbid, gets in foul trouble, and he’ll come in for Poole for a variety of reasons including when JP gets in a funk like he seemed to be, at times, in the scrimmage last night.
Eli plays within the system incredibly well. He has a really good first step, passes the ball well, had that nice “teardrop” last night and can shoot the three better than many of us may think he can or have seen in the past. I don’t think he starts unless there are some unforeseen circumstances but I think he has an important role to play.
By the way, speaking of Poole, that spin move into the lane and drop off for Charles for the dunk was “sick!” He IS the best three point shooter on the team and he’s a critical component to this team.
As for Isaiah, yep, he can shoot the three, too, and I think it’s important he does, and, hopefully, shoots it well, which I believe he can. Just my thoughts. Fun night last night!
Can’t let 1 open practice decide that Brooks is better than Poole. Besides the varience, Brooks had X on his team while Poole was playing with DD. That’s gonna make Brooks look a lot better. But very excited about Brooks’ development. That is huge for this team as they are so desperate for some outside shooting. I only saw the video, but there was nothing there to make me think Brooks is as good as Poole. JP looked fine, just missed a couple shots
I share Reegs’ concerns about Charles falling in love with midrange, but I have a hard time believing Beilein would let that become too much of an issue.
This is just going to be such a different Michigan team than we have come to expect under Beilein. That’s why I’m having a hard time predicting what they’re gonna do. There’s a lot of talent there though.
TO me, the biggest X factors this year that could raise out ceiling to B1G championship level are Livers and Brooks outside shooting, and Poole’s playmaking ability.
Brooks was putting pressure on the defense at all times. I am not going to say Brooks is better than Poole but I hope that Poole would choose to play more like Brooks played last night, in the future. If he doesn’t maybe giving Brooks more playing time would motivate Poole.
I think your point about playing alongside DD versus Z might explain a lot of Brooks success and Poole’s struggles…(I hope so.) I also wonder if Poole just did not treat this as a serious practice because maybe it really wasn’t?
I feel pretty good about our guard situation knowing Brooks seems to have improved.
Poole is highly skilled and a good shooter. He is confident and athletic. Brooks is a good basketball player, a typical coach’s son who really understands the game. Last year he was a little underdeveloped physically and was struggling with the big leap from mid level high school to D1 basketball, but you could see even then that he was a player. He is going to be one of those guys that make a big sophomore leap.
Finally watched the video, I agree with everyone that Brooks and Teske both looked really impressive. The size, athleticism and fluidity of this roster is noticeable and reminds me of the 2012-2013 years. I’d be curious to hear how those squads were split…I could see a behind the scenes draft where Yaklich got his hands on Simpson, Teske and Livers.
I don’t think it looked like Poole struggled as badly as I thought based on the thread, he missed shots but he was successfully creating space and we’ve seen him hit them before. My only major takeaway is how awesome the yellow squad was defensively. I think it was less of an indictment on Poole, Matthews and Iggy and just more awesome team defense led by the 3 guys I mentioned above. Matthews’ mid-range and Poole’s stepbacks and quick shot selection seemed largely a result of how tough the defense was at times. I’m more impressed that those two plus Iggy were each individually able to at least create those shots, even though they weren’t falling.
I also found this mlive article which says that Poole’s squad was actually up 14-10 at one point, which based on the video it looked like Simpson’s squad was dominant from the jump unless I missed something.
Also man Nuñez has a pretty shot, even when it clangs off back rim.