Beilein deserves at least one more year, but....

[maelfan]

even if next year is his last because we fail, you better be careful about who comes in.

The next coach needs to be a game changer like Harbaugh. I'm not sure that can ever happen. What top tier coach will want to be in the shadow of what is going on with football right now?

You need a big name with a huge , charismatic personality. They can't settle.

One of two things happens next year.

A) the entire roster returns and improves enough to have an excellent year.

B) the entire roster is at their ceiling and next year looks identical to this year and Beilein is done.

Regardless, I still think going 18-18 in a very strong big ten with four huge injuries is a feat maybe no other coach in conference could have accomplished. However no other coach worth their salt in the big ten should have had this many recruiting failures making it impossible to overcome those injuries.

 

[tarun262]

Here's my take on this team. This years team reminds me a lot of Brady Hoke's team from his last season where virtually every player regressed or plateaued. Other then Donnal I feel like every player was shell of themselves from the year before and that is disturbing. Dawkins was terrible. Chatman should have his scholarship revoked. Doyle is clueless. Walton has zero vision and is a terrible finisher. Irvin is super inconsistent. MAR got better as the year progressed. I am less concerned about the results but rather the player improvement. I believe with Caris we probably win another 3-4 games and with both Caris and Spike potentially another 1-2 more on top of that but injuries are part of the equation. This brings me to next year when we have the exact same group of folks returning - the exact and none of those players have shown an appetite to improve at all. Here are things I would love to see Michigan do next other otherwise I would assume it's JB's last year:

• Have his guys hit the gym. You look at all our players and they have boat loads of body fat - none of them look ripped or like they hit the gym at all and that is a problem. Every team has guys that are big and strong, we don't. I think JB would rather folks that can shoot 3's then folks that can defend. For all his offensive genius though, teams have figured out that if you can guard the perimeter there is virtually ZERO threat of Michigan ever being able to penetrate or score inside so it simplifies the game for other players and JB has refused to adjust.
• Recruit COORDINATED big men. I mean look at Wisconsin, they recruit 2-stars that are 6ft 10 that are way more but together then any of our 4-stars. Michigan needs to go find the next Jordan Morgans versus the Horford, Doyles, etc. We need a couple guys that can just strike fear in the paint on defense - does not matter whether they score or not.
• Find how to toughen this team up - they are so afraid of contact. Yesterday was a classic example, Robinson had a wide open dunk but he went for a layup which was blocked. Had he tried to dunk it, he would miss but get 2 FTs. For crying out loud the dude is 6ft 8 - he can dunk. Dunk the ball! Take it hard to the rim. We rely on deft touch and finesse all the time.
• Figure out how to install defense. It goes back to hitting the gym - our guys can not break through screens because they are weak and not strong at all. That's pretty much all Iowa did all day yesterday - just kept screening us and we could not do anything.
• Teach folks the art of the in-between jumper. Everything for us is a prayer near the rim which rarely goes in or a 3-point shot. Defenses don't know how to guard the in-between jumpers, teach kids how to do that a little more!
• Recruit tough kids - kids that love contact!!! Please JB, please because otherwise you will be without a job soon.

All this sounds great but the challenge with toughness is that you either have that attitude or you don't. GR3 never had it. Stauskas, Morgan, McGary (when he played) and Burke had tons of it and that is why we produced results with them. We have not a single player on the team that is willing to play physically on the team. Saddens me to say, I think Michigan will be lucky if they win 17 games next year. MSU will be absolutely loaded as will OSU. Maryland is always good and Purdue and Wisconsin will be even better then this year. IU always loads up and figures out a way to win. We will be exactly where we are this year and potentially worse. I read about the kids JB is looking at for 2017 and it's pretty much the same type of kids - uncoordinated big men or kids that have range. Unless you can find the next Curry - recruit some tough kids please!!!

 

[maelfan]

Here's my take on this team. This years team reminds me a lot of Brady Hoke's team from his last season where virtually every player regressed or plateaued. Other then Donnal I feel like every player was shell of themselves from the year before and that is disturbing. Dawkins was terrible. Chatman should have his scholarship revoked. Doyle is clueless. Walton has zero vision and is a terrible finisher. Irvin is super inconsistent. MAR got better as the year progressed. I am less concerned about the results but rather the player improvement. I believe with Caris we probably win another 3-4 games and with both Caris and Spike potentially another 1-2 more on top of that but injuries are part of the equation. This brings me to next year when we have the exact same group of folks returning - the exact and none of those players have shown an appetite to improve at all. Here are things I would love to see Michigan do next other otherwise I would assume it's JB's last year:

• Have his guys hit the gym. You look at all our players and they have boat loads of body fat - none of them look ripped or like they hit the gym at all and that is a problem. Every team has guys that are big and strong, we don't. I think JB would rather folks that can shoot 3's then folks that can defend. For all his offensive genius though, teams have figured out that if you can guard the perimeter there is virtually ZERO threat of Michigan ever being able to penetrate or score inside so it simplifies the game for other players and JB has refused to adjust.
• Recruit COORDINATED big men. I mean look at Wisconsin, they recruit 2-stars that are 6ft 10 that are way more but together then any of our 4-stars. Michigan needs to go find the next Jordan Morgans versus the Horford, Doyles, etc. We need a couple guys that can just strike fear in the paint on defense - does not matter whether they score or not.
• Find how to toughen this team up - they are so afraid of contact. Yesterday was a classic example, Robinson had a wide open dunk but he went for a layup which was blocked. Had he tried to dunk it, he would miss but get 2 FTs. For crying out loud the dude is 6ft 8 - he can dunk. Dunk the ball! Take it hard to the rim. We rely on deft touch and finesse all the time.
• Figure out how to install defense. It goes back to hitting the gym - our guys can not break through screens because they are weak and not strong at all. That's pretty much all Iowa did all day yesterday - just kept screening us and we could not do anything.
• Teach folks the art of the in-between jumper. Everything for us is a prayer near the rim which rarely goes in or a 3-point shot. Defenses don't know how to guard the in-between jumpers, teach kids how to do that a little more!
• Recruit tough kids - kids that love contact!!! Please JB, please because otherwise you will be without a job soon.

All this sounds great but the challenge with toughness is that you either have that attitude or you don't. GR3 never had it. Stauskas, Morgan, McGary (when he played) and Burke had tons of it and that is why we produced results with them. We have not a single player on the team that is willing to play physically on the team. Saddens me to say, I think Michigan will be lucky if they win 17 games next year. MSU will be absolutely loaded as will OSU. Maryland is always good and Purdue and Wisconsin will be even better then this year. IU always loads up and figures out a way to win. We will be exactly where we are this year and potentially worse. I read about the kids JB is looking at for 2017 and it's pretty much the same type of kids - uncoordinated big men or kids that have range. Unless you can find the next Curry - recruit some tough kids please!!!

Even a hugh Beilein slappy and UM hoops slappy as myself cannot disagree with the negatives mentioned about Beiein an the program here.

I will still say this however. For every negative, there is a positve, both from short term and more distant results. You can't just live judging a program week by week. While we live in a what have you done for me lately society, trends of 2, 4, 6 years are still worthy and important, and valid.

This program has big problems right now, ranging from coaching, to recruiting, the status of the program itself within the athletic department and from a fan base, including students, who talk a big game about being a basketball power but don't do much more than talk.

I think things are massively compicated at our school right now because of what is and will be the Harbaugh shadow.

I think one more year will tell us everything we need to know, like Hoke's last year did. I don't think this year was that year.

 

[tarun262]

Even a hugh Beilein slappy and UM hoops slappy as myself cannot disagree with the negatives mentioned about Beiein an the program here.

I will still say this however. For every negative, there is a positve, both from short term and more distant results. You can't just live judging a program week by week. While we live in a what have you done for me lately society, trends of 2, 4, 6 years are still worthy and important, and valid.

This program has big problems right now, ranging from coaching, to recruiting, the status of the program itself within the athletic department and from a fan base, including students, who talk a big game about being a basketball power but don't do much more than talk.

I think things are massively compicated at our school right now because of what is and will be the Harbaugh shadow.

I think one more year will tell us everything we need to know, like Hoke's last year did. I don't think this year was that year.

Agree - I think JB is not even close to the Hoke league - he's a fantastic coach. Just his inability to adjust and his complete lack of defense will undo him eventually.

 

[Reality Man]

Here is the 900 lb gorilla in the room. Nobody who is a high level 'big' wants to play for JB. Nobody. He gets leftovers. Now when it comes to guards...he does fine. He has Simpson. Watson was offered by IU. Poole is verbally committed.

Its' not a guard problem. Walton is tough as nails. Robinson is fine as a specialty player but it's a two pronged issue...one addressed above...toughness and defense. The other is related to #1...team is small and soft upfront in a conference that demands it.

Xavier & SMU made UM look like a mid-major. Here is what most of us needs to see over the next couple of years...a commitment to get better frontline players and a commitment to rebounding and defense.

Irvin is way overmatched at the #4. Wagner looks like a player. Chatman has potential but JB really needs to look in the mirror and recognized the shortcomings of this program and that competitors have adjusted.

Plain and simple.



RM

 

[ChicagoBlueFan]

Here is the 900 lb gorilla in the room. Nobody who is a high level 'big' wants to play for JB. Nobody. He gets leftovers. Now when it comes to guards...he does fine. He has Simpson. Watson was offered by IU. Poole is verbally committed.

Its' not a guard problem. Walton is tough as nails. Robinson is fine as a specialty player but it's a two pronged issue...one addressed above...toughness and defense. The other is related to #1...team is small and soft upfront in a conference that demands it.

Xavier & SMU made UM look like a mid-major. Here is what most of us needs to see over the next couple of years...a commitment to get better frontline players and a commitment to rebounding and defense.

Irvin is way overmatched at the #4. Wagner looks like a player. Chatman has potential but JB really needs to look in the mirror and recognized the shortcomings of this program and that competitors have adjusted.

Plain and simple.



RM

Agree that the softness up front is a huge deal. JB can't or won't recruit physical, inside scorers.
It gets old constantly being the scrappy, outside shooting team that always gets destroyed inside by quality opponents.

 

[CinciBlue]

Here's my take on this team. This years team reminds me a lot of Brady Hoke's team from his last season where virtually every player regressed or plateaued. Other then Donnal I feel like every player was shell of themselves from the year before and that is disturbing. Dawkins was terrible. Chatman should have his scholarship revoked. Doyle is clueless. Walton has zero vision and is a terrible finisher. Irvin is super inconsistent. MAR got better as the year progressed. I am less concerned about the results but rather the player improvement. I believe with Caris we probably win another 3-4 games and with both Caris and Spike potentially another 1-2 more on top of that but injuries are part of the equation. This brings me to next year when we have the exact same group of folks returning - the exact and none of those players have shown an appetite to improve at all. Here are things I would love to see Michigan do next other otherwise I would assume it's JB's last year:

• Have his guys hit the gym. You look at all our players and they have boat loads of body fat - none of them look ripped or like they hit the gym at all and that is a problem. Every team has guys that are big and strong, we don't. I think JB would rather folks that can shoot 3's then folks that can defend. For all his offensive genius though, teams have figured out that if you can guard the perimeter there is virtually ZERO threat of Michigan ever being able to penetrate or score inside so it simplifies the game for other players and JB has refused to adjust.
• Recruit COORDINATED big men. I mean look at Wisconsin, they recruit 2-stars that are 6ft 10 that are way more but together then any of our 4-stars. Michigan needs to go find the next Jordan Morgans versus the Horford, Doyles, etc. We need a couple guys that can just strike fear in the paint on defense - does not matter whether they score or not.
• Find how to toughen this team up - they are so afraid of contact. Yesterday was a classic example, Robinson had a wide open dunk but he went for a layup which was blocked. Had he tried to dunk it, he would miss but get 2 FTs. For crying out loud the dude is 6ft 8 - he can dunk. Dunk the ball! Take it hard to the rim. We rely on deft touch and finesse all the time.
• Figure out how to install defense. It goes back to hitting the gym - our guys can not break through screens because they are weak and not strong at all. That's pretty much all Iowa did all day yesterday - just kept screening us and we could not do anything.
• Teach folks the art of the in-between jumper. Everything for us is a prayer near the rim which rarely goes in or a 3-point shot. Defenses don't know how to guard the in-between jumpers, teach kids how to do that a little more!
• Recruit tough kids - kids that love contact!!! Please JB, please because otherwise you will be without a job soon.

All this sounds great but the challenge with toughness is that you either have that attitude or you don't. GR3 never had it. Stauskas, Morgan, McGary (when he played) and Burke had tons of it and that is why we produced results with them. We have not a single player on the team that is willing to play physically on the team. Saddens me to say, I think Michigan will be lucky if they win 17 games next year. MSU will be absolutely loaded as will OSU. Maryland is always good and Purdue and Wisconsin will be even better then this year. IU always loads up and figures out a way to win. We will be exactly where we are this year and potentially worse. I read about the kids JB is looking at for 2017 and it's pretty much the same type of kids - uncoordinated big men or kids that have range. Unless you can find the next Curry - recruit some tough kids please!!!

I'm just curious. Who on this team is "fat"? Fat? really?

 

[BlueCoral]

Beilein will not go anywhere. He will coach 4-6 more years and retire. He is a very good coach, but can't recruit as well as other top 20 teams. He has restored the program to respectability.

 

[maelfan]

Beilein will not go anywhere. He will coach 4-6 more years and retire. He is a very good coach, but can't recruit as well as other top 20 teams. He has restored the program to respectability.

Beilein is as good a coach as anyone in America. That is obvious. Beilein is not a good enough recruiter or makes poor decisions during the recruitment that maybe self sabotage potential successful recruits. Either way, being a great coach is obviously a hugh part of succeeding in college basketball. The second part is holding us back from being better.

He is a great coach, not a good coach. This roster (of his making) had no business being 22-12. They had no business being within 15 points of IU the other day and no busines being within 6 points of Purdue with 7 minutes left in that game.

 

[BHWolverine]

JB is a great coach and Michigan has over achieved this year due to levert's injury. Nobody could have seen all the early departures Michigan had since 2013 because only Mitch McGary had high rankings coming in as a freshman. Only knock on JB is how he prefers big men to roll to basket which eliminates a lot of the McDonald's all americans.

 

[tarun262]

I'm just curious. Who on this team is "fat"? Fat? really?

I have not seen any of them in person but Ricky Doyle looks very chubby to me - zero muscle definition - at least on TV. Maybe not having BIG in HD here in California distorts it but just saying what I see

 

[tarun262]

Beilein is as good a coach as anyone in America. That is obvious. Beilein is not a good enough recruiter or makes poor decisions during the recruitment that maybe self sabotage potential successful recruits. Either way, being a great coach is obviously a hugh part of succeeding in college basketball. The second part is holding us back from being better.

He is a great coach, not a good coach. This roster (of his making) had no business being 22-12. They had no business being within 15 points of IU the other day and no busines being within 6 points of Purdue with 7 minutes left in that game.

He's a great coach - no question - but at some point he has to evolve his coaching style. Teams are figuring out his set offenses and he does not know how to coach defense at all. Sure our team won those games but winning here and there versus consistently doing so is a different matter. Like I said, my biggest concern is that I feel both Walton and Irvin hit their ceilings last year and have peaked. My wish list for next year:

• Donnal hitting the weight room - hard - and putting on about 10-15 pounds of solid muscle. Likely not going to happen but I can dream.
• Moritz hitting the weight room hard as well. He has the most potential IMHO - very raw but you can see brilliance there and he needs to just have the work ethic now.
• Robinson learning to move without the ball - ala Reggie Miller. Also, Robinson needing to create his own shot and Robinson needing to work on the mid-range jumper. He can pump fake and take mid-range shots all day because of how good a shooter he is but he does not know how to do that yet - 2 points are better then ZERO.
• Walton and Irvin showing some level of improvement versus this year.
• I think MAAR will get better - you can see the desire in his play. Dawkins needs to stop showing off his dunking ability in the off-season and instead figure out how to translate his athleticism on the court.

 

[Blue_note]

even if next year is his last because we fail, you better be careful about who comes in.

The next coach needs to be a game changer like Harbaugh. I'm not sure that can ever happen. What top tier coach will want to be in the shadow of what is going on with football right now?

You need a big name with a huge , charismatic personality. They can't settle.

One of two things happens next year.

A) the entire roster returns and improves enough to have an excellent year.

B) the entire roster is at their ceiling and next year looks identical to this year and Beilein is done.

Regardless, I still think going 18-18 in a very strong big ten with four huge injuries is a feat maybe no other coach in conference could have accomplished. However no other coach worth their salt in the big ten should have had this many recruiting failures making it impossible to overcome those injuries.

That shadow doesn't just chase coaches, it chases big time players, too.

Two shadows cast, one by our own football program and another by MSU.

Another mitigating factor is the next guy, just like Beilein, would be expected to recruit in a lily white and Simon pure manner. For every coach willing to walk that straight and narrow path there are probably three that would rather not.

If Coach K took over the program next year (don't like him, just saying) with his entire staff joining him do we think a slew of McD All-Americans would flow into A2?

Can't say absolutely not, but there's plenty of room for doubt.

I go nuts watching opponents score easy buckets on us. It sucks, but I think working to shore up the D is an easier proposition than finding a stellar replacement.

Would have liked Smart "down the road" but he gone.

Go Blue. Always.