When did this team win you back?
Obviously a lot of us, or nearly all of us, lost faith in this bball team midway through the Big Ten slate, so the question is, what game got you back on the bandwagon? For myself, it was the win at the Hall of Horrors as not only was it a decisive double digit win at an unspeakably hard place for us to win at, but it was a potential letdown game after the pummeling gave our main rival the game before
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I am torn because I agree he has had some really good years. The issue is the kids he recruits are all hit or miss. Which leads to lot of good years, but also opens us up to awful years. If we want more consistent years it is probably better to go with another guy. To defend Beilein he is doing what he was hired to do. Run a clean program. His bosses hired him because they wanted to clean things up. He has been successful in that and shocked people a couple of years. |
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March 15th, 2017 at 12:04 PM ^
Didn't mean I stopped supporting them. So yea nice try. One can make factual statements while still backing the program. My Beilein statement wasn't saying to fire him it was saying if people want a Kentucky or Duke yearly top 10 then Beilein may not be your guy.
As for Irvina dn Walton I was dead on at the time. They both were going through the motions. Walton has just came on in the last 3rd of the year.
Again none of my comments point to me saying FIRE BEILEIN or I am done with this team. Again i watch every game(DVR'd them when not home). So again solid attempt.
Sounds like backtracking to me
Thats the beauty of American. You can think what you want. At days end I know where my head was at and I know I supported this team while many here got all pissy and mad because they couldn't run to their OSU friend and shit talk them at the time.
I watch Michigan football and basketball every year regardless. But after the Illinois I game I was not feeling that great about our chances of making the tournament. After the MSU win I was thinking if we can keep up this defense we could go pretty far.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:06 PM ^
But you stuck with them right? You are a ligit fan and not a person who needed won over again. I have no issues with being down on them, but how many people came here day in and day out saying Beilein needed fired and they were done. Those are the sad people.
I think the Purdue home win brought me back, but I was still a little on edge. The overall season closing 5 game streak (including tourney) proved that they can compete at a high level.
It seemed like after the OSU game, Walton told Irvin that he is taking over the team and Irvin took a step back.. That's when they won me back.
They never lost me, but if you mean at what point did this team become a team that I thought was going to be a considerable threat - potentially - in March Madness, then it might have been the Purdue game a while back where we stomped them in a game I don't think many expected we could or should win. The low point in terms of confidence might have been after the OSU loss, and then they slowly began to find that other gear and the Purdue game sealed it for me, the thought that we could go places in the postseason.
That they had to win you back says more about you than it does about the team
I'd say they looked like they were on their way back after winning at IU, which honestly happens maybe as often as Haley's Comet showing up. But what really sold me was beating Wisconsin the first time. That night it looked like everything was really starting to click.
March 15th, 2017 at 10:02 AM ^
I understand the many that lost faith in this team. They were consistantly inconsistent. But Beileins teams over the years improve as the year goes on. Let's all enjoy the ride. This team can do some damage. Go Blue..
March 15th, 2017 at 10:13 AM ^
March 15th, 2017 at 10:29 AM ^
One can be a "true fan" and stick with his team, but still be critical of the coach (recruiting failures, roster issues, etc.) and question whether the team, as then playing, had the abiltiy to turn things around. When the team was 2/3 of the way through the season, and its deffensive efficiency numbers were in the mid 100s, it was quite fair and logical to think that it was more liklely than not that such trend would continue, and that the NIT was calling. JB does not have a history of efficient deffensive teams, and there was little evidence, at the time, to believe the new assistant's methodologies and teachings had sunk in. Can we always rely on the model of a senior point guard with a theretofore middling career (yes, injury riddled, but still) flipping a switch, not at the beginning of his senior year, but rather 2/3 of the way through? I am thrilled for DWJ, but there was little evidence to suggest that he was poised for a border-line All America finishing kick to his career. Be proud of your "I never left" mentality, and the pulled muscles you get from patting yourself on the back, but the anti-Beilien crowd was hardly jumping at shadows.
March 15th, 2017 at 11:35 AM ^
The tournament run was cool but I'd like to see them make it to the Sweet 16. A couple of wins in the real tournament would mean a little more.
March 15th, 2017 at 12:13 PM ^
I'm a big supporter of Coach Beilein and I love that his teams always get better as the season wears on. It's like the John Beilein Arc of Improvement. But this year had me frustrated for sure. After that shitty game at home vs Ohio St I reluctantly said that maybe it was time for him to retire. But I always thought the potential was there for this team and I was glad they really took control of their season and turned it around.
The one thing I constantly complained about in January and early February was that this team doesn't play hard and that was the one thing they were missing to be a good team. But I think they've figured that out now. If this team plays hard and believes in itself who knows how good they can be. GO BLUUUUUUE!!!
March 15th, 2017 at 12:28 PM ^
March 15th, 2017 at 12:47 PM ^
If we can have a thread that doesn't have the people who stuck with Beilein bragging about us who were questioning the program. As though you guys are apparently the much better fans?
If you didn't see this product was struggling and something needed change, I don't know how to help you. Luckily enough, something trigged this great push. And I'm happy that it got done.
But please stop the high and mighty stuff. We are all Michigan fans. Some of us are skeptical, some overly emotional, some don't like change. Stop shitting on the people that don't agree with you.
Anyone who wanted to fire Beilein isn't a very knowledgeable Michigan basketball fan.
The pounding of Indiana at the end of January grabbed my attention, even though we lost the next two games (@MSU and vs. OSU)...they then responded very satisfactorily from there on out.
I even uttered the words that it was maybe time for him to retire. I never actually left, but then they blew out state and the world was right again.
The consensus on MGoBlog at the time was "extremely inconsistent". I've seen "white collar" teams turn it up for a couple games after a snub and for quite a while after Maverick, the games backed up the idea that this team was either dangerous or trash depending on whether or not a fire got going under their asses. You blow out Indiana by 30 and then lose to OSU at home, you're inconsistent. And frankly, I'm skeptical anyone honestly sensed a turnaround any earlier than the OSU game. How do you watch a team fall to 4-6 in conference against a (previously) 3-7 rival at home and think they'd already turned the corner?
I more easily believe those who saw hope somewhere along the three straight wins against MSU, Indiana and Wisconsin, but I needed one more sign. Up to Wiscy the team had gone WLWLLWLWWLLWW. Wiscy was a third quality win in a row, mighty compelling, but this was a LONG rut of inconsistency. Walton had long exonerated himself, but I was under the impression the team was riding him. Then Minnesota happened. It was a loss, but it took 41 free throws in a road game screwjob and they still almost won. Walton went 6-for-15, the team was 9/26 on threes and still almost won. That settled my doubts. If they had any remaining issues with self-motivation they would've lost by 20.
I will say this, though, I was never "Fire Beilein" if only because that's an extremely stupid notion that leads to the question, "Who the hell do you replace him with?" He's a squeaky-clean first-rate offensive mind with a knack for developing players. The only way we could do better is with a pay-for-play coach and anyone who thinks we can copy that model is fooling themselves. The NCAA hates, absolutely seethingly HATES Michigan! And there are people stupid enough to think we of all schools could get away with paying players under the table??
one for a very long time, we tend to see success from our vantage point of how it ought to look. And Beilein teams rarely ever dominate from the start of any season to finish. There isn't a better or straighter shooter in the country. No coach under the Michigan basketball banner in my lifetime has been a straighter shooter in terms of being both a molder of character and strong basketball teams. The fact is, of course, that Beilein isn't perfect. Even when his teams are great, they aren't dominantly great, well, not like the Fab Five, which is the pentultimate team outside the Glen Rice-led championship team of 1989.
I mean I go back to the days when Michigan had Cazzie and battled Indiana tooth and nail during its perfect run.
But Beilein's teams are character-driven. And this team is as close as any Michigan has ever fielded. You can almost feel the chemistry of this team. It's not manufactired. The run to the Finals a few years ago with Spike's heroics in the Louisvile final, a Monday night in infamy, when both our current senior leaders and roomates to be, Derrick Walton and Zak Irvin were on the outside looking in, while we all wondered whether the Fab Five would gather in Atlanta for the big night, and then the following year in a heart-pounding loss to Kentucky in one of the great finishes ever in a losing cause, on a possession that will forever define any Beilein era team, Michigan kept probing the perimeter and keeping it alive until they hit the game-tying shot only to be undone by a better one at the buzzer.
We've been treated to some remarkablke basketball under this regime. And we haven't always appreciated the way it came about, because it wasn't immediate, like other things in life, it happened and evolved, and it was all good. And still we doubted. And maybe now, after what we've seen and experienced, maybe we should let this coach and his team teach us the respect for success that they've learned by playing and learning together. I know I'm all in on a season that is already another remarkable achievement under this coach.
Proud to be a Wolverine fan.
I never stopped watching the games but I was pretty down on and disappointed with the team until we beat Wisconsin or Purdue, whichever one came first.