Dawkins over Robinson?
Duncan Robinson went 1-4 on threes vs NW and most of them were open looks. Duncan played 21 minutes and Dawkins played 19. But what was suprising was when the game was really close at the end, Dawkins was playing and Robinson was on the bench. Is Dawkins going to start playing more?
February 25th, 2016 at 10:50 AM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 10:56 AM ^
Not only do I think we should replace Robinson with Dawkins in the line-up, but I think we should pull Robinson's scholarship, have him withdrawn from classes, send him back to DIII (no, make that D4), and then, when all that's done, we should salt the earth around his parents home so nothing can grow again.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:02 PM ^
Didn't they already do that to Swenson. I mean if there is precedent...
February 25th, 2016 at 5:27 PM ^
...and his children's children.
February 25th, 2016 at 9:02 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 11:07 AM ^
i trusted in burke. beilein has given us little reason to trust in him lately.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:15 AM ^
...his best player and his only two seniors.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:17 AM ^
having mcgary hurt for all of the BIG season and ncaa tourny. we win the title with a healthy mcgary.
what team competes for a league title when losing their best player and another key player to injury? answer: no one.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:19 AM ^
lost one of their best players (Blackmon Jr) and they are in first place.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:35 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 12:48 PM ^
I'd say MSU still has a legit shot at getting a share of the Big Ten title.
MSU's remaining schedule: PSU, @Rutgers, OSU
IU's remaining schedule: @Illinois, @Iowa, Maryland
Maryland's remaining schedule: @Purdue, Illinois, @IU
Iowa's remaining schedule: @OSU, IU, @UM.
Out of those 4 teams MSU easily has the softest remaining schedule.
February 25th, 2016 at 1:30 PM ^
Sparty went 3-1 without Valentine. They beat PSU in his first game back...then they lost 3 in a row with Valentine averaging 20 points and 38 minutes in those losses. Their season has little to do with his injury.
February 25th, 2016 at 1:21 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
February 25th, 2016 at 1:27 PM ^
Give IN back Blackmon and take off Ferrell and another senior contributor (Max B). They are not in 1st. Take off Valentine and another senior. Take off Uthoff and another SR contributor. I wonder would any of these teams have 20 & 10 right now?
February 25th, 2016 at 1:31 PM ^
were candy and nuts it'd be Xmas every day.
I love how people on this board are quick to rip Izzo for whinning when MSU has injuries, but as soon as UM has injuries, it's okay to play the injury card.
February 25th, 2016 at 1:39 PM ^
No team is immune from regression when their best player and POY candidate goes down. The "injury card" comments and "next man up" comments aren't objective. Injuries happen. Teams deal with them. Some you can coach/recruit over...some are too big to do that.
February 25th, 2016 at 3:10 PM ^
All the whining and excuse making about losing our best player hides the fact that we weren't that good with Levert, and got blown out against the three best teams we played with him, and once again we weren't the top 25 team we were projected and expected to be BEFORE the injuries.
We have the WORST 2pt% defense in the conference. Worse than Rutgers. That is because our interior defense consists of Mark Donnal, Zak Irvin and Duncan Robinson and our guards not named Rahkman can't keep anyone out of the paint. Levert and Spike weren't gonna help there and it's nearly impossible to be good team if you're horrendous at doing the most important thing on defense: prevent teams from getting to and/or finishing at the rim.
The team is bad at defense. It's not regression from injuries people are frustrated with, it's the mediocre baseline before that regression even took place, with no apparent solution in the near future.
February 25th, 2016 at 1:43 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 8:57 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 4:38 PM ^
Indiana is actually a better team without Blackmon, Jr. They move the ball better and they play defense.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:19 AM ^
For some reason, key injuries seems like something we may just have to get use to...Its happening often
February 25th, 2016 at 11:26 AM ^
Had major injuries to Payne, Dawson, and Appling and still competed a couple years back.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:35 AM ^
aaaaaaand there it is. Sparty in a Wolverines clothing.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:38 AM ^
You can't dispute the point so you go to that. pathetic.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:12 PM ^
If I recall, when Michigan State had all those injuries they were losing more games than they normally do, including to Michigan. That losing skid prompted the "Weird guys" comment from Izzo that lives in this blog's lore to this day.
February 25th, 2016 at 2:05 PM ^
Appling missed 5, Dawson 10 and Payne 9 starts. During the games where at least one guy missed a start Sparty was 9 - 6 including two Ls vs UM. Once all guys were back they finished 7-2 including B1G tourney win and an Elite 8 run.
They did not win nearly as much with injuries. They won when healthy and lost a lot when hurt.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:47 AM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 11:52 AM ^
(1) Appling Injury: you are correct. I exaggerated. He only missed a few games. gold star.
(2) Why does it matter how dawson hurt himself? The point is they kept winning without one of their best players. Ditto with Payne.
(3) The fact that Izzo had a talented, deep, experienced roster and beilein does not is not some random act of God. It is by virtue of Izzo doing a better job of managing his roster than beilein. This is part of a coach's job. If you are going to give a coach credit for building a good roster, you can't turn around and give him a pass for building a bad roster.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:05 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 12:39 PM ^
I don't think beilein is doing a good job and I explained why. This apparently infuriates you. You said some very mean things to me, which make me feel bad.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:44 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 12:47 PM ^
And your dad! Wait...
February 25th, 2016 at 1:37 PM ^
Can't....resist....joke...about....user name and comment.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:46 PM ^
Izzo spent that whole year whining about inuries, while Michigan put it past them, and went out and won the Big Ten Title. Your whole narrative of that season is full of shit.
February 25th, 2016 at 1:37 PM ^
(1) MSU's best player that year was Gary Harris, who missed only a couple games
(2) Payne missed 6-7 games at the very beginning of the BigTen season and was there for almost all of their tough tests
(3) Dawson missed time, agreed, but he was arguably their 4th or 5th best player, so....what's your point? He was also back for the stretch run.
Also, you're comparing apples to oranges. That MSU team was ranked #1 in the country at multiple points early in the year, had FOUR former 5 star recruits - 2 of them seniors (Payne/Appling), 1 junior (Dawson), and 1 Soph (Gary Harris).
Mich Bball doesn't have depth because all of their good players went pro early, something that almost never happens at MSU. The homer point of view is that Beilein is just a much better developer of talent than Izzo. The flip side is that Izzo is a better recruiter of top level HS talent, and has a better "system". It's probably somewhere in the middle, like everything.
Bottom line - your comparison sucks. Losing your two senior leaders that happen to be your best player and the best complementary "first guard off the bench" in the league is something that would take any team down a notch.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:05 PM ^
Depth. JB has only had it once in his 9 years at Michigan. That was The Year. I believe that team's 6th man who who played so good in practice is the same player who basically hasn't played for 2 years because of injury.
Until JB manages to recruit better there will be no consistency. I very much like the current sophomores but how well they do going forward will be dependent on the next incoming class.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:42 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 12:57 PM ^
Dawkins looks worse. Is this due to an actual regression in abilities, or a decrease in available minutes?
Doyle is definatley worse, and that has nothing to do with Donnal's improvements
MAAR is now my favorite player on the team.
Chapman is only better because he couldn't get any worse. In all seriousness, last year he looked completely lost on the court and was a liability. This year he has looked ok in his limited minutes.
"Next year I have no problem saying We have a very good chance to win the B10 if everyone stays healthy. I say this because we bring back this exact team, just a year older and more experienced."
We said the same thing last year. I guess it got us 2 (and counting) wins.
February 25th, 2016 at 1:20 PM ^
This is pretty much the same team as last year too.
Instead of Spike last year, they have Walton this year.
They lost Max from last year but added Robinson and Wagner.
February 25th, 2016 at 3:50 PM ^
didn't just get passed up by a better player though to get relatively worse as you imply. He got absolutely worse and it's hurting the depth because if we was even as good as he was last year, our backup center wouldn't be as much of a dropoff.
He's turned it over at nearly twice the rate he did last year. His Ortg is down, blocks rate is down.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:38 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 12:45 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 11:23 AM ^
and he is 7th in the conference with 10 healthy scholarship players, 9 of whom have experience in the program. He would have 11, but he booted max bielfeldt FOR AN EMPTY SCHOLARSHIP.
Look at indiana's roster. Ohio State. Wisconsin. Those are better rosters?
He has 3 juniors and 3 sophomores with lots of playing experience. Being tied for 7th in the conference is not impressive.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:07 PM ^
February 25th, 2016 at 11:34 AM ^
Your -98000 points puts you in the "Trusted Agent" category?
February 25th, 2016 at 11:37 AM ^
about my points. I knew I would get negged to oblivion once I strated criticizing beilein, because any sharing of criticism of coaches or players gets you an auto-neg. Of course, in retrospect, once those people get let go, it becomes gospel that you have to blame everything on them (rich rod, hoke, etc). No hyporcirsy there! People are reflexively defending beilein despite multiple major failures and I will call it out. Enjoy your precious points.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:53 AM ^
You should give an eff about your poor grammer, spelling, and random/inconsistent capitalizing of letters.
February 25th, 2016 at 11:55 AM ^
jUst woNderIng.
February 25th, 2016 at 12:16 PM ^
Shit, I basically just stuttered while trying to deliver a burn. But at least I'm not the community's clown. Or a colossal asshole that can't prove his goddamn point with a single logical argument other than half-truths and incorrect anecdotes.