1 year and 360 days ago: UM-OSU basketball, the Fire Beilein edition.
Michigan played Ohio State 1 year and 360 days ago, at home.
Here is the Fire Beilein Snowflake Thread.
Some highlights from the MBB Coaching Candidates Thread:
Larry Krystkowiak, Utah, currently on a run of two NIT appearances.
Kevin Ollie, UConn, now fired.
Fred Hoiberg, Chicago Bulls, also fired.
Archie Miller, Dayton, most recently seen with a blank look on his face.
Thread: "John Beilein is now 2-16 vs Wisconsin, 6-11 vs MSU, and 7-14 vs Ohio State"
The recruiting, defense, and rebounding are issues that have been around 10 years and are never going to get better as long as he's still here IMO. Michigan hasn't won a true road game since February 2016. West Virginia has been better off since he left. Beilein had a nice two year run with a whole lot of "blah" before and after. Unfortunately, it feels like the program will be stuck in purgatory until a change is made.
I think if we keep Beilein we will be a perennial bubble team. Some years on the right side, like last year, and some times on the wrong side. I guess for some people that is enough since we went to a championship game five years ago and an elite 8 four years ago.
I just think he is locked into a system and style of recruiting that is not working out, and it is not going to change. It is who he is.
Michigan basketball will be sub .500 overall with 4 or less wins in the Big Ten the next 2 years if Beilein doesn't retire or get fired. Which are both unlikely.
The ironic thing is that he's a couple of doors down from a coach that is a master of recruiting in Jim Harbaugh.
It's almost hard to believe they are both at the same school.
I 100% believe that Harbaugh could recruit basketball players better than Beilein can recruit basketball players, despite having no basketball background.
Beilein had a pretty great 2-3 season stretch but it is clear he can't do it consistently. You really have to be on crazy pills to think it will be any better in the future if Beilein is still here. Time to move on.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:58 AM ^
Food from thought, from Bart Torvik: link
Against D-I opponents, Michigan is 64-12 since February 5, 2017. Gonzaga is 64-9, but nobody else has won more than 62 games during that stretch. Only Gonzaga, Villanova (62-10), Nevada (58-11), and Virginia (56-10) have lost fewer than 12 games; Cincinnati also has 12 losses.
Michigan State, with their school record winning streak of conference games not including Michigan, is 54-14 over that time.
January 30th, 2019 at 8:38 AM ^
I mean, to be honest, feeling that way was backed up by the evidence at that time. Basically right after that is when UM went on it's streak and hasn't looked back for the last two years so far. But what evidence in the middle of that season would make you think it was going to change? It was too early to see the defensive improvement that started happening mid-season. Mo and Wilson hadn't really started their huge rises, and playing the two of them together and being able to rotate Wilson at the 5 really changed things down the stretch. Also, Walton hadn't started his drag the offense up almost solo routine yet either. AND this was coming off missing the tourney two years before and exiting in the 1st round the following year with defenses that were teeerrribble.
So basically, I don't think too harshly of people who were angry. I also think most just really underestimated Beilien's ability to re-invent himself. And to his credit, self evaluation is a really hard thing for coaches to do.
January 30th, 2019 at 8:53 AM ^
People were taking the worst points of reference and saying things would never get better, only even worse. They do the the exact same thing with football. It's their anger talking, with objectivity out the window. They need someone to blame.
January 30th, 2019 at 11:53 AM ^
It was entirely reasonable to be frustrated; Michigan had been mediocre for the two previous years and looked mediocre in early 2017.
People weren't just being frustrated. They had convinced themselves that Beilein was never going to improve. They had written off players (including Simpson and Teske) and the season (one guy said something to the effect of "the only way he doesn't get fired is if he finishes with some huge win streak and there's no way that happens" except it happened). People turned on Hackett for giving Beilein an extension and even on Warde for not firing him.
Having a take of "I hope Beilein changes some parts of his approach" was entirely reasonable, particularly since that's what Beilein had just done--he hired a guy to be his DC, and then hired another one for the next year. However, a lot of people had decided that Beilein would never change or improve and that Michigan was doomed to mediocrity for as long as he was there.
Those takes deserve all the contempt that they get.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:43 AM ^
Holy Christ, every debbie downer in those threads should have their accounts suspended and all their mgopoints stripped until the day Beilein retires as the winningest coach in UM basketball history.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:49 AM ^
This one aged well:
"Michigan basketball is bad now but it's going to get downright ugly without Walton next season and beyond.
Fire Beilein."
Checks performances in 17-18 and 18-19. Downright ugly. Riiight.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:15 AM ^
I can't convey how glad I am that I don't show up on that thread.
Not because I'm not capable of saying something stupid, but because I am.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:31 AM ^
I recall posting something about loving JB but frustrated at recruiting and defense. Fortunately JB turned it around and keeps earning my love.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:51 AM ^
Makes no sense. The guy is old and his career is over. What about the freshmen who can learn a new philosophy. So we just keep people around but screw up the freshmen who can learn from someone else. Whatever Beilein is teaching is not working. Look at Simpson.
lol
January 30th, 2019 at 1:59 AM ^
pretty silly looking back at that...
was never in the "Fire Beilein" camp, though i do admit to having some disappointment in not being able to land Elite talent following the Final Four and Elite Eight years.
Despite a tough first 4 years, Beilein won a share of the B1G Title in year 5, even with Izzo still around...
Hiring Gattis and 'giving him the keys' is very encouraging imo...Now that Meyer has retired, I don't see any reason why Michigan fans should not expect a B1G title in Harbaugh's 5th year.
January 30th, 2019 at 7:31 AM ^
Now that Meyer has retired, I don't see any reason why Michigan fans should not expect a B1G title in Harbaugh's 5th year.
There are plenty of reasons why Michigan could not win a B1G title in Harbaugh's 5th year, unfortunately. We have depth issues on both the O-Line and D-Line and offensive line performance, while improved in 2018 is still not performing at an elite level. Who's going to take over for Devin Bush? Who's going to take over for Karan Higdon? Will we get better secondary play? Is Gattis going to give the offense a Don Brownesque jolt? Is Ryan Day going to turn into John Cooper 2.0 or is he actually an upgrade from Urban Meyer? Can Patterson stay healthy? There are a myriad of questions and oh yeah, Michigan's schedule is, once again, brutal.
Michigan is certainly a contender going into 2019, but I wince at comments that seem to couch the season in an all-or-nothing framework, because while Michigan will be good, I'm not convinced this team will be better than what we had in 2018.
January 30th, 2019 at 10:02 AM ^
so when should michigan fans expect them to win something?
Dantonio won in his fourth year... Frames Janklin won in his 3rd.
Nothing wrong with setting the bar: I guarantee you that the expectation inside Schembechler Hall is to win the B1G championship.
I wince at people that constantly lower expectations based on....I don't know what anymore...fear of disappointment? Managing expectations?
If you look up and down at coaches considered to be elite, they won by Year 5 of a rebuild...that's not conjecture - that's fact.
January 30th, 2019 at 11:16 AM ^
I don't have a problem with setting the bar at winning a conference title as long as the bar isn't some absolute standard that must be met or it's "Fire Harbaugh". If that's the standard absent any sort of context, then I will take issue with it. I also think that if that's the position that people want to take, win in Year 5 or Jim should be gone, then those people need to come with the bigger, better plan as part of that take.
If, in 2019, we finish 10-2 again and miss the B1G Championship because of another loss to OSU are we really all going to advocate getting rid of Harbaugh, despite the fact that he's rebuilt us back into the clear 2nd best program in the conference? Just seems short-sighted in my opinion.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
i've been pretty steadfast in my support for Harbaugh, not that that actually means anything, and I have never called for firing Harbaugh; i do believe that he is probably the best coach that Michigan can get.
that said, the common refrain from Michigan fans, is "Harbaugh needs time", "he doesn't have an elite QB" and/or "Harbaugh is facing one of the best CFB coaches ever" to explain his lack of championships.
Next year, I don't believe any of those are the case.
If they don't win the B1G Championship, I won't be on the "Fire Harbaugh" train... however, it would probably signal to me at least that maybe Harbaugh is just a good coach and not one of the top 5 in CFB...
Elite coaches win championships.
January 30th, 2019 at 2:47 AM ^
Im so glad i didnt post in that thread. I do remember 100% reading it though. Like tigers fans complaining about Leyland and his “Only makes world series” lol. I was bummed out though for sure. I had told all my friends and family just teo seasons prior coach b was better than Izzo. I feel a lot better about that atatement now. And if you think fans ever should have input on how an athletic department is run ill leave you with this.
”Yes, Becky Hammon! Currently 3-year assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs championship organization under one of the greatest coaches ever.
Her basketball resume as a player speaks for itself - voted one of the WNBA's Top 15 players of all time - highlighted by her smart, aggressive style of play. She knows the game and if Greg Popovich thinks her basketball IQ is good enough to be an assistant coach in the NBA and coach the Spurs summer D-league team, I would like to see her bring what she's learned under defensive minded Popovich to the head coaching ranks... for the UofM Men's Basketball Team.
Fire away!”
wow
January 30th, 2019 at 6:03 AM ^
This is good stuff. It is good for fans to be forced to read this stuff years later. It also serves as a good reminder of how fast things can change.
January 30th, 2019 at 7:19 AM ^
HMMMMM....wasn't there a John Beilein appreciation thread a week or two later? Love that he's our coach
January 30th, 2019 at 7:23 AM ^
The proprietary rants of certified asshat Maizen/ShawnLMartin.
Every time that guy bitched about Beilein, he ended up looking like a bigger dope than the previous time he was wrong about Beilein. He got pwned so frequently, he switched to complaining about Harbaugh.
He's not right in the head.
January 30th, 2019 at 9:45 AM ^
Hahahahahahaha you can’t make this stuff up. Priceless!!!
February 5th, 2017 at 2:09 PM ^
Jim Harbaugh just signed his second top 5 recruiting class. Meanwhile John Beilein has been here 10 years and has signed zero McDonalds All Americans. They are recruiting nothing like each other.
January 30th, 2019 at 7:46 AM ^
Scanning through that thread, it makes so much less sense without all of Maizen's dumbassery scrubbed from it....and yet, you can kind of infer what dumb shit he was throwing out there from context.
January 30th, 2019 at 7:46 AM ^
But had we not called for his firing, he would not have changed for the better! See what I did there?
January 30th, 2019 at 7:49 AM ^
If you look at that thread you’ll recognize a lot of names from the football doom and gloom threads. I call that group the ‘hyper emotional, over-invested and/or plain retarded folks’. A few legit drinking problems likely as well.
Every time I see some dude talk like the football team is just the worst ever while hyping up the hoops team now, I want to empty a glass of water in their face and tell them to pull themselves together.
January 30th, 2019 at 8:08 AM ^
Wow! I actually mentioned getting McDermott and Archie Miller in that thread. Glad Warde didn’t listen to any of us! We now have arguably the best coach in America, who is willing to adapt when needed.
January 30th, 2019 at 8:50 AM ^
I remember when I read that thread I thought it might be true but that I was still ok with a good Beilein running the team even if it meant a lack of talent and a good but not great team.
January 30th, 2019 at 8:57 AM ^
Thanks for warming my heart on this cold cold morning with this walk down memory lane the day after ripping osu apart. John Beilein is a national treasure and is probably my favorite UM coach in any sport for the way he goes about his business.
January 30th, 2019 at 8:58 AM ^
This post is a prime example of why SJK is an MGoBlog legend. Thanks for putting this together. I was a reader, not a poster back then. Ace always stood by Beilein using his logical approach - and that resonated with me and informed my opinion while many emotional fans were calling to fire Beilein. Fools, I tell you, fools!
January 30th, 2019 at 8:59 AM ^
Two years ago there were legitimate concerns about where this basketball program was headed. I was not on the "Fire Beilein" wagon...but I was certainly concerned. Here, revisionist history and hindsight rules. And here-too, John Beilein deserves great credit...he has taken instruction-from somewhere and stepped into the realm of the elite.
There are many ways that I can personally relate to John-beginning with the fact that we are, within a month, the same age. Clearly John is a confident, independent, thoughtful free-thinker...here, I can identify too. Personally you have some choices to make as you reach our age...lots of choices...including "Do I become a grouchy, bitter old man and live with regrets" or "How do I take stock of who I am and what I have learned and move onward and upward to make this world a better place?". Self-assessment is one of the human's weakest abilities but, here, I think John has hit this one out of the park. Previously, John has done well...what he did last year and this year has been exceptional.
My disclaimer...just to be clear: I am not a bitter old man-though I come across quite harshly at times...I am out to make the world a better place...what I say/offer is life-based...I have deep respect for the fact that each of us believe what we believe for a reason...but otherwise, I don't give a damn what somebody else thinks-live and learn :)
January 30th, 2019 at 10:55 AM ^
As someone who absolutely questioned if it was time, this is a fair assessment. People seem unwilling to acknowledge it, but the program was underachieving. The defense wasn't great, and recruiting needed to be overhauled. He absolutely deserves credit for taking steps to address both.
If we're being honest, the argument a lot of people were making in favor of Beilein at the time was rooted in some fairly low expectations for the program. There was a ton of "we're a second-tier program/we should be happy making the tournament" going around. I don't imagine there will be a thread trying to expose that crowd though.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:39 PM ^
There were also those of us who thought the program had good potential under Beilein but just had terrible injury luck the two previous seasons, losing our NBA 1st-rounder (LeVert) to injury two years in a row plus Walton and Albrecht as well. Since 2011-12, Beilein's teams have earned banners in all other years. (I'd argue that winning 23 games and making the tourney in 2016 was respectable given the loss of LeVert/Albrecht.)
Beilein had already addressed our defensive issues the previous offseason (2016) when he hired Donlon. He also had recruited pretty much the entire 2018 Final Four team by the time this thread was posted.
We were in a midseason slump but people just flew off the handle.
January 30th, 2019 at 9:25 AM ^
Those last 3.6 seconds against Houston can never be played too often...
January 30th, 2019 at 9:29 AM ^
OP, Maizen is a known troll and that thread is 2 years old.
January 30th, 2019 at 10:58 AM ^
Not sure if serious?
That's the point of the OP--looking back two years.
Did I miss the joke?
January 30th, 2019 at 9:46 AM ^
Sounds familiar.
January 30th, 2019 at 9:54 AM ^
That WAS a frustrating year, but the vicious JB verbal attacks are hilarious in hindsight. And to JB's credit, he hired appropriate assistant coaches to help rectify some of the symptoms that plagued that year's team.
BTW, buckeyejonross was a shining voice of reason:
"I mean, I don't know. I think you're overvaluing the dramatics of this particular loss relative to your season as a whole. OSU is 14-10 (4-7). You guys are 14-9 (4-6). Neither of us are any good. I wouldn't slot this loss in the unacceptable bin for either team. We're both just as bad as each other."
January 30th, 2019 at 9:57 AM ^
Reminds me of the stupid Fire Harbaugh threads and comments here.
January 30th, 2019 at 10:00 AM ^
I went through to see if I appeared anywhere. I, like most, was extremely frustrated at that time, but I don’t see any comments from me in those threads. This turnaround has been swift and thorough. Thankfully Maizen is gone (for now).
January 30th, 2019 at 10:04 AM ^
Serious depth to the BPONE!
January 30th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
So many "great" posts in these threads. Any time I see a Maizen post I just laugh. So glad he's been exterminated. Funny to see how much he is praising Harbaugh, should go to show you that he's purely a concern troll and his Harbaugh opinions should be looked at in light of his Beilein comments.
He had a post that mentioned Nike was gonna do anything in their power to get a big name coach at Michigan lol
EDIT: Geez finished all of it. People were trying to smear even his good years. And there were maybe one or two posters pointing out all the injuries and early entries that had set the program back so much. I think I had just bowed out of the threads at that point and stopped trying to argue cause the Beilein "excuse makers" were getting shouted down.
January 30th, 2019 at 10:56 AM ^
"Beilein is a bit of a fraud. . .he's won about 63% of his games, career wise, less than that at U-M.. .SO, this notion that he is some kind of basketball wizard is not evident in the record. . .he likes to be portrayed as a humble guy who has worked his up to the Big Time by his amazing ability to win with sod-buster players. . .he has an aw-shucks schtick: 'why when I was coaching at Shit Kicker U., we had a roster of 1 one legged players, so I had to devise this incredible system to beat the giants we played against'. . .truth is , he's never been a giant killer with his teams of one-legged players. . .and at Michigan he's a 20-13 coach, on average. . .considering you got 7 to 8 gimme wins every year, 20-13 is nothing. Beilien is not a great coach. He's done nothing special, anywhere, ever.
This *nice guy, good man* routine is a little hard to swallow, also. . .there are some stories about the Cassius Winston recruiting that do not reflect well on Beilein, and what does he have against local players, anyway? Shit, he'd be better off taking local guys like Corey Allen instead of these Ali Rahkman guys. . .get his ass out of here, he won't be missed."
January 30th, 2019 at 11:34 AM ^
thanks for posting this
January 30th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
Most of the thread was fine, with your usual level of frustration. But the Maizen-type cohort used to cry for firing Beilein after every loss, so it only got amplified after a game like that.
Honestly, it did feel like maybe it was slipping away from Beilein a bit. Not that the team wouldn't be good, but he had suffered through some (relatively) down recruiting cycles with guys like Irvin, Walton (until the end), Chatman, etc. not really panning out as well as you'd have liked while guys like Winston, Langford, Blueitt, etc. had gone elsewhere and looked strong.
But what really changed was the defense got a hell of a lot better. It took some time for people to notice, but all of a sudden Michigan went from consistently giving up a point per game to being one of the better defenses in the country. That team finished with the 69th-best defense per KenPom, which was their best finish since the title game year and over the last half of the conference season was even better.
January 30th, 2019 at 11:46 AM ^
Good times.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:08 PM ^
The turning point for this program was the plane accident.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:44 PM ^
It was before then. We were surging in the weeks before the BTT. It started with the destruction of MSU at Crisler, which happened just a couple days after this thread was posted.
January 30th, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
Sigh....and I was one of the assholes who commented on three of those four threads. And I didn't have anything nice to say, either.
Beilein has made me (along with many of us) eat my words many times over. The last two years have taught me to just shut the hell up about any Beilein-related critiques I may have. The guy knows what he's doing, and he's more than earned the right to walk out of here and retire whenever the hell he wants to.
Sure, we'll still have some bad losses here and there, and I'd be willing to bet that we'll have at least one more season under Beilein's watch where we're considered a bubble team going into March. Unless you're Duke, UNC or Kansas, it happens from time to time with just about every program out there. But you really couldn't ask for a better situation for Michigan. Top-5 team, legitimate Final Four aspirations, conference title aspirations, and you never once have to worry about the NCAA Ethics and Compliance Committee coming to knock on Beilein's door.
January 30th, 2019 at 4:10 PM ^
I was looking to see if I had posted anything because I know I had questioned if Beilein was long for the program. I agree with you; I stopped questioning him not too long after this and he has as much leeway as he needs.
He's the best since Orr, and probably better than him as far as development and ability to adapt.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:24 PM ^
If all goes well, we will be able to have one of these threads about Harbaugh in 2 years too.
I'm sure I'll feature prominently in it, given where it looked like we were heading right after the Ohio State game in November.
January 30th, 2019 at 1:46 PM ^
It will happen in the exact same manner to, where there are pretty glaring issues that need to be fixed and are fixed which lead directly to an improved product, which somehow means the people who suggested they fix those things were wrong.