Recruiting concerns.
There is an elephant in the room. We dance around it and it's time to stop. We don't have the proper athletic talent at our 4 and 5 spots. We try and win with middling talent in the paint and stretch 4 and 5s!?!?! This is not going to work for this program in my opinion. The Center for SMU had 8 dunks tonight. 8! That's absolutely a result of inadequate recruiting and coaching in the paint. We have som great wing players but we sorely lack in the paint. We are one of the worst rebounding teams in the B1G year in and year out and have to shoot extremely well to win. Connecticut ..Xavier and SMU all featured athletic front lines and all 3 embarrassed us badly. Many will think we lost tonight because Caris shot miserably. We lost because we have guys playing in the paint that simply can't get it done. It's very similar to our line backing core down the stretch. The level of athleticism simply isn't there to compete on an elite level.
The Xavier game sticKS out most because that Center was from Detroit....and he manhandled us. We have 3 players at the 5 spot that are not physically able to compete on an elite level. Moritz may get there and has talent and youth on his side. He may turn out to be an exception and is very likeable. The other 2 just have not progressed and are assuredly great kids...but not effective simply put. Why does DJ Wilson not play? He's by far the best athlete and plays the least. It's a head scratcher for me because his ceiling suggests that he'd be worth the invested minutes. He gets scrap minutes...and is our best athlete in the paint. This wouldn't be as troubling if there wasn't more of the same coming down the pipe in recrutiing. We still don't have an athletic big coming in for the next 2 classes and Beilein seems to be willing to settle with this. This is simply upsettling. Webber...Howard....Baston....Taylor...Trayor......hell even Courtney Sims and J. Morgan! Where are our athletic bigs these days? It sure seems like everyone else has them. We used to have them and we've gotten completely away from it.
You do NOT win without athletes in the paint. Simple and plain. The notion that we can shoot our way around it or hit on one single big recruit (Mitch) in a 4 year span is absolute rubbish. Something needs to change. Michigan used have some of the most dynamic athletes in the country in the paint and until we get back to that it's just going to be hard to stomach. We need to recruit Detroit for starters and play our athletes. We can continue to avoid this elephant and make excuses as to why we are consistently losing to physical front lines...or we can adapt and change. We are not going to win without help in the middle. 8 damn dunks from one player.....that's not even pride. If Bacari is in charge of the bigs....then he needs to be held responsible because it's awful. Youth is something everyone plays with and isn't an excuse.
Recruit Detroit please...or at least fight like hell to do so. Tired of seeing homegrown talent go elsewhere and us running to the damn burbs to grab underrated kids who don't play with the same explosiveness and passion. Enough is enough. Your 5s don't need to be able to knock down 20 foot jumpers. That's horse crap. Get some dogs in the paint. We look straight up soft right now and thats the worst thing to look like.
December 9th, 2015 at 12:36 AM ^
Every single 5 Beilein has recruited other than McGary has been awful. That's a reality that people here don't want to face, but it's true, and it's destroying the program.
Can you make it work with elite development at other positions? Sure. But when you don't, you get run off the floor by fringe Top-25 teams.
December 9th, 2015 at 12:40 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 1:08 AM ^
People shat on him so much when he was a RS Freshman and even until he was a RS Junior.
I saw it on here.
Just like the same did so to Denard. They'll never learn.
December 9th, 2015 at 4:27 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 6:33 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 8:51 AM ^
I agree. Beilein is trying to lean on him like he is Burke or Stauskas. We don't have one of those, so we better be able to come together and play like a team. The end of last season, the team was really looking good. Add Mo Weezy, Walton, Caris and Duncan, how aren't we better?
December 9th, 2015 at 9:49 AM ^
I agree with Ijohnb that I don't think Levert is a top tier talent. He is a good player, but I think he is meant more for the role of a secondary player. Too many times he dribbles way too much and/or takes early bad shots that he can get anytime in the shot clock. He wants to fill the Stauskus/Burke role, but he just isn't as good as either of them with the ball in his hands. Honestly, even with a healthy Walton we would have got beat pretty bad here. I don't think this is a tournament team. Their Defense is way too bad and their offense isn't of an elite level to help make up for it. Our best non-conference win was against Kenpom's #48 team Texas.
December 9th, 2015 at 12:17 PM ^
Very good player who can be a nightmare to defend if the defense isn't keying on him. Caris can run the offense, he has the skill to do it, but that is not where he is best suited. IMO this is where Walton is missed because his initial attack off the dribble is much more effective in this offense with Caris being the second one to immediately test the defense if Walton can't create his own shot.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:00 AM ^
That's because he was pretty terrible until his final year. So you can drop the "they'll never learn" schtick, especially coming from you.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:56 AM ^
Thats because bigs take time. Out of the 4 centers, 2 are Sophomores and 1 is a Freshman. Everyone is complaining about how they miss JMo, but they are only thinking of his 5th year in the program. It's way to early to write off these young guys playing the five right now.
December 9th, 2015 at 9:57 AM ^
Morgan was killing it with DMo on the pick n' roll and was second or third in completion % in the league his sophomore year.
December 9th, 2015 at 9:21 AM ^
We should be able to recruit someone that can show up consistently before their RS Senior year. And you seem to forget all the blown layups he had, like the one that would've won us the regular season B1G title against Indiana. Dude wasn't even playing that much in the tournament until the Syracuse game because his confidence was shaky and Mitch was on fire.
If that's the best we can hope for, I'm sure our current bigs can get to that level by their senior year.
December 9th, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
Love J-Mo and he would be the best center on this team but he isn't good enough. There is a reason he rode the bench for most of the final four run and his limitations are the main reason we didn't get past Kentucky in the elite eight the following year despite being hot from outside (they rebounded like 50% of their missed shots). If J-Mo is your center you aren't winning a championship and Michigan has enough money/respect that being in that conversation is the goal.
Its actually a lot like Denard at QB except Denard had more impact. He was amazing but when teams took away the run (like every time we played msu) he wasn't a good enough pure passer to beat them. His ceiling made winning the ultimate goal extremely unlikely.
December 9th, 2015 at 10:09 AM ^
A little sanctimonious, aren't we, WD? I find most of the hockey open threads unreadable because of your negativity towards players. And yes, many of those players are young and promising.
December 9th, 2015 at 12:46 AM ^
Yes, I do. And he's currently playing for Hermine de Nates Atlantique of LBN Pro B in France.
December 9th, 2015 at 12:48 AM ^
And he was excellent for Michigan.
What's your point?
December 9th, 2015 at 12:56 AM ^
Here's my point: If your best argument for Beilein's development of non-McGary centers is a 4th-year guy who played behind freshman McGary, you've lost the argument.
Jordan Morgan was not excellent for Michgan. In his best year, he averaged 5.0 Rebs and 6.4 PPG. He was a hard worker and deserving of fan appreciation, but how delusional do you have you to be to consider that "excellent"?
December 9th, 2015 at 1:02 AM ^
Freshman McGary was on a tear. Of course he was gonna start.
You said they were all awful. JMo was far from awful.
He made an all-defensive team. Was good on the glass and took charges like a champ.
Say what you want about Doyle and Donnal, but Beilein and co. did a good job with 2/3 star JMo.
And points per game? It's a guard-oriented system. His job really isn't to score a bunch of points. He's there to set screens, play defense, take charges, and if they leave him alone, he'll dunk it down. He did his job.
December 9th, 2015 at 1:25 AM ^
If you want to quibble about whether Morgan was awful, slightly below mediocre, or mediocre, fine. I'll admit that awful is too strong.
But it's absurd to say that it "wasn't his job" to score points when the guy who surpassed him averaged 14.3 PPG and 10.7 RPG during our title game run, as if worse play from the center position is somehow a feature of Beilein's system.
December 9th, 2015 at 1:26 AM ^
It really isn't though.
McGary scored points because he could shoot. JMo couldn't shoot so he contributed in other ways. Beilein does not need a 5 who puts up double digit PPG to win.
His lack of scoring points didn't stop them from getting a B1G title outright 2 years ago. Or from getting to the Elite 8 (and damn near another Final 4).
If you think JMo mediocre at best because of PPG, I don't know what to tell you.
December 9th, 2015 at 1:55 AM ^
So your argument is "he didn't score because he didn't have offensive skill, and his lack of offensive skill didn't hurt us." Is that really your standard for excellence?
December 9th, 2015 at 7:32 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 8:51 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 9:04 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 11:20 AM ^
mediocre: of only moderate quality, ordinary, average, middling, middle-of-the-road, undistinguished
Yeah, that is a pretty accurate descriptor.
December 9th, 2015 at 9:41 AM ^
Taking charges isn't what you want from a center and is everything that is wrong with beileins defensive philosophy. We had 5 future nba players on a team in college and were barely top 50 in defensive statistics. That isn't good.
December 9th, 2015 at 1:38 AM ^
did you miss that? he dominated the texas and tennesse big men when the experts said those guys would dominate. but for a couple cheap fouls in the 1H against KY, he leads us to that victory too.
December 9th, 2015 at 3:15 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 6:57 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 11:22 AM ^
I don't k now that it's "absurd" and I don't think the NBA differs from college bball as much as the NFL does with college football. I agree that his NBA success, or lack there of, is not the best way to evaluate him.
That said, we've kind of gotten away from the point here. It seems like we all agree that Morgan is the second best big we've had in Beilein's tenure and there's clearly debate on how good he really was. I think a lot of this is clouded because he was a fan favorite, a hard worker, a good student and an all-around good dude. And he's from The D and lots of Michigan fans will always like local guys.
But as a player, JMo was far from a star. He couldn't shoot, he didn't block shots, he would go up weak with a lay up and miss instead of throwing it down like a big man should. He very frustrating for long parts of his career. He turned out to be a fine player by his 5th year, but that shouldn't be what we want in our 2nd best big man of the last decade.
December 9th, 2015 at 7:18 AM ^
that Ms. Michigan?
If so, he was excellent for Michigan.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:20 AM ^
I loved Jordan Morgan, but it took 4 years for Jordan Morgan to become Jordan Morgan.
That's not a comfortable way to live. Wagner could become great, but we don't want to burn multiple seasons waiting for it.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:56 AM ^
It's one thing to say Beilein has earned patience. It's another to say that he doesn't need to improve.
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December 9th, 2015 at 9:26 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 1:18 PM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 12:37 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 6:21 AM ^
The guy who took a perpetual losing team to the NATIONAL TITLE GAME is destroying the program......you, sir, are an idiot.
December 9th, 2015 at 7:22 AM ^
So you're both kinda right. He did take Michigan to a title game, but his recruiting a development of bigs is killing any chance of that ever happening again. Wether or not he's killing the program now depends on what you think the program is: top 40'ish team that makes a deep run once every 5-10 years, or a perennial top 15'ish team.
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December 9th, 2015 at 11:24 AM ^
JB obviously did not ruin the program, but its also seems obvious that the NC game run was a bit of a fluke. Recruiting got worse after that game, not better and I have no idea why. Recruiting has had me and others worried for several years now and we are finally seeing the result of all those misses.
December 9th, 2015 at 8:17 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 9:03 AM ^
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December 9th, 2015 at 9:14 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 11:41 AM ^
We need to put last year in its proper context. Losing two of your five starters to season-ending injuries is not common in basketball.
We were 11-7 when LeVert was lost for the season. We may not have gone on to make the tournament, but we were most likely going to be in the NIT, at least, if he and Walton had been healthy. We lost, what, four overtime games without them?
December 9th, 2015 at 12:45 PM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 1:38 PM ^
I have (and had) no problem writing last year off as a blip. The trouble is that we so far don't look any better this year, and next year ain't looking much better.
December 9th, 2015 at 11:25 AM ^
Can we not act like Michigan basketball was Indiana football or something? Yes, Beilein took the program to places it hadn't been in a while, but this is still one of the top-20ish basketball programs in NCAA history. I think the expectation is that we make it to the Final Four occasionally, but when we don't, we don't suck.
December 9th, 2015 at 11:36 AM ^
Yes. Beilein's done a great job and I'm not flying off the handle over last night's game. But he inherited a sleeping giant - which is why he came here. We have been to the national championship game in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '10s.
December 9th, 2015 at 6:45 AM ^
December 9th, 2015 at 9:06 AM ^
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