It's evident watching not only this team but also Michigan's recent NBA guys that not a lick of defense is taught by this coaching staff. That's two out of three major sports where that is the case right now. 

One look at the boxscore led me to think of something crazy and certainly not a viable option with common basketball sense - In 40 minutes, Doyle, Wilson, Wagner and Donnal collected 8 rebounds, Chatman collected 2 in 9 minutes - I'm tired of seeing a top 100 recruit sit on his behind without giving him a shot. It's obvious rebounding is not a concern for JB and watching those other four drop passes, not rebound, get beat and miss bunny lay-ups hurts my eyes too much - play Chatman at the 5, play man and double any passes immediately to the post then scramble scramble scramble defensively. Our best rebounders are our wings and guards. Spread the floor on offense and work in Doyle/Wilson/Wagner/Donnal as you see fit. I say give it a shot or at least work it in. 

Miss wide open shot after shot.

Pass up wide open shots.

No effort on defense.

Sickening to watch this garbage.

 

 

The game was really bad. Maar and Robinson both played good though. Random question: why is Michigan's non-conference home slate so bad? The next four opponents are all lower than 250 which means beating them soundly may give Michigan a confidence boost, but it probably won't help correct issues with rebounding, defense, and so on.

Grim

Thoroughly abused on a screen &roll all night. I teach that play and how to defend it to 4th graders! The big was repeatedly out of position everytime they went to 1-3-1! Speaking of Caris, he played NBA allstar game quality defense as he waved at the guard blowing by him most of the night.

 

This team is regressing and not improving week-to-week. There has been too many bad misses with roster spots at this point to show much improvement. Without names, there is at least 3 players who have shown they are not capable of playing at the D1 level. None of those 3 are guards, hence the gigantic holes inside.

I love JB but maybe it is time to start having that conversation as was mentioned by a poster above? This team is a middling BigTen team. The blueprint for what Sparty and others will be trying to exploit was shown in this game (again).

Well this is a weird panic.  I haven't followed Michigan basketball nearly as long as I have the football program, but I feel like I'm the only one following it at all.  Over the past few seasons, Beilein's squads have consistently been slow starters.  Like, REALLY slow starters.  They always look iffy at the start of the season.  The NC run was something completely different but for those specifically pining for McGary, FYI he didn't start for most of that season.

Anyway, they're 6-3 now.  Last season they finished a relatively disappointing 16-16; they started 6-3.  The year before they made the Elite 8 and finished 28-9; they started that season. . . 6-3.  That included a loss to Charlotte.  The year before the NC run they won 24 games after starting 7-2 but even that included almost losing to Western Illinois.

Will they be OK?  I don't know.  I honestly don't know.  I'm not going to say it's going to be fine because I haven't a clue, and that's because Beilein's teams always start this way.  In the prior two seasons alone a 6-3 start either meant Elite 8 or missing the tourney altogether.  If Beilein can flip that switch in the players' heads they'll improve drastically.  If they hit a wall of athletic limitations we could miss the tourney again.  It all depends on how much they improve during the season.  They're unlikely to make the Final Four, but beyond that the only thing a slow sloppy 6-3 start means is that this team is being coached by John Beilein.

Funny, I was set on fire last week when I asked if this team was a disappointment so far this season...

 

I want Mitch back.

Okay, I just have to come out and say it, and it pains me because I love D-Rob 2.0's amazingly gifted shooting ability as much as the next guy. I think in order for us to be successful as a team, he cannot be playing 22 minutes a game unless it's a specific matchup that works. He is too much of a liability on the defensive end and does very little outside of shooting threes. He certainly has his role, but for an offense that was already way too stagnant, adding a guy who does nothing besides shoot threes, for long periods of time derails any offensive game plan.

Now I am not saying that he is the only issue (Big guys, lack of effort, forced shots), but against the more athletic teams, he is a main cog in the poor defensive machine. And that is by no fault of his own, just far less athletic than so many others.

It seems everyone but MAAR, and Levert have regressed. I mean Doyle just looks downright awful. Like his adidas's are made of concrete as well as his hands. He has gotten worse. It's really amazing how much JB did in the years with stu and zack.
We really need a couple athletic junkyard dogs out there. Or at least some guys that have that mentality. We seem to be a team that has little to no grit. We're too nice. I'd hate to see what the likes of Bobby knight would do in a practice with these guys. And I would agree I think JB needs to tweak his recruiting philosophy in terms of 4/5's and then find a coach who can teach defensive fundies or the whole staff should go to some coaching clinics on defense and rebounding. No reason it should be this atrocious. It has to be demoralizing as a team to give up Offensive rebound after rebound after rebound. Dunk after dunk after alley-oop.

Just a thought and I may be way off base here but why couldn't we work on a 2-3 zone. Mask some of our on ball defensive deficiencies. Schedule sets up where we could afford to play with it.