This is incredibly sad to read. If you’re anywhere over the age of 15, please, get a grip guy.
Question for discussion:
How does Bielfeldt look so decent on IU when he was usually a marginal role player (barring a couple big-ish games) during his 4 years at U-M?
We like to gripe (with good reason, I think) about the lack of true rim-protecting centers at U-M like Bryant or Haas or Stone. But looking at Bielfeldt it’s also a bit troubling that we may not even utilize our undersized bigs to their potential.
Bigs only need to set screens in JB’s offense and occasionally receive a pass on the roll/slip: Developing them in any other way besides strength takes away from shooting drills in practice.
When is the last time we had a player who you look at and say wow look at his physique? We look like string bean player compared to Xavier. Why does it see like we have a bunch kids playing ?
RIP Tractor Traylor
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I guess I’m confused. Beilein doesn’t run enough set plays. Beilein doesn’t use his centers for anything other than screening and occasionally catching passes off the roll. Beilein can’t recruit superstars–he’s never gotten a McDonald’s All American. Beilein isn’t an offensive mastermind. And yet, in his 14 years as a high major coach, he has had 7 top 20 teams in offensive efficiency, including 2 which led the nation, and 3 at WVU which were top 15 despite not having a single top 150 player on the roster.
Nothing about the above excuses our play last night, or suggests that we don’t have significant defensive issues. But unless you’re going to suggest that he’s just incredibly lucky, the facts belie any assertion that Beilein is not a great offensive coach, whatever other concerns you may have.
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Don’t think mastermind would be too far off in the minds of most pro analysts. But mhoops says it better than I did down below: we have had among the best offenses in the country consistently. As you agreed, “lack of plays” is. . . downright silly. That said, give us Caris and Spike and the IU score is respectable/no one’s jumping out windows.
The fact is when the ball is not dropping what does Michigan do to manufacture points?? They don’t rebound well at all, they don’t create TO’s and they can’t stop good teams from penetrating or feeding the post for layups. IMO there are 3 major phases of the game and we fail at 2 of them. This would include Caris and Spike.
Now who gets to the line on a consistent basis?? Levert probably would be the guy that would get there because he does attack the rim. Irvin has little to no explosion off the bounce and Waltons size will hinder him at times.
Turnovers. We have no ability to create TO’s. That was what was suppose to be the way to off set rebounding by Belein but I’ve yet to see that come fruition. 1-3-1 is non existent because good teams throw over the top to more athletic players going against our little PG on the baseline.
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Good post Pratt for all the great offense they run and players buy in. He certainly brings in one dimensional recruits who can’t play defense. I guess one of the better examples this year would be Indiana who didn’t play any D early on but now they’re actually pretty damn good look no further to what they did to Michigan and one of the best offenses in the country.
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You sound like someone defending RR’s offense at Michigan. The offensive rankings are inflated by blowing out the bottom half of the conference and mid majors.
Outside of our 2 year run at Michigan, which were great offensive teams, what do we do against the top half of our conference offensively? I have seen far too many times since JB has been at Michigan, our team play patty cake with the basketball around the perimeter until the shot clock is about to expire, then force a long contested shot. He looked like a genius when he had Burke and Stauskus bailing him out in these situations. Now, not so much.
I have no desire to actually look at those numbers, but I bet they are far from “great” over his tenure. I’m sure they are still solid offensive rankings but great is not something I would call it.
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To put it in perspective 5 of the 7 wins by Michigan in the B1G the combined record of those teams is 5-35. I did notice Beilein bringing out the excuses of it being a young team, they start 2 juniors in Irvin/Walton, a 3rd year guy in the program 2nd year playing in Donnal, a soph in MAAR who got a lot of playing time last year. There is certainly enough to be a better defensive team than what we have seen this year.
Too many people are pointing to the loss of Levert and using it as a crutch. They had Levert against SMU, UConn, Xavier and the team still laid an egg. They might be a better team if Levert returns where he can get acclimated again but the ceiling for this team is extremely low.
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Agree biggest issue is we are a one dimensional team, offense by way of the 3 ball. If you score 50 we will score 60. If you score 60 we will score 70 and so on…
He’s a great offensive mind and offensive coach in terms of scheme and philosophy. Wouldn’t trade him for 98% of coaches, but he’s not super flexible in how he handles the team. He’s a bit more challenged in-game to make adjustments when the philosophy or weakness are being exploited, and he needs players who can take things over independently (Trey, Nik, potentially Caris, probably Spike), and our current crew doesn’t seem to have that ability. Even in the MD game, the shots that DW and ZI hit in the final 5m were highly questionable. They went in, so… great? They are programmed to do things a very specific way that has little risk associated and minimal room for independent judgement, and players that gravitate towards following that method. Has consequences when you don’t have Treys and Niks, and you end up with a lot of standing around and poorly selected shots that double as “leadership” when they go in.
He also needs to get in their ear when they don’t get back on D. Inexcusable even if unathletic/not defensive minded. Will be big to see how much resolve they have Saturday if they get down 7-10. State has the same ability to step on your throat if you’re not running back and go on a 15pt run w/o much warning. You don’t see Duke or even just disciplined if untalented teams (eg, Princeton) handle their defensive assignments as lazily as we did Tuesday. The basic fundamental standards need to be higher.
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No, they’re not–they’re expressly adjusted to reflect strength of competition–and by the way, everyone is playing mid-majors and the bottom half of the conference. You’re seriously going to suggest that he only looked good when Burke and Stauskas were around to bail him out? How about the 3 years at WVU with zero NBA players, zero 4* players–who bailed him out then? How about this year, with LeVert out, when our offensive numbers against Maryland, Purdue and Iowa (and against Texas and Xavier with him) were way, way above what those teams normally give up (again, adjusted for strength of competition) on a per possession basis, and we’re in the top 20. And for that matter, how about the fact that Burke and Stauskas, guys who weren’t highly sought after in high school, and have not been overwhelming (putting it nicely) in the NBA on offense, as well as defense, flourished at Michigan. Do you seriously believe that Beilein’s offense, and system, had nothing to do with that? Or that he just got lucky because they were able to make some allegedly large number of long, contested shots that they apparently could never make before they got to Michigan, and certainly can’t make now?
IMO, you’re trying way too hard here. You don’t like the offensive design or philosophy–that’s your right. You don’t like the way we play defense or rebound–there’s a line already formed. You don’t like the way we recruit–there too. But to denigrate the offense of a guy who (a) has his statistical results, and (b) has testimonials about his offense from massive numbers of coaches and ex-players (I can list them if you’d like) based upon what you seemingly remember about end of shot clock plays makes no sense. You might want to look at Dylan’s excellent series from earlier this year about the offense before characterizing it as one where we play patty cake around the perimeter.
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Yes I’m seriously going to suggest that this offense has only looked great when he had trey and stauskus. It’s been inconsistent and at times down right pedestrian without those two players.
And I do not care what he did at west va. I don’t care what he did at any of his stops. I follow him and at Michigan. I am glad he turned this program around. He deserves all of the credit for establishing a new set of high expectations for the program. He also deserves all the criticism for the direction he has taken the program since the elite 8 run.
He’s peaked IMO and I cannot get behind this brand of basketball any longer.
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Obviously.
Dude, it was you who said that a look might suggest Beilein offenses weren’t so great in previous stops. Then when presented evidence that he did well in them you “don’t care.” Man up.
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Yes everyone is playing mid majors and bottom half of the conference teams. I think the issue becomes if those teams just build their resume off of beating those teams and have very little substance in regards to tournament resume how good does that make a team?
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For me Beilein and what he did at West Virginia doesn’t move the needle for me anymore. It was something you could point to early in his tenure but that was pretty much a decade ago. It’s what he’s done at Michigan, recently and as well in the past at Michigan that matters.
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Having good/above average offensive numbers against those teams you mentioned doesn’t help much if you don’t win the game so the Maryland game is something to look at. Purdue they lost by 17, Iowa they lost by 11, Xavier lost by 16. What good are above average offensive numbers if you’re getting bombed?
Hoops here’s a resume of a tourney team right now tell me if you think they have a high ceiling and capable of a tourney run and compare it to that of Michigan
Record
15-7
SOS
9
RPI
21
vs RPI top 25
1-4
vs RPI top 50
2-5
0 losses against teams with RPI over 100
Ken Pom
o rating-72
d rating-9
You can figure out who that team is and whether or not they’re capable of a big run without looking at the team I imagine you will say no, and after looking at the team your answer will still be the same I imagine.
Point out where I reference JB outside of his Tenure at Michigan.
A gentleman responded to one of my posts citing west va. I continue to talk about JB at Michigan which is the only part of JB’s career I care about.
MP, it’s certainly your prerogative to “not get behind [Beilein’s] brand of basketball any longer.” It’s also your right to believe anything you wish about the offense. But regardless of how it has looked to you, the objective stats show different things than you claim. You can, of course, pooh-pooh the stats if you’d like, but they exist, and they’re utilized throughout the game at every level.
Every offense is “inconsistent and at times down right pedestrian.” Indeed, Michigan’s offense in '14–one you acknowledge to be great–had some bad to horrific games (Charlotte, at Indiana, Wisconsin at home), while also having the offensive best points per possession performance of any team against 11 different opponents. That doesn’t change the overall conclusion. I think Tom Brady is the best QB in NFL history, or at least certainly in the discussion. He was downright pedestrian against the Broncos 2 weeks ago.
I wasn’t even in the thread when you took the position that Beilein was a good, but not great, OFFENSIVE coach (note: none of this, as I said before, bears on a different discussion about defense and/or rebounding). In the context of that statement, his time at WVU is absolutely relevant, especially since you seem to slough off his accomplishments at Michigan as being solely driven by stars. So too, I believe, is the fact that Trey and Nik have only lit it up to an elite extent at Michigan. .
In any event, I’m not going to convince you, so we’ll leave it here. I know you’re a Michigan fan, and that you hope that Beilein exceeds both your expectations and even mine. Go Blue.
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