Was the Harris benching fair?
Let me preface this by saying I know next to nothing about college basketball. I saw this comment on Freep:
http://www.freep.com/article/20090227/SPORTS06/90227010/1054/SPORTS06/M…
"Harris is a better man than Beilein. He saved Beilein's bacon by being more of a man than the coach. Great way to handle it. Very mature.
Beilein over reacted by benching his best player for the over time against the poor Iowa team. It may have cost them the game and the season, It could have come down around his shoulders.
This could have been a monumental mistake that resulted in lost recruits from Detroit. It could have been a defining moment in his career at Michigan.
Beiulein owes Harris some loyalty for this , BIG TIME. Harris got a shot off with 3 second to go. It may not hav ebeen the play Beilein called but with 3 secondslliefrt you get the best shot you can up there. You want players who are willing to take responsibility at curnch time. The play of the clipboard may not work as the clock is ticking away. If you give them the responsibility, you must give them the authroity to make the needed adjustment.
Beilein made a big mistake & Harris rescued him. Good man"
I am just wondering how fair the benching really was. What did you guys (who watched the game live) think at the moment. Reading it next morning I got the feeling it was a not so smart move benching your best player in a must win game, but then I dont really follow basketball so dont have to background.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:28 PM ^
We are assuming the benching was because Harris didn't follow the huddle directions, but that's because Beilein is clamming up and so is Harris, and that's the right thing for both of them to do.
If Beilein were trying to save a falling program here, rather than rebuild a destroyed one essentially from scratch, then I would have had a bigger problem with the move. If we needed a tournament berth to justify continued existence as a relevant program (think: Arizona) then I'd probably be criticizing.
But the larger perspective here is that Beilein is trying to build something from nothing, and he understands that the NCAAs are basically a bonus right now and a berth is mainly for bragging rights only and means nothing to the trophy case. The point is to get players thinking and acting and behaving a certain way, and if you're fed up with a player who's maybe been testing the edge of your sanity, especially one of Manny's caliber, that OT was pretty much the perfect time to make a point and teach a lesson that the entire team will remember. Then next time, when it's not Iowa but Michigan State, and it's not a regular season game with maybe a #11 seed on the line, but the Big Ten title game with a championship and a #1 seed waiting, then the lesson will pay off.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:45 PM ^
Who cares if it was fair. We got screwed on that Iowa game, and they were going to win in OT, it was obvious.
Look at what Manny did against Purdue. If the benching was part of the reason he got fired up, then it can only be a good thing.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:57 PM ^
Fair is not an issue here. Are you 12? That's what this sounds like -- "It's not FAIR that I can't go to the mall."
February 27th, 2009 at 8:00 PM ^
Are you really using the "Comments" section from a newspaper website as a good source on this topic?
February 27th, 2009 at 8:00 PM ^
You shouldn't take anything you see in the Freep comment sections seriously
February 27th, 2009 at 8:18 PM ^
i made a post about this a few days ago. there defintly is something else that we dont know about. but i think this was a great move. just look at the reaction form both manny and simms. this was a huge turning point in the season and i think if mich plays well and makes the torney you can point to the benching as one of the reasons...
February 27th, 2009 at 8:22 PM ^
but they don't know ANYTHING, at all. you saw the game against purdue and JB has 578 career wins. i think he knows what he's doing.
February 27th, 2009 at 9:01 PM ^
fairness is irrelevant. his job is to teach them lessons/skills and it seems like that happened, judging from the purdue game.
February 27th, 2009 at 9:25 PM ^
1. ESPN commenters
2. Fanhouse/Sporting News commenters
3. Newspaper commenters
4. Ellipses Man
There is not a lot separating 1-4 either.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:32 AM ^
Correction- insert "the ohio state university" (in its entirety) in slot #1 and shift everyone down one... that'll give you a top 5
February 27th, 2009 at 10:31 PM ^
It's pretty hard to argue whether or not it was fair until you actually know the reason why....
February 28th, 2009 at 2:56 AM ^
...Beilein benches Harris, for reasons that may never be fully explained (because, maybe, it's none of our damn business). Mr. Harris responds by throwing down 27 on the #16 team in the country.
Seeing as though Coach Beilein probably has forgotten more about basketball than any of us wannabes will ever know, I would trust that he made the right move.
No matter what the Freep, or any of us, would or should say.
February 28th, 2009 at 9:20 AM ^
Harris, clearly, is not letting this upset him. If he's over it, we should be too.
This team is 18-11 and on the cusp of the tournament - they have the scalps of 4 top-25 teams on their wall. They've done all this after stumbling to 10 wins last season and they've done it counting two walk-ons and two freshmen who were ticketed for Valpo if Michigan wasn't desperate among their contributors. This season, NCAA tourney or not, is a success. I want them to make it as much as anyone, but I think we need to calm down a little bit on our reaction to these things. Beilein is a grown man - I doubt he benched his best player out of some kind of vindictiveness.
February 28th, 2009 at 10:56 AM ^
was the worst comment in the entire comment field opn that article. The guy is an idiot. The comment really sounds like it was written by someone who rode the bench for his high school team and blamed the coach for his lack of talent.
In team sports, a team cannot be a democracy; it has to be a dictatorship, with the coach as dictator. There are times to be a benevolent dictator, and times to just put the fucking hammer down. Beilein put the hammer down on Manny, and we all saw the results: UM played their best tactical game of the season.
I trust Beilein's system 100 percent, and I feel that the Purdue game was proof that Beilein was fully correct to bench Manny. When he benched Manny, he showed that no player was more important than the team, even if it meant losing a game.
As for the commenter: Yes, I would like fries with that, please.