1. You cannot have a college basketball team with 3 scholarship guards. Period. Even if they're all ready to play, that's not enough depth in case of injuries, and if they're not all ready to play, the situation gets impossible if there's any adversity. Tommy Amaker tried it in 2006-07, and it cost him his job. John Beilein left that roster for Juwan, and when we missed X (from suspension) and Eli (from a broken nose) last season, we were forced to go with C.J. Baird and then Franz Wagner playing at the guard position (we survived Baird because it was Nebraska, but not Wisconsin). Juwan didn't remedy the situation before this season, and we've seen what happens when Eli has gone down. Outside of the Michigan program, Tom Izzo has had his worst season in almost a quarter century with, wait for it, 3 scholarship guards (one of whom is Foster Loyer). You can win in basketball without size--we won a BT co-championship in 2011-12 playing 4 guards and a power forward, and Archie Miller, of all people, got Dayton to the Elite 8 without a starter taller than 6'6"--but you cannot win without guards and usually without guard depth to boot. If one, or both, of Eli and Mike are not back next year, we NEED to get an immediately eligible guard for next year. Having 4 or more guards can still leave a team in trouble, as we saw in 2014-15 and again in 2015-16, when we had multiple injuries at the position, but sometimes, bad luck can't be avoided. Bad planning can.
2. We went into this season knowing that we did not have a great primary creator and finisher off the bounce. Mike has been a revelation, but he's too small to be a volume finisher, or one as creative and successful in traffic as X was. Franz has some ability in that respect, but at 6'9 1/2", he's going to encounter some athletic guys who can get under him and take the dribble away. Eli and Isaiah have always been once in a while guys in terms of dribble penetration and finishing. This was not a problem when Hunter Dickinson was dominant offensively--you don't need a shot creator if you can dump the ball into the post and either score or kick the ball out to 4 good/great shooters who share the ball surrounding the big. However, Hunter has been anything but dominant offensively in recent games--his efficiency ratings last week (100 being average) were 58.9, 85.7 and 89.2, and a guy who had previously shot over 60% from 2 in conference play has been barely over 40% in those 3 games. He has also had 8 turnovers in the last 2 games, more than he had in the 6 games before that. Whatever the reason, be it fatigue, adjustments, teams pushing him off his spots, etc., Hunter's play and Eli's health are what will decide whether we can make a deep run in the NCAA tournament. Sure, Isaiah and Franz have had some recent struggles, but they're better, and freer, when Hunter is doing what he did early on.
3. Every team has weaknesses and teams against which they don't match up especially well. Ours, at least recently, has been a susceptibility to teams with multiple athletic guards who can get downhill, especially if one is bigger and stronger. This may, or may not be fatigue and/or a carryover from the lay-off--we certainly didn't have that issue against Maryland, Rutgers or PSU, each of which has big, athletic guards who live off of penetration, nor even against MSU 3 days earlier. Whatever the reason, match-ups will matter. We're not a steamroller capable of simply brushing everyone aside...but neither is anyone else, certainly nobody in the Big Ten--it looks, at least off of what's happened to date, like we may be bad for Iowa (a 5 who can play Garza straight up, and defenders who can run guys off the 3 point line), Illinois may be bad for us (a 5 who can play Hunter straight up and multiple attacking guards), teams with mid-sized athletic wings like Maryland, Rutgers, and MSU have given Illinois fits, etc.
4. I love isaiah Livers as a player and as a kid and a leader. I love Juwan Howard as well. Forgive me though if I dismiss the "we were complacent" line from last night as simply borne of a generalized desire on the part of athletes to find a reason for defeat which can easily be fixed (we just need to play harder) rather than acknowledging that they got outplayed. We came out in that game playing extremely hard--had offensive rebounds on each of our first 2 possessions, gave up 2 baskets in the first 4 minutes, one on a 3 point shot by non-shooter Malik Hall, and got 6 shots at or near the rim in the first 4:19 of the game. We were winning and intense--there was no complacency, or feeling that we could walk on the floor and dominate. And then Eli went down and had to be carried off the floor. Say that we did not react well to the injury and that our energy waned after it happened. Say that a lot of guys, and by a lot, I mean everyone excepting Mike Smith played poorly. Say that there were mistakes made in terms of strategy, including the zone we played with a minute left. Don't say though that we were complacent, or that they understand the rivalry better than we do--IMO, that's just a canard. If you believe that, then MSU didn't seem to understand the rivalry very well on Thursday, right?
2. We went into this season knowing that we did not have a great primary creator and finisher off the bounce. Mike has been a revelation, but he's too small to be a volume finisher, or one as creative and successful in traffic as X was. Franz has some ability in that respect, but at 6'9 1/2", he's going to encounter some athletic guys who can get under him and take the dribble away. Eli and Isaiah have always been once in a while guys in terms of dribble penetration and finishing. This was not a problem when Hunter Dickinson was dominant offensively--you don't need a shot creator if you can dump the ball into the post and either score or kick the ball out to 4 good/great shooters who share the ball surrounding the big. However, Hunter has been anything but dominant offensively in recent games--his efficiency ratings last week (100 being average) were 58.9, 85.7 and 89.2, and a guy who had previously shot over 60% from 2 in conference play has been barely over 40% in those 3 games. He has also had 8 turnovers in the last 2 games, more than he had in the 6 games before that. Whatever the reason, be it fatigue, adjustments, teams pushing him off his spots, etc., Hunter's play and Eli's health are what will decide whether we can make a deep run in the NCAA tournament. Sure, Isaiah and Franz have had some recent struggles, but they're better, and freer, when Hunter is doing what he did early on.
3. Every team has weaknesses and teams against which they don't match up especially well. Ours, at least recently, has been a susceptibility to teams with multiple athletic guards who can get downhill, especially if one is bigger and stronger. This may, or may not be fatigue and/or a carryover from the lay-off--we certainly didn't have that issue against Maryland, Rutgers or PSU, each of which has big, athletic guards who live off of penetration, nor even against MSU 3 days earlier. Whatever the reason, match-ups will matter. We're not a steamroller capable of simply brushing everyone aside...but neither is anyone else, certainly nobody in the Big Ten--it looks, at least off of what's happened to date, like we may be bad for Iowa (a 5 who can play Garza straight up, and defenders who can run guys off the 3 point line), Illinois may be bad for us (a 5 who can play Hunter straight up and multiple attacking guards), teams with mid-sized athletic wings like Maryland, Rutgers, and MSU have given Illinois fits, etc.
4. I love isaiah Livers as a player and as a kid and a leader. I love Juwan Howard as well. Forgive me though if I dismiss the "we were complacent" line from last night as simply borne of a generalized desire on the part of athletes to find a reason for defeat which can easily be fixed (we just need to play harder) rather than acknowledging that they got outplayed. We came out in that game playing extremely hard--had offensive rebounds on each of our first 2 possessions, gave up 2 baskets in the first 4 minutes, one on a 3 point shot by non-shooter Malik Hall, and got 6 shots at or near the rim in the first 4:19 of the game. We were winning and intense--there was no complacency, or feeling that we could walk on the floor and dominate. And then Eli went down and had to be carried off the floor. Say that we did not react well to the injury and that our energy waned after it happened. Say that a lot of guys, and by a lot, I mean everyone excepting Mike Smith played poorly. Say that there were mistakes made in terms of strategy, including the zone we played with a minute left. Don't say though that we were complacent, or that they understand the rivalry better than we do--IMO, that's just a canard. If you believe that, then MSU didn't seem to understand the rivalry very well on Thursday, right?
