RealGM on John Beilein and his teams' in-season improvement

Submitted by snarling wolverine on

RealGM has quantified how much Beilein's teams get better after Nov/Dec.  Really interesting.

If you are looking for a coach whose team typically does get better later in the year, look no further than Michigan head coach John Beilein. In 8 of the last 10 seasons and for six straight years, Beilein’s teams have seen their Pyth. Winning Percentage improve after the opening two months.
The link contains a helpful chart showing the degree of improvement.

http://basketball.realgm.com/article/231005/In-Season-Improvement-Part-2

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goblue16

January 10th, 2014 at 8:28 PM ^

Beilein is a tremendous coach and he's a master at player development. His teams show great strides from start to finish each and every season. What I love most is when he calls a timeout in game situations to draw up a play. I don't wanna jinx it but its been very successful in the last 4 games. Finally he develops the player even when they have no shot at the NBA. I know most people don't like it when players leave early but IMO players like Burke and Robinson leaving early help the program long term. Beilein can show HS recruits the players he's coached in the NBA and what he did to prepare them. Michigan might have 6 NBA player by 2015 and this will continue to boost recruiting

Joined: 03/28/2010

MGoPoints: 17468

Lucky Socks

January 10th, 2014 at 9:52 PM ^

I agree on the early exits and NBA alumni point. I do think that early exits will slow down a bit after this sophomore class though. GRIII, Nik, and McGary are all liable to leave after this season, but each could return for their junior year as well. After their class is through, I don't anticipate any of our current recruits being another "two and out" player. Irvin, Chapman, and Walton each seem NBA talents, but after 3-4 years instead. I can live with a steady stream of 3 year players. I can live with the occasional 2 year guy as well, because it means he/we probably excelled. Bottom line: NBA exits are a good thing. I know JB's formula is to recruit guys who are committed to four years. He's just enough of a players coach to acknowledge when the opportunity is too good to pass up. The perfect balance.

Joined: 01/18/2012

MGoPoints: 2745

Jeff M

January 10th, 2014 at 8:47 PM ^

It's a Pythag win %, which means it takes the margin of victory/loss into account. So, even if a team is undefeated they can theoretically improve by increasing their margin of victory over the course of the year.

[Sarcastic Cynicism] Also this is just another way of saying Beilein's teams start slow and don't start playing MICHIGAN BASKETBALL until midseason which is UNACCEPTABLE [/Sarcastic Cynicism]

Joined: 04/18/2012

MGoPoints: 145

snarling wolverine

January 10th, 2014 at 8:51 PM ^

It's not strictly based on the won-loss record (though there's obviously a strong correlation) but on team offensive and defensive ratings.  If you see the chart, our improvement last year was very modest because there wasn't much room to get better.  Other years we've seen massive improvement.  2010 was surprisingly huge, although it didn't reflect in the win column (we finished 15-17).

It's also interesting to see just how bad Beilein's first team (2008) was.  Wow.

Joined: 12/14/2011

MGoPoints: 98360

LSAClassOf2000

January 10th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^

The rough trend in the Pyth numbers given here too is that Beilein's teams are beginning to become a little more consistent at Michigan too while still trending upward on this metric. It's a great feeling to know that your program is playing relatively consistently like that and at a rather high level. It is indeed some evidence that this is not the program that he took over and of a wonderful transformation. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130636

umchicago

January 10th, 2014 at 9:14 PM ^

not surprised to see him on the list.  he's the guy i wanted UM to hire after fisher got the axe.  we got brian ellerbe instead.  then amaker.  ugh.

Joined: 02/05/2009

MGoPoints: 33628

allintime23

January 10th, 2014 at 11:24 PM ^

We won't win the big ten this year but we will be the big ten team no contenders will want to play at the end of the season and we'll go further in the tournament than most of them.

Joined: 09/21/2009

MGoPoints: 15225

PizzaHaus

January 11th, 2014 at 12:20 AM ^

Back surgery is legit. He never got his form in the first place - even if he gets physically healthy enough to do his wild badger style basketball romping, which would be pretty shocking, he'd be too rusty. 

Joined: 01/09/2014

MGoPoints: 1124

Marley Nowell

January 11th, 2014 at 12:27 AM ^

This is one of those stats that totally meshes with what I think when I watch these teams.  2012 saw Trey Burke improve greatly his Fresman year hence the large uptick in production.  Contrast that to 2013 where Burke and THJ were awesome all year, GRIII was fairly consistent save that lull period in the middle of the season when MBB was ranked #1, and Mitch McGary improved steadily through the year before exploding in the tournament.

Joined: 07/31/2008

MGoPoints: 10412

JamieH

January 11th, 2014 at 12:33 PM ^

Beilein is one of the rare coaches with both seems to understand what are actually the most valuable metrics in his sport (aka, don't turn the ball over, take the RIGHT shots (3-pointers + high percentage 2-pointers, keep the opponent off the foul line) AND is able to teach his players to both value AND implement strategies and techniques to further those metrics.   There seem to be a lot of coaches that know what they want but can't teach it, or coaches that teach fundamentals but don't apply them in an overall way that is effective. 

Joined: 09/05/2009

MGoPoints: 28331