SMU 82, Michigan 58
mood: whiskey
The excuses don't quite cut it.
Yes, Michigan didn't have their starting point guard, Yes, they went on the road against a good SMU squad, and couldn't fly to Dallas until this morning. Yes, they're young and inexperienced. Yes, Caris LeVert had an uncharacteristically awful game.
The Mustangs managed to weather the loss of one of their key players, though, flourishing despite the departure of Markus Kennedy in the opening minute. The issues that have plagued Michigan's defense all season came to the fore tonight; SMU got dunk after dunk after dunk created by all-too-easy dribble penetration; the Mustangs didn't miss often, but when they did, they were more likely than not to grab the rebound; they rained in 8-of-15 threes on more open looks created by shoddy perimeter defense.
Walton's absence doesn't explain all of that. Youth only goes so far. Same for weather-impacted travel plans.
LeVert went 1-for-13 tonight. Without him carrying the load, only Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Duncan Robinson could crack double-digit points. Even with the extenuating circumstances taken into account, Michigan remains too reliant on one player to carry the load on one end, and they're entirely too lost on the other to make up for it.
Michigan's next four opponents, each ranked worse than 250th on KenPom, all come to Crisler. That's welcome news for a team that needs to do quite a bit of tuning up before they're ready to take on the Big Ten.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:02 PM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ^
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December 8th, 2015 at 11:28 PM ^
Not sure that's relevant outside of Caris, his family and his agent.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:37 PM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 12:19 AM ^
1) Let's give Beilein credit as an offensive genuis - he needs to hire a DEFENSIVE genius for the staff, even if defense is just about effort, more than scheme, somebody to focus on it in specific
2) Zak Irvin looks TERRIBLE - yes he's coming back from injury, but his shot motion is a train wreck - he hit the side of the backboard on an open three tonight
3) MASSIVE regression of Aubrey Dawkins - he's disappeared, why?
That seems like enough to work through - thoughts?
December 9th, 2015 at 6:04 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 9:07 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 9:10 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 9:17 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 9:21 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 10:01 AM ^
Beilein's UM teams have been criticized for having long scoring droughts where offensive flow and creating easier scoring opportunities are a problem. It's not as if these questions have manifest themselves in the past month. The offense will be better by conference season, but these scoring droughts have dogged all of Beilein's teams except for two.
December 9th, 2015 at 10:13 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 1:58 PM ^
The only times his offense have been ranked highly in the KenPom rankings were when he had a lineup full of NBA players running it. Any coach would look like a genius with that much talent.
December 9th, 2015 at 10:11 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 1:27 PM ^
have recruiting issues. I agree with you that as of today they are clueless as to how to fix the situation assuming it is fixable.
The good news is they play inferior opponents the next four games.
December 9th, 2015 at 11:11 AM ^
When the ball goes in, Michigan looks great. When it doesn't, they look bad. That's just the way it goes. The "answer" is somewhere in the middle. Hopefully, that "middle" gets better as the season progresses, as it usually does.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:04 PM ^
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December 8th, 2015 at 11:08 PM ^
The defensive problems tonight were not from effort but athelticism. Michigan's guards got beat off the dribble one-on-one almost every time down court tonight. Provening it wasn't effort, they also could not generate one-on-one penetration on the offensive end. Can't play good D when everyone is out of position trying to cover penetration. It's also why SMU's big had 11 dunks on 13 shot attempts. It's also why no one was boxing out to get defensive rebounds.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:19 PM ^
That's on the coaches. What big in his right mind would want to play in Beilein's system.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:56 PM ^
Interesting question. Beilein & Bacari have proven they can develop JMo, McGary and Horford to something better than they started out. Beilein uses the pick and roll as much or more than any coach in college basketball. That should be something which translates well to the NBA. And yet, for some reason, Beilein is having problems attracting bigs. Interesting to see what Teske does when he arrives next year. I think that will be the true test of what Beilein & Bacari can do with a big.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:44 AM ^
If it takes a bit of tweaking to the offense to make Michigan more attractive to elite big man recruits, I think we need to do it. Trying to be a finesse team with no defense just isn't going to lead to consistent success, especially in the big ten.
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December 9th, 2015 at 8:12 AM ^
I disagree. Dawkins, Irvin, MAAR, LeVert, Wilson, and Walton are all more than good enough athletically to play defense. It's much more about scheme and effort. Both were awful last night.
December 9th, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^
I'm curious why you say that. Walton is the only person I would say consistently can blow by his defender in a half-court set. LeVert's struggles have come against athletes he can not consistently take off of the dribble. Last night was a classic example. Even the times he got to the hoop his own defender was still affecting his shot. Irvin is very similar. He is fast enough to get even but not past many defenders. MAAR has shown times when he is able to blow past his defender and make a defense react but not consistenly enough to run the team. Fans have not seen enough of Wilson against good competition to even know. Despite Dawkins exploits on a few dunks which is more about leaping vs, speed and agility, I have not seen him consistently be able to beat a defender off of the dribble.
On the opposite end of the court, please tell me, who was able to prevent Nic Moore from getting anywhere he wanted on the floor? He scored 15 points and had 7 assists. Most of them on easy passes in the lane for dunks. It's not like SMU was running a fast break all night getting assists and points in transition. SMU put up 82 points on 57.4% shooting playing primarily half court offense.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:04 PM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ^
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December 8th, 2015 at 11:05 PM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 12:37 AM ^
was glaring. In all aspects of the game - offense, defense and reboudning. So when they aren't hitting from the outside, they get almost no easy baskets. Easy is maybe the wrong word, but I watched most of the second half and almost all our their shots in the half court offense were at least 10, if not 15, feet from the basket.
December 9th, 2015 at 9:03 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 11:26 AM ^
He's shorter than Levert
December 8th, 2015 at 11:08 PM ^
We are going to get destroyed in Big Ten play. Sparty, Purdue, Iowa, and hell Wisconsin and Indiana, and even Ohio State has the athletes to go get rebounds that we have no clue how to get. Fucking two people around the rim and both go to the side directly under the hoop and leave the front of the rim open for a trailer to dunk/lay the offensive board back in. Good God those are awful fundamentals.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:09 PM ^
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December 8th, 2015 at 11:11 PM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 11:11 PM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 11:48 PM ^
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December 8th, 2015 at 11:18 PM ^
But with Trey Burke making a miracle three in the tournament.
We're a football school. I'm ok with it. If we want to be a dual sport school we need to give Brad Stevens Jim Harbaugh money when JB retires.
I love Beilein, but he is what he is at a school that is focused on football. He's made us relevant again and it's fun, but it's clear that we're not going to be a power. This team is filled with semiors and juniors with contributing sophomores.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:18 PM ^
Brad Stevens isn't coming back to college. He coaches the freaking Celtics (who by the way got away with robbery last year and have a crap ton of 1st round picks this year)
He will be in Boston for a long time.
Gregg Marshall and Archie Miller are much more likely.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:39 PM ^
And I'm ok with that and when he gets in the Dance you never know. I think Stevens probably looks back to college in about 4 years, when about the time on Stevens is running out. The NBA is going to be the Warriors vs againg Durant and Lebron for about the next 5 years.
December 9th, 2015 at 12:39 AM ^
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December 8th, 2015 at 11:14 PM ^
live by the three die by the three is the motto for this team. Against quality oppenents like SMU, Uconn, and Xavier with physical guards and big men, this strategy wont work.
December 8th, 2015 at 11:20 PM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 7:54 AM ^
his seat is probably not even a little warm. At the risk of saying anything but smoke blowing praise about him and angering the mgoblogerati, there's been excuses every year but 2 or 3.
"We just need this player or that player". "Wait till next year when this guy gets some experience".Yet this player or that player either never seem to sign or never seem to explode. This has to be on coaching.
At some point we need to either just be happy not being what we were under Amaker or realize Belein is not as elite of a coach as we all desperately want him to be and go get one that is. I'm kind of fine either way but it was a fuck ton more fun with teams capable of deep tourney runs instead of getting our balls handed to us by any team with a pulse.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:48 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 9:02 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 9:36 AM ^
Recruiting in college basketball is dirtier than a toilet in the student slums. If you want the big guys what are you willing to do? Are you willing to have a hoard of boosters take care of players? Are you willing to have assistants bring in strippers? Are you willing to treate your college basketball players like pseudo professionals? Are you willing for your staff to lie, cheat, steal and for an AD apartment to do everything necessary to keep players who have no interest in college eligible? Are you willing to sell your soul to a AAU power broker and keep him happy? There are a couple exceptions of coaches doing it the right way. But those are a very few. Beilein appears to do things above the board. More often than not our team is in the tournament and doing damage. I'm not going to judge this team until March. I would rather have an outside chance of winning than cheat and be a contender every year. If you want to win every year no matter what the cost, be a UK fan.
December 9th, 2015 at 9:47 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 1:04 PM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 2:08 PM ^
Because Beilein is nowhere near Izzo's level. Izzo has made it to the Final Four 7 times, Beilein has made it to the Sweet 16 like four times in his long career.
December 9th, 2015 at 6:06 PM ^
December 8th, 2015 at 11:28 PM ^
SMU beat Yale by 2. At home. With their best big man playing.
Kenpom has Yale in the 80s.
That is all.
(we look like a mid major in terms of athleticism and we are going to make a ton of "nobodies" look like superstars in games in the Big 10)
December 8th, 2015 at 11:30 PM ^
Recruiting misses are coming home to roost.
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