is in order.  The defense has to be addressed.  The development of the bigs has to be fixed. 

 

When you look at the offense, Beilein still has it.  The inside curl game that Brian mentioned clearly had Wisky confused for the better part of the first half.  Why?  Because Beilein saw them cheating the 3 point line and came up with a counter attack.  The guy can still coach offense.

 

The other big issue to me is leadership.  Where is it coming from?  The answer is no one.  There is not a player in the rotation that steps up and confronts the rest when they are not playing well.  You'd hope that someone with Irvin's experience would step into that role, but it hasn't happened so far.

Still love Beilein, and say that next year is the real litmus test for his career going forward at Michigan.

Big Ten 2-pt defense:
1. MSU (41.4%)
...
13. Rutgers (52.4%)
14. Michigan (55.3%)

WORSE THAN RUTGERS

— Bauncey Chillups (@_ac616) February 29, 2016

I feel like Beilein should be given at least another year. I do however think he needs to seriously re-evaluate his staff and his philosophy. To me there is no reason why M cannot bring in more talent at the center and forward positions and have that position be more of a focal point while still operating under Beileins system which is predicated on a lot of shooters on the floor at one time. But where he is struggling is bringing in bigs that cannot stretch the floor which is the reason he recruited most of them to begin with. So when their shooting doesn't pan out or develop you're left with an un-athletic, weak player who is asked to do something he's not designed to do(rebound, block shots, defend the rim, score when inside 5ft of the bucket, toughness) all those things are extremely important parts of the game and they seem to be an afterthought for this staff. That has to change IMO. They need a coach on this staff who has ability to develop and coach post players. Then there shouldn't be a reason a higher profile center recruit wouldn't want to be at M. You have a lot of shooters who can space the paint out which would give a low post scorer room to operate. Guys like Poeltl from Utah, Zimmerman from unlv and others would be enticed about playing in this system. But without an assistant who has experience and a knack for developing centers and forwards coupled with how Beilein ignores that part of the game players of that nature look elsewhere. Maybe Teske can be that guy. I'm worried that a guy like Austin Davis will take forever to turn into anything substantial. He looks like a poor mans Ricky Doyle to me.
That being said I would think and hope that this team will be better next year. Another year of development for guys like Wilson, Doyle, Wanger, and even donnal. But there needs to be more focus and coaching in terms low post play. These guys need to learn how to play with their backs to the basket. It helps you become a more well balanced team. Develop a variety of moves and have that option to dump it down low and kick it out to a shooter or cutter if nothing is there or you're doubled up. Beilein and Jordan do a good job with the guards now they just need someone on staff who brings the other half of the game along. Defense needs to be upgraded as well if they want to sniff the tournament this year and even into next year.

THE  most dissapointing team in the Belien era..At least those early teams played with heart and intensity and emotion and were HUNGRY...This team..no emotion no intensity just going thru the motions with inept play from its supposed stars...Irvin, Walton and Robinson continue to dissapoint

I'm not sure that this team has even a single league average defender. and the constant breakdowns - both 1-on-1 and more organically - are tremendously frustrating.  It's hard to win when you can't get stops no matter how efficient the offense is and let's be honest, the offense has bogged down plenty this year.

I don't really understand anyone seriously suggesting firing Coach Bielien though.

Too much mangroving (complaining) going on. Mangroving, how about that word for the Mgoblog vocabulary. Facilities so what. Players just want a good court, friendly rims and good sights. I don't believe the talent level argument. There's a good amount of it and Michigan has some of it. Offensive basketball at the college level is boring to watch for the most part. Oh we need to run our set's says the coach. Player's are too confined by micro managed schemes. Coaches make it too complicated. If you have an open shot you take it. One guy back everybody else to the board. The game needs to be played without the micro managed regulating. 

Like Brian I have become sort of immune to this basketball team and have apathy towards it.  This has not been a recent development.  With the lack of offensive efficiency all the things I like about sports players - grit, ferociousness, "compete", defense are lacking watching this team.  So I find little joy in how they play so I don't watch large portions of games anymore.  I'd rather watch a Novak type team which will end with a similar record but have guys like...well Novak out there.

What galls me about this team is lack of development year over year and within the year.  Outside of 1 player there is no development unless you squint in maize glasses.  Mark Donnal.  Where are the Beilein bumps?  All I see are Beilein regressions.

• Zak Irvin took a big step last year vs the prior year.  But he is basically the same player as last year.  I give him the benefit of the doubt because he lost much of his summer ot injury.
• Derrick Walton is just a guy to me.  Monte Morris is a far superior floor general.  Walton is plus at nothing but rebounding.  And I dont know if that is because he is a good rebounder or the way the team is set up - a guy like Burke looked like a plus rebounder too but that is because it seems like we try to tie up big guys and then let our guards rebound.  But whatever - the team does not run efficiently with him which is the #1 part of being a PG.  He has not improved from last year - he is the same guy.
• Aubrey Dawkins took a huge step back.  Last February he looked like a potential breakout player - a Caris 2.0 type.  He came back as a guy disinterested in defense, and lacking intensity.  He looks like a guy who we will read next September "I thought I had made it and didnt put in the work over the summer".  So not only progressession but regression. 
• MAAR made some progression but has holes in his game.  But not massive progression.
• Kam Chartman is a complete bust at this time.  Guys his ranking are expected to be debating whether to go to the NBA after 2 years, not contemplating whether he will be a role player in his year 3 - or even be at Michigan next year.  No progression (or for Maize colored glasses folks small progression from a floor buried 40 feet underground his freshman year)
• Big guys take time to develop but Doyle at least looked like a promising bruiser last year - he has regressed.  There is nothing added to his game.  He looks slower, and with worse hands.
• Big guys take time but DJ Wilson is a total non factor.  He looked lost last year and he looks just a bit less lost this year.  I dont see this ohh ahh athleticism.  Guys with his body frame and supposed skill are guys who pop in their second year all across college basketball.  He is just a bench guy who you hope the other team doesnt go on a 14-2 run agains when he is in.
• DRob does not have a valid year over year comparison since he was at another level of bball last year but he has in year progression and it is negative.  Now I doubt that is all on him - teams focus on him now and he hasnt handled it well.

 

So I count 1 major advancement in Donnal and 1 major regression in Dawkins and a lot of ho hum players ala Chatman, WIlson, Doyle who have added little to nothing to their game with all 3 not starting from a very high level of play to begin with - hence it should have been easy to add to their game.

So how much is this on the coaching and how much on the players?  I refuse to believe Jordan and Beilein became dummies overnight so at some point its the players who have not progressed.   And I am on the fire Bacari train because I have seen little out of him outside of Morgan in back half of his senior year - the same Morgan who was stuck to the bench much of his life as a junior - and then some development in Mitch....but lo and behold Donnal suddenly became a player.  So I don't know.

People blame Caris injury but when Caris played we lose to Xavier and SMU and UConn types.  We played the same sad defense we played for years, with the same lack of athleticism up front, with the same being outrebounded and punked by physically tougher athletes.  Caris didnt change that - we just played more hero ball with Caris.

Looking at that list above, forget next year but 2 years from now if Xavier Simpson is not Trey Burke as a freshman this is going to be a bottom third team.  And next year is going to be much of the same as this.  So more groundhog day.  I guess our great hope if Mark Donnal as a senior turns into Matt Costello as a senior.  And Moe turns into a star over the summer.

I'm a Beilein fan, and think that the progress he made from 2008-2014 was impressive, but agree with Brian that this team can be hard to watch sometimes.  Last year, at least, was so low on talent after losing Walton and Levert that even moral victories like staying close with Wisconin in the Big Ten tournament seemed like huge achivements.  My two observations on this team is that I don't see any visible leadership outside of Walton and, perhaps this is related, we lose focus at the worst possible times. 

I do think that Spike was a hug loss.  He isn't as talented as Levert, obviously, and has limitations on defense, but can handle the ball, pass and shoot, and could give Walton a needed break now and then.  Walton looks exhausted at the end of games.

I agree that something needs to change.  I'll be curious if Beilein shakes up his staff.  For the rest of this year, I'd like to see some juggling of the lineup.  Let Dawkins start ahead of Robinson perhaps.  Give Chatman some minutes.  Maybe let Doyle in earlier and for longer streches.  I 'm not saying these guys are better than the starters, but I feel like at this point a little random experimentation can't hurt.

I was recently giving my 4 year old the "being a fan through thick and thin" talk. And then I realized while I was watching the game Sunday night that I was spending more time looking stuff up on my iPad than I was watching the game. And that is why I am so frustrated with this team.  I can't stand watching players make repeated mistakes, and that is exactly what this team does. 

Offense & defense. It doesn't matter. Irvin turing it over before the half on a designed play. Walton running three horrible fast breaks that should have ended in easy layups and didn't. Big's repeatedly losing body position on their man. Players repeatedly rotating late. Repeatefly getting blown past because they can't simply stay in front of their man. The list goes on and on and the team gets more frustrating to watch as the season wears on.

Wonder how different things would have been if it was known Jan 1 that Caris was gone for the year. If someone would have stepped up and grabbed the alpha dog role right away. Sometimes when it is not known when the star is coming back, players subconsciously sit back waiting for the dog to return.

Bicari has to be held accountable for the bigs regressing year after year and his inability to recruit ! Beilein letting 10-0
Run happen all the time and not using a timeout is bull too ! He has to lead the nation in timeouts not used in a game

we'd look completely different if we had caris and spike.