Summer Hoops
College basketball players are essentially on their own over the summer because of the numerous NCAA laws regarding off-season contact between a player and coach. This creates an interesting scenario where coaches are praised for development of players but they get very little hands on time with them during the off season.
Beilein makes up for this in a number of ways, the most important of which is his regiment of drills and tests. Beilein gives every player a specific set of drills and scores to meet in each one. When they come back to practice in the fall, every player is expected to exceed their goals on testing day.
Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims are taking skill development into their own hands this summer when they plan to work out this summer with coach Shane Warwick. Warwick is a long time coach who runs his own clinics and also works several NBA camps. Adam Morrison, Devean George, and Mike Miller are just a few of the players that have worked out with Warwick over the past.
It definitely seems like a good opportunity for Manny and DeShawn to continue to step their game up to the next level. It’s also a chance to interact with a coach who has had plenty of hands on experience working with NBA players and knows what it takes in the NBA draft.
Scheduling
The athletic department officially announced next season’s UConn and Kansas games. As previously reported, the Kansas game is scheduled for December 18th and UConn will head to Crisler on Sunday January 17th. There is also a return trip on the slate for Kansas, who will head to Crisler on January 8th, 2011.
This pretty much wraps up the notable opponents on Michigan’s non-conference schedule. One more time for review here is what we have (last year’s RPI in parentheses):
- Nov 26-29th – Old Spice (Play 3): Alabama (108), Baylor (43), Creighton (46), Florida State (18), Iona (216), Marquette (30), Xavier (14)
- Dec. 2nd – vs. Boston College (68)
- Dec 9th – @ Utah (13)
- Dec 18th – @ Kansas (11)
- Jan 17th – vs. Connecticut (5)
That leaves five unannounced games and judging by the list that I have seen, all five will probably hurt Michigan’s strength of schedule as it appears that the last five games will all be against teams that are in the sub-200 RPI range.
The fact that Michigan played six games against teams with an RPI over 200 almost cost them last year and it’s definitely frustrating that we might be headed down the same road. The full schedule should be released later this summer after the Big Ten finalizes the conference schedule.
Kearney Feeling Blue?
As expected, Brandan Kearney made a visit to Michigan last week along with his god brother (and 2011 power forward recruit) Percy Gibson. The visit reportedly went very well and it’s created plenty of buzz. The buzz started Thursday morning when Sam Webb spoke about Kearney’s visit on WTKA. Webb stated that the visit went as well as anyone could have hoped for and he had no doubt that this was a Michigan-Michigan St. recruiting battle with Michigan in the lead. That’s good news in itself considered Kearney visited Ohio State days earlier.
The radio buzz was just the beginning – Webb followed up his on air report with two huge post-visit articles. The first was an interview with Kearney’s dad ($) and the second was with Brandan himself ($). The quotes in there are good enough to make any Michigan fan excited. This is definitely one to keep your eyes on, despite the fact that Kearney is only a rising junior – sophomores can officially be offered on June 15th.
Kearney is currently trying out for the Team USA 16-U team. Rivals was on hand ($) but didn’t have anything specific to say about Brandan’s play. You can find video from the tryouts here, the team will be cut from 19 to 12 tonight.
Other Notes & Links
- IL Prep Bullseye reports that Michigan continues to focus on Alex Dragicevich as well as Alex Rossi and Duje Dukan. Rossi is a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from New Trier and Dukan is a 6-foot-7 wing from Deerfield HS.
- John Beilein ran his Father/Son camp over the weekend. The camp season is just getting underway. The Beilein Shootout (one day team camp) is scheduled for June 13th and the Elite Camp (25-26) and overnight team camp (27-28) are scheduled later in June. These camps are huge for recruiting, they not only give Michigan a chance to host a number of big time prospects they also provide a stage for the next Stu Douglass to jump onto the scene.
- VIDEO: Zeigler vs. Anderson at Showdown in the Valley ($)
Some more Zeigler video, he is very smooth offensively. - Q&A with CJ Lee
Odd circumstances for an interview, but a nice quick read.
Will Regan has emerged as Michigan’s premiere big-man target. The junior had a huge year for the Nichols School and he seemed to produce night in and night out. Nichols’ season came to a disappointing end against Canisius in the Manhattan Cup final but it there is no doubt that Regan is blowing up.
Trey Zeigler appears to have been the #1 wing forward on Michigan’s board for a long time. He is the son of a college coach and possesses all the tools including athleticism, basketball IQ, and shooting. Zeigler was named to the Class A all-state team and averaged 24 points and nine rebounds per game while shooting 48% from behind the arc.
It’s hard to call Casey Prather anything but an athletic freak. The 6-foot-5 swingman was a finalist for Mr. Basketball in Tennessee as a junior and is garnering interest from high-majors across the country. Prather averaged 24.4 points and 11 rebounds per game but lost to Mr. Basketball award to Josh Jenkins who averaged over 40 points per game.
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