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It seems like we were outsized and outrebounded a lot last year, and everybody is claiming we need some size. However, doesn’t Beilein’s perimeter-oriented offense make us at a supreme disadvantage for rebounding as it is? If Beilein got a traditional big center or PF, such as Plumlee or Amir Williams, how would he use him at the 5? What role does the 5 typically play in a Beilein-style offense?

GregGoBlue

There is no doubt that Michigan was undersized last year, Beilein started a 6-foot-8 center and a 6-foot-5 “power forward” (and those heights very well may be exaggerated) night in and night out. This style of play clearly isn’t ideal — teams like Ohio State, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Michigan State exploited Michigan’s size.

A surprising fact that John Gasaway (Basketball Prospectus) pointed out to me was that Michigan wasn’t all that bad on the defensive glass. In conference games, Michigan ranked 3rd in defensive rebounding percentage, behind only Michigan State and Wisconsin. That’s not to say all the interior statistics are rosy, as Michigan ranked 9th in offensive rebounding percentage (conference only) and 10th in 2point field goal percentage defense (all games).

So while Beilein’s system might not emphasize offensive rebounds, defensive rebounding is still very important. Michigan was surprisingly good at it, mostly because DeShawn Sims and Manny Harris combined for stellar rebounding numbers on the year.

Beilein’s offensive positions essentially break into three groups: two guards, two wings, and a big. So if a traditional big like Marshall Plumlee or Amir Williams were to come to Michigan he would be used at the 5, where DeShawn Sims played last year. Sims averaged 15 points and 7 rebounds per game and did a majority of his work around the paint. While versatility is importance at every position, there is still the need for a post player. If you look at Sims’ role last year, it would be hard not to see the importance of a post player in this offense.

Continue reading ‘Mailbag: Season Preview’

There is plenty of preseason coverage on deck, including a preview of the Old Spice Classic, articles about this year’s team, as well interviews with several college hoops bloggers. But I also want to give you guys a chance to get involved as well. If you have a question about Michigan basketball, the Big Ten, or even college hoops in general please send it in.

If there is enough interest, hopefully a periodical mailbag feature can become a more permanent feature of the site. Send in your questions!

If you have questions, e-mail them to me. Here is this week’s batch. If I didn’t get to yours I tried to reply over e-mail, if not shoot me another e-mail.

I noticed two M possessions in the 2H where we took a shot and did not have one single player inside the 3 point line to get an offensive rebound. Think about that, not one single person within 20 feet of the basket when a shot goes up. I was not actively looking for other instances of this situation, but wouldn’t be surprised if it happens more often. I understand that Beilein’s teams get outrebounded, but this approach is ridiculous and will start to burn us. We can’t expect to knock 3′s down at this clip against Big Ten teams on the road so we need people crashing the boards. An interesting analysis to look at would be number of times we take a shot and do not have anyone inside the 3 point line…..or anyone inside the paint. From my perspective, there should be 3 guys on the court assigned to crash the boards every single time a shot goes up, regardless where they may be.

I noticed these two possessions as well. I don’t think Beilein ever wants to have 5 guys outside the three point line but  here is a look at a possible explanation for our offensive rebounding woes.

The Big Ten Wonk first defined the perimeter oriented team or POT for short. Gasaway defined perimeter oriented teams as teams who shoot more than 38% of their shots from long range.

Gasaway’s conclusion was that teams of all different styles can be successful, they just have to do the right things very well. POTs don’t turn the ball over, they struggle getting offensive rebounds, and they don’t get to the free throw line much. His most important (and somewhat obvious) discovery was that to succeed as a POT you better make your shots. Any coach, certainly John Beilein, will trade offensive rebounds for three pointers.

As most of you would expect Michigan qualifies as a POT, 40.7% of Michigan’s field goal attempts this year have been three point tries. The only Big Ten team that shoots more three pointers is Iowa, who’s 47.7% ranks third in the country. Michigan also demonstrates the peripheral factors of POT, they rank 9th in the Big Ten in offensive rebounding percentage, fourth in turnover percentage, and ninth in free throw rate.

The worrisome thing is that their three point shooting percentage is only 34.8% which ranks 7th in the conference. Luckily Michigan has shot 44.8% from long range in their last three contests compared to 28.6% in their first 6. If they can keep shooting the ball as they have they should be in good shape.

I took a look at Beilein’s 2006 team which was arguably his best and certainly had the best regular season résumé to examine. They shot 45.9% of their shots from long range, 7th in the nation. Their offensive rebounding percentage of 21.3% ranked dead last in the Big East, their turnover percentage of 13.2% was first, and their free throw rate of 17.5 was last. They appear to be a prototype of a perimeter oriented team however they only hit 34.9% of their three pointers, ranking 10th in a 16 team Big East. It worked for that team though, they went 21-11 and posted an 11-5 conference record before being knocked off by Texas in the Sweet 16.

Overall I thought effort on the boards was lazy at times against Eastern but I think Beilein has proven that you can win while getting out-rebounded. I think the bigger issues for me are hitting our shots and not giving up too many offensive rebounds to the other team.

It’s a high risk high reward system so when we have cold days I would expect a couple questionable losses. However if we hold on to the ball and hit our three point shots at a good clip I think we can beat anyone.

Continue reading ‘Mailbag: POTs, Scheduling, Fast Breaks, and Recruiting’

Thanks to everyone who sent in questions, as always don’t hesitate to send a question to umhoops@gmail.com with any questions, suggestions, or comments. I’ll try to start doing this every week or at least as often as I get enough questions.

What year do you think will be the key year for the Beilein turnaround at Michigan? I know he has said in the past it has between the second and third year, but do you think it could be longer that that considering the practice facility might need to be up and running (or at least under construction) before they turn the corner and make the NCAAs? Or do you think these won’t go hand-in-hand because of the type of player Beilein recruits (“We want players that will knock down the door to attend UM.” – Beilein during 1st month on the job).

Tom Herhusky

I don’t think the practice facility is necessary for Beilein to turn this thing around, and even if it was once concrete plans are laid out that becomes a recruiting pitch in itself. It’s become pretty clear that Beilein recruits his way, not the fans way and not Rivals way. It makes it very hard as fans to predict who he is going to recruit that’s for sure. I don’t think any of us would have guessed the way the Novak recruitment played out. But back to the question I think the magic year is year 3. This is because that is DeShawn and Ekpe’s senior year and I think DeShawn is the key to this thing right now. Year three will hopefully be a good combination of experience (DeShawn, Manny, Grady, Gibson) and young talent (Benzing, Morgan, Morris (hopefully), and others) as well as shooters (Stu, Novak). If Beilein can’t break through with this squad into the tournament that year I don’t know what it will take. The next year we will lose one of our key pieces and who knows if Manny jumps ship at any time either.

Was wondering if you have any inside info. on when Martin might announce a plan to renovate Crisler and build a new practice facility. The last that I had heard was that they were hoping to get a plan approved by the regent’s yet this year. Is it your opinion that they will spend the monies necessary to make this project first class all the way, in other words will the practice facility to nice and will Crisler be improved dramatically.

James Hoyt

I don’t have any inside info about the practice facility but Eric Lacy posted this scoop a couple days ago saying there should be a practice facility by 2010. Looking at other projects around the athletic campus I am confident that the athletic department will make the practice facility first class all the way. Maybe in some sick and twisted way by being one of the last to build a practice facility will lead to us having the best (until the second round starts going up).

When do the freshmen get on campus?

It’s normally in late June. Summer classes begin June 25th at U-M so I would assume right around there.

Are more details available on why Benzing might have to sit out a year?

Here is some reading material on why I don’t think Benzing will be able to play next year. The NCAA seems to have set a pretty strong precedent.

How will each of the freshmen contribute next year (including LLP)?

Click me.

I see Mike Barwis was the strength and conditioning coach for WVU basketball while it was coached by Beilein. Is Barwis the S&C coach for football and basketball at UM or is there a separate S&C coach for UM Basketball? Will reuniting Barwis and Beilien make a difference for UM basketball in the years ahead?

Why doesn’t Beilien grab a UM football player or two to fill out his roster next year? We could use some big, strong guys to round out our front line.

Mike Koppenol

Barwis is not the main S&C coach for the basketball team. That main is Jim Plocki (husband of Michigan gymnastics coach Bev Plocki). Jim was on staff under Gittleson as well but as I understand it Barwis oversees the S&C for the entire athletic department so if Plocki did not buy into Barwis’ methods he would most likely be canned.

Beilein tried to grab a football player during the last season. The two on the list were Martell Webb and Carson Butler however everything could not be worked out with respect to academics and it never came to be. Playing two sports would be awfully hard and I would assume you would need top notch grades as well to juggle both.

Do I understand correctly that the University is only going to upgrade Crisler and build a practice facility and there is no University interest or dollars to build a new facility to replace Crisler Arena . Doesn’t this lack foresight? Have they even thought about raising the money for a new facility? Call it Adidas Hall if they have to.

Gene Cheng

Right now the plan is to build a practice facility connected to Crisler on the large hill/steps side. In terms of replacing Crisler, Bill Martin has said repeatedly that Crisler has a good foundation and an entirely new facility is not necessary. There are planned renovations to Crisler including things like heat and water in the short term and more luxurious additions later on I would assume. The lights went in last year and a sound system is going in this year. I don’t think the University will be tearing down Crisler any time soon.

I see that Russell Byrd is coming to visit A2 next Tuesday (link)….Do you know if there is any relationship between him and either Novak and Douglass to help recruit him to A2?

Byrd is a big time 2010 prospect from Indiana who is visiting next week as Sam Webb reported. I don’t know if there’s any prior relationship between Byrd and either of our Indiana recruits. The first thing is that Novak and Stu are two years older than Byrd and that’s a pretty decent sized age gap. Second if I am not mistaken Byrd plays for Blessed IJN and Novak and Stu both played for different Indy Elite teams. Rivals reported that Byrd, a lights out shooter to say the least, had 14 made three pointers in last weekend’s TOC tournament. Byrd is a definite high major and one to watch for 2010, it’s good that Michigan is in on him early and already getting him up on campus. Seems a lot more like Beilein is trying to establish an Indiana pipeline instead of a Detroit pipeline.

Using a .500 record as a barometer for a successful season next year, what things have to go right in order to achieve such an accomplishment? (health and avoiding suspension are obvious, I’m thinking more along the lines of player development)

If you were John Beilein, what would you do differently in your approach to next season based on what you learned this year?

Finally, I know you have some complaints about the Basketball Band’s role in the Crisler atmosphere. Being a former member of the Basketball Band, I thought I’d ask you about it. I haven’t been to a home game in years and I no longer know the current director or any members – thus I can’t defend or criticize what you may have experienced recently. But I’d like to hear what you would want them to do differently to improve the atmosphere. The Hockey Band is revered at their home games playing almost the exact same music. Likewise I hear a lot of complaints from people going to NBA games regarding the piped in loud music – whether it be ancient stuff or recent hip-hop. So how would you handle the game-day experience? (I also happen to know the band is very welcoming to input and only wants to help the team succeed, so fire away with the feedback.)

1. Here’s a quick list of three things that would go a long way toward a .500 record next year:

• DeShawn Sims. DeShawn’s development is crucial for next year he has to keep developing his game and become a consistent threat inside and outside. I think this is by far the most important player to watch in terms of player development and there is a reason Beilein has made DeShawn his “personal project”. I also think the mental aspect of DeShawn’s game is one that needs a lot of work.
• The Freshman. These freshmen are unheralded but are going to be called upon to either get it done or not. I think at least Cronin and one of the two guards are going to play substantial minutes. Whether they can be successful or not will go a long way towards how well the team performs.
• A Third Scorer. Manny Harris is a proven scorer already and while he is clearly key to our success I didn’t include him because we know what he should give us. Someone needs to step up and become the third viable option second to Manny and DeShawn. I think this guy has to be Laval Lucas-Perry.

If I was Beilein I would be trying to forget last year honestly. One issue is how badly we played the 1-3-1 last year, Beilein basically scrapped it in the middle of the season but I think looking at this year’s roster we are going to need it. With our lack of size and toughness inside I find it hard to believe that we won’t see a lot of the 1-3-1 this year.

The band certainly has room for improvement and it is a step in the right direction that they are aware of it and are open to suggestions (I have also heard this). However some things are out of their control as well, for example from what I understand the plan to move the band above the tunnel got nixed by the athletic department. I think the biggest problem with the band is lack of excitement; Crisler needs a far more exciting atmosphere. I may be in the minority but I would be all for piping in music with the new sound equipment.

Thanks for sending in questions, if I didn’t answer yours I’m sorry and I’ll try to get to it next week.