With 11 games to play I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that Michigan is firmly on the bubble. ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi lists Michigan as one of the “last four in” and a 12-seed overall in his latest Bracketology report. It’s make or break time for this team despite how rosy the situation looked on December 7th.
The Home Stretch
Nine of Michigan’s final 11 games are against RPI top 50 teams. The other two games are both against RPI top 100 teams, Penn State at home and at Iowa. On top of that 7 of Michigan’s final eleven are also on the road. The next month and a half is make or break time but nothing is going to come easily.
I expect Michigan’s strength of schedule to be in the top 10 by the end of the year (currently 21) and if it wasn’t for games against North Carolina Central (1-19) and Eastern Michigan (1-16) the SOS would probably be near the top already. When all is said and done Michigan will have played 17 games against RPI top 50 teams 8 games against RPI top 25 teams (assuming no drastic ranking drops). Last year Tennessee played the toughest schedule in the country and they faced 15 RPI top 50 teams.
Best Conference?
| Conf. | Top25 | Top25% | Top50 | Top50% | Top100 | Top100% | Total |
| Big Ten | 3 | 27.27% | 8 | 72.73% | 10 | 90.91% | 11 |
| ACC | 5 | 41.67% | 7 | 58.33% | 9 | 75.00% | 12 |
| Big12 | 3 | 25.00% | 7 | 58.33% | 9 | 75.00% | 12 |
| Big East | 7 | 43.75% | 8 | 50.00% | 11 | 68.75% | 16 |
| Pac 10 | 1 | 10.00% | 4 | 40.00% | 7 | 70.00% | 10 |
| SEC | 1 | 8.33% | 3 | 25.00% | 9 | 75.00% | 12 |
(All RPI numbers were pulled Sunday night from WarrenNolan.com)
The table above shows which conferences have the highest percentage of teams in the RPI top 25, top 50, and top 100. This doesn’t show anything groundbreaking but it does prove that the Big Ten is the deepest conference in college basketball. 91% of the Big Ten’s teams are in the top 100, the only “gimmie” in the Big Ten is Indiana (who Michigan plays once). The ACC has three “cupcakes”: NC State, Virginia, and Georgia Tech. The Big East has 5: St Johns, South Florida, Seton Hall, Rutgers, and DePaul.
With unbalanced schedules this can lead to some inflated win totals in those conferences. Is a Big East team that plays all of the cellar dwellers better that a middle of the pack Big Ten team that faces tough competition night in and night out. The Indiana factor also means that Michigan is behind a game against other bubble teams (OSU, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Penn State) that get to play the Hoosiers twice. On the other hand Michigan only has one game against Michigan State so you could say that this cancels out.
Do all 8 top 50 teams in the Big Ten deserve a bid? Probably not. But shouldn’t you take the most “bubble” teams from the deepest conference? The ACC and Big East have the top end talent but when you are looking at teams further down the list I think you have to look at the Big Ten. Right now I don’t see how 7 teams from the Big Ten don’t make the dance, especially when you consider how weak the Pac 10 and SEC are this year. There also are not any high powered mid major conferences this year. The Missouri Valley has been every bubble team’s nightmare over the last few years but there are no RPI top 50 teams in the MVC this year.
The Road to 5
@Ohio State
@Purdue
Penn State
@UConn
Michigan State
@Northwestern
Minnesota
@Iowa
Purdue
@Wisconsin
@Minnesota
I have a really hard time seeing Michigan left out of the tournament if they go 9-9 in conference play. The question is how can you find 5 more wins in the last 11 games. The first step is defending home court. I’d say Michigan needs to win at least three of their final four home games if they are serious about making the tournament. After that the two most winnable road games are @Northwestern and @Iowa. Michigan handled the Wildcats and Hawkeyes pretty easily at home and they are likely their best chance at winning road games. Then again Iowa will probably have Cyrus Tate back in action and Northwestern can get hot in a hurry.
This week Michigan heads to Columbus and West Lafayette — both likely losses. However if Michigan is somehow able to pull a shocker on the road it would definitely help them get back on track. The other chances for road wins are at UConn (I’ll include UConn because a win over the Huskies would be just as valuable as a Big Ten win), Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Michigan is on thin ice; they can’t afford any more home losses and are going to have to win on the road. Michigan has put themselves behind the 8-ball a bit because the only other Big Ten bubble teams that have dropped 2 games at home thus far are Minnesota and Northwestern. Minnesota has made up for their shoddy home play by going out and winning three of four road games thus far.
Where do you see Michigan’s wins coming from? Does 9-9 get them in? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.
Road Games from easiest to hardest:
NW, IA, MINN, OSU, PUR, WIS, UCONN
Home Games:
PSU, MINN, PUR, MSU
Homer-vision says 4 from both rows, but Super-realist Guy think 2 from each and gonna have to make a run in the BTT.
Kurt – For the most part I agree with you but call me crazy, michigan matches up a little better with wisc i feel and i would move wisc between minn and osu on the road game toughness. I know wisc plays great at home but I just feel osu and pur are tougher matchups for us.
If you hold me to UM getting 5 wins left on their schedule….they are PSU-h, NW-a, MINN-h, IOWA-a, PUR-h. MSU-h and WISC-a are the next two win line for me. If this team can get hot we know they can beat anyone, which will happen at least once more this year.
9-9 gets UM in because they then are a 6-8 seed in the B11 tourny which gets them one more win and a shot at a top 3 seed.
Still so long to go but the end is in sight.
Depending on where our victories come from, 9-9 probably won’t get us in the tourney. If we beat MSU at home and beat someone good on the road (like Purdue or Ohio State), then 9-9 gets us in. If we go 9-9 but only beat the teams that are marginally good (another victory against NW or Wisconsin) I think we will need a run in the Big Ten tournament to get us in.
Regardless of what happens, I think we need two or three wins in the BT tournament to solidify our spot in the big dance. Hopefully we pull a few shockers down the road that will help us out too.
More important than record in my opinion is whether Michigan can handle a bigger, more athletic team. Once Illinois figured out that Michigan has almost zero post defense, everybody caught on. Michigan needs to stay mentally tough right now, because they’re about to go on the road to play a lot of bubble teams who know Michigan’s weakness and know they have to beat them to make the tournament themselves.
I’m having nightmares about that UConn game. Its going to be hard enough to handle Hasheem Thabeet, let alone him AND Jeff Adrien AND AJ Price.
I think 9-9 will do the trick, along with at least one win in the BTT. That gets them to 20-13 with some nice wins.
Will they get to 9-9? I’m not sure. This team has exceeded my expectations this year, and I am grateful for that. But they have some improving to do before they are a legit tourney team.
Probably need two good wins among those five to get in at 9-9. I’d say that if those wins include one over Purdue or MSU at home and a road win against Ohio State, Purdue, or Minnesota, you get in at 9-9 (assuming no horrible flameout in the Big Ten tournament like winding up with the 6th seed and losing to Indiana).
bottom line: we gotta take care of business in four games:
Home against Minnesota
Home against Penn State
Away against Iowa
Away against NW
That gets us to 8.
Then I think our best chance to steal another game is really
Home against Purdue or MSU because we will be up for those games.
I also think Away against Minnesota is doable.
9 wins is very doable but again like everyone said we have to play ball and shoot the three well on the road. We just need to play fearless like we did at the beginning of the year—noone expected us to do anything this year so lets play like we have nothing to lose.
If we get to 9 wins plus a win in the BTT, we are a lock.
From the beginning of the conference season I thought 9-9 would make us a lock with the UCLA and Duke (currently ranked #1) wins. I still believe that. Despite the unfortunate losses to OSU, PSU, and ILL – they don’t really have a bad loss on their resume. If they win just one of those games I’m feeling good about things. Right now I’m worried.
My gut tells me they’re going to go 8-10 and hope they can catch someone in the BTT to pad their win total.
You also have to keep in mind what the other teams on the bubble are going to do. Ten days ago Minnesota looked like the #2 team in the conference. Then they lost twice and nearly blew one to Indiana. Purdue looked lost early on and now seems to be back on track.
Manny needs to start getting calls from the refs and they need to hit some threes. They can’t be a 3-pt shooting team and only hit 25% of them.
Yeah, 8-10 looks realistic. 9-9 is possible only if this team really catches fire for a big upset on the road, but so far we’ve been terrible in every road game.
I look at it this way: after last season, didn’t think we had a shot at the tourney, so just to be firmly on the bubble in late Jan. is progress.
As optimistic as I tend to be about this team, I have a very hard time finding 5 more wins from that schedule based on how the games are lining up.
Including the 3 game losing streak, U-M will likely be in the middle of a 2-7 stretch when they head to NW. There is a very winnable stretch of 4 games ahead of them at that point, but their confidence will be shot by then.
Feels like they have to get one of these next two road games to avoid a confidence crushing stretch and get those 9 Big Ten wins. However, this group has won just 3 road games in the past two years – NW ‘08, Iowa ‘08, IU ‘09 – all against really bad teams. I fear they are still too young to do what they need to do this Wed and Sat.
That home loss to OSU was just a killer.
Hope I’m proven wrong in 48 hours…Go Blue!
9-9 with a win in the BTT will get us in. I have no doubt about that. We have wins against Duke and UCLA. Both probable top 2 seeds. That is a resume of a tourney team. I firmly believe that.
Dylan: “Is a Big East team that plays all of the cellar dwellers better that a middle of the pack Big Ten team that faces tough competition night in and night out.”
No and I think the selection committee will note that as well. It’s why I think 9-9 get us in and if we somehow beat UConn, 8-10 can. 2 wins in the BTT would seal it as well.
Maybe I am too much of a homer. I don’t know, but I think we’ll get that 9-9 and make the big dance this year, at least a year ahead of schedule.
Thanks coach B, I like this position a lot better than last years and the prior years! Even if we don’t make it.
Everyone seems to be forgetting that the Illinois win looks better by the day. They are 17-3 and in the top 20. So now Michigan has 3 very good victories and therefore if they can manage to get to 9-9 I think they are a lock for the tournament because they would need at least one more good victory to get there.
KurtD – I think you should flip Minn and OSU around, simply because Minn’s homecourt advantage is big in that old barn. OSU plays in an NBA-sized arena and it’s not nearly as imposing.
Realistically, I see us going 8-10 with two wins in the BTT. This will make us a true bubble team. I see our best chance to get our fifth win against MSU at home. We always play them really well at home (two most recent were wins?). Also, Northeastern is probably a tourny team…for whatever it’s worth.
JimC, are you by any chance Jim Carty? I know it’s a longshot, just curious.
To those of you who think 9-9 and one win in the BTT won’t make us a lock to get in, think back to the 2005-06 season:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/.....;year=2006
We were considered one of the last teams “out” that year, grabbing a #1 seed in the NIT with an 18-10 (8-8) record and no BTT wins. Taking a look at our profile that year, it doesn’t even come close to what we should have this year if we go 9-9.
- Our best non-conference wins were Miami(FL) and Butler at home, and ND on the road. None of these teams made the Tournament (and we actually ended up beating Miami and ND again in the NIT).
- Our best conference wins were MSU (finished 8-8 in the B10 and lost in 1st round of Tourney), Wisconsin (finished 9-7 in B10 and lost in 1st round of Tourney), and Illinois (finished 11-5 in B10 and lost in 2nd round of Tourney) all at home
- We lost at home to OSU and Indiana
- We got blown out at Purdue, the last-place team in the Big Ten that year
- We lost 7 of our last 10 games
- The worst of all… we lost to Minnesota in the 1st Round of the BTT, an awful team (the 10 seed I believe) that we thrashed both times in the regular season
- The Big Ten was considered “down” that year, while it is considered “up” this year
need to beat UConn or add 2 wins in the BT tournament, if we go 9-9 in conference, which is more and more likely.
How I think the rest of the schedule will turn out:
@ Ohio State: L
@ Purdue: L
vs Penn State: W
@ UCONN: L
vs Michigan State: W
@ Northwestern: W
vs Minnesota: W
@ Iowa: W
vs Purdue: W
@ Wisconsin: L
@ Minnesota: L
That will put us at 20-11 and 10-8 in Big Ten play. I think we’ll likely win our first BTT game and probably lose the second one, putting us at a final record of 21-12. With how the Big Ten is playing this season, there is no way in hell we don’t get in if what I just predicted does in fact happen. Likely anywhere from a 7-10 seed, which if we take care of business in the first round will set us up with a tough matchup against a #2 seed in the second round.
I think if they were to miraculously beat Uconn that it would count for 2 or 3 road wins in the big ten and give us a great shot at the tourney. That would give us 3 wins over top 5 teams, maybe even one over a #1 ranked team and 2 teams that had been ranked #1. That is assuming Uconn could climb that high – they could be coming off s big victory going into the game against Michigan. Either way 9-9 with some BTT wins would put them in. Maybe something like 8-10 and a BTT win or two could make them a bobble win and those wins over Duke and UCLA should push them in. Hopefully they find a way in and can pull off a few upsets after that.
The UCONN game is just plain stupid. Not only will we get obliterated by Thabeet but it eliminates a nice lil break we woulda had before State and can’t help our confidence.
That being said we are in pretty good position right now and I think if you look at it more by conference rank we are alright. PSU could potentially lose their next 7 if you check out their schedule (I’m sure they’ll win one or two but it’s a brutal stretch) and Minnesota also has a tough final stretch. We really need to beat both of them at home, but I think when we win in Columbus on Wednesday things will look a lot sunnier.
State will destroy Michigan. The rebounding edge that State has over our small line-up will be very apparent. My only hope will be that we get hot and stay hot. It will take much better shooting than we have seen recently to beat State.
Speaking of UConn, they could very well be ranked #1 when we play them. They should coast through their next 2 games (DePaul and Providence) before heading to Louisville for a Big Monday matchup… but this is the same week that we play them, so even if they lose to Louisville they’ll have the same ranking when they play us.
Duke has a tough one at Wake on Wednesday… if they get by, they could lose at Clemson 2/4, which would make UConn #1 “in waiting” when they play us as long as they beat Louisville.
There is definite cause for concern with MSU on the boards… Michigan is going to have to get hot in that one for sure. But it sure would be a sweet win.
I added a Bracket-tracker type module to the sidebar, let me know if you guys find any of that stuff useful. It’s a little cluttered but there is some useful stuff there.
I like the addition of the Bracket sidebar, although I may suggest adding a few more Bracket sites. For example, Mike On Sports was the 3rd most-accurate bracket on the web last year and Mike is a former Maize Rager: http://mikeonsports.wordpress......logy-2009/
The Bracket Project is probably the best way of tracking where each team might be seeded if the season were to end today: http://bracketproject.50webs.com/matrix.htm
Im looking at this a little differently. As the RPI numbers show the Big Ten is the deepest conference in the contry and based on this fact at least 6 and possibly 7 teams will dance. Locks: 1MSU, 2Purdue, 3Illinois.
After that you have 4Minnesota, 5Michigan, 6OSU, 7Wisconsin, 8PSU. I know PSU has a 5-3 record but they have virtually no shot at the tournament unless they go 11-7 in the conference due to one of the most pathetic non-conference schedules imaginable. PSU only played to RPI top 100 teams in the non-conference and lost both of them so realistically they are out of the discussion.
So the way im looking at this is 9-9 would absolutly lock us in and actually 8-10 with another win against a top 10 team(Uconn or MSU) and were looking good. Those big wins are going to pay huge dividends.
Thanks Giddings. I added Mike to the list. I already had the Bracket Project but I called it the Bracket Matrix. Changed the name.
I disagree with your assumption that a win over UCONN is just as valuable as a Big Ten win. UCONN is ranked second in both major polls. If we were to go into Storrs and beat them, it would be gynormous. Of course, highly unlikely, but absolutely gynormous. That would get us in at 8-10 or maybe even 7-11.
The Penn St – UConn – Michigan St schedule is really regrettable; three games in six days, the second and third of which against top 10 teams. On normal rest the MSU game at home would be a good chance for another standout win, but I just don’t know how much gas will be left in the tank by then.
I guess the thing to hope for is a blowout win over PSU allowing more rest for the top eight, followed by a competitive UConn game – a game where we go down 15 and then expend ridiculous amounts of energy in order to lose by 10 would be a disaster, worse than a massacre that we conceded in the first half.
Lets not panic now, but yes we need to finish strong. You cannot honestly pay attention to Lunardi’s bracket right now because it is simply off the strength of your conference record, and how many teams that conference is suppose to get in. Case in point Kansas who he has as a 6 seed, this team is undefeated in the big 12 with wins over Iowa St, Texas A&M, Colorado, and Kansas St. None of those wins you can cheer about, the only non conference W they have of substance is Temple. THey have loss to Mich St, Tennesee, Syracuse, and Arizona. Which says everytime they ply a top flight team they lose. These bracket guys still dont respect the Big 10 with teams like Penn St, Minnesota, or even NW which is a decent team. All im saying is Lunardi’s bracket this early is just based on Ranking, Conference Standing at this point. Call me in 30 days then I’ll pay attention to his bracket.
At this point a home win against Michigan State and road victories against Minnesota and Purdue would put them in good shape. Iowa and Northwestern are wins. I don’t see a victory against U Conn. or Ohio State.
One can only hope that Goran Sutan plays soft enough for Gibson and Sims to handle him. Even in that case, however, I can’t help but feel like Tom Izzo is going to pummel Michigan with his bench.
Is there any way to be sure the selection committee sees the table showing the % of top 50 and top 100 in each conference?
About the fatigue factor, I’ve been hearing/reading about this recently, esp. in the 3-game slide, but I don’t really believe it. I don’t think 18-20 year olds really tire much, physically anyway.
Kevin,
No I’m not Jim Carty.
Wouldn’t I have to be all smart-A/condescending to sound like him?! (hope I didn’t come off that way!)
my email: jecieslak@yahoo.com
I don’t think 8-10 would get us in the tourney. Just doesn’t seem right to take a under .500 team. 7-11 would NEVER get us in. I don’t care if we beat UConn by 50 on the road.
JimC,
The fatigue issue is not so much about physical energy as it is mental energy. I believe, the weight of expectations and the fact that UM hit a rough spot really hurt them going into the PSU game. I don’t think they were physically drained but they were clearly mentally tired and you could see it in their effort and concentration.
It isn’t hard to see when a team has lost it mentally…they stop running as hard to get back on D, they start chipping at the ref’s and they start taking the easy way out on offense(i.e. jacking quick 3’s, forcing drives, etc.).
I think we still need to remember, Beilein is running out 5 guards, 3 of who are frosh and 2 are Soph’s. Add to that, besides CJ, there is no Sr. leadership on the floor for a consistent period of time.
As this team matures(it may not happen this season) the type of inconsistency that was displayed the 10 or so days prior to the NW game will become much more infrequent. It is a process and I know it hard for UM fans to be patient, but in this case, they only way these guys are going to learn is to go through a BT season…hopefully they are quick learners.
Inconsistency goes up and down though. We have had a down patch but it sure would be nice to have one of those positive peaks this week…
There is so much basketball left to be played. UM will win a game or two we dont expect them to win, and might take one on the chin to a team we thought they should handle. bottom line is its a long season and if we win 2 in the BTT, and we finish around 500 we will be fine. We probably get in just from JB’s track record of having outstanding tournament teams.
Mith – there has been a history of teams getting at-large bids even with losing conference records. I can’t find any up to date stats, but I did find an article which stated that between 1983-2001, 23 teams received at-large bids with losing conference records, including Penn State is 2001 despite a 7-9 Big Ten record. I think that we would have a decent shot with an 8-10 record and at least one win in the BTT.
A road win against UConn will definitely push us in if we go 9-9 in the conference, and give us a hope even at 8-10 if we can get a couple more wins in the BT tournament. It would be a huge game and believe or not our shooting might get hot that night.
I think during the tough stretch the starters will need to play no more than 33 minutes (for manny.) I hope Beilien will play atleast a 10 deep bench like the Northwestern game.
@Giddings,
Yeah, I know sometimes teams do get in with losing conference records. And I suppose some big wins might help that happen with Michigan, but I’d be real nervous sitting at 8-10. In contrast, I’d feel pretty good at 9-9.
Even if they don’t make the tourney, its been a nice season. I hope they at least finish decent, like 8-10 at worst. I’d hate to see them flame out and go 6-12 or something like that.
Haven’t had a chance to read the comments but let’s not forget we also have the BTT. We’ll likely need a couple wins there. Also, as Dylan briefly mentioned some of the leagues that have been multi-bid leagues in the past are down this year. The MVC, Colonial, and MWC may only get their tournament champion into the dance this year. Also, its very important for us that the at-large worthy teams in the one/two bid conferences win their respective conference tournaments. A-10 (Xavier or Dayton), CUSA (Memphis), Horizon (Butler), Southern (Davidson), WCC (Gonzaga or St. MAry’s), and the WAC (Utah St). Every at-large spot that one of these teams has to fill because they lost in their conference tournament is another spot taken away from the middle of the pack Big Ten and Big East teams.
You could also throw the SEC into that group since Florida and Kentucky look to be the only tourney worthy teams at this point.
But all of this is moot if we don’t win 3 of 4 at home and a couple of road games.
If we can somehow go 5-6 the rest of the way and win a couple of games in the BTT we’re looking at 21-14 and that should be enough to get us in IMO.
A number of people have predicted that we would need two BTT wins if we end up 9-9. I highly doubt that we would need to win 2.
You have to consider, as others have said, that if we were to get to 9-9, those remaining 5 wins would likely include one or two more high quality wins.
The other thing to consider when thinking about how many BTT wins we’d need is what seed we are. If we go 9-9 and are the 6 seed, we would definitely need one win in the BTT. This wouldn’t be so much because we need another win, but rather to avoid a bad loss to the #11 seed. If we lost in the next round it would be to a high quality opponent (#3 seed), and the committee would likely not look down upon that.
If we manage to get a first round bye, we might not even need one BTT win. That loss would be, at the worst, to the #5 seed in the Big Ten (another tournament team). We certainly wouldn’t need 2 wins. That would mean we made it all the way to the Championship game, and that’s not necessary.
9-9 is automatic even if we were to lose first round to anyone but IU. I’d like to see what selection committee would do with us if we somehow finished with 7 wins but beat UCONN (not gonna happen) and State and made it to finals of BTT.
Re: the BTT, does it really make a difference if we win 1-2 games there? I’m not sure. Consider that the BTT ends on Selection Sunday, so presumably the committee has made its at-large choices at least the day before (there’s no way they make them up on the spot minutes before the selection show). My suspicion is that they spend a lot less time analyzing our conference tourney than people think.
Well, the loss to Minnesota in the first round in ‘06 is what most experts said kept us out (of course it was the team that was responsible for putting themselves in a must-win situation anyway). As I said before, I think the whole “we need a win in the BTT” thing is more about avoiding bad losses than getting wins, so it all depends on who we play.
I agree with that. A first-round loss might knock us out – but I doubt a first-round win (or a second-round win for that matter) will really make a difference.
The key question is . . . Do style points count that much? Will we be punished for the narrow victories over cupcakes??? We have two signature wins right now with UCLA and Duke. The Duke win is particularly impressive because it showed an ability to adapt to competition and because the game wasn’t a close fluke. Add 5 minutes to the game and I’m still confident that Michigan wins.
MSU doesn’t have a signature win. North Carolina was their chance and they were destroyed. They looked very vulnerable against Northwestern. On the other hand, the put over 100 on Alcorn State Lake Superior and Northern Michigan ANDthey killed most of the cupcakes.
30 bucks says we dont get in the tourney…….
Whatever happens, I’m just so happy that these games matter. This upcoming stretch is our tourney to make the tourney and it should be an exciting ride. Think positively, because I’m one of those mystics who thinks we, as one conscious mind, can will the Wolverines into the dance. Use the force.
If you are in Chicago… Check this out:
http://www.levyrestaurants.com.....Island.htm
Oak Park Dave – MSU doesn’t have any wins over Top 5 teams, but they do have the most wins in the country vs. RPI Top 50 teams (OK St, Texas, Minn, NW, OSU, Kansas, PSU, Illinois, OSU).
Kinda OT, but I just saw on ESPN that Illinois has beaten Minnesota 20 straight times. Anyone else find that hard to believe?
this obviously doesnt have anything do to with being on the bubble but i look at the rivals rankings and all the other ranking systems out there and notice that teams like ohio state, illinois, mich st, and the big name schools have top 100 or better kids already signed from even the 2011 class, it sure would be nice to start landing some of these kids that we are going after early……….how do these other schools do it…….i just read a little piece about casey prather…….top 30 recruit…..what has to happen to get these kids to michigan? is it wins alone that will makes us land 2 or 3 top 100 or top 75 or even 50 like these other schools……i know beilein doesnt need those types of kids to win, but lets be honest if we are ever going to seriously contend for national championships and even big ten championshiips were are going to need a good 4 top 100 recruits on the roster at all times, maybe even more
why is it that i read that beilein finds kids that he can develop…………why not just get kids that are already developed and just need some extra guidance……no disrespect to anybody on the squad now because they have impressed me this year overall quite a bit, but there comes a point in time where you have to leave behind these unknown, under the radar players and land known, big time talent and maybe thrown in a under the radar here and there, but not the other way around like it seems now
dave
Beilien has his system ,and he is great at finding stars to fit his system. The more effective player in the michigan offense is the one that fits his system. He will always need that one star player to help carry the tema in times of need ( manny) but its the system that wins us games
It’s not like Beilein wants to take guys he HAS to coach up a ton. He wants guys that can fit in the system, and if they aren’t the most highly recruited kids, he will take them anyways, just because he is a good teacher of the game.
Beilein is getting the best he can get right now.
you cant base a system on shooting threes…….they need players that can shoot the midgrange game, be able to beat defenders one on one and get to the basket or into the lane and manny is the only one that can drive and nobody that i have seen other than deshawn on the occasion has a midgrange game…..the ability to do these things just isnt there for some……..we see what happens when they go cold from 3 point range, they cant do anything and they dont have players to can create other options if shooting 3s isnt working that night
i like the style they play but they need to be able to drive and penetrate and do other things besides shoot threes as well and very few of these kids can do that
I have to agree that this team has to at least .500 in the Big ten to get into the tourney. However if they were to go say 7-9 but can pull a shocker over say a Ohio State and Purdue or a UConn by itself then they may still have a chance. Whats really helping them right now is that Duke is still sitting at one loss thanks to Michigan. If Duke somehow wins the ACC and is in position for a #1 seed in the tourney it will really help Michigan. Same can be said for UCLA. If they can win the Pac 10, it will look great for Michigan’s resume.