Pick and Roll

I think they just have enough athleticism to pull it off now.  They finally have a great true point guard in Morris, combined with hardaway and morgan they can get to the rim and make plays.  With Vogrich, Douglas, and Novaks hitting their threes the penetrate and kick and pick and roll and kick offense is a lot more deadly.  They also have been excuting some nice backdoor cuts for layups.  Beats having Manny Harris trying to do to much on his own, thats for sure.

I get a little frustrated with the recycling of inaccurate and misleading cliches about how John Beilein coaches offense.  So many posters and fans refer to his "three-point system" or to the "fact" that Michigan "lives and dies with the three pointer."  Others insist that the "Beilein system" won't work with bigs. And so on.

Unfortunately, these comments seem to spawn from the feeble minds of the basketball commentariat on television and radio, who prefer to traffic in cliches and half-truths, instead of actually watching the games and paying attention.

John Beilein does not have a "system" in the way that many other college coaches do.  He adapts the structure of his offense to his talent, although there are some offensive principles that he adheres to in the way he develops those structures:  have versatile players at all five positions who can handle the ball, shoot, and pass; open up the floor by having a viable three-point threat from multiple players, including bigs; use off-the-ball player movement, especially back-door cuts to create opportunities for lay-ups; use constant ball movement to creat open shots instead of relying on individual players creating shots for themselves with the dribble or in post-up situations.

At West Virginia, he used some concepts from the "Princeton" offense developed by Pete Carrill -- movement around the high post (or a double high post) that created mismatches, easy drives, and open threes.  At Michigan, he has not used anything like this because he has not had the bigs who can make it work.  Last year, when he had two players (Harris and Sims) who could create their own shots, he used more pick and roll and even some isolation (even though using isolation to create shots is generally incompatible with Beilein's offensive principles).

John Beilein is not "against" having his players drive to the basket.  If he differs from other coaches, it's in how he sets up the offense to create driving lanes and driving opportunities.  His offensive sets are creative and often complicated (and complication is not always a good thing).  But his offense is nothing like the caricature that the Dick Vitales and Seth Davises of the world describe.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Beilein's offense.  If people want to learn more, read up on the "motion offense".  There's lots of stuff on the internet about it.  After learning what they are actually doing out there, I'm surprised at how much of the "live by the three" or "Princeton offense" crap I hear that is just flat wrong.  We need to dispell these misconceptions. 

In the motion offense, it's all about reading what the defense gives you, and making it flow.  Yes, they do run some set plays, but the base offense is a "read and react" type system. 

I think some of the "pick and roll" may be set plays, but much of it is just reacting to the defense.  When Morgan sets a pick, when he releases, if he's man is playing tight, he can cut to the hoop and that's when Morris finds him.  Not every defense will play that way, and, a lot of that is due to the respect they are giving Morris.  It will be interesting to see what happens as the season goes on.  If the 3s stop falling, the defense may sag off.  If Morris stops being red hot, the back doors won't be there. 

I like watching this team play basketball as a team game and especially how they have played defense this year.  Young team that is going to be taught well and get much better with talent and appears to be very coachable and Beilein and his staff this year seem to be able to get these guys to learn.

I've noticed the pick and rolls also. Hey, why not? If it works do it.

Is focus, crispness, effort..deliberate, smart play...they seem more experienced than they are, more 'together' than they should be...again, I'm a casual obverver, enjoy the games, but know very little about basketball strategy, schemes, etc..