Basketball Snowflakes
Any hope for the season is lost at this point.
Would like to see Dug become a semi-competent PG down the stretch. Idk what to think of TWill. Dickinson misses more layups than any 7 footer should.
I’d love to never see the Jett and Kobe disappearing act again.
Time for Juwan to broom out the assistants and freshen up the staff. Next year is hot seat time and I’m rooting for the guy unlike most of this forum, but going 0-6??? in crunch time games this year is next level sad.
February 12th, 2023 at 12:46 PM ^
Maybe if it hits his pride. Unless he's using Benjamins to wipe his butt, the man already has enough money to coach for free for the rest of his life.
February 12th, 2023 at 9:35 AM ^
The funny thing about all this sturm und drang is that if you took 5 steps back and asked people what it would look like if a team has one proven scorer coming back, loses two (theoretically) highly skilled underclassmen who leave for the NBA, loses its returning point guard before the season, then loses its replacement point guard early in the season, and is thus forced to start a 5'10" true freshman point guard ... this is pretty much the record they would predict.
The problem is how it actually feels to lose these games. We may know the team isn't really in a position to win all the time ... but losing hurts, regardless of the reason, and we need to blame someone. Hey Presto: Juwan sucks!
People need to take a breath. That last five minutes is exactly when a true and skilled and experienced point guard would be most important -- and that's exactly the player we don't have.
C'est la vie. I'm not suggesting this reflects an unbelievably strong coaching job by Juwan, but sometimes things happen, and against this perfect storm of misfortune, the fact that the team is still absolutely competing is impressive.
Yes, losing hurts. But to only focus on that -- especially when we knew it was going to happen -- seems unfair. They're fighting damned hard and giving everyone, including Purdue and Indiana, runs for their money. That's a good coaching job, seems to me.
February 12th, 2023 at 12:42 PM ^
Maybe I was paying too much attention to Werther’s sorrows at the start of the season, but I don’t recall the team being very good when Llewellyn was playing. Losing him still hurt, but they lost plenty with him playing.
February 12th, 2023 at 1:40 PM ^
Agreed Llewellyn looked like he was in way over his head in his short time playing. We just might be better off with Dug starting, but his loss does hurt depth big time.
February 12th, 2023 at 9:40 AM ^
One last note. I'm tired of TV announcers in any sport talking as if scoring (or drawing a foul) is easy. Whoever it was doing the broadcast last night insisted, during the time out, that Michigan simply has to "feed the ball to Dickinson down low."
As if our previous attempts to do that -- I'm thinking primarily of that catastrophically bad pass by TWII late in the game -- had all gone well. I mean, yes, get the ball to Dickinson two feet from the bucket guarded by a 6-footer, if you can. Sure. Smart analysis.
It's like when someone has three fouls and the announcers say "you need to go at him and draw that fourth foul," as if drawing a foul is something the offense can do anytime it wants.
Grrr. Stupidity.
February 12th, 2023 at 1:16 PM ^
Hard to take someone seriously when you're always looking for coaches to be fired.
February 12th, 2023 at 1:32 PM ^
I've read through the entire thread, painful as it was to relive.
What hasn't been mentioned yet is how abysmal Michigan is at transition. Did we have one fast break basket in the entire game? Sometime in the first half Michigan had a steal near the timeline and a 1 man fast break became a 2 man fast break and then was a 2 on 1 fast break and I don't even think we got a shot up. Somehow we lost it out of bounds on the baseline.
February 12th, 2023 at 1:46 PM ^
That's the problem the team is not very good at dribbling and passing at slow speed , now Juwan wants them to push it all game. It's true we need some transistion buckets but it's just not a viable option most of the time with our lineups.
The play you were talking about is Baker and Bufkins on a 2 on 1 fast break. Baker gave the ball up early and Bufkins instead of taking it strong to the hoop tried to make a late pass to cramped in space Baker. Just completely botched. That hurt. Had a few possessions like that. I feel the game has slowed down alot for bufkins this year but he's still playing rushed at times. He passed up many open shots yesterday only to settle for tough contested shots.
February 12th, 2023 at 3:07 PM ^
Welp it looks like this hire was a Dud..I like Juwan but the last 2 years ( yeah I know they made the sweet 16 after barely getting into the tournament)_but the last 2 years have shown that plain and simple HES NOT A VERY GOOD Xs and Os coach...We should NOT be in this position and His recruits have been a dud as well. Ive never been a big fan of Warde Manuel either hes underwhelming and I know he wont let Howard Go BUT if we have one more year of THIS then its time to for him to go..Would Belein come back?
February 13th, 2023 at 6:09 AM ^
I am a big fan of Michigan - everything about it. Beilein is 70 - he’s not returning to Michigan as head coach.
It might be nice if Juwan asked Beilein to return to Michigan as an analyst - focused on fundamentals - and, put together a list of activities the players should go through to improve their “basics”.
February 12th, 2023 at 4:04 PM ^
And regarding that last play: where was Kam Chatman when we needed him?