W247: MBB stronger at center with Donnal
Yeah, kind of a fluffy article. We aren't going to be a better team after losing Morgan and McGary, along with Horford. I'd say a sweet 16 birth should be our ceiling.
Tourney results are pretty random.
I think they're not likely to bring home a conference title this year with all that inexperience up front. But you never know...
It might be best to at least let the guy show what he can do in a few games at the college level before comparing him to a fifth year senior. Having said that, I am cautiously optimistic about Donnal's abilities.
im optimstic, too. its beilein, why do people doubt him still?
the guy i still associate most with beilein and his "system" is kevin pittsnoggle. a non descript recuit, 6'9 center with range, whom beilein rode to the elite 8.
morgan and mcgary are quality big men, but neither had range. im really excited to see donnal just because i think we'll finally be seeing a true beilein offense.
defense and rebounding will be a problem again, but they were last year too. i know our offensive efficiency was off the charts last year, but with donnal stretching the d i expect it to be even better.
it'd be nice to have an awesome d, but this team is going to win a lot of games next. i definitely think this team can be better than the 2014 team.
the thing was, him taking a 15 footer wasn't as good as GR3 taking a 15 footer, let alone Nik, Caris, Zak and Derrik knocking down 3s.
Our coaches put the team, and the individuals on it, in positions to succeed.
I don't dispute that Donnal might bring a nice element to our offense, but we may still not WANT him taking shots with all the other guys around. Our starting guards all have the potential of knocking down 40% of their 3s. They can shoot every damn time and this team can go very far offensively.
This is why we are fans. We assume the best based on very little data. Expectations have to be kept realistic. Where you tout Donnal's top 100 status as a big plus, it is more realistically IMHO a reason for caution. Top 100 ain't a stud. If Donnal is that good, it strikes me he wouldn't have been red-shirted last season--as we definitely could have used another body at the 4. Now you might say we get him for 4 more years, but I don't think that is the way most coaches look at it these days--and again if Donnal becomes the player we hope he will become, he likely won't be here for the 5th season anyways. And no matter how you cut it, you grossly undervalue morgan's contributions.
that Donnal can do those things--and relatively emphatically. That's the point--we have almost no idea....unless you've been at practice.
And in response to the following poster, Donnal was always considered a 4 first (pick and pop) who might also be able to play some 5. He's only a 5 now because circumstances dictated it--we have few other options.
We had 2-3 very good centers and a 4-man who warranted 30 plus minutes a game. Irvin struggled on D but his shooting was very beneficial on O. Our team was loaded and Donnal had nothing to offer that was better than the alternatives. Don't hold the RS against him....but you can hold his meh performance against Concordia against him.
with Irvin at the 4--because of his offense--but we all know that it was a defensive and rebounding issue when GRIII was out--partcularly after McGary was lost. In fact, there were times last year we could have used a third 5 because of foul trouble and Horford's playing fade down the stretch.
Don't get me wrong, I am not questioning the decision to redshirt Donnal whatsoever--I trust the coaches decision--but I do think it is a reason to keep expectations in perspective.
I have the sense that those who believe that Donnal will be better at the 5 than Morgan (next year) will feel vindicated the first time he hits a 3---ignoring the defensive differences.
A center that can shoot the 3? Yes please.
Egwu from Illinois is going to give our big men a lot of trouble. He is a man.
Or you're using maybe 1 comment to make a generalization.
Everyone knew we'd be okay with Morris if Burke could come in and play well because the rest of the team was much better than the year before.
Everyone knew we'd be better than that in 2012-13 because Beilein had the best recruiting class we'd seen since the Fab 5.
Everyone knew we'd still be okay without Burke and THJ because we still had that recruiting class...many said the same thing they had said two years before when Burke was a true freshman. "We'll be fine if (Walton) can be solid for us."
And I don't see anyone freaking out about this team. But you can't just assume they're going to be elite like the past two.
Didn't UK win a national championship and then get knocked out in the first round of the NIT a year or two later?
Using the past to just cover up potential issues about the present is stupid. We have a completely different team and unlike last year where we had the guys on the team, they just hadn't been in the roles they were stepping into...we've got guys now that no one has ever seen play college basketball.
No one is saying there is no possible way we'll be good. Earlier I said a 7-8 seed should be the expectations NOW for this team. That's still a pretty good team!
In December/January if the freshman turn out to be better than projected then obviously we should be better than a 7-8 seed.
For everyone 1 person that you're teasing in your post, I can find the blind MGoGoggles poster who thinks we should be a top 10 team just because we have been the past 2 years. However, I think the vast majority would agree that we're somewhere between a 6 and 9-seed right now. Just like I think the vast majority would put us somewhere between 20 and 35 for football.
But make generalizations about the outliers if you want to...
Calm down. I dont see any pessimism. We just lost 60% of everything - scoring, rebounding, etc. We lost 3 NBA players. We lost our best senior interior defender. Teams take steps back - the program is in great shape with great coaching but there are years it will have ups and downs. Frankly if Mitch came back I think we are another Elite 8 team. That pushes Donnal to 4 (or the bench and Chatman as a 4) and gives you Irvin, Caris, Walton, Mitch and (Donnal/Chatman) as our starting 5 which I'd put as top 10 in the nation. This team is super young and our freshman are not even of the "recruiting level" of what Maryland is getting this year. But I am sure our coaches will develop most of them well.
There is no shame in having a team loaded with freshman struggle at times, and not be as good as the one prior to it. It happens. We have a lot of unknowns on this team and everyone assumes 2 of our top 3 options for next year will take major jumps because players in prior years did - there is no guarantee. If they don't or only 1 does - we have issues. Same if Donnal is not what we hope he is - we are all needing 22-24 minutes out of a guy no one has seen. He could surprise to the upside, be very good, be very average, or bomb. Who knows. We are speculating and aside from Caris, Spike, and Walton almost nothing is a known quantity.
They're NOT mutually exclusive!
You can trust in Beilein and think THIS team is an 8-seed.
Do you think MSU fans don't trust in Izzo? Does that mean they're going to be a 1 seed every year? No.
No one is placing limitations, that's what you don't get. We're placing realistic predictions and expectations on this team. Look those words up and you'll see the difference.
How can any fan place limitations on a team they're not on anyway? So if I say that we're not going to make the tournament then the NIT is the limit for this team? Does it work it reverse? What if I say we're going to win the National Championship?
You're being ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. No one in this thread has said anything absurd in this thread (except Mat who thinks Caris was 1B to Stauskas last year)...at least not about his/her expectations for the team at this point in this year.
And what does Beilein's praise have to do with anything?
Just because people think he's the best coach in the country doesn't mean they also have to think this particular team is as good as the last two.
You logic doesn't make any sense. Especially when you want to call out people for being "chicken littles."
Praise for a coach doesn't mean he's got a great team. Nebraska's coach got a shit ton of praise last year, they didn't win the league, the conference tourney or the NCAA tourney. Doesn't mean Miles isn't a great coach.
Coach K, Izzo and Roy Williams don't win it every year. So what does praise or thinking highly of a coach have to do with expectations for one particular season?
We were a preseason top 10-15 team!!!
I wasn't the only one that thought we were going to have a great year.
No one predicted MSU would struggle early on the way they did, but the majority of the college basketball world thought Michigan was going to be a pretty good team.
You're not making ANY sense.
Michigan winning the conference by 3 full games doesn't mean anything other than the conference may have been down. It could mean that the conference favorite got obliterated by injuries and they didn't get healthy until March. It could mean anything.
Margin depends on the other 11 teams, not how good Michigan is. Who's to say the 2012 team wouldn't have won the conference by 4 or 5 games last year? The league was much stronger 2 years ago and they didn't win by 3 games...it doesn't tell the full story. It tells 1/12 of it.
In the end, they finished the year at or very close to where they were predicted to finish. Period. End of discussion. To argue otherwise is crazy.
It's not like they weren't a preseason top 25, let alone a top 10 team. It's not like they were picked to finish 6th in the conference. They were on average the SEVENTH best team in the country, preseason, lol. They were eliminated in the Elite 8.
Maybe you think we're talking about Nebraska, I don't know where they were preseason, but they surpassed expectations a hell of a lot more than Michigan did last year. Which is fine, because Michigan had the better year. Surpassing expectations doesn't mean anything when it all comes down to it. If you pick me #1, I'd be happy to meet expectations and at the end of the year.
Ignorance annoys me far too much. I need to learn to let shit go.
Last year...
Michigan Preseason #9
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9222871/an-update…
Michigan Preseason #7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_NCAA_Division_I_men's_bask…
Michigan Preseason #7
http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2013-10-31/ncaa-2013-…
Michigan Preseason #5
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/22036310
...your statement was absolutely RIDICULOUS when you look at that. Losing Burke and THJ and we were still at top 9 team by most people and major media outlets and sportswriters.
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Maybe it was just you that was pessimistic about last year. You said it yourself that you didn't think it was possible.
The only reason Michigan wasn't picked to win the conference last year is because many people had MSU #1 or #2 in the country. However, MICHIGAN finished right where people predicted they would. MSU just struggled and finished just below Michigan. Stauskas was also right there for preseason POY, but Gary Harris was the favorite.
Don't act like people thought we had a borderline tournament team with no individual talent.
This time 2 years ago I said Michigan was a Final Four team, this time last year I said this is an Elite 8 team, this year I've said we're an #7-#10 seed and we're young, I think we'll come together late in the year and upset a #1 or #2 seed in the tournament and bow out in the Sweet 16. None of those are/were unrealistic expectations.
They also weren't limitations, because 2 years ago the team surpassed my expectation by one game and made it to the Championship game. So I didn't limit them in anything.
We're talking about where Michigan is predicted to finish the year. Have you paid attention to anything in this thread? You called us chicken littles for having resonable expectations when we currently have little to no data and not blindly thinking Michigan is going to be elite just because we have Beliein.
Even if we are talking about winning the conference, Michigan was picked #2. How can you even say that when we were picked second and we were a top 10 team?
Michigan didn't "significantly outperform expectations." Period.
Significant would be if Iowa, Northwestern or Penn State doing what Michigan did.
Michigan literally finished the year exactly where they started. Yes, we won the B1G, but we were picked second based off of NATIONAL rankings.
Your argument makes ZERO sense no matter which angle you try to come at it. Whether it's what we were actually talking about (a majority opinion that #6-#10 seed is reasonable for this team in its current state --- in JULY...OR...Michigan "significantly outperformed expectations" --- in which they finished 1 spot higher in the conference, thus winning the conference and 2-3 spots higher in the MVP voting, thus winning B1G POY). You literally have no argument.
Your response is like everyone on here thinks we're a NIT team. Like we'll never be good every again. We were a 4-seed two years ago and we had maybe/probably the best team we've had since 1993. You know, the team that was a shit call on a clean block away from OT in the national championship game?
Someone thinking that this team is a 6 or 7-seed isn't a chicken little. Someone calling that person out for not assuming that Michigan will forever be a 1 or 2-seed, is, well, kind of a prick.
I see next year being a small but appreciable step back, but the year after next when Chatham Wilson and Donnal are sophomores and Walton/Spike are team captains with either Levert/Irvin as the #1 we are going to be on the short list for Final Four picks