Mailbag Entirely Concerned With Beilein's Recruiting
Brian,
Is there any hope of Michigan capitalizing on its NCAA appearance, where it could possible snag a decent current senior or a quality junior recruit?
I'm so tired of 2-3 star white guys from out of state. It's getting old. Darius Morris is a rivals 4-star (minor miracle), but it burns me to see a PSL junior like Keith Appling already fitted for green and white. Does Beilein even care about the PSL? Sure he recruited the 2-star stick-figure tall kid out of U-D Jesuit for next year, but that doesn't remotely count.
I guess my question boils down to, can he recruit?
Thanks,
David Komer
Beilein can obviously recruit at some level. He's taken four separate programs to the NCAA tourney, unearthed Gansey and Pittsnogle and Joe Alexander and so forth and so on and has generally taken the Gonzaga-Butler route of finding under the radar kids who can play in his system. He can obviously do that, and that should be good for tourney bids most years.
But given the hostility above—way to enjoy the season, dude—I don't think that's the question. The question appears to be "can Beilein recruit like Izzo/Matta/whoever," and the answer is very probably not. That's what Michigan signed up for when they hired Beilein: low downside, low upside. Beilein's not the sort of coach to upset the instate balance of power or hire some random AAU guy for the privilege of getting your one-and-done kid. He's not that guy. He is a guy who will bring guaranteed respectability, likeable teams, and a host of tourney bids with some fun runs to the Sweet 16 or whatever. Michigan basically abdicated on being a powerhouse when they hired Beilein.
David Komer, who seems like a dick, might not like this. After Ellerbe and Amaker I'm fine with it. Michigan will build up a program over Beilein's career and then be in a position to swing for the fences afterwards. Fine.
That said, Beilein didn't leave West Virginia because he wanted to build Michigan into West Virginia. WVU is the kind of place only someone thoroughly down and dirty like Huggins can recruit to. As we saw with Rodriguez, there is virtually no instate talent and people from outside the state aren't exactly dying to go to Morgantown. Morgan's higher rated than any recruit Beilein's ever gotten. So is Matt Vogrich. Beilein probably disagrees 100% with the abdication stuff above and is going to go for bigger, better recruits than he ever landed at WVU. You can see the uptick from his first class to his second; 2010 promises to be another step forward.
As far as specifics: Michigan's 2009 class is done. They were looking at Aussie center Angus Brandt, but he committed to Oregon State. There are few recruits left and no one on Michigan's radar.
As far as 2010: we'll see. Michigan is in on a number of highly rated recruits, the most prominent being MI SF Trey Ziegler. Ziegler is ranked slightly lower than Manny was by the time his senior season ended and keeps listing Michigan strongly. There have been erratic rumors Michigan leads but nothing solid; he's a keystone recruit for Beilein. Michigan's also in on a few guys who either aren't quite as highly rated or don't seem like strong possibilities:
- Tim Hardaway Jr. and Morgan Moses are both 2/3 sorts who have visited and are strongly considering Michigan. Moses is a top 100 kid to Rivals but not Scout; Hardaway is a high three star and the son of that other guy named Tim Hardaway. Neither is white. This is probably not a surprise about Hardaway.
- Casey Prather is a mondo recruit listing Michigan who will visit but seems ticketed elsewhere.
- Will Regan is a skilled post guy hanging on the bottom of top 150 lists who's getting interest and offers from some pretty big schools now. He's from Buffalo, Beilein's old stomping grounds, and Michigan's supposed to be in excellent position.
- There's also this Evan Smotrycz guy, but he's an under the radar tall white guy who can shoot and will probably only serve to enrage you.
Getting Zeigler and another talented, non-role-player wing is extremely important in 2010. Michigan is (probably) going to have to replace Sims and Harris and no one they've recruited so far is going to be the sort of guy to get his own shot or draw the focus of the defense save maybe Morris. But let's see how things fall out before we shoot ourselves in the head.
Also: Appling? We're seriously complaining about Beilein losing recruits to Michigan State? Izzo has been to the Final Four five times! When Appling committed Michigan was still in the midst of a decade-long tourney drought and Beilein was just a new guy with no connections in state. If you insist on comparing Michigan's program to MSU you're going to be very disappointed, and that was obvious from the first day Beilein was hired. MSU is going to remain the dominant instate program until Izzo retires or gets hired by Alabama (which lol). Period. Michigan is going to have to build slowly; let's not be State football fans here.
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