Basketball Hello Posts, 2018 Update
About a year ago, I made a post to look back at the hello posts of the current basketball team. I thought I would update with the posts for the three freshman on this year's team.
Jordan Poole - October 23, 2015
I have no idea who the picture is of at the top of this post. Surely it's not Jordan Poole. Besides Poole, the only other offer in the 2017 class at this point is Jaren Jackson.
Eli Brooks - July 20, 2016
Brooks was a lifelong fan of Villanova, picked up an offer from them...and then chose Michigan. At this point, Jackson and Kyle Young are both mentioned as potential additions to the class, along with Jamal Cain. Brian Bowen and Kris Wilkes are also mentioned, sure.
Isaiah Livers - August 7, 2016
This is a great:
Even if DJ Wilson emerges as a viable option at the four this season, Livers could see plenty of time as a backup before stepping into the starting lineup as a junior—Beilein will find minutes for a wing with scoring touch who can guard opposing power forwards.
Also, this is a great set of comments:
Has a little Carmelo Anthony to his game.
So you're saying he'll lead us to a national championship his freshman year? I'll take it!
have been in style for awile.
having Poole and Livers on our team. Will be interesting to see how Brooks fits in, with Z solidifying his leadership and a talented Dejulius coming this Fall...
but who knows. He handled the job for us admirably early in the season when Z was finding his way, and has a lot of upside. I would guess he waits for Dejulius to come in and see how he compares, evaluate things over the summer, and go from there.
If Dejulius manages the jump to the next leve as expected, what a great problem to have - too many quality point guards on the team. Can't remember EVER having that problem on a Michigan team, going back to the 70's...
Never would've imagined anybody saying we would have too many quality point guards back in November.
Jumping the gun a bit here, we don't know how things will pan out next year. Brooks was good enough to start early this year; given a year of development, who knows where he'll be?
Note that in the Livers hello post, old user Lanknows put up projections for the starting five this year. They weren't absurd, given how far ahead it was, but something that was notable was that it was accurate in part because it didn't factor in DJ Wilson.
Except he had Wilson as third string, sitting on the bench. Not as an NBA first rounder.
Let's let it play out. Maybe Brooks is the first guy behind Simpson, and Dejulius plays serious minutes at the 2. Maybe someone gets hurt. Maybe someone unexpected goes pro. Waaaay too early to suggest a transfer for a guy who has already shown that he can get on the floor, who easily showed as much this year as Simpson showed last year.
I trust Beilein to get this right.
Watson beating out senior MAAR for the starting 2 spot. Whoops.
What's our depth at SG look like for next season? There's plenty of opportunity for him, especially if he takes a step up like many of our players do between their freshman and soph seasons.
I don't know how much we should bank on DeJulius as a freshman. Playing PG for Beilein is not an easy transition from HS (or another college program).
point! (No pun intended). With MAAR graduating, and Dejulius the only pure guard recruit, there certainly may be room for a quality 4th guard. And that is assuming Dejulius makes the jump pretty quickly - which is a HUGE assumption. Z and Walton have shown that - sometimes you need a year or two to find your way in college hoops. Brooks can certainly get playing time next year if he continues to improve...
because he started right away as a freshman over the more experienced Spike Albrecht. And Dejulius gets compared quite a bit to Walton with that deadly pull up jumper.
Spike did have limitations that Brooks doesn't have though, so I do expect Brooks to beat out Dejulius to be the backup at least at the start of next season. We'll see what happens from there.
Good problem to have when your starter is an established fingernail eating pitbull and you might have two good options off the bench.
He's no Beta Cuck, that's for sure!
Ha, yeah sorry. I realize it's Poole, but it did take my eyes a bit to figure out what I was looking at when I first brought up that post.
We should be the big ten favorites next year, right? We should be balls to wall on defense with Simpson, Matthews, and Teske.
It won't be quite as bad as the current setup, but we'll still play only seven teams twice and six teams once.
I do like that MSU will be a protected rivalry, so no missing them in Crisler again.
Penn State and Maryland will be right up there with us.
And dare I say Rutgers?
I would strongly bet against even that.
For some teams it really depends on who leaves early, but I'd say Maryland, MSU, Nebraska, and Penn State would be the biggest competition.
I'd certainly expect KBD to go too. That's their two stars and and a third starter from a team already badly lacking depth. They will have some talent, but I expect a rebuilding year in Columbus.
If Ethan Happ comes back, Wisconsin should look more like a typical Wisconsin team. They lost a lot to injuries this season. It remains to be seen if Gard can get as much out of them as Bo Ryan.
They also lose Dackich, so they are done.
they have a solid class coming in (two 4-stars and two 3-stars) and a couple of returning pieces in the Wesson bros, Young, CJ Jackson, but they lose Tate and Williams and KBD is gonna go pro so they'll almost certainly be worse. Probably not worse than a .500ish conference team that makes it into the tourney as a 9-11 seed.
Any chance Tony Carr turns pro?
the combine. After Jackson and Bridges, I'm not seeing any candidates to leave early in the Big Ten that look like sure first round picks. There are a fair number of prospects like Carr who could go in the 2nd round, maybe late first round with a good showing. Some will probably take the plunge and others will return. Bates-Diop is the only one I feel confident will go, but I'd be surprised if there weren't at least a couple more.
I wish that little shit were a few inches taller so he'd leave for the NBA. I know that Z shut him down the other day but I still would like to see him in a non-Purdue uniform next season.
next season. He's an ideal college basketball player. A four year player that should contend for Big Ten player of the year in three of those seasons.
An A+ defender at each level on the floor - high, mid, and low. That defense will be sick.
Really hope his ankle/foot heals befofe NCAA tourney. His insertion into the starting lineup made Robinson, and us, so much better.
if jaren jackson had gone blue with the beilein wizardy?
<insert picture of Godzilla stomping towns>
I used to wonder what this team would be like with DJ Wilson still on it. The crazy thing is that we're not that far off that level now.
I kept wondering how awesome we would have been if Bamba had come. He and Mo together would be unstoppable. But after this weekend, I'm not wondering any more. This team has been great, and a lot of fun to watch.
The 2019 class should be very interesting. With all of the crap coming down from the FBI, does a program with a spotless reputation benefit? Maybe we attract 1 or 2 of those 5 stars that usually go elsewhere.
For me, my thoughts/feeling go like this:
High ranking recruit with offer from Michigan and possible interest, time to get excited!! Examples include Bamba, RJ Barrett, Brian Bowen, Jaren Jackson, Tyus Battle, Jalen Brunson, Jaylen Brown, Devin Booker, and Trevon Bluiett, among others.
Then they lose interest and go elsewhere, and all mostly succeed
We're left wondering what could have been. Switch out Aubrey Dawkins for Devin Booker, or Kam Chatman for Trevon Bluiett.
Then a year goes by, and we see players like Rahk, Duncan, Simpson, Walton, DJ, Mo, etc etc just take off and destroy the competition.
Then we're left wondering how great players like Jaylen Brown, Brunson, Battle etc could have been if they learned under Beilein for 2 years.
Then I almost get to a point where I feel bad for them, especially Bamba, because I feel like Beilein could have worked with Bamba and refined him into a easy 1st round NBA pick. But it seems like his development at Texas hasn't done much, and he probably won't make a career in the NBA.
TLDR: I start feeling bad for the players that don't pick Michigan, because I feel like they could have become a much better basketball player here than where they decided to go.
to be a top 5 pick this year. He would have been a top 5 pick if he decided to take a year to study with monks in the Himalaya's. And he was playing great before injuring his toe.
You can feel bad for him for choosing to be on a mediocre team for his one college season, but he's going to get every opportunity necessary to succeed in the NBA. If he doesn't have a great career, it'll be because of other reasons, it won't be because of his choice to play one season at Texas.
Livers is probably a more sound defender of guards off switches, although he can't block shots like DJ did.
And Teske is such a capable backup at the five that we wouldn't be that much better if we had DJ.