Lindys projects Michigan to miss the NCAA tournament with 2 potential NBA draft picks in Livers and Wagner? That’s so completely ridiculous. This team should be as good or better than last year’s team who would have easily made the tournament if it happened.
I know we often joke about the disrespect this program gets but this seems absurd even for Michigan. 8th or 9th? And it’s a consensus? Baffling.
I don’t really have issue with any particular person picking Michigan 8 or 9. It’s in the realm of possibilities especially since there are some teams really jumbled together. But the fact that the nearly unanimous consensus is that Indiana and Rutgers are better than Michigan is wild to me.
BTW Dylan looks like Torvik has been tweaking his preseason model. I also noticed last week Michigan had jumped to 8th, but we’re back to 14th and behind MSU
Nice recap Dylan. Clearly Bart is the smartest of the bunch 
The best part of all of these forecasts is that once the ball is tipped, they are all meaningless.
I’m sure there’s going to be some more tweaking happening as Foster Loyer is currently projected for a 122 ORTG on 20% USG in 52% of minutes…
I can’t say I know how to run statistical models…but I bet I can come up with one that has a more accurate assumption for Loyer’s role.
It is a bit frustrating that so many of these people look at what Rutgers and Indiana have returning compared to Michigan and automatically vault them to the top. I guess Juwan will have some motivational clippings to post in the locker-room. I’m not sure how many other teams return 3 starters and 5 of their top 8 rotation players from a year ago. Losing Simpson and Teske is big for sure and I don’t see us winning the conference. But 8-9th place? We’re swapping Simpson-Teske-DDJ-Castleton for Smith-Zeb-Brown-Williams-Dickinson. Okay…bring it on!
This seems like the typical lack of respect Michigan receives nationally. Objectively I don’t see how anyone can look at the rosters of Rutgers, Indiana and Ohio State and say they are better than Michigan’s. I saw Michigan beat Rutgers twice last year and Rutgers did not look good in losing. Credit to them, but they have a very low ceiling, are still offensively challenged, have lost Yboah, one of their best offensive players and the useful Shaq Carter. They will continue to be offensively challenged and won’t have the RAC advantage. Ohio State lost arguably its two most important players, the Wesson Brothers and Indiana wasn’t good last year with about same roster. Also, hard to say how quickly Lander will be able to acclimate. Michigan has two of the conference’s top ten players and the conference’s number one recruiting class. Illinois returns two of the top ten players in the conference and has the number two recruiting class and is picked second.
I’m probably more confused with why people are so universally high on Ohio State than anything else.
Michigan lost a lot in Simpson and Teske. Anyone downplaying that is lying to themselves.
Indiana and Rutgers both bring in important pieces and return their core.
Yeah I think it’s somewhere in the middle. I don’t get why it’s basically universally projected that Michigan is a bubble team, but I also think there will be some disappointment in this forum if the expectation is to be as good or better than last year, just without Simpson and Teske.
5th-7th in the conference with a secure spot in the NCAA tournament seems right to me.
The wildcard would be a Franz Wagner monster breakout year, which I’m assuming the majority of the preseason sites aren’t high on if they have Michigan 8-9th universally.
I get what you’re saying but State lost Winston and Tillman. I’m not suggesting they are overrated because I don’t think they are but it’s like people can’t seem to grasp that Michigan has an excellent roster.
Rutgers was a cute story, but I just don’t think their ceiling is very high. I’d take Wagner/Livers all day over Baker/Harper. And Rutgers will lose some of their home court advantage this year without fans at the RAC.
And I’ve seen enough of Archie Miller to know I don’t trust him.
Am I crazy for thinking Michigan is #5 in this conference assuming Chaundee gets his waiver? I don’t think that’s a homer take at all either. Two top 10 conference players, 3 returning starters, a transfer who was a double digit scorer in the ACC and a highly rated freshman big. Plus a rotation that will have 5 seniors, a junior and a sophomore returning starter. That’s a ton of experience on the court. I know there are question marks, but virtually every team has question marks. I think Michigan has a decently high floor and how high the ceiling is depends on what they can get out of Mike Smith.
I agree on OSU. I don’t think they’ll be bad by any means, but any success they achieve this year will be down to Holtmann being a quality coach IMO. Defensively, I think they’ll be solid but on offense, I’m just struggling to see quality there. Two of Holtmann’s three best recruits at OSU have left before they even made an impact. Seems weird. I guess it’s not the first time that Holtmann could cobble together something from a confusing mix of players, so they’re putting faith in him.
Rutgers, I can see people being high on. Their coach is good and they return alot, which will be big in a season that could be all over the place.
But I just can’t get behind Indiana until Archie Miller proves he can do what’s expected with his talent, I just don’t understand how anybody can rate them this year. No coach does less with more.
My opinion is that #5 is the floor if Chaundee gets his waiver. Call me a homer.
I think Michigan, Rutgers, Ohio State, Indiana and Purdue are probably all in a tier by themselves.
You can make a pretty strong case why any of those teams should be ranked above another team in that group – Painter is the best coach, TJD is the best player, etc. – but I don’t think you can make a case that any team in that group is better than the top four right now.
I think this might be where the effect of losing Beilein hurts Michigan, at least as far as preseason projections go. I agree the losses are similar and roster talent is similar, but I get the sense there’s some baked in “it’s Izzo, he’ll get them ready to contend” in there, and rightfully so. Doesn’t seem like Juwan is getting that love yet.
I sort of counter-argued this in a post right above this, but what’s the case for MSU being a level above this tier?
Belief in a Rocket Watts breakout year?
You spelled Langford wrong
I can respect how good Simpson and Teske were but that argument is one sided. It is looking only at what we lost, not what we gained.
Before last season we lost Iggy, Poole, and Matthew’s. The year before that we lost MAAR (not NBA), Moe, and Duncan freaking Robinson. Think about that NBA talent and we cruised to the NCAA both times.
Simpson and Teske were awesome and I loved 'em but they aren’t NBA talent and we gain back Senior Livers and Sophomore Franz!!! Also we have an excellent incoming class of freshman and transfers. I expect a big leap from Johns as well. I’ve seen enough to be comfortable with Brooks running the show if Mike Smith isn’t up for it. I’ve also seen enough to believe that John’s, Davis, and Dickenson can replace Teske (who slowed at the end of last season)
They have the best coach in the conference.
They’ve won the league three years in a row.
They should be the best defensive team in the league.
They have potential pros.
They bring in a good recruiting class and an impact transfer.