John Beilein

Tons of MBB coverage of the pre-European tour practice sessions and Coach Beilein's press availability is out there for your consumption.  Click away...

• MGoBlue.com All-Access video
• GBW.com Beilein presser transcript
• UMHoops.com video of presser
• UMHoops.com practice impressions
• UMHoops.com Practice Video Part 1
• UMHoops.com Practice Video Part 2
• UMHoops.com player quotes (Morris, Christian, Smotrycz, Hardaway, Horford and Morgan) 

The Michigan Basketball Facebook page has an album of photos from today's practice session.  Several photos of the new guys and one of Stu's blue shoes.

Stu Douglass

Metrics

Tim Hardaway, Jr.

Jordan Dumars and Asst Coach Bacari Alexander

Jon Horford and Asst Coach Bacari Alexander

Colton Christian

bacari34 John Beilein is very intense on the practice floor! I see how he was able to get Michigan back to the NCAA's in 2009.

JohnBeilein What a great attitude we had today for a 7:30 a.m. practice......... No pillow heads in the gym!!! Go Blue!

Check out this Flint Journal article posted on mlive.com that sports several interesting nuggets from Coach Belein's appearance Monday at the University of Michigan Club of Greater Flint's annual sports dinner.

Highlights:

• Laval Lucas-Perry is on track to graduate in December 2010 and will be listed as a senior even though he has junior eligibility.  While Beilein said, "He's going to have a bounce-back year," it looks like Lucas-Perry may be ready to hang up his basketball shoes.
• Beilein has never had a player leave his program and play in the NBA.  This year should end that oddity as Manny Harris is a likely pick and DeShawn Sims has an outside chance of being drafted or being picked up as a free agent.  Beilein has spoken to six teams or so about each player.  Beilein remarked, “If they do not get drafted, they will get a phone call minutes after the draft is over." 
• Ekpe Udoh told Coach he wanted to play forward more than center.  Beilein said that's how he would have used Udoh if he hadn't transferred.  He said that he advised Udoh that he should spend his transfer year working on his outside shot which is exactly what Udoh did and that, in Coach's estimation, is why he's a likely lottery pick.
• The Lavall Jordan kerfuffle with WMU Coach Hawkins was addressed and is over.
• Our redshirt freshmen big men have made big changes to their physiques, but they each had to address different issues.  6'10" forward Blake McLimans played high school basketball at 190 pounds. Now he weighs 238.  6'8" forward Jordan Morgan weighed in at 269 pounds last year.  Now he weighs 240.
• Ben Cronin made the right decision to end his playing career as he's still walking with a limp.  He may have a chance to stay involved with the program as an uncounted assistant coach.
• One and dones?  He'd recruit one if it were the right situation.
• Beilein on twitter?  Could be in the cards.

There's some other good stuff in the article, so give it a look.

[Edit: And now, Angelique is linking to the Flint Journal piece.  No additional data in hers.]

UMHoops.com reports on several expected (and one confirmed) offers to 2012 recruits today. 

It turns out that 15 June following a recruit's sophomore year is by NCAA rule, the first day that coaches can contact such recruits and by NABC guideline, the first day that offers should be made to such recruits. 

Dylan's post indicates that many, if not most coaches ignore the NABC guideline on offers to rising junior and younger recruits, but John Beilein -- the chairman of the NCAA Basketball Ethics Committee -- "...refuses to officially offer any prospect before June 15th following their sophomore year..." 

Here are the prospects who are expected to have received offers today:

• Kevin “Yogi” Ferrell (6-foot, G, Park Tudor, IN)
• JaVontae Hawkins (6-foot-5, G/W, Flint Powers)
• Gary Harris (6-foot-3, G, Fishers, IN)
• Matt Costello (6-foot-8, PF/C, Bay City Western)
• Alex Murphy (6-foot-8, PF, St. Marks)
• Ray Lee (6-foot-2, G, Romulus)

And in this follow on post, Joe Stapleton does a Q&A with Harris and learns that he has indeed received his offer.

Has Michigan offered you yet? I just picked up an offer from Michigan today.

What’d you think [of your recent Michigan visit]? I liked it a lot, it’s a great school with a lot of tradition.

Did you get to meet any of the other coaches? I know Jackson just left and LaVall Jordan is taking his place. Me and LaVall, we already had a good relationship. And the other coaches I have a good relationship with, too.

How do you know LaVall Jordan? Well, he used to recruit me at Iowa, then when he didn’t have a job for a certain amount of time we would always talk, he would come to some of my games and stuff.

So it appears the LaVall Jordan hire is already paying dividends. 

Here's Stapleton's take on Harris:

Whenever I talk about Harris, I have to remind myself not to drift into hyperbole, but it’s hard sometimes. He’s really, really good. He was the best player in the tournament in my opinion. One of the major reasons for that was his consistency. He didn’t just play well for a half before the other team figured him out. He didn’t just whup on all the bad teams. He carried a U16 D-3 Heat team that was playing up to a 17U championship. He had some help, but he was clearly the best player on the court in every game he played. The thing is, every team knew this, keyed on him, and still couldn’t stop him.

Here's their story on Harris with video of him playing with his team at the King James Classic back in April.

RichRod talks about the quarterback competition at the Big Ten meetings.

Michigan’s quarterback battle seems destined to drag late into fall practice, and coach Rich Rodriguez doesn’t mind the competition one bit.

Rodriguez reiterated at the Big Ten spring meetings Tuesday that incumbent starter Tate Forcier and fellow sophomore Denard Robinson are neck and neck atop the depth chart.

“It’s wide open, it’s not just coach speak,” Rodriguez said. “Denard and Tate are right there battling for it. Denard made a lot of steps in the spring and then Devin (Gardner) coming in for the first time did pretty well. He’s still behind the guys, which you would expect because it’s his first spring. But it’s going to be an interesting battle.”

“I thought they did a pretty good job as true freshmen, but our expectation in their second year are a whole lot higher,” Rodriguez said.

So how does Rodriguez see the quarterback battle shaking out?

“I don’t,” he said. “What I hope it does is elevate all of those guys, and if all of them get elevated because of the competition within each other but still understand the team concept then it’s all win-win.”

Prediction based on flimsy evidence: Coach Rodriguez will employ a more deliberate quarterback rotation system in 2010 to get Tate and Denard a more equal number of snaps.

Meanwhile, Coach Beilein put out a little more information about a possible European tour this summer for the men's basketball team. Beilein said:

...he expects to make an overseas trip with his basketball team this summer.

"We’re working through some of the possibilities there right now," Beilein said from the Big Ten spring meetings. "We can get games, it’s where we can get them because the Italian leagues are just finishing, the German leagues are just finishing, the Belgian leagues are just finishing. It’s hard to get a coach to make a commitment for Aug. 23, so we’re working. That’s what we would like to do."

Beilein said Michigan would have to travel overseas the week of Aug. 22, after summer semester classes are finished but before the fall term begins.

Prediction based on flimsy evidence: LLP does not get a fifth year and Michigan signs a European player in the 2011 recruiting class.

Michigan's Media Relations department just sent through the e-mail. Manny and John Beilein will talk to the press at 11AM tomorrow.

Speculation is that he's going pro, with a number of local media citing sources to that effect. I'll live-tweet the presser.