J.

April 18th, 2018 at 12:20 AM ^

Unlike football, basketball non-conference schedules aren't finalized until the summer.  Last year's final announcement was July 17th.

UMHoops has a short list here: https://umhoops.com/information/future-schedules/

They'll obviously get a game in the Big Ten / ACC Challenge -- that hasn't been announced either.

FatGuyTouchdown

April 18th, 2018 at 3:38 PM ^

It'd be a hell of a fun game to watch Michigan @ Cameron with the Crazies and all those stud freshman. I think it'd be a very winnable game and would really be a big time chance to impress.

TrueBlue2003

April 18th, 2018 at 1:42 AM ^

with the new 20-game conference schedule which is awesome.

Other than a November tournament in Connecticut with ok teams (GW, Providence and South Carolina), I think the only game known is the first leg of a home and home with Cincinatti (per UMHoops).

Hopefully for entertainment sake, we have none of the usual SWAC and MEAC glorified scrimmages, but the RPI impact was always overstated (as the 16-17 season was probably the only one in which it hurt seeding significantly).

TrueBlue2003

April 18th, 2018 at 5:58 PM ^

Yeah, I don't care so much about the conference schedule being unbalanced (even though this is a nice improvement as it reduces single plays by 25%) as I do about adding two quality games to the schedule.  If those two additional conference games replace two MEAC/SWAC teams that we had been scheduling (hopefully that's how we approach it), it's a more entertaining and stronger overall schedule.  Especially since we now have MSU twice gauranteed.

MH20

April 18th, 2018 at 8:32 AM ^

That is a decidedly blah set of teams for that tournament. GW was terrible this past season, SCar was barely .500 and Providence was a 10-seed and lost in the first round. I don't like making these kinds of declarations but this really seems like a tournament Michigan should win.

Interesting that Michigan could play South Carolina twice within like a month's time (UMHoops lists a home game against them).

MH20

April 18th, 2018 at 3:40 PM ^

Is Bowen expected to be cleared? At this time he hasn't but of course we're seven months away from the beginning of next season so lots of time yet.

Also, their shooting (and offense in general) is going to have to dramatically improve. Their Kenpom profile on the offensive side is crazy red (aside from OReb and FGA/FTA), including their mark of 14.8% of all shots being blocked, good (bad) for second-worst in all of D1. Obviously Michigan loses its share of offense but with the D they will have their offense can flounder a bit and still be okay in the early going. Carolina's 161st-ranked offense would have fits with Michigan's D.

Alumnus93

April 18th, 2018 at 12:49 AM ^

As bad as I wanted to see our team win this year, something about the future feels right. DeJulius, Bradzenkis, Castleton, Nunez, etc. These guys are gonna win a NCAA title I can feel it.

Tom Bombadil

April 18th, 2018 at 1:39 AM ^

I feel like Michigan and Beilein are due. But I also worry at setting my expectations too high because it takes so much luck to get really deep in the tournament. We evaded all the top seeds on our side of the bracket, because,while they were great teams, they had off nights before we had to play them. We might have a better team basketball wise that doesn't make it out of the first weekend. 

Larry Sellers

April 18th, 2018 at 1:17 AM ^

He seems to have the similar skill set as Moe and a pretty fluid game. Based on what I've seen, his ability to space the floor and also attack closeouts would be great for Beilein's system. 

But I assume he'll still need some time to bulk up and get used to the competition. So in the meantime, I am eager to see Teske's improvement on his elbow jumper. It started to come on later in the season pretty well. Obviously it won't be as good as Moe's 3 point threat, but if it's reliable enough, it should still force defenses into difficult decisions. That plus his defense and rebounding and I am pretty enthused to see him in the lead role. Bring on the Big Nasty!

B-Nut-GoBlue

April 18th, 2018 at 3:46 AM ^

I will be very curious to see if that boy can turn that shot into a 3 pt shot. It was nice to see him shoot and make a handful of those midrange and elbow jumpers but in this day in age where "advanced" metrics are used all around the country, I think stats will show and prove to teams that they'll be very much okay giving and leaving that shot for Teske to take. I don't think that's a high enough efficiency shot. It may draw a defender to over extend somewhat and sometimes but over the course of next year it will be left "open" to take and unless he truly hits it at a 65% rate it won't be efficient enough to justify often enough.

It would be great if his jumpshot translates out another 6-7 feet and at a 30% clip.

tasnyder01

April 18th, 2018 at 11:29 AM ^

People keep saying "midrange shots are bad", and they assume that means "all midrange shots are EQUALLY bad." That's not how stats work.

Midrange shots depend on
A.) Quality of shooter
B.) Quality of shot.

If teams leave you open for a midrange shot and you hit open midrange shots 70%, that's really friggin good!

samdrussBLUE

April 18th, 2018 at 9:20 AM ^

Flip those numbers around and extend the hook out to 10 feet and we will get very solid, consistent minutes. He’s never going to be relied upon to shoot the three.

uncle leo

April 18th, 2018 at 8:58 AM ^

Unusual thing. MSU always get near unanimous picks from every expert that they will win the entire tournament.

I was stunned that in the same bracket with Kansas and Duke, literally every expert was very confident in MSU taking the crown. And all you had to do was point to their garbage Big Ten competition and how they looked to prove otherwise.

ijohnb

April 18th, 2018 at 9:21 AM ^

they said it but they were not as committed to the Sparty pick as they had been in passed years, 2006 specifically.  This year they were more like "I guess Michigan State, maybe..... probably."  I think how this passed tourney went down kind of exposed to the national guys that State is really not what they have thought they are anymore.  I don't expect them to be the "sexy" pick for a while now.

ijohnb

April 18th, 2018 at 9:27 AM ^

just remember seeing Bilas and Vitale, really.  I heard other people picked them too but only saw those two live.  Bilas almost seem to pick them because he didn't know who else to pick and Vitale was quite a bit more reserved in his enthusiasm.  In any case, I don't think they will be that team anymore going into the tournament.

In reply to by ijohnb

uncle leo

April 18th, 2018 at 9:54 AM ^

They will still have that mystique about them. Even if analysts are hesitant to pick them to win it all now, they'll see the name, they'll see Izzo, maybe somewhere between the 2-4 seeds, and get that itch again.

Boner Stabone

April 18th, 2018 at 9:08 AM ^

I officiated a game this year with Marcus Bingham (MSU recruit) playing and he was getting pushed around by a bunch of 6'2" football players and lobbying for foul calls. 

He was able to score, because he is 6'10" and could just jump over them, but I was thinking this guy is going to have a rude awakening in the BigTen next year if he cannot handle a little contact from some below average 6'2" high school players.

MH20

April 18th, 2018 at 8:47 AM ^

Winning six tournament games takes a lot of skill but also a decent amount of luck. Also, Kentucky won in Calipari's third season (2011-12) so they were definitely his players (three frosh and two soph starters). His first three seasons went Elite 8, Final Four, National Champs and he's made four Final Fours in nine seasons (with two title game appearances).