Beilein's plan for the summer: Better iso and post play on offense
According to JB, one of the things they have to do is to work on old fashioned one-on-one, three-on-three. He wants the players to learn how to score and get their own leverage. It's the way the game is going.
They have the talent to do it, but you also need players to space the floor to go iso ball. You had two average at best shooters in Matthews and iggy and two below average shooters in teske and Simpson. They need spacers. Simpson needs to develop a jump shot off the dribble. Poole needs to be more involved and trusted by the coaches. I know he makes some dumb mistakes but he’s trying to make plays with the touches he gets which isn’t nearly as many as Simpson, iggy or Matthews.
How about recruiting a fucking bench this year?
In 25 point wins we should’ve been playing our 7-9 players 10 minutes each. Never more than 2 of them on the floor at the same time so you sustain your lead.
JB has his highest rated freshman class ever and one had significant PT while the rest are relegated to the bench. Beside, he always play with a short bench aka 7 and maybe 8 guys since he wants his starters to get into a rhythm shooting the ball.
All sports are about advantages. A jab step opens up a path for a shot or a drive to the other direction. With only five players, minute differences in these incredible atheletes are all one can leverage unless you develipe an overwhelming advantage (defense, 3pt-ers, no huddle, etc) to put the other team on their heels. It takes a zen mind to get to that oevel. Then put an unstoppable belief in yourself and your teamates, and look out!
Honestly think it will help that there isn’t an overseas trip this offseason. Team played a lot of basketball last season and I think they just ran out of gas by the time they got to March.
This is it HP. I am going to say some pretty honest stuff here but they aren't attacks on the players so much as just an accurate assessment.
Teske is really good but he isn't a great 3 point shooter. Combine him with Simpson and now you have a defensive leaning team at it's core unless you have 3 other big time scorers. JB does not. Poole is like building an offense on quicksand because he isn't very consistent and is wild.
Offense clearly has to change or the players have to be better. Going ISO is a good move with this team because Simpson and Poole can get into the lane and Teske does have a little height. It's not that this may be a great new system but it can't be any worse than having all these guys in his current system. It's smart coaching to change until Bajema and Wilson are ready to play.
Even DDJ would be a good fit in the ISO. This is the anti Beilein system team. He clearly has guys who can win at a high level but if you have lemons then make lemonade.
Good. Anytime someone that is 6’6” or below tries to check Teske on a switch. It should be automatic postup buckets. It would be nice to see guys other than Matthews drive the lane and draw fouls or drive the lane and kick out.
Sure, great. But also, get back to running sets and getting your players easier shots.
Edwards could go one on one. Purdue struggled with him trying to do it himself. They started doing much better when they ran sets to get him and the other guys (who aren't anywhere close to what Iggy/Livers/Poole could be) open shots to get them going. Currently, there's no Stauskas on the team so shoehorning guys into one on one situations isn't the final answer.
Winning one on one situations is a big part of the game, but putting the onus on the players to win their matchups is how you wind up giving up 50 points to OSU or not scoring for 10 minutes against MSU. Athletes can lose to better athletes. Scheme your athletes into better positions to give them a better chance to succeed.
Look at the basis of any basketball game you’re going to need a guy like a Carsen Edwards or Cassius Winston that can go get you a bucket when needed. We got into scoring droughts because our sets were well defended and we lacked a guy who could break his man down off the bounce who can get himself or a teammate and easier bucket.
Ding Ding DIng. WTJRob gets it. In a JB offense this is the single biggest thing necessary even more so than shooters.
Ding ding ding... who on this team is the next Trey Burke/Derrick Walton/Nik Stauskas?
Yes, those guys make running an offense much, much easier. But when you don't have those guys, what do you do? It's easy to say "just win one on one match ups." It's a whole other thing to win when you don't have those guys consistently.
Yeah, having Trey Burke, Derrick Walton, or Nik Stauskas is pretty much a necessity/massive help in today's game. Who on the current roster is going to be Winston next year? And even then, Winston was sometimes ran off screens without the ball to get him open shots to make it easier on him.
That's my point. Without a guy like that, you can't expect to win one on one match ups consistently. And in that case you have to coach and scheme guys open.
Purdue has 1 guy like that. The rest of their team was a bunch of just-a-shooter types who couldn't create their own shot, but Painter drew up sets to get them open looks. He even did it for Edwards when he was struggling to help him get a rhythm.
Edwards was terrible for long stretches of the year and Purdue was worse the more he shot. As his FGA went up, Purdue's record got worse. But Purdue somehow won a share of the Big Ten because they found ways to get Ryan Cline (a goober) and Tyler Eifert's brother (a walk on) open catch and shoot 3s. They didn't give Cline the ball and say "go win one on one" because they new he couldn't.
Iggy does not pass.
Teske has a longer windup than Luis Tiant.
The combination of driving and kicking out for 3’s was missing.
Teske should only shoot 3s when he is wide open. He went from taking one as a Sophomore, to making 30% on a decent amount of attempts as a Junior. So long as he is open, if he can get to 35%, that would be amazing! I was surprised we didn’t run more ball screen for Poole and Iggy. Those two should be deadly in the pick and roll. Once Iggy implements passing into his game, it should bring about more offensive fluidity. Those two also adding a nice mid range jumper like Zak Irvin did, would go miles for their games! Now you have the option to blow by on the screen because guys won’t try and dip under if you can take two dribbles and hit a pull up j.
Need better shooting.
This is part of it. I think the bigger issue was putting guys in situations to shoot better, if that makes sense. I re-watched all the tournament games from ‘13. Sure, THJ, Burke and Stauskas could shake and bake and pull up. But the wide open looks we were able to get them off of our offensive sets were amazing!
Hot take: Aaron Henry > Jordan Poole
Henry’s game is pretty solid. One or two dudes like him who can get to rim without falling down who can also shoot.
Oh, and a money tree
?? What the hell does Aaron Henry have to do with this. Are we just picking random players and doing comparisons?
Poole?? Nah, give me RJ Barrett instead. 3 of them?
Weird post.
question isn't Nunez supposed to be a deadly shooter? The very little I have seen of him he didn't look very much a dead eye.
Pretty tough to come into a game with 30 seconds left and hit an almost forced shot (because it’s his only opportunity, so he chooses to shoot quickly on the shot clock rather than pass around for a better/open look). I wonder how he looks in practice. Doubt he will become Duncan Robinson esque, either way
Nunez is a shooter but you also have to take into account he is one of the lower ranked Beilein recruits. Nunez was always the least likely to come in and contribute immediately. Hopefully he will be a solid 3pt threat by his junior and senior years.
I don't believe that ignorance is bliss...but it certainly is king around here. In the final analysis, this 2018-19 team over-achieved...and likely by a good bit. Remember those preseason expectations???...that is what ended up being reality. There are reasons the second half of the season went down as it did. I do not know specifically what the answers are here but I surely do know some of the critical questions. Hopefully the coaches figure out how to mitigate the issues-because some fundamental problems will remain. I do know that magic wands and fairy dust are not the answer.
Yeah but when you run North Carolina and Villanova out the gym, expectations change a lil. We also had double digit leads twice against State and Texas Tech might very well be the greatest defensive team ever.
no reason this team isn't top 10 again next year
When I was student teaching, the teacher I was paired with (who was also a football coach) taught me that once you have your course established (which takes about three years), you then improve by working on your weakest 15% every summer. That means two important things: Being honest about your weaknesses (which is easier now with data if you're willing to look through it) and looking for outside feedback to fill in your weaknesses.
To me, this feels like Beilein looked at this season and what he has next season and seeing what he can do to prevent the problems that Michigan had this year. New problems may crop up during the next season, but I like that he's at least taking the approach of "let's work on it."
I can see this working well and helping a weakness, but also could be detrimental to overall ball movement. With that said, this could really help Livers turn the corner to being a really good player
He will (Livers). Trust in Beilein. He got us to here.
I don't know if fatigue played a factor late in the season with a short bench or what but the team was different late in the season than it was in the beginning. You go back and watch early games against NC and Villanova, we had several players doing iso. We had players doing backcuts for easy baskets. We had players driving and kicking out to shooters. We had Matthews following up others drives for dunks and we had plenty of run out fast breaks. Later in the season it seemed like slow ball and screen plays between Simpson and Teske. Simpson dominated the ball at the top of the key and everyone else stood around. Where did that hunger and free lancing go? The pick and pop should always be other players first besides Teske for threes. Matthews seemed hungry early on just like in the tourney last year. Team seemed worn down late in the season to me and a lot of late shot clock desperation offense. Beilein needs to open up his rotation to about 9 players next season. I know there is a lot more to it than what is in this post but what was working in the first half of the season we went away from for some reason. I dont think it's as simple as learning iso and post entries, we were doing iso early on. I think being versatile is the key to most Beilein offenses and the second half of the season we went stagnant for some reason. Love Z to death but making him the staple of the O along with Teske is not going to work.
We aren't but for that. That's not how he has been coaching or recruiting. Better post play is an issue only because we never throw it into the post. Teske tries to post up all the time and has mismatches all the time....
Nobody on our team can go one on one. Mathews does a little but but he is extremely limited, doesn't even have a crossover. Poole is a lot of flash with very little substance. Couldn't even get started to even tried and drive against McQuaid. Nobody on our team is that type of player.
"Nobody on our team is that type of player."
Maybe, just maybe, that's why Beilein is going to work with them on it
Poole and Livers can definitely become that type of player. Iggy already was as a freshman.
How about getting graduate transfers such as Owens and Mooney? They already know how to score and play tough defense ; )
To compete with the elite teams: We have to learn to switch on ball screens. Find a capable back up point guard to Zavier and Castleton needs to hit the weight room so when Teske goes out we don't drop off dramatically. Iggy staying one more year would be nice too.
Great year for us but the last 8 games or so revealed plenty of room for improvement. Beilein will figure it out.