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Big Ten Media Day is underway in Chicago. John Beilein, Manny Harris, and DeShawn Sims are there representing Michigan. The AP Preseason Top 25 and Naismith Preseason Top 50 lists are also due out sometime today.

Friday – Andy Katz looks at Beilein’s preparation and his passion for breaking down film.

Friday – The Daily profiles DeShawn Sims and his newfound maturity.

9:45 PM – Big Ten Media Day Coached Transcripts (PDF)

3:17 PM – In his breakdown of the top 25, Mike DeCourcy lists Michigan as his overrated team.

2:51 PM – DeShawn Sims speaks about expectations and the NBA. Video from Mike Rothstein of AnnArbor.com:

12:44 PM – The AP Poll was just released, similar to the Coaches’ poll, Michigan comes in at 15th. Other Big Ten teams include Michigan St (2), Purdue (7), Ohio State (16), Illinois (23), and Minnesota (25).

12:39 PM – Manny Harris stopped for a quick interview with the Big Ten Network:

10:05 AM – Some highlights from Beilein’s presser at Media Day. (Summary of tweets from @bigtenconf, @michdailysports, @dailydosesports, @freepwolverines, and @jonjkerr)

• This is one of the toughest schedules Michigan has played in sometime. Possibly one of the toughest in Beilein’s career.
• Beilein on rebuilding: “You have to build those relationships and then you have that trust.”
• Zack Novak is a leader on this team despite being a sophomore. Novak is a good glue guy, is in great shape, and is at the business school.
• Beilein wrote the team a letter this offseason telling them that they are still hunters, they haven’t achieved anything yet. When Michigan in the NCAAs is expected, then they will have the program turned around.
• Beilein says that the NBA can be a great motivator, tells Harris and Sims to practice everyday as if there are NBA scouts watching.
  

I’ll be retweeting updates throughout the day on my twitter page (@umhoops), you can also follow the hashtag #bbmd for more updates.

• 10:01 AM — Manny Harris was named to the Preseason Top 50 Naismith Watch List. JaJuan Johnson definitely got snubbed and I think DeShawn Sims deserves to be on the list as well.
• 8:34 AM — The USA Today Preseason Top 25 has been released, Michigan comes in at #15. Other ranked Big Ten schools include MSU 2, Purdue 7, OSU 17, and Minnesota 18.
• 8:34 AM — The Preseason All Big Ten team includes Kalin Lucas (POTY), Manny Harris, Evan Turner, Talor Battle, and Robbie Hummel.
• 8:34 AM — The media chose a top 3 in conference of Michigan St, Purdue, and Ohio State.

Here is John Beilein’s pre-Media Day interview with the Big Ten Network:

I don’t usually devote a post to just one article, but this one is worth it. Jeff Goodman put together a wonderful piece on John Beilein, Manny Harris, DeShawn Sims, and dealing with the numerous skeptics from Detroit. Here’s the lede:

DeShawn Sims had just finished up his freshman season at Michigan when he heard the news that John Beilein had been hired to replace Tommy Amaker. Manny Harris was the Wolverines’ top signee and the word quickly swirled that he would explore other options.

“People were saying Beilein’s system was for white boys,” Sims said.

“I heard he didn’t even like players that dunk,” added the athletic Harris.

The article features quotes from Harris, Sims, The Family’s Speedy Walker, and 2010 commitment Carlton Brundidge. It’s definitely worth a read.

Thanks to all the writers who participated in the preview series (teams are linked to their previews below). Now here are the Big Ten standings as they have predicted:

Judging by the records that various bloggers predicted for their teams, Michigan is looking at an 0-22 conference season. This obviously isn’t possible but it speaks for the widespread optimism across the conference.

Looking at the returning minutes numbers across the Big Ten, there is reason for optimism almost across the board. Last year’s entire All-Conference team is back and three teams who didn’t have a player on the All-Conference team bring in top 25 recruiting classes. The talent in the league appears to be at it’s highest level in years.

The problem with all of these predictions is that conference wins are a zero sum game. In a vacuum several teams look poised to make a big jump up the standings, but universal improvement doesn’t help the situation. If everyone gets better, the conference will win some out of conference games but essentially be running in place when it comes to the standings.

The only bloggers who predicted fewer wins than last year’s tally are Michigan State (-1) and Penn State (-2). On the other hand, writers from Purdue (+3), Ohio State (+3), Minnesota (+3), Northwestern (+1) and Indiana (+5) all predicted improvement in the win column.

As someone that expects Michigan to post a winning conference record for the first time since 2003, this puts an even bigger crunch on the win totals.

This leaves the question, where will the wins come from? Looking down the list, I think that most of the projections are closer to ceilings than likely outcomes. I have a hard time seeing these teams winning more games than predicted.

I also think we will have a much clearer basement in the standings. Iowa is not going to be a good team, they are far more likely to win one or two games than five. Indiana will be improved but six wins might be a stretch.

At the end of the day there are around seven teams who are legit candidates to finish in the top 3. The problem is that one of them is going to finish seventh as well.

Most Feared Player

I asked every interviewee who was the “most feared player” in the conference. This question was pretty open ended and people tackled the question in different ways. Some chose a player that always kills them (E’Twaun Moore and Northwestern) while others just looked at the most talented.

Manny Harris won the poll with four votes which was surprising to me. I fully expected Evan Turner to take this one down but I guess there is a similar level of respect for Manny Harris. I thought it was interesting that Manny hasn’t fared particularly well against schools like Illinois and Wisconsin but they chose to go with him anyways.

If I was voting in this one I would go with Kalin Lucas. As KJ has well documented, Lucas can play fast or slow and play to score or setup his teammates. He might not be known as a shooter but he can hit the big shots. Lucas also knows how to step up on the big stage as we learned during last year’s NCAA tournament.

Mini-Bullets

• Per Jeff Goodman, Michigan’s “secret scrimmage” will be November 1st at Eastern Michigan. Eastern likely won’t provide quite the same level of competition as Kent State over the last two years but it’ll still be Michigan’s first chance to play against a division 1 team.
• Mike Rothstein profiles Ben Cronin with quotes from his high school and AAU coaches.
• Dana O’Neil looks at potential NCAA basketball recruiting reform.
• An updated Crisler Arena seating chart including the expanded student section.
• John Gasaway spoke with the guys over at Inside the Hall about the Big Ten.

It’s easy to remember the exciting parts of last season. Whether it is the early season win over UCLA or rushing the court after the Duke game. Maybe finally winning a big road game at Minnesota or the NCAA tournament win over Clemson. Last season was a breath of unexpected fresh air that caught most Michigan fans off guard.

Now, expectations are real: this is an NCAA tournament team. Michigan has typically fallen in the 10-20 range in most pre-season polls and success is expected.

All signs point to a successful season this year but let’s play devil’s advocate for a bit now and take a look at five of Michigan’s not so glorious moments. It’s important to remember that although they made their first NCAA tournament appearance in a decade, Michigan was a couple bounces (versus Savannah State or Indiana for example) away from the NIT.

No team looks great every time they take the floor, but these five games stand out as the worst performances by Michigan last year and reminders that there is still a ways to go.

Continue reading ‘Black Eyes’

• Q & A: Sagemont Florida’s Will Sheehey
  2010 wing claims a 40 inch vertical and Beilein is headed down to check him out next week. His list consists of Michigan (no offer), Indiana, Stanford, Vanderbilt, George Washington, University of Miami and Washington (no offer). Video here.
• Michigan Makes Mark on Zeigler & Family ($)
  GoBlueWolverine on Zeigler’s visit
• Zeigler talks Michigan official visit ($)
  TheWolverine on Zeigler’s visit
• If you don’t have a premium account, Sam Webb talks Zeigler on yesterday’s recruiting roundup. In short: Smotrycz grew an inch to 6-9 and Carlton Brundidge was also there. Trey Zeigler came with his mom, grandma, and girlfriend. This was the only official visit that his mom could make it to. Trey has been here a ton but wanted to let his family see the campus and meet some new guys on the team. He has officially visited Oklahoma, UCLA, and Michigan and might take two more officials.
• Washington (Ind.) junior forward Cody Zeller enjoyed his unofficial visit to Michigan
  AnnArbor.com catches up with Cody Zeller after his visit for the Penn State game
• Video: Saturday basketball practice ($)
  The Wolverine has some video from the scrimmage portion of the open practice
• NEVER COUNT BOSTON COLLEGE OUT
  BC picked 9th in the ACC, they will be visiting Crisler for the Challenge

Some updates from around the conference:

• Illinois: Fighting Illini Basketball 2009: take nothing for granted
• Indiana: Observations from Indiana’s scrimmage at Nolan Fieldhouse
• Michigan State: Green-White Basketball Scrimmage Recap
• Minnesota: This is going to be an interesting year for the Gophers Part 1 (Part 2)
• Penn State: Notes from Basketball Open Practice | NittanyWhiteOut
• Wisconsin: Hoops Marinara: Red & White Scrimmage