November 19th, 2022 at 12:19 AM ^
I’m preparing for chaos year. Beat the bad teams, lose to the better teams? lol no. Chaos!
November 19th, 2022 at 12:21 AM ^
Yeah, however the program lucked out with Jaelin Llewelyn. He might be 60% from the FT line, 0-11 from 3, 34% from 2, but you can’t put a percentage on character and the classroom.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:31 AM ^
You forgot the weight room and the community.
November 19th, 2022 at 8:36 AM ^
upvote every time this is referenced.
November 19th, 2022 at 12:26 AM ^
Give the admissions department a break. We can get transfers from most Ivy League schools AND Stanford.
What more do you want...
November 19th, 2022 at 12:55 AM ^
Only if they've already graduated. No chance we'd accept credits from Princeton, Harvard, or Stanford. If a junior from one of those schools wants to transfer to Michigan, he better be ready to start again as a freshman!
November 19th, 2022 at 10:15 AM ^
Well, that makes sense:
Michigan is the Harvard of the West,
As Jim Morrison said, "The West is the Best,"
Ergo, Michigan is better than Harvard and no credits should transfer.
November 19th, 2022 at 10:25 AM ^
Upvoted for the Mr Mojo Risin reference.
That's all, 'The End' of my comment here.
November 19th, 2022 at 11:17 AM ^
Don't sleep on UVa!
Olu, baby!
November 19th, 2022 at 11:41 AM ^
It is not the admissions department.
We have no problem getting these players through admissions.
The problem is transfer credits - some things don't transfer, and there is a maximum number of credits they will let you transfer in and get a Michigan degree.
Those decisions are made by individual colleges/schools, and neither admissions nor the university president has any control at all.
If you want to change it, you have to convince individual departments it is in their benefit and get them each to change their own policies.
November 19th, 2022 at 12:39 PM ^
A sophomore from Oregon state transferred into the women’s basketball team this year. Will be an important contributor next to nebraska transfer that came after her sophomore year
November 19th, 2022 at 1:38 AM ^
Shannon was/is a massive loss. He's looking like a top 5 player in the league, while our guards are very...not close.
November 19th, 2022 at 2:20 AM ^
What a secret.
November 19th, 2022 at 4:39 AM ^
Recruiting won’t matter rn. Juwan can seemingly develop big men, but guards are a blind spot in both identifying talent and development.
Would be incredible if Beilein were to come back as an assistant coach and help analyze talent, find shooters, and install an offense. He could stay semi retired, but just 20 hours a week on zoom to absorb that man’s knowledge of college basketball back into the program would be amazing.
November 19th, 2022 at 6:26 AM ^
I miss him too but that isn't happening.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:09 AM ^
This narrative, though it seems to be popular, is deeply misguided. There is no perfection to be found when it comes to checking off every single box in coaching a college basketball team. If the Jordan Poole story as a Michigan basketball player, under Coach Beilein, does not inform one of the realities in this regard then nothing will. Juwan and his staff are outstanding but the free-flowing play of this great game is fraught with pitfalls-pitfalls at a volume that cannot be controlled from the bench.
To this point in time, in Juwan's time as the Michigan HC, he has had a significant "star", who has both wonderful strengths while at the same time having significant weaknesses. Here, Juwan's goal of having a "position-less" roster has not stood a chance. Perhaps next year will be the year-the last two classes are inching things in the right direction in this regard. In the meantime the fans would do well to understand that what we witnessed in these last two games are a reality that should be expected-like it or not...win by 30 one game and lose by 30 the next. We will see if Juwan's own sons can flip some good switches here and accelerate the process.
November 19th, 2022 at 8:05 AM ^
I was impressed by how free flowing Illinois offense was without Kofi clogging the lane. Will be interesting after Hunter if Michigan evolves that way too
November 19th, 2022 at 8:19 AM ^
Kofi had to clog the lane, he couldn’t shoot from deep. Hunter can shoot from the outside but they want him down low to play inside out. Unless Reed develops and outside shot, we are going to become more lane clogged next year. I can’t remember the scouting report on Kante’s perimeter shooting but he’s apparently raw and will take time to develop. I don’t see this position-less basketball people are referring to with our roster. We have far too many undersized “fours” on the roster that don’t have elite athleticism or a great outside shot.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:39 AM ^
Beilein struggled for 3-4,years with the same yahoos here calling for his head. Some of his defenses were atrocious. Teams sagged off X while he missed 3 after 3 for two years. Memories are short, inaccurate, serve false narratives. Anonymous chat board posters, maybe making up for their own frustrations, whine as if coaches know nothing or aren’t aware of this or that little glimmer of insight they have latched onto. Eisley is the guard coach, and in former times he was a genius. The u lost Shannon for us, and three games in Juwan—3 Sweet 16s in 3 years—is a bust and so is Llewelyn. 48 hours ago, Juwan was a genius. It’s hilarious but also a bit pathetic. I’m staying away from the basketball stuff here going forward.
November 19th, 2022 at 11:23 AM ^
Whatever you do, don't change your medium to reddit post game threads, where every Michigan loss is a reminder of how Juwan is ALSO a piece of shit (mostly Wisco, MSU and Illinois fans)
November 19th, 2022 at 6:11 AM ^
Give the team time to come together.
November 19th, 2022 at 6:46 AM ^
JH is going to tear down everything JB built.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:33 AM ^
I mean, I get these threads are full of hyperbolic belly-aching because it's hard to look at something critically but I can say with a ton of certainty that John Beilein wouldn't have wanted, nor been particularly good at, handling the transfer portal and NIL, two realities Howard is navigating along with everyone else. That's seemingly a big reason JB left UM when he did - he didn't like the direction college sports was going with player movement and roster construction. Could he have continued to be successful at UM? Sure. But we saw years when he didn't have the right types of shooters or struggled with a PG and they were just as annoying as last year and this one. And Howard is, for the second time, basically turning over his entire starting five save 1 due to graduations and early departures.
It's been 4 games. Howard has proven to be a solid coach who tends to get his teams playing better at the end of the year.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:33 AM ^
You know, with a little time and patience you could find whole past threads on this 'blog with a "Fire Beilein" flavor.
November 19th, 2022 at 9:02 AM ^
Those threads were great for a number of reasons but one particular strain was people who said his non-center-focused offense wouldn't work in the rough-and-tumble Big 10 and now people are complaining about Michigan having a great center-focused offense and how it doesn't work in modern college basketball.
Everything that is old is new again.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:14 AM ^
To be fair, hasn’t Illinois been a problem for Michigan every year since Underwood showed up?
I don’t pay attention to the X’s and O’s, but the fact that we haven’t beaten them once in three to four years at least makes the suggestion that they are a bad matchup for Michigan.
That and it does seem like every time we get together, one of their players ends up having a career game. Which may help support the “bad matchup” narrative.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:23 AM ^
I hope that the next time people are tempted to blather mindlessly about Coach Howard’s recruiting they will bear this in mind.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:25 AM ^
His whole...thing remains an example of why it must suck to be a college basketball coach at times. Howard recognized he needed a lead guard and got the kid basically to commit and then the school made it nearly impossible for him to actually transfer in and so instead he went to what appeared to be his second choice.
It's why I don't get a sense NIL is really holding back UM in recruiting nearly as much as the basketball and football teams are limited with the transfer portal because of an admissions department that holds on to this archaic notion about the quality of other colleges while seemingly not applying the same level of scrutiny to the various HS kids graduate from.
November 19th, 2022 at 7:56 AM ^
Except it wasn’t Michigan that made it impossible for Shannon to transfer here, that was Texas Tech. If memory serves correctly, they refused to allow Shannon to complete his degree there or would not allow his scholarship to pay for him to complete it. Both Shannon and Michigan players have said this is the case. The Shannon episode was on Texas tech, not the apparent boogeyman that is Michigan admissions department.
November 19th, 2022 at 8:10 AM ^
But it wasn’t a problem for other schools he didn’t have his degree. That’s the point.
November 19th, 2022 at 8:28 AM ^
While true, somehow Illinois found a way to make it work. And they are a solid academic school.
November 19th, 2022 at 9:04 AM ^
I mean, your description highlights exactly why the Michigan admissions office played a major role - they wouldn't accept most of his credits so he'd have to basically take another year+ to graduate. UM would have been fine with grad transfers because that's a different process but one-to-one transfers of credits has always been an issue. Hell, I had issues with some in-state community college credits I took while in HS when attending UM and that was decades ago. Michigan has had an issue with this for years and it's worth pointing out how myopic and shitty it is for everyone.
November 19th, 2022 at 9:29 AM ^
Maybe Santa will intervene
He's the first President in memory to take an active interest in the athletic department. With admissions and college economics getting increasingly competitive I could see relaxed standards on transfer credits as a component of reform of admissions.
November 19th, 2022 at 8:39 AM ^
Did Collins announce his transfer during the Shannon recruitment or when we got Llew? If the latter, I wish we would have just went with Collins/Dug.
November 19th, 2022 at 10:23 AM ^
If I remember correctly it was after Llew. I think Frankie (or whoever is advising him..) saw him as more of a PG than Shannon. I always thought Llew was being recruited to be a 6th man of sorts and be the backup at the 1 & 2 thus giving Dug a little more time to develop. I was pretty shocked how threatened Collins was by an up transfer Ivy League guard on a roster that basically had no other guards on it.
November 19th, 2022 at 10:39 AM ^
“while seemingly not applying the same level of scrutiny to the various HS kids graduate from.”
This is why I’ve believed since the 1970s that U-M’s stance regarding transfer credits is rooted primarily in the desire to maximize tuition & fees income. The assertion it’s based only on a desire to maintain academic standards is a fig leaf.
November 19th, 2022 at 11:47 AM ^
1) It's not the admissions department.
Shannon got accepted, he just couldn't transfer all his credits. These limits are put in place by each individual school/college.
2) It isn't about the quality of other colleges.
It's about "We're not giving you a Michigan degree unless you earn at least half of your degree credits at Michigan"
November 19th, 2022 at 7:26 AM ^
I support the guys on Michigan's team, and look forward to their improvement as they learn to play as a team.
November 19th, 2022 at 8:45 AM ^
The truth is in the middle! Juwan has shown himself to be an above average coach! However, his teams are 19-12, 19-15, and 23-5. That doesn't seem like an elite or great coach. I hope he gets there, and I think something needs to shift about defensive intensity to get there.
I get why some people are a bit worried after getting blown out by 30 to a team that lost to Texas Southern and went to OT with Tarleton. Beilein wasn't perfect either! Time will tell. That was a shocking loss. I hope they move forward. Right now, they look like another 19-15 team to me, but I hope I'm wrong!
November 19th, 2022 at 9:31 AM ^
That 23-5 season was post pandemic where they got to play 4 non-conference games and then the team won a conference title. That's pretty damn elite to me.
And the 19-12 season was his first after the unexpected departure of Beilein and a number of guys graduating/leaving for the NBA.
The only real disappointment was last year not getting more out of the touted freshmen. If he struggles this year with the same issues we can start talking. But over the past 4 years Howard has had better runs that guys like Izzo and Calipari, for example.
November 19th, 2022 at 9:48 AM ^
Time will tell. Juwan had alot of early success with Beilein players, now were starting to see his players and coaching abilities (Remember Kevin Ollie at UCONN). He's not helped by his roster management issues. I'm not a Juwan hater by any stretch I just realize it's very difficult to be a head coach of a major D1 program, and especially to do it without any experience. Even Prime Time Deion Sanders is cutting his teeth in the HBCU, FCS level (I know different sport).
November 19th, 2022 at 10:48 AM ^
"Juwan had alot (sic) of early success with Beilein players ....."
Maybe you could talk about all the key "Beilein players" on the Elite Eight team (you know, Dickinson, Wagner, Brown, and Smith).
November 19th, 2022 at 11:20 AM ^
Franz is a Juwan player but a huge asterisk. Juwan did have his own key contributors. But the Beilein players on that team were a major part of that foundation. Again I wish Juwan well. I want him to succeed. I just realize this is a difficult ass job let alone for a first time head coach.
November 19th, 2022 at 8:52 AM ^
The Illini have been a thorn in our side, Michigan State looks to have something rolling in East Lansing, Indiana looks to have a good squad, and you can't count out the Buckeyes...the Big Ten is going to be tough this year...
November 19th, 2022 at 9:34 AM ^
Whats the story here? Was Shannon considering Michigan ? I remember him at TTU . If it's true it's an admissions issue, which is a joke. I obviously dont know the details but we worked out getting Charles Matthew's from Kentucky, shit why not Shannon.
November 19th, 2022 at 10:05 AM ^
Trust the process…