Football: your supposition or fact?
can't compete with those programs unless we cheat all the time on this blog.
Those people are correct, at least situationally. The ones who don't appear dirty (emphasis on "appear") who have consistent success are long-tenured.
Duke and Connecticut are the only teams to have more than one championship. Calipari, for all the angst here, has ONE. Pitino, ONE. Self at Kansas (I presume he cheats as well) has--ONE. Friggin' BUTLER has two FF's and has played for two national championships. Villanova just won it.
It's out there for Beilein and Michigan. Just making the tournament (along with, oh, what, SIXT FIVE other teams--or so I forget how many are in now) isn't, and never should be, acceptable.
The fire Beilien crowd notices a downward trend, not capitalizing on two great years, and recruiting not doing particularly well.
It's not as if Beilein has a huge record of success at other stops, either.
Michigan is a middling basketball program right now. It has stagnated, and no amount of excuse making can change that.
Firing Beilein does not sound like the smart thing to do just yet. But neither does saying, "Wowie, we made the tournament! Yippee! And we sucked before Beilein got here so YEAH!"
And it really has nothing to do with paying players or Tom Izo and MSU or Mateen Cleaves.
Michigan doesn't have the right guy to be elite. That's all. Will they ever? I doubt it.
People do say that. They argue you have to cheat to be good in basketball even though we have been good with Beilein without it and Izzo has won without cheating and Florida and Arizona and....
There's a real faction of the fanbase that WANT basketball to be secondary to football. Something you pay attention to after football season is done and just hope for some entertainment when it gets to be March Madeness time.
"Consistently elite" -- I'm not sure what the definition of that is. I think that anybody outside of the blue bloods probably don't fit that classification. MSU since Izzo got there? Does OSU count? UF? Arizona? Indiana?
I think over the last 30 years or so (depending on which timeslice you grab and how heavily you weigh the Ellerbe era) Michigan compares reasonably well to that class of teams.
It wasn't just Frieder and Beilein, it was Orr and Fishcer. And Amaker, for all his flaws, did a really underrated job of the hard work necessary to reestablish the foundation of the program (and has gone on to success away from AA). They probably hung on to him a couple years too long but it was really just the sanctions/Ellerbe era that set the program back.
People don't argue that you have to cheat to be good in basketball, at least if you're going to use "good" to refer to how we've been with Beilein, which is a sentiment I support.
People argue that you have to cheat to be "consistently elite," meaning you pull in highly rated recruits year after year and get high tournament seeds. I think these people are correct.
I find it naive that you assume Izzo, Donovan, and Miller haven't ever cheated. Not to say that they definitely have, but you act as if this is a settled matter.
I've just never seen any evidence of it. I don't think it's fair or reasonable those guys cheat (and Beilein doesn't) without any shred of evidence. That just seems like homer bias to me. People on the west coast assume Michigan cheats at football. Is that "everybody who wins cheats" attitude fair?
Beilein already has landed top 15 classes before - presumably withou cheating - and also without much track record for winning (yet). The '14 and '15 classes were disappointing but there were a lot of just-misses and 2nd place finishes that with a few strokes of good luck have Michigan in that top 10 world. Cal didn't get Jaylen Brown because they cheated. Michigan didn't get McGary and Robinson because they cheated. MSU didn't get Winston. etc. At this point elite elite prospects like Anthony Davis, Towns, and Josh Jackson have more to lose (in endorsments and press) by taking money in college than not. Enjoy your 6 months in college and treat it like the Draft prep and free advertising that it is.
It boils down to what you think 'consistently elite' means. I'm OK with a world where most top 20 guys (one-and-doners) are choosing UK, UNC, and Duke over Michigan. As long as we are getting some top 100 guys (some of which might be one and done or two and done, but many of which will be 4-year players). It's just 2 different models that can achieve the same thing. We don't ever have to have a Top 5 class to consistently get top 10-20 results.
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Meanwhile, a 5 seed and two 8s made the Final Four the year that Izzo won.
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That's an important point, which along with the point about UConn made above actually supports my main point: The perception of Michigan basketball as being far below those traditional basketball powers largely comes down to luck. Sometimes it's close calls when we had the opportunity to win. Other times, it's unlucky draws or really great teams showing up the same time we have a team good enough to win most years - but not that one.
This happens a lot in sports - Ohio State's most recent football title WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED had that team been around one year prior, before the playoffs existed. It would not have happened either if TCU had held on to a three touchdown lead in the 4th Q against Baylor - or if the committee had taken a 1 loss TCU or Baylor over a 1 loss OSU, for that matter.
It's a thin line between success and failure sometimes, and sadly we've been on the wrong side of that line too many times in basketball.
There isn't a "fine line" as much as Excuse Guys want to believe. Especially if you keep falling on the wrong side of said thin line.
You are on the wrong side of it, if it happens more often than not, because you belong there.
Which is why we need better criteria to describe "success" and "failure."
Very few teams are great in both sports long-term. I wrote up a summary of the best dual sports schools that you can find at the link in my signature (or here, 2nd article after 6th year eligibility information).
Beyond the resources, it takes a fair amount of good fortune to make a tournament run (good health, favorable draw, etc.), and that has rarely lined up perfectly for Michigan.
Sure, a few games flipping for Michigan would add to their titles, but other schools can make that claim as well. North Carolina has been to 19 Final Fours. Duke has 16, Kansas 14, Louisville 10, Indiana 8; compared to Michigan's 7. UConn seems to be the anomaly, with 4 titles on 5 appearances; most teams don't have their stars align at that rate once they reach the Final Four.
Also, it takes a GREAT coach to win a national title. Only 12 active coaches have a national championship, and only 26 have taken a team to a Final Four (including ours). Michigan is probably a top 25 program, but probably not a top 12. That sounds about right, doesn't it?
We should probably hire one of them.
If you wanted to win, you wouldn't go back and try to relive all the "what if" scenarios that you listed unless you had some way to time travel or jump to alternate universes. Those games and seasons are done. They are in the record books. I was out there in the streets of Ann Arbor after Michigan won the National Championship in 1989, high-fiving every stranger I could on the way to Central Campus. I was there when Ann Arbor's finest tear gassed the crowds during the Fab Five's championship games. Great memories.
But they're just memories now and I want the basketball team to win, at an elite level. In the present.
If Michigan football goes on and wins a natty or does really well this season and the hoops team finishes at the bottom, the uproar will be at a minimum.
This is a football school, always has been, always will be. I'm probably in the small minority that actually would rather see an NCAA Tourney championship over the CFB Playoff.
But yes, the expectations have always been hilariously low with this program. That's why the attendance is pretty darn bad at games.
Without engaging in the Beilein, good or bad debate, I think we do have to take into account some extraordinary circumstances the last thee seasons. Since appearing in the National Finals, the Wolverines have lost two B1G seasons of play due to injury to a guy who just got drafted in the first round, and a B1G season due to injury plus another full season due to a comically disproportionate punishment of a guty who also got drafted in the first round.
This is on top of lost seasons of eligibility due to guys turning pro early (which every program faces), a lost B1G season due to injury to a guy who may get drafted after this season, and another lost season due to injury to a guy who was a Senior returning starter at PG, only the position you most want to have a returning starter. And, having the highest rated recruit of the whole period turn into a bust, and leave for playing time at another program, AND having several big men, only the arguably thinnest part of your roster, transfer just before they were about to see significant playing time.
An Angry, Old Testament, Wolverine Basketball Hating God (AOTWBHG) ought to be a meme on this web site.
There's no reasonable way we could've gotten both his sophomore B1G injury season and his junior suspension season. The third year was only a possibility because of the injury.
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An Angry, Old Testament, Wolverine Basketball Hating God (AOTWBHG) ought to be a meme on this web site.
Who is to say that AIRBHG does not come with his own Dashavatara, if you will?
Surely, the plight of Michigan basketball can be explained by one of the ten forms. There may be some debate on the naming and whether or not it boils down to shit luck though.
but the rest of this: mediocre recruiting (or developmental failures), transfers, et al are not random events. High level programs parlay NBA draft success into further recruiting success but the concern from the fanbase is that despite all that success the classes of 2011 and 2012 had, we've followed that up with more mediocre recruiting (or player development) going on three years now. Which makes the fortunate class of 2012 look more like the extraordinary circumstance. It's certainly the outlier in the Beilien era.
5 from the 2013 runner-up team. Also from that team, we had a 2nd rounder as well
That makes it seem like after last nights draft we passed Indiana when really we were already ahead.
See my post above. That also confused me, there used to be a lot more than 2 rounds
Michigan now has more wins than anyone in college football
Indiana now has more losses than anyone in college football.
Fun Fact.
that success to translate onto the court we'd be gold.
So...last night's draft didn't change anything as far as who was the most 1st rounders. We already had the most.
But a cool fact nonetheless that I did not know!
MaizeHaze is not an accountant or an actuarial science grad. Good to know we have done well in the NBA draft though.
..something new every day. Thought for sure Indiana and o st were ahead of us. This is nice to know..and to brag to the o st fans I know...but they wouldnt give a s**t...
'What was the score of the game last year'? HUH? HUH?
morons
Mainly because that is the only thing they have to brag about because there football teams are so bad.
That's a real surprise. You'd think schools like IU and MSU would lead the B1G by a country mile.
Now if we can just parlay this into some current on-court success, we'll be in solid shape.
I would have given that distinction to IU.
The college basketball Triad of Northwestern, Rutgers, and Nebraska collectively laugh as penn state.
BTW, FUCK penn state and all their delusional joepa loving fans!
The data is not correct, though Michigan still leads for most 1st round picks. Michigan has 25, Indiana 23 (not 21), Ohio St. has 22 (not 17) and Maryland has 18 (not 15). I didn't double check MSU.
My source was http://www.databasebasketball.com/draft/draftfirst.htm?lg=N for draft through 2011, then went to Wikipedia for 2012-16 which meant adding Alex Len for Maryland, Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller and Noah Vonleh for Indiana and JJ Sullinger and DeAngelo Russell for Ohio State.
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