Definitely curious to see his development
You’re not going to convince me, and I’m not going to convince you. I accept that. Let me know when either you or MattD accomplish something real in the world of basketball coaching. I find it really difficult to believe John Beilein could win 600 career games, take a team to the title game, take two other teams to the Elite Eight, and put multiple guys in the NBA (with a recent national player of the year) if he was even 1/10 as stupid as you make him out to be. I guarantee just about every Division I college coach - including John Beilein - has played basketball at a much higher level than you guys, and knows a TON more about the game than you guys, and yet they all get it wrong once in awhile.
Guys, let me break it down for you - no matter how much complaining you do about our program, Warde Manuel is never going to hire you. That being said, I don’t understand why every comment you make is so negative. We beat a pretty decent team last night by 30. You can’t even enjoy that for one day?
I don’t think JB is above criticism. I don’t think he’s perfect. I think he has made some recruiting mistakes over the past few years. And I think most fans would agree with that. Where I depart from you is the obvious implication in the vast majority of your posts that he’s stupid, and you and MattD are obviously smarter. Not from where I sit.
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Seriously, why bring my name into this in an insulting manner?
I’ve gone out of my way to be courteous and respectful toward you, and we’ve had some pretty good dialogue recently.
Just no need for that
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I don’t care to be a college coach so your post is misguided and borderline strange. I can sense you fuming at the keyboard however and its making me chuckle because you can’t dispute facts so you resort to your typical ad hominem and listing Beilein’s resume which is a different discussion totally. JB is this infallible basketball genius who missed and misevaluated on the majority of the 2014 and 2015 classes 
I feel like most of JB’s recruiting blunders are an inability to recruit “normally” as opposed to misevaluating. I feel like he often just offers one guy, maybe two at a position and then only recruits those guys without keeping options open until those recruitments are over and often it’s too late to expand your reach then… just what comes with being an old fashioned unenergetic guy.
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This is probably my biggest criticism of JB’s recruiting. He casts such a small net that if the initial offerees extend their recruitment until senior year and go elsewhere, we’re left scrambling.
On the other hand, JB doesn’t seem to contact recruits as frequently as other coaches, so it’s possible that would be even more magnified if he had a bunch of offers outstanding.
I, too, mentioned the timing of these types of conversations happening on several threads here. It’s almost like folks saw the 30 point win last night then rolled up their sleeves and packed their lunch pails for a full day’s work on the forum today.
…and this is why I should stay off of this thread. It lends itself to a parade of folks patting themselves on the back. Considering the number of prospects who commit elsewhere and factoring in any Michigan commits who are underperforming, there is no shortage of material.
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And my criticism of the 2014 cycle, is not a disapproval of Beilein as a coach or evaluator. It simply shows his worst habits as a recruiter :
reaches early on kids (doyle) he still does this
lack of presence instate much better here
doesn’t build a real relationship with kids nor keep up contact still does this
misevaluating essential skillsets of 4s and centers getting better here
over-prioritizes shooting still does this but starting to adjust
waiting out recruitments while ignoring similar talents getting better here
When I criticize, it is with the hopes that JB adjusts, learns and grows. He is a genius but he can improve. He got on his feet with Mo and X (imo). 2017 shows improvement and the late spring + 2018 are great opportunities to not repeat past mistakes.
Nope, the 2014 class + DR were polarizing at the time. Most people like the 2017 class, Mo and a prospect or two in 2016 so no one is going to harp if it doesn’t pan out unlike 2014 + DR where many saw it differently from the start.
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Some thoughts
As we’ve seen, and many have come to admit, winning masks flaws. The root of the issues are still present. A win is a win, and it doesn’t address the root of the overarching issues with this team. The team is still subject to critique regardless of the result of a single game. To think that a 4-4, non-ranked, bubble team, is above critique, is in a word, insane. That’s where homerism comes into play, when folks are complaining about the timing of the critique rather than the merits/legitimacy.
Truth be told, certain people cannot stand if either myself or Guestavo are correct on particular Evals because it indicates the team isn’t in a good spot, or could be in a much better spot.
Do you think anyone here complains about the fact that we consistently said Stauskas was a great prospect, over and over again? Hell no. And why is that? Because it means the team, and to a large degree, John Beilein, are being portrayed in a positive manner.
Anything else is just semantics and deep down you know it.
The End
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As it relates to recruiting and in-state talent. JB needs to learn how to appropriately kiss some ass and stop the I not going to deal with anyone other than parents. That does not mean he has to do anything underhanded. AAU coaches and others are trusted by kids. Not to mention the single parent student athlete with no male presence in the home.
I also think he needs to rethink the no offers unless they go through what’s been called full visit? Have them send transcripts if good offer and try to get them on campus as much as possible. Needs to take a cue from Harbaugh. Not sure if JB would have recruited a Jalen Rose back in the day.
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Sorry, you’re right. I apologize.
It is exactly this ^
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No, I just think that you’ve never been in his position (or the position of other coaches - the reason why I’ve posted at length about how many successful coaches have had glaring misses, because what they do is hard), you have very little idea how difficult it is, and your Monday-morning quarterbacking comes off very arrogantly at times.
And in terms of individual talent evaluation, it’s not fantasy football. Maybe a guy is really talented, but a complete d$ck. Maybe a guy has weed problem. Maybe a guy has handlers and family that are going to be a huge pain in your as* during his stint there. Maybe a guy doesn’t have the grades. Maybe a guy visited your campus, played with your team in a pickup game, and the team hates him. Maybe you are reasonably certain the kid is receiving illegal benefits from an AAU coach, or an “advisor,” or someone else.
I think you have very little of the information that goes into the decision calculus of who to offer, and why, but you act as if you know it all, and the actual coach of the program is an idiot.
I agree with some coaches, their track record isn’t great and they deserve intense scrutiny. On the whole, I think JB is a very good talent evaluator and coach who has had some recent misses.
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No, that’s how Amaker recruited.
To the people getting on Matt’s ass about not being more positive despite that game, it’s worth mentioning that he’s been consistent in this even when the results are the opposite. From after the first Illinois game:
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So much to say so little and more ad hominem. You don’t need to be in a profession to criticize someone in said profession btw…its a fallacy.
BTW I’ve acknowledged that character flaws and academics come into play but only a biased person would use it to explain away the incredible amount of misses in the 2014 cycle. A majority of the instate kids and top 100 guys were bad apples in 2014 and 2015 huh? And I don’t need to know what went into a decision if the decision making continually put out bad results like the 2014 cycle. I can take a pretty educated guess at what JB values and does not consider after seeing him recruit for a decade, however.
Replace Doyle with an instate big like Maten, Justin Tillman or Jaylen Johnson. Replace 1 of MAAR/Dawkins/DR with a high end wing/guard prospect and no one would complain. That is realistic to me. No one is asking for NO misses or all top 100 talent but people like you will defend errors and mediocrity instead of analyzing and improving the process.
JB is a great offensive coach who can identify talent but has his flaws that I hope improves.
Some of you provide next to nothing in terms of objective thought. There are a few homers to the extreme around these parts.
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Good god this thread got out of control.
Michigan swung high and missed on a ton of kids that it thought it could land in 2014. I don’t really get the point of this thread to re-hash every player from the 2014 class who is or isn’t playing well, and might or might not have been very or kind of interested in Michigan.
There are other successful college basketball players, some that are less successful. Many of them heard from Michigan at one point.
I don’t think anyone would argue that the 2014 class was a win… Chatman, Doyle, Dawkins all transferred out after two years. All weren’t very good. You can’t just sit and scream about every other player from the 2014 class though, that’s just ridiculous and counter productive. The point is that the guys Michigan took in that class weren’t great.
Michigan ‘evaluated’ fine, it just didn’t land anyone that it wanted in terms of first choices…
And yes – Michigan evaluates far more factors beyond on the country production than many schools. That’s not going to change under Beilein and is what it is.
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