Beilein gave team option to forfeit; Walton banged up during accident

God shut up

Actually, it's not separate at all, and that's the problem I have with most of the anti-Beilein crowd. There is an undercurrent to the vast majority of the complaints I read here, which is, essentially, "if it takes cheating to win, Michigan should cheat." I disagree vehemently. If you'd like to discuss the finer points of his on-court strategy, that's fine -- and I agree that this isn't the time or thread for that. But, I support Beilein because of how he represents the university off the court as much as for what he does on it. In my opinion, the most important responsibility of a college coach is to mold young men and women into better people than they were when they started. This is an example of that; not holding the emergency slide for his team, but rather giving them the responsibility to make this choice, and fostering an environment where they could feel comfortable talking about that. From that perspective, Beilein is a great coach. Whether the wins and losses eventually come or not, I support him because he succeeds at his (again, in my opinion) most important responsibility.

You're missing the point entirely

when in fact this has nothing to do with coaching. These are mutually exclusive things.

Actually, no, leadership and getting your team to believe in you and follow you are inextricably linked with coaching. In fact it is utterly impossible to coach without them. That's not a personal opinion, it's well known.

I'll own up to the sactimony.  I have been intensely frustrated by some of the posters on this topic, and I let that get to me.  A tip of the cap to two of the more prominent anti-Beilien folks for stepping up to defend their position.

WindyCity: I forgot about the complaints about Beilein's offense, which generally comes down to toughness -- despite the fact that his offense is effective.  It's a style question and not one that an internet discussion is liable to solve.

My take on the on-court issues is simple, and mirrors my approach to football.  There are two components to the game -- the part that I know enough about to be critical, and the part that I don't.  If a coach does well in the part that I understand well enough to inform an opinion, I'll consider him a good coach.  Beilein is an analytical-minded coach whose biggest flaw -- in terms of the things that I understand well enough to judge -- is his auto-bench policy, which seems to be somewhat mitigated this year.  (We've seen some players return in the first half with two fouls, although it's probably still not frequent enough).  I don't know enough to be able to judge him on his approach to, say, defense except to quote the numbers, which suggest that (a) he hasn't been good at it this year, (b) the team's improving, although it may just be statistical noise and (c) they weren't nearly as bad as they appeared to be the first couple of weeks of the Big Ten season, becasue nobody in the KenPom era has ever been that bad.  (I'm speaking specifically about three-point percentage allowed -- that was a statistical fluke which has since corrected itself, likely by luck).

As a counterpoint, Brady Hoke was inexplicably bad at the parts of football that I understand well -- most egregiously, clock management.  Brian frequently rails about "hiring a teenager who knows Madden," and he's right -- game theory in general, and clock management in particular, are better understood by many children than by Coach Hoke.  So, he didn't get the same benefit of the doubt, because if he couldn't do those parts of the job well, how could he done the rest?  Still, I supported dismissing Hoke, not because he wasn't winning -- a lot of luck goes into that -- but because I could see areas where I could coach better than he could, and if that's the case, there are probably a lot of other guys who could do the same. :-)

Anyway, tl/dr there is you're right -- I was exaggerating when I said "vast majority."  It might be 51%, it might be 35%, or it might even be 20% -- but it wasn't 90%, as I implied.  Please accept my apologies for the overstatement.

Stringer:  Yes, but do people value his character?  The most successful coaches in college basketball frequently appear to lack moral fiber, to one degree or another.  If Beilein is replaced by someone of lower ethical standards who wins more basketball games, would there be outrage from the anti-Beilein community?  (I'm specifically not singling any person out here, BTW -- it's entirely possible that both of you would be outraged but that the overall community would not).  For me, though, that would truly be Michigan selling its soul (thanks, Stuart Mandel).

It was not my intention to start a flame war, though.  I think that the people on this thread, on both sides, all want the best for Michigan; let's enjoy the ride together and see where this team can go.  That might be further than any of us thought six weeks ago...

Go Blue!