Jordan Poole ruminations
February 24th, 2019 at 10:47 PM ^
He was embarrassing today
February 25th, 2019 at 3:55 PM ^
What did he do? I never take it for granted that because the refs are dressing down a player I like they are in the right, but I'm weird that way. I kind of tend to enjoy Jordan's chutzpah. Also thought that loose ball call on him was bad, and could have swung the momentum. He thought he hadn't fouled; the replay suggested he hadn't fouled. . . anger's okay in such a situation--he wasn't hitting anyone.
Would like to know what happened between Poole and McQuaid earlier. Does anyone know?
February 24th, 2019 at 10:53 PM ^
Mods should nuke this immediately. It's nothing more than an invitation to personally attack a student athlete.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:01 PM ^
How? This is about his on court behavior. We're not talking about what he's doing on Saturday nights.
He needs to calm down a little. We all love him, but he talks way too much trash. He was in an MSU players ear while he was shooting FT's, which isn't a good look, and then had a ref in his face telling him to knock it off, which also isn't a good look.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:34 PM ^
This is basketball guy. Outside your wheelhouse.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:41 PM ^
I'm an older guy, but is that like... "Stay in your lane, bro"?
February 24th, 2019 at 11:38 PM ^
Gosh, "footballguy," I just read a history of your posts. I did not realize you were such a deluded and brainwashed individual. Yikes, and I took the time to reply to you earlier. 5 minutes of my life I'll never get back. But at least you seem pretty convinced of your viewpoints. Either that or you're from an opposing fanbase (that's where my money is) Anyway, keep fighting the good fight guy! I imagine you're a beacon in the morally outraged, online SJW community!
February 25th, 2019 at 12:07 AM ^
You went on a rant about being sick that Gus Johnson commentated a Michigan game and had some weird theory that he actually hates Michigan.
He doesn't. He loves Michigan. He also has a fucking job to do. Only reason I say this is because Gus is arguably the best commentator on television and I love whenever he calls our games.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:22 AM ^
Is this a joke? I just looked at your profile, and none of your comments are less than 2,000 words.
February 25th, 2019 at 5:52 AM ^
“Diluted” lol
February 24th, 2019 at 11:39 PM ^
Ofer chrissakes. I bet we're one of the least T'd up teams in the NCAA.
Did he get a Tech?
Maybe he got a lil pissed. So what?
February 25th, 2019 at 12:09 AM ^
No, but he didn't get several calls that he could have gotten had he not been talking shit to officials all game. Officials are human and I guarantee he didn't get some of those calls because they were tired of him jawing all game
February 25th, 2019 at 12:51 AM ^
"Officials are human"
No they aren't.
February 25th, 2019 at 9:24 AM ^
I can't upvote this comment enough!
February 25th, 2019 at 4:41 PM ^
Officials are human and that’s the problem. They make mistakes, hold grudges and let their personal biases get in the way. I, for one, welcome our robotic official overlords. My brother, who umpired little league baseball, said he thinks MLB should adopt an electronic, automated strike zone. That opened my eyes, but I think he’s right.
February 25th, 2019 at 9:46 AM ^
If the officials aren’t doing their job properly because a player is telling them that they aren’t doing their job properly, then that’s on the shitty officials, not the player.
February 25th, 2019 at 11:15 AM ^
Not really. There are tickey tack fouls in basketball all the time that could go either way, or they may not give you a call if they know what you're doing. Many players in basketball are officiated differently
February 25th, 2019 at 7:49 AM ^
Who cares about how he “looks” to you, if he’s not breaking any rules?
February 24th, 2019 at 10:59 PM ^
Same guy he's always been. You love it when you're winning, and hate it when you're losing. He's the key to the team winning in my opinion. Simpson and Teske are maxing out their potential, Matthews game has gone as far as it's going to go at Michigan, Iggy is too young and too raw to ask more of, and Livers refuses to do more than hit spot up threes. Poole is the guy who can be dynamic and score from the arc, mid-range, on the drive, and at the line. I'm starting to lose hope that he'll take that Stauskas type leap from #justashooter to a guy you can run an offense around.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:02 PM ^
Yet he has been a momentum killer from his shot selection for a large chunk of the B1G season........... Did again today
February 24th, 2019 at 11:25 PM ^
A lot of times the bad shots he takes are just replacing a would-be bad shot by Matthews or Simpson at the shot clock. Would you rather have a decent look by Poole from 5 feet behind the line with 12 on the shot clock, an off-the-dribble three by Matthews with the clock expiring, or a semi-contested three by Zavier with the defense sagging off of him. Those have been the options lately for this offense. Iggy has nowhere to slash or drive unless he's tight rope walking the baseline, and MSU closed out on Teske like he was our best perimeter option (which hasn't been far from the truth lately). Hopefully Beilein figures things out, bc I'm a little lost for answers. Brooks gives you absolutely nothing offensively. Livers looks like he could do so much more, but you can't ask Robert Horry to be Kevin Durant I guess -- just have to be happy with him being an excellent role player. Poole is the only guy I can see who can realistically offer a lot more (for this year's team).
February 25th, 2019 at 6:59 AM ^
The problem is the bad shots he take is early in the shot clock and always a bad shot. Somebody can make 3 straight baskets and he will come down a jack up a NBA three with 15 seconds left thus ending the other players hot streak. Been doing that all season.
February 25th, 2019 at 10:33 AM ^
That's a great take--sure, let's have him take a horrible shot, because if he doesn't, we know someone else will anyway.
Or.... how about we look for shots in the flow of the offense? An off balance pull up three from 26 feet will be there with no time on the shot clock. Doing this with half the shot clock left is not a "decent look."
February 25th, 2019 at 11:05 AM ^
Agree with your take, that is a terrible take. Thanks
February 26th, 2019 at 12:40 AM ^
I'm not saying they are good choices by him -- I'm saying there haven't been many good options anywhere. It's not a Poole problem, it's a Michigan offense problem. Whatever you replaced Poole's "bad shots" with, probably wouldn't have been better options -- if not worse options. Nobody complains when Poole gets hot and goes 5/8 from 3. If the argument is that he should drive more, I'm somewhat on board. Then problem there is that Zavier is the guy running all the pick and roll/pop stuff, so Poole basically has to just beat his guy 1 on 1. I've wanted to see Poole do some pick and roll offense (like Stauskas, Levert, etc did), but I think Zavier's defender would just sag off of him and help. A big issue is having a PG who can't shoot in a Beilein offense. Obviously he's good at almost every other facet (including FT shooting lately), so I'm not suggesting he should be taken out -- but Coach B is having a hard time finding answers.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:29 PM ^
Is it poor shot selection, or is it a function of bad sets? In the second half, it looked like more of the latter.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:05 PM ^
This is the correct answer. I predicted a win today, but I didn’t take into account that annoying generic white guy McQuaid would outplay guy we are afraid will leave early Poole.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:47 PM ^
February 25th, 2019 at 12:44 AM ^
No one cares about McQuaid. He isn’t very athletic. He’s not known as a great passer. He’s not known as a great dribbler. He scraps around on defense and shoots threes well. He’s spent 4 years at MSU not doing anything memorable or remarkable. He’s a random generic white guy who outplayed someone on our team we think might leave after his sophomore year. It really isn’t that tough to get for non-spartan trolls
February 25th, 2019 at 5:03 AM ^
He is one of the best defenders in the conference and a nearly 50% three point shooter. It sounds to me that you just cannot fathom that a “white guy” can be good at basketball which is odd. You did not merely “predict a win” today, you flat out ridiculed posters who suggested it would even be a close game. I think you should self impose a timeout for a while.
February 25th, 2019 at 10:05 AM ^
He is a generic version of actual good white players. I can fathom white guys being good at basketball because Iggy is an actual good basketball player and he payed in the game yesterday. Stauskas was an actual good white player. Novak and Douglas were our versions of generic white guy players that played hard and well and shot well but no one other than our fan base really cared about.
i didn’t ridicule anyone other than you because you said they were a better team with Ward. The outcome of the game doesn’t change that this is an awful take. I told you that I predicted a win and we didn’t win. I’m not happy about it but it doesn’t matter if we can get our heads out of our ass and take the game at the Bres. I also predicted Goins would have to ho gangbusters for them to win. He did. I didn’t predict McQuaid playing better than Poole. I also didn’t predict Winston kicking Z’s ass up and down the court. That one killed us the most
February 25th, 2019 at 10:28 AM ^
At this point, it is basically only you, Nick Ward, and Nick Ward's immediate family who can't see how Ward's absence made this a much more difficult game for Michigan. They space the ball and run the ball better without him in the game and Tillman is a better defender and rebounder. They also were basically running a five out offense for periods yesterday which is far more difficult to defend then a slow, high-usage jump hook dude who literally physically is unable to execute a kick out pass in the off chance the defense decides to double him. I sincerely hope he plays at Breslin.
His injury also completely altered the mental/emotional characteristics of this game. The way Michigan State (successfully) publicizes injuries to shape narratives, the only way Michigan could "win" this game was if they literally won by 30. If Michigan State kept the game even close and loss it would have been "wow Michigan State was able to stay in that game." That is why you saw the interest in the game evaporate from our players eyes when it became clear it was going down to the wire. We could not "win" at that point, even a close win was a loss. You would like them to be more mature in their approach to the game than that but these are college players and that is a trick of the trade.
Izzo publicly fixates on injuries for a reason, it impacts the emotional narrative of the game. It is a coaching feature. Beilien should have stated publicly before the game in some fashion that "Michigan State has enough great players that injuries aren't really an issue for them" or some other method to balance the narrative. In a game that should have been a "do or die" game for Izzo and State, it was shaped into a game where Michigan was shouldering all of the pressure.
It is honestly baffling to me that you cannot see how Ward's injury impacted this game. I liked Michigan in this game all season until he went down and then I pretty much expected what happened yesterday after he was declared out.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:04 PM ^
They were better than us yesterday and it wasn’t because Ward and Tillman are better than Tillman and Kithier. We had a horrible defensive game plan for them and we refused to adjust in game. I’m not sure why Beilein got out coached but he did. We were up by 6 halfway through the second half and MSU proceeded to kicked our ass from there on out. It was mostly Winston owning his matchup with Z and our strange pick and roll defensive strategy.
February 27th, 2019 at 12:56 PM ^
serious question: what the fuck is this shit
February 25th, 2019 at 7:22 AM ^
He is one of the best defenders in the big ten, which would make more sense to acknowledge than to just go flat earth.
February 25th, 2019 at 9:55 AM ^
So were Stu Douglas and Zack Novak also just "generic white guys"?
February 25th, 2019 at 10:18 AM ^
This is so determinedly dumb.
February 25th, 2019 at 11:04 AM ^
Why bring up his race? So sick of hearing about race. Those fixated on race are the real racists champ.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:56 PM ^
Good analysis. He is either amazing or a total drain on the offense. Not much in between
February 25th, 2019 at 12:21 AM ^
Iggy is neither young nor raw.
February 25th, 2019 at 2:07 AM ^
He's old for his class, but he's a true freshman. Maybe I should say inexperienced. I just don't think he can do much more than what he's already giving now. When he handles the ball too long, it usually results in more turnovers and offensive fouls. I think right now he fits that GR3/Matthews role where he works the baseline from corner to corner and sometimes pops out for threes. Poole's raw skills look more like what Beilein saw and developed with Stauskas, THJr, and Levert -- he just hasn't been able to mold into what those guys were, in terms of running the offense through them.
February 25th, 2019 at 3:04 PM ^
I think Poole isn't as good of a shooter as people (myself included) had hoped. I wouldn't put him in the same league as Stauskas or Levert for three pointers. I don't think he's every going to be a guy that can run an offense the way those two guys did.
THJr may be the best comparison/hope, since he never cracked 40% from 3. I'm not sure we'd want THJ running an offense, given what our expectations are now compared to what they were when he played here. THJ's highest usage season (2011-12) was his worst . He was much better as a second option with Morris or Burke as the primary. The problem is Poole doesn't have any primary options around him. He might be helped by a concentrated effort to make Teske in the post the primary read for the offense.
February 25th, 2019 at 4:10 PM ^
Well said...
February 24th, 2019 at 11:01 PM ^
It's a basketball game. You talk trash. And guess what? Those refs are pigshit and deserve it.
That's the last thing people should be complaining about after this game. Thread wouldn't even exit if we won this game.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:13 PM ^
The refs weren’t that bad today. But the Michigan Basketball team was. In fact I would say they were more pigshit than the refs.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:30 PM ^
I actually thought we got a "B1G home game" ref advantage today. It wasn't largely skewed, but there aren't many games where you see an Izzo team have 6 or 7 fouls on them five mins into a half. We lost bc we couldn't make them pay for sagging off of the guys hanging around the 3 point arc, and we couldn't find ways to score inside the arc with MSU packing in (along with some bad turnovers). Thats my take anyway.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:14 AM ^
The refs weren't a problem in this game.
February 24th, 2019 at 11:07 PM ^
Poole wasn’t at his best today. The shots don’t bother me, as he & Iggy are the best two O players. Poole are best shooter.
The D lapses more concerning. Few key possessions in 2nd half he really stunk. Hope he learns from it & gets better. We can’t have that again.
Bigger Issue is depth. We got 1 guy who can play. Nobody after Top 6 is capable of really contributing anything. Guys looked tired as a result in stretches of 2nd half.
February 25th, 2019 at 6:31 AM ^
The fly-bys when defending the 3 are one of the more frustrating things to watch. The kid leaves his feet on every 3pt attempt. Wasn't he the culprit on the foul to McQuaid for 3?
February 25th, 2019 at 10:04 AM ^
They've all been doing that for 2 years. It's clearly a point of emphasis from Yaklich to fly at 3-point shooters. I'll bet if you asked him he'd tell you that when a shooter pulls it down and resets his shooting percentage drops or something, because they all do it. Sometimes it is so deliberate it seems unnecessary, but as a team they are sure to get that shooter to pull it down.