Basketball Free Fall
January 22nd, 2011 at 10:55 PM ^
We have no seniors.
Sorry your butt hurts.
January 23rd, 2011 at 5:29 AM ^
It's college BASKETBALL. Seniors? Big deal.
I know some in the MGo crowd like to think class rank is everything but it's not. Our lack of size hurts us a lot more than our lack of seniors.
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:47 PM ^
I HATE our offense. Panic-pass the ball around the perimeter until time runs out then brick up an errant 3.
But I liked NW's offense which is similar to ours in style if not execution. The difference is that they had enough size in the post to do some effective outside-inside stuff, and outside-inside-back outside for open 3 stuff.
I am troubled by Beilein's recruiting ability. We've been undersized for years now.
January 23rd, 2011 at 11:27 AM ^
Basketball seems to be the one sport where lack of seniors probably means the least. Last year, Kentucky had three seniors, but none of them got appreciable playing time (11, 8, and 3 mpg). We all know that most of UK's production came from very talented underclassmen. To be precise, three freshmen (35, 30, 24), a soph (21), and a junior (33).
I'm making NO insinuation that we should or want to be like UK. I'd need to go take a shower just for implying that. Point is, talent and size (underclassmen or not) trump seniors.
January 23rd, 2011 at 11:35 AM ^
All of UK's starting talent is usually NBA bound, we still need more veterans on this team... it's pretty apparent when you look at our shot selection half the time.
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:10 PM ^
I blame the decimated defense.
January 22nd, 2011 at 10:55 PM ^
John Beeline out the door.
January 22nd, 2011 at 10:56 PM ^
We are a young team struggling in the midst of a tough stretch. This wasn't entirely expected, but it also isn't particularly surprising.
January 24th, 2011 at 1:01 AM ^
January 22nd, 2011 at 10:58 PM ^
we have a young team.
i was not expecting a national championship this year and still do not expect one. Maybe in a few years when we actually have more than 3 starters who have played a big ten game before.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:13 PM ^
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:10 AM ^
I think criticism of this team is rightfully deserved. I love Beilein and expect (and hope) that he will get this team back where it needs to be. That said, I can't help but thinking, it really isn't that hard to make the NCAA tournament every other year (which I think is basically our standard right now). And we simply aren't there.
In my humble opinion, next year with Douglass and Novak, who I think are the faces of the Beilein era (and my favorite players in a long time), we better be a tourney team, or else Beilein may be on the hot seat.
January 23rd, 2011 at 9:43 AM ^
This is the school that started five freshman and went to the championship game. It's not youth its lack of talent. JB either doesn't, can't, or won't recruit this state which is loaded in talent. I'm tired of watching a team that doesn't shoot well and continues to launch three after three.
Basketball is a sport where youth doesn't matter as long as the talent is there. Players use to go straight to the pros now there are plenty that are one and done. So save the youth meme as this is football where strength actually matters.
January 23rd, 2011 at 11:56 AM ^
I couldn't agree more, this is exactly what I said a few days ago. Stop making excuses for youth. This is basketball, a way different sport that football. Youth doesn't matter as much, it definitely can still matter yes, but freshman come in and make a team good all the time. This is about recruiting, or a lack thereof.
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:20 PM ^
when you have tons of top freshmen in the country playing for you. C-Webb, Jalen Rose, and Juwan Howard could have been drafted straight out of HS. Unless, you have John Wall type, Derrick Rose type, Demarcus Cousin type, youth will be always be an excuse. Youth doesn't apply when you have top 10 freshmen in the country playing for your team.
Getting top 10-15 freshmen is nearly impossible with JB because of JB's squeaky clean recruiting. You pretty much have to play dirty if you want to land a top freshman.
January 23rd, 2011 at 1:04 PM ^
For whatever reason, JB is beloved where RR was despised.
Yet both came here as "system" guys, and it eventually became clear that the system was not working. The response back was we need more time to recruit the right players and get them experienced in the system.
That argument wore out it's welcome with RR as the results never seemed to come. Sooner or later even Saint JB needs to be subject to the same scrutiny. It's not working.
Forget about making the tourney every other year. You can win a National Championship just by recruiting southeastern Michigan. In that sense, we're like a Florida school is in football. Imagine a Florida school in football ignoring FL talent and recruiting mostly in the upper midwest.
We've recruited southeastern Michigan fairly poorly during the JB reign. And the JB "system" has not been enough to make up for the lack of talent. Something needs to change.
January 24th, 2011 at 12:42 PM ^
This is the school that started five freshman and went to the championship game.
Do you remember how we got some of that talent? And how we had to vacate that championship game because of it?
There is a reason this site has a tag "basketball recruiting is dirtier than a dirt sandwich". And after the whole Ed Martin scandal, no coach here will be allowed to even sniff the possibility of probation. If that means missing out on a lot of the one and dones that could lead the team as freshmen, so be it. It's no coincidence that John Calipari can put together a top ten team primarily composed of freshmen, but his programs always end up on probation (after he conveniently leaves).
So after that, you are left with talent that needs a few years to develop into tourney-caliber starters. Or do we want to fire another coach before any players he recruited reach their senior year?
January 23rd, 2011 at 10:20 AM ^
and you know Calipari is going to put a roster laden with blue chip freshmen who play for one or two years and then go NBA.
Time for the West Virginia shuffle. Who should our next basketball coach be? we are seeing EXACTLY the same thing from Beilein that we saw from Rodriguez: we can beat the tomato cans, but Big 10 teams are out of our league.
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:14 PM ^
I hear they have a good Basketball coach at San Diego.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:05 PM ^
This is a classic mid-season slump by a young team wearing down somewhat both mentally and physically....hopefully they regroup and come back this season but the future is bright regardless.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:00 PM ^
My bad. I thought you were talking about that free-falling team from East Lansing.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:01 PM ^
Where's East Lansing?
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:05 PM ^
Head towards Whoretown McShittyville, then head east.
January 23rd, 2011 at 8:31 AM ^
for this post is a good example of the degredation of the quality of this board.
This thread was about U of M basketball. Why bring MSU into it? The fact that they are struggling does not make me feel better about U of M's own problems.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:06 PM ^
Unfortunately, their free-fall will probably come to an end since they play Michigan next. It will be a lot like Minnesota ending their big ten road losing streak today.
I cope with it by repeating the wisdom I learned from previous discussions: If we have low expectations and they meet those low expectations, everything is apparently ok.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:01 PM ^
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:03 PM ^
Minnesota is an awful matchup for UMich this year. Their front line is big and pretty talented.
Tonight's rebounding margin is one of the ugliest you'll ever see.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:31 PM ^
beat Minny 4 straight games with smaller lineups than this year team.
Michigan young players just hit a wall and they'll get better with experience next year.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:05 PM ^
We just need some size and more experience and our win total will improve.
January 23rd, 2011 at 1:31 AM ^
Well good. I feel better
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:08 PM ^
They'll be better in a few years. Although they'll lose the grit of Zach Novak
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:09 PM ^
When's that Fab Five piece coming out on ESPN?
Seriously though.....our record for the 1990-91 season was 14-15 and the talent cupboard was pretty bare. Things can change fast in basketball cause you don't need a lot of elite players to make a big difference.
January 23rd, 2011 at 9:46 AM ^
doesn't recruit that type of player and most of them wouldn't be interested in playing in his offense.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:09 PM ^
Beilein better hope there are a few wins out there still (not garaunteed at this point). If not, you're going to begin hearing DB talking about an evaluation after all the games have been played.
January 23rd, 2011 at 9:30 AM ^
i do not wish the BBall team any losses...but i have been thinking for a while now that the beloved university does not care about BBall anymore...i hope Brandon wants a relevant BBall program
January 23rd, 2011 at 9:48 AM ^
a former coach/player who hasn't been all that successful at a lower level.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:43 PM ^
I really think this team has hit the wall.
Here's the remaining schedule:
| Thu, Jan 27 | at (18) Michigan State |
| Sun, Jan 30 | Iowa |
| Thu, Feb 3 | at (1) Ohio State |
| Sun, Feb 6 | at Penn State |
| Wed, Feb 9 | Northwestern |
| Sat, Feb 12 | Indiana |
| Wed, Feb 16 | at (16) Illinois |
| Sat, Feb 19 | at Iowa |
| Wed, Feb 23 | (17) Wisconsin |
| Sat, Feb 26 | at (19) Minnesota |
| Sat, Mar 5 | (18) Michigan State |
Poor glass execution again tonight with only 13 rebounds - 4 off, 9 def.
Also, this fire drill offense of run around for the first 30 seconds of the shot clock and then launch a three that usually misses and has no prayer of being rebounded is getting old.
Going into tonight we're shooting 33%, 208th out of 280 in D1 3 point shooting, only making 150 of 454 attempts.
After tonight we stay roughly the same, going 12 for 35, making us 162 of 489 on 3 point attempts for the year.
One question for Beilein and staff, how do we go scoreless for 7:36 from the end of the 1st half and start of the second?
Our defense has disappeared, we make dumb fouls, have terrible shot selection, absolutely no rebounding strength and you can see the look of no confidence on their faces.
Mr. Beilein has an avalanche of BAD stats that shows no sign of stopping or improving this year.
Sadly I only see maybe two more wins on this schedule, home games against Iowa and Indiana if we're lucky.
Unfortunately, there will be no NIT for us this year; and we really could've used the extra practice time and game experience.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^
and the turnovers..
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:16 PM ^
Our basketball team would be pretty much unstoppable if they could execute a 3-3-5 defense.
January 23rd, 2011 at 8:28 AM ^
.....we need TCU's coach to advise Bielein on how to run a serviceable 3-3-5 with a 4-2-5 flex option.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^
Just watched Greatest Seasons on B1G Network highlighting the '89 basketball season................sigh............
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:40 PM ^
Bring back the Maize keys at Crisler!
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:16 PM ^
On the positives, they only lost by five to a top 15/20 team in the nation. So they've proved they can at least hang with ranked teams a little bit.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:18 PM ^
What is it with these coaches that are successful at WVU but flop when they come to U-M?
After hiring SDSU football coach, maybe DB should hire their BB coach too. He meets the Michigan Man criteria.
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:27 PM ^
John Beilein took us to our only NCAA tournament appearance since the Clinton administration. Yeah, total flop.
And if your post was sarcastic then I am an asshole and am sorry.
January 23rd, 2011 at 1:23 AM ^
Aside from both coming directly from WVa, they both seem to have gained success with different styles of play than normal successful teams (3-3-5 for rich rod, 1-3-1 defense for Beilein) and both seem to have been good at finding players that werent' very heralded and turning them into good to great players. And now it appears that both had much more success at schools most of us would argue is harder than at Michigan should be. Both had freshman that were forced to play, and then came in and had or are having drastically improved sophmore years (Denard and Darius morris). They both have had little to no success in Big 10 play. Just as Rich Rod failed to recruit and field a decent team defensively, I would argue that Beilein has failed to recruit the necessary height to compete in the big 10 and against the nation's elite teams (Zak Novak should not be your PF). Beielin is 46-63 in his first 3 years. Tommy Amaker was 109-83 at UM.
People are also making the same arguments for why the team isn't successful (too young mostly). Too much of it just feels identical to RichRod's tenure here. IMHO, it would be very hypocritical of Dave Brandon to come to a different conclusion than he did with Rich Rod after this year, which would mean UM's (arguably) second most important sport should be looking for a new head man.
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:51 PM ^
I'm not going to get involved with the reasons this program is not the same as our top-5 national football program, because the differences are obvious to intelligent people. What I will say is that I know you don't watch the games (or understand/pay attention, impossible to tell) since Beilein has run mostly man-to-man all year long, not the 1-3-1.
If you thought a team picked LAST in the Big Ten was going to beat top 25 national teams, YOU WERE STUPID. These complaints were relevant 2 months ago when it was obvious we were going to finish sub-.500. The team is performing exactly to expectations, with the exception of extremely close games with the #1, #2, and #4 teams in the country. Ignoring the youth of this team is ridiculous - it's only irrelevant if you are bringing in NBA bound players, and we are not paying them to come here, so it's not happening.
If they don't dramatically improve next year, let's have this conversation, but until then, feel free to raise irrelevant and inaccurate comparisons to RichRod, because they are SO revelatory. I know with every loss more people are going to agree with you, but that doesn't make you any more right.
/Amaker NEVER TOOK US TO THE TOURNAMENT, his overall record is meaningless
January 23rd, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^
We haven't been a top-5 football program since week 1 of the 2007 season. Maybe there isn't a point where a team stops being a top-5 program.
While I agree that playing top 5s teams close would indicate some progress, but it becomes meaningless when you follow it up with losses to mid to lower level big 10 teams, in NOT close games.
Also, I didn't realize that being the 11th team in an 11 team conference was acceptable and worthy of keeping your job. As long as you are not below expectations I guess.
January 23rd, 2011 at 5:08 PM ^
we would have made the tourney in 02-03 if not for self imposed probation. Why does JB get a full 5 years and RR couldn't even get 4.