Michigan B1G Honors in hindsight
I find it even more fascinating that our team received modest B1G honors, especially in hindsight of having reached the Final Four. Clearly one of the best teams in the country - with an actual chance to be the best - was only good enough for the following individual honors:
1 - 2nd Team All B1G (Moe)
1 - Honorable Mention All B1G (MAAR)
1 - Sixth Man Award (Formerly-known-as-Uncan)
Nothing else. No coach award. No Freshman award. Modest individual awards, and I don't know if I even disagree with the awards. But I do think this says something about how special this team is: mental toughness, unselfishness, competitive fortitute, desire to be coached, ambition to be their best, and anger towards anyone that gets in their way.
What do you think about this? I didn't compare our awards this year with other Final Four teams over the years, but I would expect this to be on the low end, right?
March 25th, 2018 at 10:15 AM ^
This team is the 03-04 Pistons of college basketball.
Favorite NBA stat:
In the history of the NBA, there have been three teams to win a championship while having no one on their roster who wasn't a past, current, or future player of the year. The three teams:
Pistons 1989
Pistons 1990
Pistons 2004
March 25th, 2018 at 10:36 AM ^
March 25th, 2018 at 12:05 PM ^
That is a hilarious visual but with all the talk to text these days I gotta give him a pass.
March 25th, 2018 at 10:40 AM ^
When he repeated his prediction he acknowledged the public comments from Michigan fans thanking him for picking our opponent.
I think Clark Kellogg picked UM.
hands down easiest choice. Mathews deserved the player of the regioinal award. It was earned in part because of his amazing defense too. But Z/X? Dude is completely essential.
National Coach of the Year get awarded? Beilein has turned in an absolute masterpiece.
Unfortunately, Beilein won't sniff that award. Though he should be the hands down, unanimous winner, he'll come in around 6th place. No love for the national spotlight awards...
March 25th, 2018 at 12:15 PM ^
Bennett will win that award I think. Unranked Virginia dominated a pretty good ACC. He deserves it as long as the tourney isnt part of the vote.
I watched that show on BTN where they have 4 or 5 coaches sitting around at a restaurant eating dinner and tlking basketball. They had a coach from a Swac team or something and he was discussing how nice it was to be able to disregard results from the non-conference and just focus on the process. His team could go 0-12 noncon because the goal is to be at your best in March. The only way for a SWAC team to make the post season was to win the conference tourney (NCAAs) or the regular season title (NIT).
This got me thinking about Beileins 40 year rise through the coaching ranks and his approach to team building. You can see this in his teams. They are better in March than in December because of his focus on the process.
I really don't care, nor am I insulted.
- How could you not give Coach of the Year award to Holtmann? He did a great job coming in this year.
- Regarding the first team player honors, aren't they mostly NBA predictors? As such, they seemed about right.
- Maybe Simpson for defensive POY, but remember, he wasn't even starting half a year ago, and has really come into his own. More than that, a guard at his height with not an overly flashly set of numbers, even for steals, is probably not getting the award.
- Maybe the perceived snub helped motivate Michigan?
Regardless, Michigan is obvious a very good TEAM, greater than the sum of the parts. I love that, and it speaks so well to Beilein, and the players buy - in.
He got pretty rattled in the first half when he was in there. The FSU guys were flying around, and the backups (largely) didn't deal with it very well. Tight game, play the guys that are getting it done. Poole looked rattled when he was in there - no second chance in that kind of game.
He also said “He’s a freshman, and sometimes freshman have some trouble”
March 25th, 2018 at 10:40 AM ^
I appreciate the thread, and it was nice to hearken back to the lack of individual accolades for this team. To win the Big Ten and reach the final four with this crew is an astonishing accomplishment. There are a lot of good players. Yet, there are no 1st teamers or 1st rounders. The thing is, they complement each other perfectly. Coach Beilein methodically selected these players to put together a team that could compete for Big Ten championships. Part of the puzzle for him was DJ Wilson. Yet, even after his early departure after his sophomore year, the incredible coaching made up for the talent deficit. The commitment to defense and the leadership of Z Simpson set the tone for a team that refuses to lose.
March 25th, 2018 at 12:24 PM ^
If DJ could go back and remake his decision knowing what he does now, does he stay? He is the poster child, in my mind, for why you stay unless you know for fact your are a top 5, maybe top 10 pick. If he lights it up this year, like I think he probably would have, hes goes in the top 10 instead of 17th with most of the year spent in the G-League.
Even we blew off this team! We didn't expect much, maybe a 1st or 2nd round exit on a 8 seed line, if we had some luck. All of the anticipation was for next year, when the highest rated recruiting class since the Fab Five was going to roll in to the rescue. It's amaizing what this collection of stiffs and role players have blossomed into! This is the mentally toughest Michigan bball team I can remember watching. The Fab Five got rattled sometimes, and lost patience every now and then, especially when the other team forced the pace and style of play (didn't happen often, though). Not this team. This team just rolls with it and keeps pluggin. They look at a team that's playing tough, like Houston and FSU, and smiles.
We can't score? Then nobody is scoring! 58 points won the West Regional. 58 points. Let that sink in...
March 25th, 2018 at 12:28 PM ^