NIT Edition Snowflakes
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tracked the game on espn and that blythe blog. yeesh.
Recruiting has consequences.
This wasn't the year it was supposed to affect us though. We consist of 4 top-100 players on our squad. They haven't developed
It's not just a recruiting issue (although that hasn't helped). Beilein's West Virginia teams were full of nobodies and they were good.
What's shocked me is how poorly coached we've looked this year. We throw lots of possessions away with frankly stupid play. I've never seen that before from a Beilein team.
That's what has gotten me this year. Last year when the wheels fell off, the team did seem to get better as the year progressed, and they mostly lost because of talent issues. But they have looked lost at times. My assumption is this is the outlier season, but it sure is dispiriting.
We had lost games by double digits with Caris and the teams best win was without him. We also lost to NJ IT and EMI last year with Caris. That is not a valid comparison.
They only went 4-1 without Valentine.
Wait, what?
The talent (at least from the recruiting services) was out there for most of the year. It's just not particularly good.
You guys do realize you're trashing a team that went 20-11 with 10 Big Ten wins, right?
Unless Beilein goes to the dark side, we are going to have to rely on development. It didn't work out this year, but what I saw was a team that didn't really missed Spike as a stabilizer and Caris as a "stopper" who could keep other teams from going off on runs. The other guys are good, but nobody is good enough to be THE MAN yet. Caris was supposed to fulfill that role.
Other teams decided that anyone but Duncan Robinson would be allowed to take threes and nobody stepped up on a consistent basis and made them. Walton and Irvin had good games, but neither was consistent. MAAR was a pleasant surprise, but he wasn't consistent enough, either.
They gave a good effort this year, but it wasn't enough. At this point, I'd rather see them win the NIT. I believe only three teams seeded worse than fourth have won the NCAA Tournament in the last twenty years. In other words, they weren't going to win it all this year, anyway. Since Michigan has been great at taking care of business against lesser teams, maybe the NIT would be the best place for them to gain momentum for next year.
You guys do realize you're trashing a team that went 20-11 with 10 Big Ten wins, right?
No shit. Believe me, if Hoke was here and still going .500 I guarantee you, you wouldn't be posting "you do realize you're trashing a bowl team? Come on." Which is a performance equivalent to making the Dance.
We played Sparty once and Indiana once...at home. Did you see anything that said we'd beat them on the road? We only played OSU once and I'm not certain we would've beaten them at home. Same goes for Wisconsin. I don't believe we beat NW on the road this year. We've played pretty poorly since the first few games of the B1G season. We were fortunate to play Rutgers and Minny twice. This was not a good team in B1G play.
Well, they also played Maryland and Purdue twice, along with Wiscy and OSU on the road. The unbalanced schedule basically helped and hurt everyone; lots of teams got to play Rutgers twice while UM only got them once, for example. It's not that those 10 wins were somewhat unearned given the schedule; it's just that UM absolutely played like an average team by beating the teams they should and not (really) beating any teams they shouldn't. Even the Maryland and Purdue wins were close wins at home, and they didn't look good out of conference against teams not named Texas. But complaining about a schedule quirk here or there doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
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if you have enough talent. That's all I'm saying. It's not as impressive of a bench mark as it was when we had more of a true round-robin format. Take Rutgers and Maryland out of the conference (4 games) and give us another game with MSU (road), Wisconsin, Indiana (road) and OSU. The odds of us going 3-1 in those games would be highly unlikely. We did not beat enough quality teams to make that 20 win regular season look as good as our 20-win seasons with Beilein's first two tournament teams.
Hey, I like Beilein's overall body of work at Michigan. But this year has been a major disappointment. The record is a mirage - now that there are 14 teams playing an 18-game schedule, it's easy to post a winning record. You just have to dominate the dregs of the conference, which we've done.
The Big Ten either needs to go to divisions for basketball or lengthen the conference schedule. It's ridiculous to play only five of the other 13 teams twice.
do you watch the fucking games? due to injuries, this offense is being run through zak irvin. i like the way he has improved, but he is no where near a healthy caris levert. caris was easily the best player on this team; combo shooting, driving to the hoop and/or dishing to teammates. irvin just isn't close.
this iowa game is a perfect example. caris would have shredded iowa, but we were left with irvin, not a good ball handler, trying to attack iowa. not gonna work. not to mention that caris is the best wing defender.
bash JB all you want but he has been dealt a bad deck of cards the past two years due to injuries. spike too matters.
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a few years ago, lost in the first round and then beat us in the elite eight the next year if I remember correctly.
And they were pretty average during the regular season. Pretty sure they were an 8 seed with 1 seed talent.
Losing to Robert Morris in the first round of the NIT in 2013 had nothing to do with their run to the final game in 2014.
It might also help to put in perspective that the top team in the Big Ten only had 14-15 B1G wins (last game pending) and lost 6 games overall. It's a weird year where all the top 10 teams have 4-6 losses and Texas is in the top 25 with 10 losses. Looking back at week 17 rankings in previous years, there hasn't been a team with 10 losses since 2004. It's a weird year.
It might also help to put in perspective that the top team in the Big Ten only had 14-15 B1G wins (last game pending) and lost 6 games overallNot sure I follow . . . we shared the Big Ten title with 13 wins in 2012, would have shared it again with 13 wins the next year if we'd won that last game, and then won by three games in 2014 when we won 15. What is weird about this league now, though, is the schedule. It's become extremely unbalanced and can pretty much decide the title most years.
I was thinking more about the overall top teams in the NCAA and their number of losses when I said it's a weird year. We lost 11 games this year, which is a lot, but in a year where every top 10 team lost 4-6 games (instead of 0-2), I think that reflects more about the parody in the league this year. Kansas is number 1 at 25-4 this year, but that probably puts them closer to number 9 or 10 last year. MSU has 5 losses and normally they also probably wouldn't be the #2 team. My point was that while Michigan basketball was not good this year record wide, neither was anyone else. We should be better, but 11 losses this year isn't as bad as it sounds.
Which is why their is no passion around the Michigan basketball program in general. There is an acceptance that this team will rise up and be good every now and again, but be a fringe tournament team most years. And that doesn't seem to bother anyone.
This season should have shaken every Michigan fan to the core about the future of this program. Going in, I read countless threads on how great the depth was on this team. And even without Caris, this team played with ZERO energy, ZERO intelligence.
You should be 100 percent disappointed in this season.
at 30 my core is no longer dismantled by semi-pro athletics. if your core is shaking, i recommend help or hobbies.
It also comes down to recruiting though. You need more than one person to be the man in the game. Our 2013 and 2014 squads were successful because we had more than one person who could have a huge game. We don't have that. The players we have right now either have low ceilings or are huge development projects, which is not happening at the moment. We've been keeping it close in these games, but something needs to change to push this team over that hump.
but this is total bullshit. if UM had a healthy caris, the offense would run through him vs. zak irvin.. with a healthy caris, walton and irvin could be the good spot up shooters they are. instead, they have to create offense. a healthy caris would make walton, irvin and robinson much better options on the perimeter.
you can't lose a potential lottery player and expect not to regress. plus spike, likely the best passer on the team.
injuries suck. to blame JB is infinitely dumb.
all that said, i would hire a defensive guru in the offseason. not sure i would fire though.
Did Caris make a difference in those double digit loses to SMU, UCONN, and Xavier. For whatever reason this team doesn't seem to be any better with or without him as their best wins, Maryland and Purdue, we're without Caris.
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The "We lose because we do it clean" argument is tired and I don't think it stands up to reason. And making the real tournament is better than winning the NIT.
Here we come.
The first step is to simply have a defense.
Maryland at home was pretty fun
...in Warde Manuel's office right now. Or during a yearly review with JB. Warde may be forced to something sooner than expected.
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..,just not to JB. Trust me.
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Sure. I trust you.
I'm done debating this season. It's definitely disappointing and a bit worrying for the future, but at the same time, some people here are absurdly harsh on a guy who gave us the most successful run of a few years without NCAA sanctions since the late 80's. And UM just won a conference championship 2 years ago. Beilein took some time to get going, but considering he was never going to pull in a bunch of 5-stars and was taking over a program that hadn't made the tourney in 15(?) years, that was expected. Next year will be the real test. Simply making the tourney next year will be a disappointment. Not that I expect them to be a final four team, but they should be a really quality team. Maybe a 4 or 5 seed or whatever.
I don't think Beilein's job is in trouble but his assistants should be feeling the heat. The players this year haven't shown as much developent as we have hoped and perhaps we need someone new to spark the team and recruiting as a whole. A change of assistants worked wonders before. It could do so again.
I feel bad for his assistants when their head coach handicaps them in recruiting with his archaic policies and gimmick offense along with his no defense philosophy.