MBB: Oakland looks legit

Submitted by Huntington Wolverine on

Looks like we shouldn't read too much into Oakland's near upset of MSU: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recap?gid=201012140580

They're legit.  Played Illinois and Purdue tough, near upset of MSU, and successfully knocked off UTenn.  I exxpect them to be a tough opponent for us on the 18th.

 

Edit: never mind, already posted and missed it

el segundo

December 15th, 2010 at 11:44 AM ^

McDonald's uses the McHammer to pulverize the bones in the McRib sandwich.  This allows McDonald's to serve a sandwich that is, in a sense, boneless (it contains bone powder, not actual bones) and that complies with the FDA's stringent truth-in-labeling rules.

By making it possible to serve chewable ribs, the McHammer is one of McDonald's greatest contributions to humanity.

BlueintheLou

December 15th, 2010 at 11:24 AM ^

I believe most are aware that Oakland will be no cake walk. In fact, I would venture to say that it would be a quality win. This is a team that has played 5-6 top teams and played them tough, finally breaking through last night.

Go Blue!

Timnotep

December 15th, 2010 at 11:28 AM ^

play Wright State a couple weeks back... Man that was a good game. Oakland got a 16 point lead coming out of half time, but the Raiders got on a 20-something point run and ended up beating them by three.

Don

December 15th, 2010 at 11:32 AM ^

Over the past three seasons, Michigan has been the worst-shooting team in the B10 in both overall FG% and in 3-pt%. Right now in this season, according to the B10 website, we're tied with Iowa for next-to-last in FG%, and we're dead last in 3-pt%.

It's interesting to me that RR is criticized heavily—and justifiably—for fielding horrible defenses in his three years here, but Teflon John Beilein gets virtually no criticism for putting teams on the court that have crapped the bed in shooting for each one of his 3+ seasons. Is it because football and basketball are such different sports that JB is given a pass while RR isn't? Is it because Michigan fans don't really care that much about basketball in relation to football? Or is it that JB took over a program that was pretty much in the dumps, while RR took over a perennial contender in the B10?

mgohopkins

December 15th, 2010 at 11:47 AM ^

If [insert any Michigan player here] is making 40% of his threes, he should make 4 of every 10 whether he takes 10 or 100 of them. If he can't make a decent % of them, maybe he shouldn't be taking so many, which is the point. Beileins teams thrive on taking - and making - a high percent of 3's, not taking them regardless of their odds of going in. No reason taking more threes should result in a lower percentage of them going in (especially as open as guys were last night)...

Timnotep

December 15th, 2010 at 12:28 PM ^

with most players that percentage will go down the more you take.

Beileins teams thrive on taking - and making - a high percent of 3's, not taking them regardless of their odds of going in

Yes, and it would make sense that a team with a few years in his system would be more adept at getting them in... right now we don't have that experience so we do get a lot of bad shots.

No reason taking more threes should result in a lower percentage of them going in

This happens with most players, the more threes you take the lower the percentage, experience generally brings better shot selection, which will bring a higher 3%. But guys like Hardaway Jr., Horford, Smotrycz, McLimas, and Morris don't have that much experience.

jmblue

December 15th, 2010 at 2:57 PM ^

That is not necessarily true.  Good shooters shoot a high percentage, regardless of how many attempts they have.  Manny Harris went to the foul line a ton, and that didn't stop him from shooting 85% there.  If anything, it seems like a lot of games, we shoot a low percentage early on and slowly find our rhythm as the game goes on (and we keep shooting).

Timnotep

December 15th, 2010 at 3:24 PM ^

Shooting at the foul line is a heck of a lot different than shooting from beyond the arch.

Players go through hot streaks and they go through cold ones, just because you keep taking three point shots doesn't mean you're going to find the rythm. There have been times when they've found it, and have been lights out from 3, but there have also been times when they haven't... what I'm saying is that 3 % doesn't concern me as much as it aparently does everone else on here, as it was being used as an arguement against Beilein.

Aside from that we'll hit our stride later in the game, but it sure as hell seems as though we're going for backdoor cuts, and getting Morgan involved on offense later in the game... we take a ton of shots from 3-point range early on, and then when they settle down they're more able to hit them... that's my observation anyway.

burtcomma

December 15th, 2010 at 5:37 PM ^

We have a small sample size of 3 pt shooting this year compared to the full season for the previous years....Let's see how representative the current sample size will be when the year is over...Are we looking at a trend for 2010-11 season and will it get better, worse, or stay the same?

BraveWolverine730

December 15th, 2010 at 1:35 PM ^

It's probably because RR has had two really disappointing seasons(I know there were valid reasons both happened but that doesn't change how disappointing 8-16 was) and one season where he met the bare minimum expectation most fans had and ended with two really bad blowouts. Beilein, meanwhile has had one really disappointing season(last year), one kinda disappointing season where the team showed improvement by knocking off a tournament team in OSU at the end(2007), and one season where he exceeded all but the most optimistic of predictions(2008).  Meanwhile, he has also started to recruit better players every year he's been here while RR probably can't make the same claim.  That's not to say RR doesn't deserve a fourth year(I think he does), but it's not arguable that Beilein has done a much superior job to this point.  

Tater

December 15th, 2010 at 1:58 PM ^

In football, it is a lot more difficult to recruit athletes to make an immediate impact.  In basketball, we've all seen how much of an impact five freshmen can make.  JB took over a team everybody knew had personnel issues, while RR took over a team that had hiddne personnel issues.  Part of me still wishes Carr had stuck around one more year, because I don't see him doing better than 5-7 with the old system and the personnel he would have had. 

5-7 would have been enough to make Carr take responsibility for his late-career distaste for recruiting, and a new coach would have been given a lot more of a fair shot to rebuild the team in his own image.  Also, it would have made it a lot more difficult for any group within the AD to sabotage the new coach. 

It may have even kept Rosenberg from going on his witch hunt.

Fuzzy Dunlop

December 15th, 2010 at 1:42 PM ^

Two reasons, that are pretty obvious, and one of which you hit on:

1)  Rich Rod took over a perenially successful program, and the team's performance under him has been far worse than in recent history (whether his fault or not).  Beilein took over a team that hadn't been to the NCAA tournament in over ten years, and made the tourney in his second.  Given that the team under Beilein performed better than it had in previous years, its hardly surprising that he gets more benefit of the doubt.

2) Let's just say that if Glenn Rice were a college basketball coach, and had, say, taken a program like Vanderbilt and in four years turned it into one of the top-five teams in the country, there would be quite a few people clamoring for a change.

chitownblue2

December 15th, 2010 at 2:33 PM ^

1. Due to the seasonality of Basketball recruiting, Beilein had roughly 3 weeks to assemble his first class, which was just Douglass and Novak. That means that even though this is his fourth season, he really only has classes that he's had a legitimate opportunity to work on. Notably, virtually all are starters.

2. Michigan's investment in Basketball is miserable. Compared to other Big 10 schools, we have amongst the poorest stadium and training facilities. Kids don't want to play for that. Brandon admitted as much in a recent article, saying that it's impossible to judge Beilein when the school hasn't given much financial support to the program.

3. This team will content for the Regular Season Big 10 title next season.

4. Beilein's 2nd season is a significantly larger accomplishment than anything Rodriguez has done.

jmblue

December 15th, 2010 at 3:01 PM ^

Or is it that JB took over a program that was pretty much in the dumps, while RR took over a perennial contender in the B10?

You're getting warmer.  You might add as well that JB's second season was the basketball program's best in the past decade.  That would be like RR posting 2006-like results last year.  His situation would be very different in that case, too.

HHW

December 15th, 2010 at 12:15 PM ^

Oakland was a tournament team last year.  Plus, LLP is now on the team and sitting out until next year.  I'm sure he is briefing them on Beilein ball.  I would say chances are 50/50.

diclemeg2

December 15th, 2010 at 12:57 PM ^

Regarding legit.... 

JON HORFORD....   this kid will be a STAR.  Our best player already... watch the games carefully and youll see. This kid is gonna boom come next year.

JORDAN MORGAN...  where did he come from?  he is tough as nails and as fundamentally sound as it gets. He is totally carrying the load inside, and is my type of player.

We are one big man short of really competing. The program is really on the rise. 

BRCE

December 15th, 2010 at 2:10 PM ^

Benson and Larry Wright (their star 2-guard) are both in-staters. You can't win 'em all, but damn that is frustrating that we weren't in on these guys.

detrocks

December 15th, 2010 at 2:45 PM ^

Benson was hardly recruited when he came out of Detroit Country Day.   He didn't do much there and his only offers were from Oakland, Fairfield and Howard.   He also didn't play at all his freshman year as he was redshirted.   Credit the OU staff for finding the kid and Benson for working to become a good player.

I'm not sure if Wright was offered by us when he chose St. John's or when he transferred a couple of seasons back.