Mitch McGary

Amongst the fluff and already-well-known parts, some interesting tidbits, for instance: (emphasis added)

Robinson III committed to Michigan first, but McGary said for three months only his parents and “G” knew he also planned to sign with coach John Beilein.

“As soon as I told him he said, 'Sweet, we're going to be roommates. I'll bring the fridge; you bring the microwave,'” McGary said.

Confirming Brian's suspicion here. Also some nice comments on and by Spike too.

Let's keep scouting The Region!  (Or at least whoever is playing for Wayne Brumm.)

Congrats to Mitch for earning his second Big Ten Freshman of the Week honor this season.

http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/021113aaa.html

This past week he averaged 13 points, 7 boards and 3.5(!) steals.  Glad to see him stepping up in Jordan Morgan's absence.

http://www.umhoops.com/2013/01/30/video-quotes-john-beilein-recaps-home-...

This comes from UMHOOPS:

On making the decision to start Horford: “Here’s how part of the decision was made: we were still here, because of this prep, we were still here last night at 8 o’clock. Kids had study hall before practice. We studied, we ate, then we had some more film to watch. And I said to Mitch McGary, ‘What do you feel about tomorrow? I don’t know what to do. You both practiced well.’ He said, ‘Coach, I’ve been coming off the bench for two years. I’m cool with coming off the bench.’ And that really helped to make that decision, and that’s what we have on this team.”

That is coming from a freshman who was once the #2 recruit in the country. I love this team more and more every week. I think Belien has really put a special blend of talent and unselfishness on the court. They way they play for the team and not themselves is rare these days. 

P.s. I know my title sucks. Mods feel free to change it if you feel that that is necissary. 

I know there's a snowflake thread, but this is a legit topic that would otherwise get buried there. I'll be providing some mini-analysis as well, so hopefully this is not deemed "repetitive."

I saw a couple people post things like 'What's the deal with Morgan?" and "McGary had a good game," and then people wonder why Beilein didn't run with one player or the other.

From what I see, we have two players that are defensively raw (McGary and Stauskas). Let's start with McGary:

In the first half, OSU really pushed their lead up in no small part due to McGary's poor hedge of ball screens. McGary came into the game with 15:20 to go in the second half. The score was 9-3 OSU. The defensive possessions went as follows:

• Aaron Craft scores on drive off of ball screen. McGary fails to hedge and fails to stay in front of Craft. (11-3 OSU)
• 4 seconds into the shot clock McGary again fails to hedge and lets Craft get into the lane. This time he's nowhere near the ball screen . (13-3 OSU, 13:55)

Michigan calls a timeout and McGary is pulled for Jordan Morgan.

For the almost the rest of the game, whenever McGary was in the game, we went into some kind of zone.  In the second half Jordan Morgan defended the pick and roll excellently. He is great at hedging the screen and forcing the ball handler into a tough split/pass or just backing out of the screen. I know this is not sexy, but the dude is great at it and that is why he is such a valuable player.

McGary has a way to go defensively. A long way. He's said things like "I had never stepped foot in a weight room before getting here" and I bet he really hasn't had to play tough defense either. It will come, but it will take time.

Stauskas is the other defensive liability at the moment. I'll admit I naturally pay more attention to the big men, but it would appear that Stauskas troubles are two fold (feel free to correct me or expand if you've paid more attention). Stauskas does not have the foot speed to stay in front of smaller 2s/3s. This problem seems to be compounded by his tendency to have incorrect defensive spacing - he often comes over too far on help and can be late on rotations.

Of course, Stauskas' shot selection didn't help to keep him on the floor. If he's taking poor shots and not converting, LeVert is clearly the better defender.

I love games like this because if you know a little bit about basketball you get some insight into how good John Beilein is at his job. He got creative to find ways to keep McGary on the court even though he was a defensive liability in defending the pick and roll. He played the defense for offense game late and I think we have a clear idea of the game plan going forward with Morgan/McGary and Stauskas/LeVert. Of course, Horford is a wildcard in there. It will be interesting to see how the freshmen develop over the course of B10 play.

Apparently McGary can ride a unicycle: 

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/f054966a#/f054966a/8

And a quick search here reveals that so can  Erik Magnuson.  We need a McGary unicycle/Lewan Twosie .gif stat.

This is (the link to) a Michigan Basketball hype video a friend of mine, Luke D'Mello put together. He has done some other videos in the past about Michigan that received thousands of views. 

I apologize for my lack of knowledge on how to embedd (Haven't been on this site for a while)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WFfof2Jq4ik