This team might be better without Hunter and other snowflakes
Dude was supposed to be a high school senior this year.
People keep saying this, but he's not young for his grade. He's the average age of the college freshman. Bufkin is slightly young for his grade, he turned 18 I think this year.
March 11th, 2022 at 11:02 AM ^
OP you've got to be kidding right now! Last year Hunter was surrounded by seasoned veterans in Livers, Brooks, Brown, Davis and Smith, and then you add Wagner who was more experienced than any sophmore in the country from his international play. That is an incredible amount of talent to lose (3 NBA players), and it's taking the younger guys some time to adjust. Meanwhile Hunter has been the one consistent scorer this year, when they can get him the ball. There is no way they are nearly as good without him this year.
Not really. He's 19. He's Canadian and they do like 13 grades in Canada so "reclassifying" is different there. He's a completely average aged US college freshman. He'd be an extremely old HS senior.
We do not have grade 13 anymore and have not had for 20 yrs now. He is the age of a graduated high schooler. Just FYI
Well since the OP is kind of a hot garbage take, I don't mind going off on a tangent here... How did that transition go? On the year it stopped, did they surprise all the 12th graders on the last day of school and say, "GOOD NEWS!!! SCHOOL IS CANCELLED FOR YOU NEXT YEAR! Congratulations eh"?
They started the transition with the Grade 9 (freshman) students one year. It was also only Ontario that had 13 grades. Most of the rest of Canada, including BC where I live, was and is12 grades.
He said "like 13," not exactly. Just gotta round that down to 12 and it's 100% accurate.
March 10th, 2022 at 10:13 PM ^
I'm gonna get my grade 10 Julian
18 in the U.S. is 19 Canadian
At the current conversion rate at least.
Wait, I thought 19 in Canadian was 21 in American?
Yeah I think they age more quickly up there, something to do with the cold weather and lack of sunlight.
Well it would have helped if we had players and/or a coaching staff able to get him the ball in the post in the second half. Or a coach who could see Jones falling all over the floor due to injury/fatigue. Horrible job by Juwan
Honestly, I am the biggest Juwan fan, so I hate to say this, but I have my doubts about his development and in-game coaching. Seems like a great guy, the kids love him, and he has been a good recruiter, but he consistently fails to make in-game adjustments. His first year success was almost entirely with players that were developed and coached up by John Beilein.
Ok, but his much more successful second season was almost entirely with players he developed and/or brought in:
Franz, Smith, Dickinson, and Brown were all guys Juwan brought in (Beilein deserving some credit for initially recruiting Franz). Livers, Brooks, and Davis were bit players under JB and reached their ceiling under JH.
Could it be that replacing five key contributors including three or four of his best defenders and almost 50 points of offense (while only bringing back about 30 ppg) is hard for almost any coach to overcome? Let's see what next season brings before we start with the can't develop/can't coach narrative.
Giving Juwan credit for bringing in Franz is crazy.
Bitch slapped an opposing coach after being miffed in a handshake line "seems like a great guy"
Dickinson was not the reason they turned the ball over 7 times in something like 13 possessions.
This is a mediocre team and they played like it today. They'll likely be in Dayton playing for a date with a good team and an early exit. There's really not much else to read into it.
This was a collective team loss, letdown and implosion in the second half. Couldn't buy a bucket until the 3 pointer with about 10 sec to go. That had to be one of the longest scoring droughts of the season. So that the W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L streak continues.
Judgement day comes on Sunday and it will be interesting to see how this will shake out concerning making the NCAA tourney or not.
Totally agree. To go over 10 minutes with only 2 baskets is a complete team implosion.
I think they'll make the tourney because the other bubble teams are just much worse - when we're talking about IU and Texas A&M fighting for their tourney lives those are teams with worse resumes and UM should be in unless we just see an epic number of upsets. That said, it's an inconsistent team and I certainly don't expect them to go on a run.
We forgot how to play basketball in the last 15 minutes. Couldn't dribble, pass, or even rebound without turning the ball over. In that time we had more turnovers and fouls than points! complete self destruction
Hunter was terrible in the second half. He was a zero on defense and give the team no help. He also was passive on offense and didn't fight for the ball or look to create assists.
I think part of it might well have been lingering effects of whatever he had that kept him out against OSU. He absolutely looked gassed in that second half, which didn't help.
Again, I'm not saying he played great but "fuck Dickinson this team is better without him" is a shitty take.
Tale of two halves, no? They played brilliantly in the first half. I don't get 'mediocre,' I get erratic AF. And while I'm not here to pile on Juwan, he did not have the magic elixir available when the team lost its composure down the stretch. I used to think that Beilein sometimes let games get away from him by not calling timeouts--he was always just a little arrogant that his teams were good enough, and were going to right the ship. I had a little bit of the same sense today--Juwan didn't think his guys were going to let it slip completely away.
I don't have a clue what Jones slipping three times running was all about, but I think there was a little bit of cognitive dissonance about just who the offense was being routed through. That might be fixable.
On one of those slips he stepped on the defender's foot.
We might be talking about the same one but I remember one where he was tripped.
This was a complete team meltdown. Zero chance you had this take at halftime or with 12 minutes left.
exactly.
the vast, vast majority of the "this is a program-defining loss" crap takes are from people that would be calling it a "program-defining win" if we'd come back from down 5 late to win.
EVERY TAKE MUST BE A HOT ONE.
Idk about any of that but I went to a meeting up 18 in the 2nd half and came back to this?!?! I thought my app was busted.
I had the same reaction. I had a meeting at 1pm that didn't end until 2:30pm.
I couldn't comprehend the score when I first looked at it after my meeting finished.
It still doesn't make any sense.
Same here. 1pm meeting that I went into feeling great
Nope. Just the team is.
they went from 2.1 points / minute and up by 17 to .75 points / minute and down by 5.
My thoughts: 20 points to get to 80 with 12 minutes and change left. That is reasonable. No way the other team will score 37 and win. I was wrong here.
No Hunter will be a gigantic loss. This team relies very heavily on 2 point shooting and he's a gigantic part of that. Also the main reason the team looked good without him against OSU was because Jones was great attacking off the ball screens and OSU was didn't go small to try to switch things. Jones will be gone so we'll be relying on Collins who you don't need to play up on within like 10 feet because he's an atrocious shooter.
Houstan still has Cam Johnson like potential so I won't give up on him.
Can’t wait to recruit more undersized PGs who can’t shoot for shit!
It's all about athleticism and NBA prospects after all.
we've had so many of those guys that flopped, huh? i mean, x was terrible. and that mike smith guy sucked ass, too. davante adams is the pits. and i'm sure you were one of those "get eli brooks off the court, NOW!" guys.
Davante Adams is pretty fucking great in the NFL. Devante Jones has a respectable but not eye popping 18 PER on around 10 points, 4-5 assists and 4-5 rebounds a game.
lol. CRAP! got all fired up, there.
March 11th, 2022 at 12:23 AM ^
Small PGs is HDs fault. Moron.
Kam Chatman*
FIFY
I'm just going to say this....Martelli just beat our top 2 rivals in the same week.
Coach Howard comes back and the team blows a 17 point lead with under 16 minutes to go.
What’s the point of this observation? You’re advocating for Martelli to be coach because he went 3-2 and .500 at home? You want a 70 year old man to take over a program from a 3rd year head coach who already has a big ten title, elite 8 appearance, and has signed multiple 5 stars?
Coach Howard 100% gets a pass for this season.
.....and there are multiple red flags IMHO for what happened this season. Roster management, 2nd half collapses, the events in Wisconsin.
Again, I think it's entirely possible this team is back to an elite level next year. But for me personally, some of the luster has been knocked off Coach Howard this season. No other way around that.
Great response. I agree True, bummer of a season mostly, hope he/they learn and grow....
BUT I absolutely see the same red flags as you do, this season got me raising my eye brow a lot.
Appreciate that. I wanted to make clear that I do not think Coach Howard should be replaced and don't think Martelli is a better coach than him. Was merely stating what we've seen over the past few weeks.
Again, I'll make clear, I think Coach Howard get a pass for this year. But I'll admit, my Maize and Blue glasses have been removed and I see some potential problems. And we could also win at an elite level again next year and literally none of this matters. I think people that just are sluffing this season off completely aren't thinking clearly. Just my take and appreciate that others have a different opinion.
March 10th, 2022 at 10:19 PM ^
This years' team indeed has roster issues but those issues are most surely ones Juwan inherited. Beilein left Michigan with a very weak junior class-then Franz left on top of it and the senior class was gutted as well-which was also none of Juwan's doing. And so what is left this year-is what it is. Blaming Juwan, here, is way beyond being pathetically ridiculous. Beilein deserves great praise for many things that are Michigan basketball but he royally screwed Michigan in the end. And this year and next-and possibly the third year are exhibit A of the great challenge he left in his wake.
The fact is that Juwan and his staff pulled rabbits out of hats the first two years-but now the chickens have come home to roost. We will see what happens next year-if anyone from the, then, junior class can begin contributing. Hunter is who he is and it is not a bed of roses from the coaching and roster building side. Perhaps there will be lightning in the transfer portal...otherwise the winning is going to have to take place with kids who are still wet behind the ears.
March 11th, 2022 at 12:27 AM ^
I call bullshit on this. It's not football. Much easier to turn a roster around in 3 years in bball. The roster is all on juwan. His guards and wing depth stink.