What Will Dr. Beilein, Mad Scientist, Cook Up during this Down Time?
Mates,
So our very own Mad Scientist, the esteemed Dr. John Belelin, now has almost 2 weeks to scheme, teach and create. He'll assumedly give the guys some rest and then crank up the laboratory to produce freak basketball schemes with which to wither opponents. I had a sparty friend who is a great guy tell me today that Belein is a better coach than Izzo and his team is [expletives deleted, loosely translates as weak]. He also thought we were the ones that started the jawing on Saturday.
With this extra time you know that JB won't be sitting still, he'll be working on things. A few guesses might be:
1. Free Throws
2. Some different zone looks, like maybe a 1-3-1 trap zone.
3. Modify our high screen and roll O, work Teske in there for more offense, or even as a 'Two Towers' mode with Mo. Could be lethal.
4. Free Throws!!
So the question is: What do you think JB might install/tweak/add?
Great weekend for the good guys, hockey too. Go Blue!
XM
Whoa, settle down! Gettin crazy in here...
Can someone explain the origins of this biscuit business!? I've seen it referenced a few times now.
I think it's a nod to a Beileinism?
A biscuit (according to Coach Beilein and only Coach Beilein) is some kind of specific way to pivot. His goofball terms are part of his G-Rated charm!
Penn Station makes a damn good pizza sub
You can bet whatever he cooks up will be blue...
Oh Yeah!!!
to prepare and he always seems to win. Give him 2 weeks? Pity the openeing teams... All I know is they will be ready to go, all bumps and bruises healed (the one benefit to this long layoff) and I have no doubt that after a rusty first half, they'll be back in kill mode.
No. NO! Whatever Beilein might changeup, I can't see tinkering with how we are playing defense. It's been fabulous.
The tournament is all about stealing possessions and surviving to the next game. If a changeup to a 2-3 zone steals a few possessions against a team that's having success driving the ball, I'm good with it.
We're going to face teams not named Purdue, so I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in a tight game against a poor shooting teams just for a couple minutes.
against Minnesota and PSU in the past month. Both of those were in response to bigger guards going off on us (Washington and Carr). That's just about the only scenario in which we'll throw out a zone as a change up, so I agree that if we play a team that is hurting us on the drive and isn't good at shooting threes, which is exceedingly rare, we likely would change it up with some zone possessions.
But we're an elite defense playing man-to-man, and I doubt we'll play much zone in the tournament.
I do think we'll see some zone played against us as other teams are almost certain to try it. The only reason MSU and Purdue didn't try it is that Izzo and Painter are two of the most steadfast man coaches in the country. Purdue probably should have tried zone at some point, but stubborness and unyeilding adherence to the Gene Keady way prevailed.
In any case, that's the most important thing we need to work on during this down time: our zone offense. It looked like we had solved it pretty well against Nebraska but that was a small sample. We've struggled with it this season and teams will try it.
I know Izzo will use this time to add more floor slapping to his game plan.
The compressed schedule was hard enough, and then playing 4 games in 4 days must have taken a serious physical toll. Give the men an extra day of rest which should not just help them physically but also mentally. Hopefully Livers will be 100% again soon. If they achieve their goal of a Final Four, the season is still young and they have a long time to play. Focus on restoration first and foremost right now.
I concur...
Give the players a few days off, then it's shooting free throws. Nothing but free throws. Overhand, underhand, sidearm, bounce to the left, bounce to the right, one handed, anything.
think State viewed the first game as a kind of fluke and they thought they would roll us. When we jumped out to that lead it became clear that even if they won it wasn't going to be a "beatdown" and it really, really frustrated them. I think they wanted to "punk" us, not just beat us, and when they figured out that even a win was going to be hard fought and contested they 1) threw a tantrum, 2) pouted, 3) quit.
6 more wins
... dribbling the ball near the half court circle until there are 5 seconds left on the clock and then using a weak high screen in a pitiful attempt to get a clean look; but the defense will snuff it and the result will be a hurried pass to the next unexpecting goon in green and white that cannot shoot, and yet another rushed, off balance 18 foot jumper with under 1 second on the clock that misses badly .. and then Izzo will scream at his team for not executing.
Work on free throw shooting. Keep doing what they have been doing. Nothing else is needed .
Hmm, maybe free throws?
If I had to make a list of the three or four things that still freak me out a bit as we descend into March Madness, free throw shooting would probably be at the top of that list since it seems like so many of these game in March come down to the final 2-3 minutes and free throws make all the difference in the world in some of them.
Starting a game with both Teske and Wagner in the lineup? Especially if Livers is unable to play.
This is MGoBlog post #7852 asking for this. That is in fact the magic number and it will now happen.
is not really like that with free throws. I bet you Charles Matthews can shoot in practice and make 20 straight free throws. You can shoot as many of them as you want but they are completely different shots in the game. Actually, IMO, the best thing they can do is spend a full two weeks not thinking or talking about free throws at all. Simpson made a little correction with his flying right elbow, but aside from that, this team's free throw issue is mental. These guys are good shooters, they largely have good shooting mechanics. They just have the free-throw yips right now.
I don't think Beilein should focus on it that much. The more they think about it the worse it will be.
Some coaches over tinker. This team is executing the system at an extremely high level, and are about to play (hopefully) a string of games against opponents relatively unfamiliar with the offensive system. Don't mess with team concepts.
Instead, work with individuals on deficiencies. And, yes, obviously that would include free throw shooting.
Not really, but I think that this team--after spending an extra lot of time at work on D this season--is just coming into its own on offense. I think there will be a lot of nuances to add, a lot of good things we've glimpsed to reinforce, and lots of lineups to tinker with. You've got 10 guys that are true contributors on that squad!
When Coach B put Teske and then Davis on Haas.... magical! He was just pushing Mo around like nothing, as soon as there was a bigger body and resistance, Haas turned into Haas-been.
Coach B needs to get his due!!
However, with the development of Teske as a legitamet contributor, why not try MW at the 4 and move Teske down to the 5. With MW's slashing ability and outside shooting, it would create match-up problems across the board. It would be agreat 5 minute stint that would cause other teams to panic and struggle to guard us.
Z
Matthews
MAAR
MW
Teske
How are you going to match up?
Wagner can't guard the 4 except in very unusual circumstances. He can't guard the 5 all that well, but he's gotten better and become a good defensive rebounder.
I was the biggest proponent of this early in the season as a way to get our best 5 on the court.
But with the emergence of Livers as a lock-down defender, accurate three point shooter, and excellent finisher on the break, plus our scheming to minimize negative impacts of having Duncan on the floor and his own defensive improvements, there is now no reason to want to get Wagner time at the four. The Livers/Duncan combo is perfect.
Keep in mind that much of Teske's offense yesterday came as a result of Purdue hedging hard and essentially ignoring him. Not all teams will do that. Also, he was the ideal matchup defensively for Purdue's bigs. Not all teams play ogre's at the five, so Moe won't get killed so badly by other bigs.
Our rotation is optimized right now. No reason to change that up, unless Livers isn't 100%. In which case, yes, we'd be wise to get Wagner up to speed at the 4 spot as a way to get Duncan some breathers.
Work on our offense against zones, FT shooting, get guys healthy and we're ready to roll. Also, keep doing what we've been doing for the past month!
I like to hope/think there will be some FT work, but honestly, I expect it to be a lot of the same, with some added rest and recovery. Matthews seems to have found his stroke, Z has seemed to fix or at least partially fix his FTs, pretty much all the issues that have plagued us this season are trending towards improvement. Keep on doing your thing guys, and lets close the deal in the tournament!
...but with Simmons and Watson/Brooks in the backcourt.
I know it's the NBA, but the Pistons did that in 2004 when Lindsey Hunter and Mike James were on the court at the same time. It drove other teams crazy and created turnovers/easy offense. Not to say those guys can't provide offense, but we could survive if those guys expend a ton of energy trapping the hell out of opposing backcourts and generating some turnovers/easy buckets for the offense.
I'm getting a kick out of all these totally random ideas.
This one is...an interesting one. So you want us to take one of our best players off the court (MAAR) without even replacing him with his best backup (Poole) so we can do something we've never done, and play guys we don't need to play, just to try to survive playing players we don't need to play?
Hunter and Mike James were both Z-like, super quick and handsy defenders. If we had multiple of those kinds of guys sitting on the bench, then mayyyyyybe as a change-up you'd think about doing this.
But Z is our starter that we need fresh for 30+ minutes a game (so don't want to add to his workload) and Brooks/Watson are not the kind of defenders you'd want to do this with anyway. Simmons isn't either.
That Pistons teams also had excellent rim protectors in Wallace and Wallace as a last line of defense if the traps broke down. We do not have rim protectors on the back line. We have an exceptional half-court defense that gets stops by defending the three point line and rebounding, and a very good half court offense that doesn't need turnovers to work. There's absolutely no reason to try to do this.