USA Today: Bellein explains "coaching gaffe"
USA Today states that Bellein's mistake with Michigan's foul situation (he thought we were in the 1 and 1 when we were not) was a gaffe, which they suggest without stating so precisely was a factor in our losing the game, as "wasting those 23 seconds proved to be crucial."
I don't see it that way. I see Louisville as slightly superior last night and therefore a deserving winner. And coaching mistakes, like player mistakes, are going to happen to even the best coach. My question is, do you guys feel that the mistake was "crucial" in the loss? I frankly don't know enough about final minute basketball fouling strategy to comment.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2013/04/09/michigan-foul-coa…
I find it hard to believe that none of the coaches realized they weren't already in the 1-and-1.
I don't think he is covering for anybody. I think he was briefly overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. It is possible that another player other than Burke was supposed to commit a quick foul off the ball, but he in all likelihood would have taken Burke out if he was planning on employing the hack-a-Cardinal to get them to the limit. It is possible that the gaffe was failing to get Burke out of the game and not being unaware that they were not in the bonus.
But this is splitting many hairs. JB is a great coached and he coached a good game. I think it was an oversight, but Lousville was going all Larry Bird from the free throw line so I don't think it would have mattered. We were doomed the minute that heel touched the baseline.
Eh, if they were going for a steal 1st, then looking to foul, I understand keeping Burke in. He's shown to be one of the best on the team at getting steals. It is a risky proposition though, with him having 4 fouls.
Who knows. In the end, I don't really think it mattered. Michigan never got to within one possesion of tying.
responsibility to keep Beilein apprised. But--that said--he is probably usually completely plugged in to the situation, anyway, and it seems like a pretty human thing. He may be taking some of the heat off of Caris, too, who IIRC was also being accused of failing to foul when he had a chance. Coaches make many errors in the course of a game--or do lots of things they would take back, I am sure. Some get magnified.
I'd like to see the replay again, but from what I remember, I agree with you. Burke seemed to know they were supposed to foul but couldn't without fouling out. He frantically waived for someone to come up and give one. We also didn't call a timeout, so my guess is it was communicated from the sideline and not everyone got the message.
And that someone is not named John Beilein. So It is true that he's covering for someone. On the other hand, there were probably monitors at the stadium that listed the team fouls, and it would've behooved JB to be absolutely sure about the situation. So it does fall on him, to some extent.
And they would certainly like those 14 seconds back, although it probably would have been more like 10 in the end. It made an already unlikely comback a little more unlikely. They still probably wouldn't have won, and they still could've won regardless, but it didn't help matters. Even great players and great coaches aren't perfect.
Right after the game (but before the press conference where he blamed himself), Beilein talked to Tracey Wolfson from CBS about the game.
http://www.cbssports.com/video/player/play/collegebasketball/VAhYN9tu78…
Her first question was "at the end of the game...you let 21 seconds off the clock. Why not foul quicker?"
Beielin: "Well, we were trying to..we were trying to foul the right guy as quickly as we could, but we probably could have fouled a little quicker, yes."
Nothing about 'we didn't realize it we had a foul to give' or anything. Just "quickly as we could"
Now, perhaps he misunderstood the question (after all, both of the first two times Michigan had to foul they took too long - the first one was just especially long) or perhaps he confused his team by having them focus on fouling a particular player, but I think he's covering for his team, specifically his freshmen guards.
It didn't help us. I respect Beilein for owning up to his mistake, especially right after this tough loss. By making this mistake, it didn't help us, but we will never know what could of been....
^^^This.
The man broke the unbreakable 2-3 Zone.
It would have mattered more if either Trey had made his last off-balance three or Louisville had missed some free throws. But, as I said in another thread, I'm more impressed by Coach Beilein for coming out and admitting to a potentially crucial mistake than I can express. He's a great teacher and a great leader.. and he teaches the important things, just like Bo did back in the day -- responsibility, accountability, teamwork, values... if I had a son who could play basketball, I would point him squarely at Michigan and say "you want to play for a coach like that."
Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but I assumed we had to run off 23 seconds because Burke was guarding the ball and he had 4 fouls.
Someone else caught the ball first and we had the opportunity to foul, but didn't take it. Then, you're right, Burke was stuck on the ball and couldn't get anyone to come up and give the foul.
Not the way Louisville was sinking free throws late in that game. I hope our guys shoot about a million of them over the summer.
It would have been ideal to foul earlier, but Michigan still would have needed Louisville to miss its free throws and to make shots of its own. Shoulda, woulda, coulda - there are a lot of things that could have been done differently in retrospect, but I have no complaints.
It sucks, but tip our collective hat to Louisville and lets look forward to next year.
Compare Beilein's postgame presser to Boeheim's from a few nights ago.
I'm glad John Beilein is our coach.
Beilein got this team to a championship game. In my estimation, his only mistake along the way was not keeping Burke in the game at the end of the 1st half to slow down the Hancock effect. But that's kind of something you're forced to arrive at in retrospect. If we would have won, we'd all be praising Beilein's foresight for saving Burke until the 2nd half.
The lack of fouling earlier had very little impact IMO. In fact, I didn't have any problem with how they played it. Michigan should have had the ball with :50 seconds left and down 4, but they didn't call Behanan over the back. They went up 6 after that and the game was effectively over. Fouling would have probably just changed the margin of defeat.
And for anyone who doubts whether we have the best coach in men's college basketball on our side, just listen to this short and sweet interview Beilein did with Andy Katz after the game.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:9150551
Seriously, I enjoy his personality and coaching style even more than Bo's. And the best part is that we get to have more kids that fit his mold for as long as he decides to coach. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.
Two of Hancock's threes were the result of poor execution on defense.
I'm not gonna hang this one at Beilein's feet. He may be the head coach and as such is ultimately responsible, but I'm giving him a mulligan on this one.
I'm glad he's our coach and I'm happy with the direction and outlook for this program.
I'm no expert either, but was just trying to point out that I don't think it was necessarily a coach's call that resulted in a couple of Hancock's 3's.
It probably wasn't the fault of one of our guys either. I probably came across a little more critical of them than I intended.
The kid's good at taking advantages of those situations. It's not necessarily Beilein's or a Michigan player's fault. Give Hancock some credit.
But I think the game was pretty much over at that point. It would have taken another miracle.
Not finding a way for someone to get in Handcock's way in the first half is what lost us the game. (I mean he got the last one to take the lead after a TO and ending up having Morgan run into Handcock's defender...doh!). But it happened so fast, it wouldn't make the top 10,000 coaching gaffs in sports history.
.............at that point that it would be better not to foul at all, and just try to get a defensive stop. There were 50 seconds left, and after Louisville ran off the 35 seconds, 14-15 seconds would have been left. Go down and try for either a quick two or open three, and if made, then foul on the inbounds pass twice to put Louisvill on the line. Those free throws then would have been much tougher for them, only up by 1 or 2 points.
The way that it happened, we ran off too much time going for that first foul, giving them a renewed 35 second clock(which at that point didn't matter). Then too much time to get the second quick foul to put them on the line, all with them having a 4 point lead.
That's my take. Just picture us getting a defensive stop, and going down for a quick 3 pointer. Get two quick fouls, put them on the line, and even if they make both they are only up by 3. Get Burke open for the tying three, and lightning may have struck twice.
The bigger issue might be this situation shows one of the challenges when your team does not commit many fouls and you're behind late in a game. When you still have multiple fouls to give and need to stop the clock, it can hurt your chances at a win. Also, if you have a strategy of avoiding fouls, sometimes this can result in non-aggressive play. I guess there's a happy medium somewhere. Last night though, I wished we had knocked Siva to the floor on a couple of those drives. Oh well. Beilein knows what he's doing and I'd rather not second guess him too much.
Louisville was a better team than we were. They are the best team in the nation and they beat us by 6. We did, however, make the Final. Not the goal, but pretty fucking cool.
Did something go wrong there? Sure. It looked like the guys weren't all on the same page and that does fall on the coaches. While I am happy to see that we have a coach who accepts responsibility, I don't really need an apology from him or anyone else on the team for anything.
I would, however, love to see the NCAA accept some blame for the crap show that was the officiating last night. Those guys were a disgrace. They were not the reason we lost, but they did marr a classic, classic game.
...but it didn't cost us the game.
Beilein doesn't need to explain himself to anyone. He single-handedly resurrected this program and got us to within a cat's whisker of a national championship with a team that was ranked 68th out of 68 tournament teams in terms of experience. The man has earned some deference.
Also the refs missed GR3 being pushed out of bounds, McGary getting hacked twice, Burke's phantom foul, Burke's block, GR3 getting fouled and making the shot without a call, Dieng's gaoltend. Sure there might have been a few times when they stole it and called a foul on them but most of the missed calls went against us. It's going to be remembered for a long time.
He doesn't have to take responsibility there, but it's a great show of character to man up to your mistakes. Coaches do make mistakes, probably a lot more frequently than we realize.
But Beilein is still an excellent coach and I'm proud that leads this program. He beat three of the best coaches in the nation (Smart, Self, Beoheim) before succombing to a Hall-of-Fame coach who now stands alone in having won tourneys with two separate teams (yet another indication of how hard it is to win). He demolished a team who was in it's third straight Elite Eight. That is quite a hefty resume from just one tournament....I don't think any other team, Louisville included, has quite an impressive wins resume as Michigan did in that wild run.
I don't think this mistake cost them the game, I think they just got beat by a better team who had luck on their side.
But still proud of him for fessing up to it in public, when he didn't have to.
When we were down 4 and GR gets the rebound and is pushed out of bounds by the Louisville player. Tim probably should have bounced the ball off the Louisville player when he first felt the shove. If Michigan got the ball and was able to cut it to two or one, then may be we would have had a different outcome. In any event if was a great season. I was just hoping this season we would finally make it to the sweet 16 and we made it all the way to the finals. Great job team!
The man has brought our program back to where we all need it to be. And the right way, to boot. All the way back to a championship game. There were probably 100 things he did right that got us to the point where a foul count could make a difference. And those we'll never know about. I think we can give him one. Thank you John Beilein.
What about the foul that was assigned to the wrong Louisville player? I'm sure Pitino would have been out on the floor and in the ref's ear if he was aware of something similar on the Michigan side. Somebody on the Michigan bench should have been paying attention and let Beilein know immediately, but it didn't seem like any of the Michigan coaches noticed.