Michigan basketball....the perfect team?
We all know this to be true. Others are feeling it too; enough to write about in The Ringer
November 30th, 2018 at 11:29 AM ^
Beilein beats his rivals, wins big games as an underdog against Blue Bloods with better recruiting, more resources and more fanfare.
Even if you discount the 6 banners hes hung without the massive blank check that Harbaugh gets every year to go 2-7 against Notre Dame, OSU and Michigan state, must acknowledge that one wins big games and the other doesn't?
November 30th, 2018 at 11:43 AM ^
Irrelevant to the point of my post. But since you brought it up, Beilein was 3-12 vs. our rivals his first 4 years in Ann Arbor.
"BEILEIN CAN'T WIN BIG GAMES! HE'LL NEVER BEAT IZZO!", the idiot internet poster exclaimed in 2011.
November 30th, 2018 at 12:09 PM ^
Beilein had to recover a program that the university all but abandoned. Harbaughs best season was with Hoke's guys.
Beilein is a better tactician and more humble because he came up from the bottom. This you see the constant evolution of the program.
November 30th, 2018 at 12:13 PM ^
That's great, man.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:06 AM ^
When does it stop being overachieving and start being a good coach/team?
November 30th, 2018 at 9:20 AM ^
Exactly this. We are a great bball team. No qualification. It's not over-achieving - its consistency at this point.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:22 AM ^
It is there already. Two things though,
1) this writer did not do his homework - our recruiting class was anything but "underwhelming," and
2) importantly, people need to realize that the college basketball season is really long with a lot games and teams have peaks and valleys. It is entirely possible that this team will go through a prolonged slumped at some point in the season. In 2013, we were ranked number 1 in the country at two different times during the season and wound up with a 4 seed(!) that included a ridiculous loss to Penn State. I think it is clear this team will clearly be in the mix as a real contender come March, but the "best team in the country" talk should probably be tempered a little bit. It is a long season.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:03 AM ^
It stops being overachieving when the team stops being picked sixth or seventh in the conference, and when Beilein stops doing it with hugely underrated kids.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:36 AM ^
They will get the ball to Mathews (or maybe up high to Teske) in the middle of said zone, and place Iggy, Livers and Poole/Brooks on the perimeter, who are shooting 39%, 57% and 40% from long range. Or use Iggy in the middle similar to McGary against Syracuse and let him go to work or kickout. I have a feeling this team will carve up a zone.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:08 AM ^
The Mid-January takes of "Beilein isn't the guy to get us to the next level" takes right before the team would blow up and make an insane run were usually the most consistent takes.
November 30th, 2018 at 8:50 AM ^
The Buckeye in him couldn't stop this dagger from being written:
"Best of all, even though we’re just seven games into the season, I’ve seen enough to believe they’ll get better as the spotlight gets brighter. In other words, Michigan’s basketball program is everything that Michigan’s football program wishes it could be."
This sad, but true, moment brought to you by The Ringer.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:08 AM ^
Uuuuugggghhhh.... that’s definitely a dagger into the heart right now. 8~(
November 30th, 2018 at 8:51 AM ^
Not saying I'm not loving it or that it's undeserved but I find this sort of stuff amusing being at the extreme other end of the spectrum in terms of hyperbolic overreaction to small sample sizes from the football team. Shows you the strength of the "what have you done for me lately" mentality, with lately getting shorter (a week now?) all the time.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:34 AM ^
Harbaugh brings a lot of it on himself with the ways he conducts himself with the media, but there is not really a whole lot he can do in terms of expectations and the narrative that exists about him. Even if he had beat OSU and we inevitably lost convincingly to Alabama, the talk would have been how Michigan is not truly elite and that he cannot compete with the best teams in the country. He is going to have to win a national championship before the media at large lets him off the hook.
It is no more obvious than when you listen to local sports radio shows of all different kinds around here. The narrative all week on more than one show has been "how bad Michigan and Michigan State are how they can change their football fortunes.
Huh? Michigan and Michigan State. Michigan State went 7-5, almost lost to Rutgers, at home, has scored two touchdowns in the final 10 quarters of the season, and has a completely stale program and coaching staff. Michigan went 10-2, played in front of College Gameday 3 times this year, beat MSU, Penn State and Wisconsin by a total of 101-27 in consecutive weeks, and is number 7 in the Playoff rankings and may go to the Rose Bowl and has the number 1 recruiting class in the BIG next year.
Michigan and Michigan State, together in the same analysis. Come again?
November 30th, 2018 at 8:55 AM ^
Good article (except for last sentence); thanks for sharing!
November 30th, 2018 at 8:57 AM ^
This is Mark Titus trying to jinx us. I think by the end of the season, the lack of shooting (not something we can easily improve upon) will be our Achilles' heels when we play in the NCAA tournament. By the way, Vegas has Michigan as the 8th best odds to win the NCAA tournament (behind Duke, UNC, Kansas and even Nevada). Sure we can catch lightning in a bottle. Sure Beilein is a fantastic coach. Sure we are a top 10 team. But the best team in America? I don't buy that. Yet...
November 30th, 2018 at 10:32 AM ^
This is not "lightning in a bottle." The expression implies that a run would be an unforeseen, fluke occurrence. We went to the national title game last year and regularly make deep runs into the tournament.
You are right, I concur with you that "best team in America" may be jumping the gun yet. But your comments kind of imply that Michigan still kind of has "fringe relevance" in terms of the landscape of college basketball. That is just not the case. In the last seven years, we have won the BIG twice, the BIG tournament twice, been to two National Championship games and another Elite 8 and Sweet 16.
Those are numbers consistent with college basketball "blue bloods." We are not just a Top 10 team, we are a Top 10 program.
November 30th, 2018 at 8:59 AM ^
What's the basketball version of "We Want Bama" - We Want Duke?
Yeah, that.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:11 AM ^
Duke is probably the correct answer but it's trending towards we want Michigan.... 'Nova and UNC will have to do for now.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:06 AM ^
Make more Free Throws.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:15 AM ^
and more layups, or just throw them down for crying out loud.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:07 AM ^
I'm not sure you can say they're the best right now, much less perfect. Kansas, Gonzaga and Duke all look very legit. Michigan has played their way into that tier, but don't think you can definitively put them AHEAD of those 3.
But man, Beilein teams always get better, and it's scary to think what a offense with fully mechanized versions of Poole, Mathews and Iggy B looks like.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:08 AM ^
Duke and Gonzaga are legit. Kansas is a lot like UNC. And even Duke is beatable if you force them into a half court game (see Gonzaga).
I actually think the Zags are the most complete team in the country right now. And Nevada is a legit FF contender. They are fun to watch.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:22 AM ^
I mostly agree with you. Kansas is like UNC in that they are beatable, but at the same time they can win any game they are in. Those types of teams are dangerous in March.
As for Duke, while they are beatable in the half court game, it's pretty hard to keep them there. Gonzaga may be the only team capable of really beating Duke. Not saying they won't drop a game here or there, but they are a rare combination of INSANE athleticism, good coaching, deep bench and good shooters. They would beat any team in the country in a seven game series, and it wouldn't go 6.
November 30th, 2018 at 12:06 PM ^
Yeah, Zags are scary and are my number 1 right now. The Duke hater in me (and my desire to not jinx my favorite team) has them as the favorite to win it all.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:10 AM ^
Not perfect. Beilein changed his coaching philosophy and decided to become a defensive basketball team while coordinating with his offensive schemes. The results have spoke for themselves. Michigan has been very very good the last two years and this year his team is most likely the best he has coached yet. He is underrated coach and is 100% ethical. He made the right choice dumping his pro basketball flirtings and staying at UM. He has built a shattered program into a national powerhouse all because he decided to change his personal ego and do what was better for the program. Harbaugh should spend some time with him. The Big Ten this year is BRUTAL in basketball!!! They will be challenged and they will get even better.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:16 AM ^
I don't think he "decided to become a defensive basketball team" as you describe. It's not like he said "hey guys, start sucking at shooting free throws and take a step back on offensive efficiency so we can be a defensive team." He just decided to actually have his team play defense instead of the old Ole' defensive scheme they used to run whereby the main priority on defense was not to foul. I'm sure there's a correlation between the amount of energy and effort they put forth on defense impacting shooting percentages, but the goal was never to put offense on the back burner.
Certainly Beilein deserves some of the credit for the defense his team plays, but the assistants (especially Yaklich) and the players are what have made them an elite defensive team. Can't overstate the importance of the ball pressure Z creates.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:13 AM ^
the defense started to excel when Beilein came to the realization that he could not do everything well, thus he hired Yacklich. to me that was a huge turning point, and a sign of one of the greatest coaches ever being humble enough to admit his weaknesses.
November 30th, 2018 at 5:19 PM ^
It actually started when he hired Donlan to coach defense. Michigan started out slow but was playing good defense at the end of the year. It carried over when he hired Yaklich.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:20 AM ^
I think our team is great, but want to see how it performs against a top defense.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:27 AM ^
Like the one they practice against?
November 30th, 2018 at 11:11 AM ^
yeah wasn't Iggy quoted as saying practice is harder than the games?
November 30th, 2018 at 1:53 PM ^
True, but we look at our football team pre OSU and we're riding high then it happened. Then in hindsight we saw the bad matchup.
I'm saying that I want to see how our team performs against teams with different strengths than what we have seen already. Villanova and UNC are not defensive juggernauts, so we can't say we have seen all potential weaknesses exposed.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:24 AM ^
We had an underwhelming recruiting class? News to me!
November 30th, 2018 at 9:40 AM ^
I guess it's all relative. If you compare it to Duke or KU or UK, it's underwhelming. Maybe what he means is that UM is better than you would think by just looking at the crootin' rankings. It turns out that having a top-3 HC and a top-1 DC matters.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:16 AM ^
I came here to say this. This might be the best recruiting class we've had with Beilein, but he's definitely comparing our class to the traditional powers in BBall. Duke had 4 players in the top 10 or something stupid like that.
November 30th, 2018 at 1:32 PM ^
I like Titus. But he said something last year that really stuck with me related to recruiting.
It was during the tourney run last year, or maybe just after the B1G Tourney win. He was on a podcast and the chatter was out there about Beilein being the best coach in America. And he took mild exception to that. He basically said "Yeah, he's a great Xs and Os coach, but part of college coaching is recruiting. Michigan fans defend his recruiting because he's clean. Well, nobody is forcing him to be that way."
Something like that. Very dismissive. As if refusing to operate under the table is a black eye. He's an Ohio State guy, and I'm not trying to paint with too broad of a brush, but he definitely felt that bagmen and paying for recruits is how this all works and if you're not doing it, that's your fault.
Really bugged me and kinda fits with what he's saying here.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:10 AM ^
hey, you can only get so much without huge bags of cash, cars, and houses from apparel companies!
November 30th, 2018 at 9:51 AM ^
"Perfect" is hyperbole, fine. But the team is equipped for every situation, including facing a zone team. This team can beat a team playing zone, especially if you figure they're shutting down the scoring at the other end.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:54 AM ^
The perfect team? It's fucking November.
November 30th, 2018 at 9:55 AM ^
Nice dig at football on the last sentence.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:04 AM ^
I think the people here saying "But Duke, Gonzaga, Virginia, etc." are being overly cautious in saying how good we are. Obviously it's early on and things can change. We have flaws (depth, FT shooting, 3P shooting but maybe not since we're above average nationally right now), but so does everyone else.
Duke - Only go 7 deep, and since all their freshman are playing they don't really have much potential to get deeper. RJ Barrett has taken like 50 more shots than the next closest Duke player and has by far the worst ORating of the starters so their worst player is taking by far the most shots.
Virginia - Fancystats actually like their offense this year (10th on Torvik and 8th on KenPom). They beat their only 2 real teams (@ Maryland, neutral vs Wisconsin), but by a combined 12 points. Their offensive performance against Wisconsin was the same as ours against Norfolk on a PPP basis. So their offense can still struggle vs good teams and they haven't dominated anyone yet.
Kansas - Look good on paper. Beaten 3 good teams, though they haven't blown any out. Can't shoot FTs though and don't shoot a lot of 3's or do a good job preventing 3's, so they can be exploited in that manner.
Gonzaga - Probably the most impressive team so far, them or Kansas. Beat Duke without one of their best players. Neither KenPom or Torvik love their defense though. Struggled with Illinois and FTs down the stretch vs Duke.
Are we the sure fire best team? No. We have flaws. But so does everyone else. And based on how the games have played out so far, we have just as good a reason to be considered the top team so far. It obviously doesn't matter in November and we could pull an ASU from last year (we won't but we could in theory), but so far the talk is warranted.
November 30th, 2018 at 10:55 AM ^
Michigan is clearly more determined and ruthless than any other team this season, and it will not fall victim to its own hubris.
My only worry is we get too confident. If we play like we are underdogs for every game we should make it back to the final four again.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:00 AM ^
Decent article but I disagree with their assessment of the 2018 recruiting class. I think it’s John Beilein’s second best class while at Michigan. They are just behind some talented upperclassmen for the time being. I also think this team is more athletic than people give them credit for.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:08 AM ^
Iggy is the engine that makes it go IMO. wouldn't it be great to see him next year with this year's freshman shooters on the court? I don't think it happens though.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:06 AM ^
amazing article, until the last sentence that stabbed me right through the heart. I let out an audible oooff at my desk when I read it.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:20 AM ^
I’m not saying that the Wolverines are without flaws. They have plenty, like free throw shooting, 3-point shooting, interior depth, and just an overall bad hair vibe.
I won't lie; I'm struggling with the hair a little bit too. Iggy? Fine. I don't love it but I guess it fits his attitude. Brooks and Z need to get it together though.
(The fact that my chief complaint for the team is their hair should speak volumes about their play so far this season...)
November 30th, 2018 at 11:26 AM ^
At least Simpson looks like he is "going for something" with the hair. Brooks just looks like he hasn't had a haircut in waaaaay too long.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:40 AM ^
True.
I get the impression Brooks is trying to compete with Poole and Livers (who wouldn't; I'm jealous too). Either that or he's trying to be the Dave Chappelle version of Prince, in which case he's NAILING IT.
November 30th, 2018 at 11:48 AM ^
Not gonna lie. That last sentence is a little lemon and salt in an open wound.
Woo! Basketball!