Don't Give up on Basketball Just Yet...

Submitted by Wolverheel on
2 years ago we lost to Charlotte, got crushed by Duke, and started 6-4 in non-conference. THEN to top it all off, Mitch McGary got injured for the year. All hell broke loose and that team was going nowhere. But then Stauskas stepped up and lifted the team on his back. We ended up going 22-4 the rest of the season en route to a dominating big ten championship before coming inches away from knocking off the eventual national runners up in the [edit: Elite 8! My bad guys.]

We are still a young team and from the looks of it the Big Ten isn't very strong this year. If we can just become competent defensively and get ONE of our 4 centers to play at their best level this team still has good potential once we get Irvin back to full health. Be patient guys!
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CorkyCole

November 21st, 2015 at 11:40 AM ^

Not developing his best talent??? His "best talent" that he's recruited involves McGary (clear development freshman year while battling a back injury then hurt basically his entire sophomore season), Walton (battled with injuries his entire sophomore season), Irvin (clear development last year until once again injured this offseason), and Chatman (struggled instantly but started earning some playing time through development by the end of the season - jury still out on him this season but he's clearly better than last year especially defensively). Injuries have prevented his best "star" guys from developing at the same pace. McGary was turning into a star, Irvin was clearly developing last year while becoming "the guy," and Walton still looks fantastic this season despite a couple games of shooting struggles. He would have been right there last year if not for his dang toe. I seriously think you're off on this. Beilein has been unlucky with his stars getting injured the last two seasons, and that is why it looks the way you're seeing things.

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JOHNNAVARREISMYHERO

November 21st, 2015 at 2:33 AM ^

I know Walton was hurt, but losing to NJIT and Eastern Michigan with them was pathetic.

If we don't lose those games, we aren't as stressed during the conference season and probably get in with a 9-9 record.

Because we lost those, and made the magic number like 10-11 Big Ten wins.

We could have made the tournament without Walton and Levert, which was completely insane.

To this point, neither one of them has been the leader we have expected.  Leader in terms of getting wins.  I don't care about points, wins are the only thing that matters.  

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maceo_blastin'

November 21st, 2015 at 2:10 AM ^

caris is the guy and i would love seeing him play the point position to spell walton at times just to have length all over the court. 

duncan robinson needs to to be in the top tier of minutes. he's making the right cuts and moving the offense well and beilein's offense only REALLY works when you have dead eye open three shooting---this dude. his defense is no more atrocious than dawkins' at this point.

i think the five should split minutes evenly between doyle-wagner-wilson till wagner establishes himself. not ready to give up on wilson yet. 

irvin needs big minutes and he needs to draw fouls by getting in the paint somehow. he's brawny.

walton-levert-robinson-irvin-doyle

non-five subs in order of minutes earned: dawkins, chatman, rahkman

spike needs to get healthy, than he'll leapfrog rahkman. 

 

 

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alum96

November 21st, 2015 at 2:29 AM ^

Quinn made a good point tonight - Dawkins is 1 of the few players on UM who is a plus athlete and he completely disappeared tonight.  This was the type of game he needed to show up for as outside of Caris ... well I think those might be the only 2 plus athletes we have until Wilson finds himself. 

I am with you on Mo.  I wrote a few days ago Mo losing his redshirt is because Donnal is not going to be in the rotation unless in emergency in Feb.  But until we get to some point Mo can play 15-20 min without fouling out and we get to a point he and Doyle can take over 5 you are stuck playing Donnal some minutes.  Mo looks way behind schematically but I'd just get him out there and live with his mistakes as he actually has SOME ceiling.

I don't know - perimeter defense is just not something I see changing much.  MAAr is a plus defender maybe and maybe Caris.  Even Spike and Irvin full health are not.  Duncan isnt, Aubrey struggles with D.  We just dont have any real answers - no Gary Payton's out there.

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JOHNNAVARREISMYHERO

November 21st, 2015 at 2:37 AM ^

That one move Wagner made was better than anything Doyle and Donnal have done in 2+ years.

The young man has fire that neither one of the other two display.

If we can figure out a way to get him to at least defend without fouling every time down the court, then I live and die with him.

Doyle can't catch the ball for shit.  He also plays like he is 6'4 and not 6'9 or 6'10, whatever the hell height he is.

Donnal is a complete lost cause.  

Wilson still looks weak and brought next to nothing as well.

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UofMfanJJ (not verified)

November 21st, 2015 at 5:20 AM ^

Anybody who thinks the season is over based on one game or early season play is not only not a Michigan fan, they obviously don't watch college basketball. That being said, if we don't improve soon, many teams are just going to overpower us and annihilate us, especially down low. The talent is there, they need to regroup

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Mr. Yost

November 21st, 2015 at 6:20 AM ^

I said we were an #7-#10 seed type team. This game basically proved just that.

Pay attention, you just might learn something.

/TurnsMichiganArroganceOff

In all seriousness, this is exactly the team I expected. It's also why I said that we were a "good" but not great team that would find its way late in the year, gel, and be dangerous come tournament time.

I got DESTROYED, everyone said "no way we're lower than a 4-seed!" Everyone went crazy when I said we're not a top 25 team and justified it with losses to EMU and NJIT WITH a healthy backcourt.

This team is what it is. It's missing Morgan and McGary if it wants to be great going on elite late in the year. Instead it'll be good going on great late in the year. It's that simple.

/TurnsOnMGoRant

You can't play a PG, 4 NBA SGs, and a stretch 4 and expect to beat more physical teams in this college game that still allows contact dispite all the whistles. It's like playing one of those MSU defenses...they're not going to call everything.

I do blame this on Beilein's either unwillingness or inability to recruit true big men until next year when we bring in two guys (finally). As far as I'm concerned, in recent history he's had Morgan, Horford, McGary and Doyle. McGary is the only one that comes in with talent relative to the wing players he recruits. 

Morgan and McGary would've ate this teams LUNCH and if we go against a team like the UK, Texas or Tennessee teams we've recently played in the tournament - we're fucked. Even Kansas, they had that Withey kid. Teams that can play bully ball are just going to push us out of the lane and dominate the glass and win.

However, there will be 4-5 games this year where we just can't miss. And in those games...we'll beat solid teams and look beautiful doing it. You just can't count on that for a full season.

We're still a 21-11 type team. A team that should win it's first game of the tournament against an underachieving major conference team and then be a team that NO #1 or #2 seed wants to see in the second round because of how we can shoot the ball when WE ON.

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Wolvie3758

November 21st, 2015 at 6:30 AM ^

BUT after yesterday my expectations have dropped...There were  so many weakneses exposed but the biggest worry is how bad the defense was. and why was Donal even playing ? 

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Ty Butterfield

November 21st, 2015 at 6:35 AM ^

I just hope Harbaugh can keep away whatever took over the hockey team and the basketball team yesterday. Really need a win in football today.

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B1G_Fan

November 21st, 2015 at 7:05 AM ^

 The team was getting open shots with great ball movement, it's nobody could consistantly hit those open shots besides Caris. The defensive side was what worried me the most. When Xavier's guards decided to  penetrate they where 3-5 steps past the defender before he even turned his head, no help came, it was hard to watch. I think a play that perfectly sums up the effort by Michigan in this game was during the second half. Xaxier misses a shot, it's a long rebound it's coming right to Zak Irvin... who stands there waiting for the ball, while Xavier player hustles in front of him, getting the offensive board. Now Michigan is not going to miss open shots like they did last night all year but, they have to atleast try to play some kind of defense and atleast try to get a rebound.

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Carcajou

November 21st, 2015 at 7:36 AM ^

Compared to Xavier, Michigan didn't look like they were playing very hard.  Loose balls, rebounds, driving to the basket, harassing defense, contesting shots- Michigan's effort was severly lacking.

XU looked like they had the intensity of  tournament game; Michigan looked like they were playing a scrimmage.

"Wanted it more" is usually a lazy, non-sensical way of explaining a game, but for that "contest", it was the perfect description.

 

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Mauresi

November 21st, 2015 at 8:22 AM ^

Couldn't agree more. Michigan came out and got punched in the mouth and never punched back. Levert was the only one who played with any emotion. It's sad to see this team struggling early with so much leadership and experience on the team. Hope they can put things together, but to me it's the same thing every year. I think Coach B is great, but he never recruits any slashers. All we do is rotate the ball along the perimeter, we have no inside presence add that to no attacking and all we are left with are long jumpshot. Which more often than none lead to fast break points after a miss. If we have an off night shooting, that's it.
I understand it's the beginning of the season and I am not questioning anything Coach B is doing. All I'm saying is, is that I hope we can figure out a way to work the ball into the middle and be more aggressive to the basket. Or, I believe this will be a long season. Go blue



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treetown

November 21st, 2015 at 8:03 AM ^

Basketball is quite different than football. There is a LOT of time to tinker and adjust the makeup of the team and improve the quality of play.

Let's see how the team looks in a few months when Big Ten play starts.

Joined: 11/10/2010

MGoPoints: 6339

Padog

November 21st, 2015 at 9:13 AM ^

Complaining is one thing, people are straight jumping ship. I don't care if we lose by 20 to NJIT, there should never ever be someone calling for Beilein to retire. John Beilein has done so much for our program. If you want to talk about his weaknesses, go ahead. But don't say that we will only be good every 10 years because that's just him.



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blueblueblue

November 21st, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^

I havent seen anyone say Belien should retire - if those posts are around, then they are few and far between. There will always be those folks after a bad loss. It's weak to prop yourself up by using those few to characterize the whole and then castigating the whole based on the words of those few. 

Joined: 12/28/2008

MGoPoints: 6630

Roy G. Biv

November 21st, 2015 at 8:20 AM ^

Give up, no, but damn was that alarming.  The boards and interior D have so far to go it is worrisome thinking about whether they can get where they need to be.  With any luck this was nothing more than a bad game against a good team.

 

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mGrowOld

November 21st, 2015 at 8:39 AM ^

If there's one thing I've learned in watching Michigan basketball over the past 40 years or so it's that an early season loss, especially one in which we look especially bad, DOOMS the season to failure.  You have such precious few games to play and only undefeated teams make the tourny so anytime there's an early loss you just might as well stop playing right?

Jesus guys can we have just a LITTLE perspective here?  Go back and look at virtually all our great teams from the past and they almost all had a clunker or two early on.

 

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Moonlight Graham

November 21st, 2015 at 8:39 AM ^

I know this: I may not see much more of Xavier this season but when I fill out my bracket in March I'll have them doing well against just about anybody. They played out of control a lot but man were they fast and athletic. Made us look really slow, soft and -- worst of all -- lazy.



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MotownGoBlue

November 21st, 2015 at 8:40 AM ^

May sound crazy but there's no sense in us even having a "big man" on the floor. I really don't know how we could possibly get worked inside the paint more than we do now. Might as well run a PG and all wings, scoring as much as possible. LeVert will be our leading rebounder regardless. Even our PG is averaging twice as many boards as any one of our "bigs" through 3 games... The thought of a 7' Brimah (for example, though he's not nearly as strong/tough as Reynolds) up against a 6'6"-6'7" wing scares the crap out of me but where's our answer?

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Gustavo Fring

November 21st, 2015 at 8:58 AM ^

I'm annoyed Ace pickedon the bigs only, they were put in a tough spot by the red carpet our guards opened up for any and all Xavier penetrators.  This looks incurable.  We can Phoenix Suns our way to an 8 or 9 seed, but realistically that requires an improvement as well and less Caris iso (though paradoxically, that looks like our only reliable offense right now).

Looks like an NIT appearance, if we're lucky.  One year after NJIT and EMU, nothing has changed

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MGoPoints: 5175

Padog

November 21st, 2015 at 9:10 AM ^

The Caris hero ball was working tonight, but that might not always be the case. I found something interesting in Walton's post game pressers that might explain a lot. He said that because Caris was on they ran through him, it looked like the plan was give it to Caris and stand around. This may explain why we seem to lose games where Caris plays well. The offense wasn't running sets, they were playing freelance with Caris.



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Jimmyisgod

November 21st, 2015 at 9:00 AM ^

So what I've learned from this thread is that we are young and that Xavier are the 1990 UNLV Running Rebels. We are an experienced team now that excuse is gone. And I know people will be shocked to hear this, but Xavier wasn't even ranked, in fact they were 36th and might not even be ranked next week. And this was at home. The Northern Michigan game was a bad sign, Northern battled us to a stand still inside. Northern isn't even D1 and that win won't count in the yes if the tourney and we couldn't out rebound them. Beilein doesn't recruit tough rebounders, he recruits a bunch of shooters and big men who are good for setting screens. This team is what it is, I expect us to struggle with more physical teams, but the a Big Ten is weak enough for us to make the tourney and who knows, if we get hit we can win a couple games there. Long term, we need to get a couple athletic big men to come here, but that's easier said than done.

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Padog

November 21st, 2015 at 9:08 AM ^

What I learned from this post is that we have 4 senior starters and 3 juniors behind them, and we played IUPUI. We have two seniors, three juniors, one of which is Mark Donnal who probably doesn't even talk in the locker room. The position of difficulty, the five, is the most inexperienced. A Sophomore in Ricky Doyle, basically a Freshie in D.J, a freshman Wagner, and a junior Mark Donnal that may or may not be a turtle. The backcourt may be experienced, but our backcourt isn't the problem, it's our front court.



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MotownGoBlue

November 21st, 2015 at 9:23 AM ^

Derrick Walton/Spike Albrecht Caris LeVert Aubrey Dawkins/MAAR Zak Irvin/Duncan Robinson Kam Chatman/DJ Wilson I may even want Irvin and Robinson on the floor at the same time and hope the scoring outweighs the ugly defense. Perhaps we get Irvin, Chatman and Wilson to fight more. The Stiffs can ride the pine.

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Gustavo Fring

November 21st, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^

Period.  Better defensive instincts, better idea how to use lengths, infinitely more toughness.  Referees did him wrong.  

I love Wilson's potential, but I was also very disappointed in him yesterday.  Donnal should be completely out of the rotatoin

And yeah we need Doyle, he still played well yesterday.  Dawkins and Robinson cannot share the floor.  And Irvin and LeVert need to AMP UP the defensive intensity.  Be ballhawks.  THey have the tools and instincts to do it.  

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Der Alte

November 21st, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^

Last night M's frontcourt problems were there for all to see, which is one reason Beilein removed Mo Wagner's redshirt --- he's still looking for the two or three bigs he can rely on to do what he wants them to do.

Such problems take time to work out, but that's why we have coaches. Go Blue.

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L'Carpetron Do…

November 21st, 2015 at 9:42 AM ^

A little distressing to have a loss this early in the season.  BUt then again its against a good team (I assume they will be good) and we all know COach B always has his teams playing better at the end of the year than at the beginning.  Shake it off and go get 'em Blue!

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Coldwater

November 21st, 2015 at 9:53 AM ^

The game highlighted an ongoing perception that the basketball program is soft. This game did nothing to reverse that reputation. The bigs act like, can I say the "P" word here? Rhymes with Wussies. They have no dawg in them.

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