It MUST be Manny

i still maintain that we’ll need to have a marquee OOC win – whether at kansas or at home to uconn [bc and @utah are similarly important] if we don’t want to force ourselves into really running through the b10 and have a 11-7ish record (remember a 10-8 psu went to NIT last year because of their poor RPI and their lack of a marquee non-conf W, while both 9-9 michigan and minn went to the dance)

I agree with Tweeter re: man. Especially against Marquette, it was obvious that we’re simply either not athletic enough, or aren’t good enough defenders (yet) to play a considerable amount of man. The 1-3-1′s vulnerability is along the free throw line extended, which opens up the baseline. This problem is solved by better rotation and help defense, it is not simply the “magic way” to break the 1-3-1.

I take a few positives about this weekend. One: these problems occurred all within the first five games of the season. Two: John Beilein as a head coach will have the film dissected and immediately begin addressing problems, including ones we can’t even conceive of ASAP.

I believe that we just need to find our rhythm and our roles. We’ve got a great head coach, we’ve got great players, we’ve got the entire season in front of us. Keep in mind this is virtually the same team as last year, success will come once we become comfortable with who does what. And I trust Beilein 100% to get it done.

This was supposed to be an enjoyable 20-22 team that cruised into the NCAAs with a solid seed and a chance to advance to the second weekend.

One of the things I was looking forward to this season? Being ranked. To drop out of the rankings so soon is very discouraging.

UM basketball won some converts last year. But we have a fragile following. A #19 or #20 ranked UM team would have drawn some fans — but now an unranked UM team against Coppin State or Pine Bluff is going to play before empty seats.

And we looked awful at Old Spice. Unless we turn it around fast, this team is going to have a major struggle to reach the NCAA tournament.

I’ve been mainly frustrated with the lack of intensity, but still remain very optimistic on the season. How? I keep in mind the following:

The last games we watched were end of the season tournament games – rust is an issue right now for sure

The ceiling of this team still seems much higher than last year

The floor of this team (which I think we witnessed over the weekend) still has opportunities to win against average quality opponents playing above their head.

Lessons from last year:
Stu’s defense improved tremendously over the course of the year – LLP needs to have this same progression. His body position is horrible right now (bent at the waist, weight on his heels, etc, needs to get his butt down and weight over the balls of his feet) and increase focus. LLP is really hurting us on D at the bottom of the 1-3-1 as well. He needs to improve for team defense to improve. I have faith he will get this done. Darius will improve on the defensive end as the year goes on as well.

Novak’s role, and really the whole rotation, wasn’t established until midway through the big ten last year. I think we will see continued tinkering and additional contributions from the freshman as the year continues.

Free throw shooting will come around.

We are a better 3-point shooting team than we have shown (part of this is Manny/stu busting slumps and part is wright/gibson/peedi not shooting any – or at least very few). If the team can make 10 threes a game, they will be extremely tough to beat. Where do they come from? One to three makes from any of Manny, Stu, Novak, LLP, Vogrich

Our point guard is a Freshman – as the year progresses, Darius is going to gain confidence and be able to contribute more and more. I think Manny will essentially need to play point-forward in terms of floor direction though, and he needs to step up that part of his game for sure.

Not to say it was all his fault, he was still our best player in all the games, Darius certainly struggled, his layups were not going in, Gibson seems to play well but can only get out on the floor for 10 minutes at most, wright is streaky, Sims just seems to disappear for long stretches, Novak is undersized and the 3 pointers just were not falling for the team as a whole.

We’ll see if the team can react and get it turned around or not, they have a lot of work to do though.