Your projected michigan basketball 2011-2012 lineup
I know Brian already touched on this a bit in one of his recent posts, but I think this deserves its own thread with the buzz around the program. I have to be honest if Burndidge or Burke can play, I see us having a very solid 8 to 9 man rotation. I'm curious to see (if Smot countinues to develop) whether we go to a lineup with a bit more size or stick with the four guard lineup. My guess is we stay with the small lineup because I can't see either Douglass or Novak not starting as seniors.
Here's my guess:
PG: Morris/Burke/Douglass
SG:Douglass/Burndidge/Vogrich
SF:Hardaway/Vogrich/Novak
PF:Novak/Smot/Christian or Mclimans
C:Morgan/Smot/Horford
Just a couple of my thoughts about next season:
1. I think we need one of the backup PFs or Cs step up and become a defensive specialist. My guess is that Colton Christian can be that guy. We saw him be that guy (albeit for a short period of time) against Tennessee.
2. If Burke isn't ready to play right away, then I would have Douglass as the backup point guard with Brundidge playing 15-20 minutes a night. No reason to have Morris play 38 minutes a night again.
3. If Horford steps we are going to have a hard time getting everybody the minutes they deserve (not that this would be a bad problem). At that point I couldn't see us keeping Novak at the 4 which could create a logjam at 1,2,3.
3. I wouldn't be surprised if somehow Eso Akunne found a way to play 5 minutes a night.
March 22nd, 2011 at 10:15 AM ^
I think we'll have two main lineups: Morris, Novak, Hardaway, Smotrycz, and Morgan; and Morris/Douglass/Hardaway, Novak, Hardaway, Douglass/Vogrich, Morgan/Smotrycz. Basically, the main lineup with be the former. Two big guys for the pick and rolls to the basket. Smotricz can shoot a 3 if necessary. It's about a 6" increase in size from Douglass to Smotrycz, so that should help us out most of the time. The latter will be our shooting lineup. A lot more 3s than pick and rolls. It can be used against smaller lineups, when we are down, or when we are playing Minnesota. I think we'll be changing between these lineups just like we change defenses.
March 22nd, 2011 at 10:27 AM ^
All this entire discussion shows us is that Beilein should have a lot of flexibility next year with a lot of players around that can do a variety of different things. Given his experience and talent as a coach, we should expect that he will have a few different line-ups and combinations that he uses depending upon who we play against and how we match up and if we get into foul trouble and who is playing better or worse or hustling on defense, etc.
These are all problems to have, and I'm sure Coach has the experience and intelligence to figure it out and put people into positions and playing time and combinations where they can be the most successful.
March 22nd, 2011 at 11:05 AM ^
I don't hate Douglass, I like him as a player and I got psyched as all hell on that dunk too.
HOWEVA - I think we need to start either Metrics or Horford next year (probably Metrics) and that means one of the guards needs to be relegated to the bench. It's not going to be Morris or Hardaway, that we know. So that leaves Stu and Novak. At the beginning of the year when Metrics was starting, Stu was the one coming off the bench, and I think if you asked anyone who watched a UM basketball game this year who should start between Novak and Stu, they'd say Novak all day long.
They both can shoot the three - but Novak took the charges, Novak guarded the guy no one else wanted to, Novak got the rebounds and Novak was the leader. Stu will play next year, but he'll get a lot fewer minutes than this year. Stu got a lot of minutes the last couple years because he was one of the only guards we had with any experience. That will not be the case next year.
If guys like Vogrich, Burke and/or Brundidge end up looking like solid contributors, Stu's minutes might decrease a lot.
It's really more simple that any of this:
Step 1: Maximize our synergy
Step 2: shift some paradigms
Step 3: DUH, WINNING!!!!!!