MICHIGAN MEN'S BASKETBALL- '19-'20: Hello Coach Nook!

[Kstat]

[Kstat]

[lineygoblue]

Ok .. I lol'd about the Cleaves remark ... and I agree.

[*JD*]

My Sparty PG-comparison for X to the Z has always been Eric Snow. Simpson is smaller than Snow but is the same kind of pit bull on D and also struggles from the outside, though early returns on his Senior year are encouraging. Snow managed to cobble together a long NBA career. I don't know if Simpson will do the same but he'll certainly get a look from teams. As a college PG, he's near perfect.

[Kstat]

[Niffla]

I know it's super early and we haven't even got into conference play yet, but man.

That was a glorious little 3 day tournament for Michigan. That was a lot of fun.

Unranked entering the tournament and there's talk about them exploding into the top 10 by next poll release.

[Tbone]

I know it's super early and we haven't even got into conference play yet, but man.

That was a glorious little 3 day tournament for Michigan. That was a lot of fun.

Unranked entering the tournament and there's talk about them exploding into the top 10 by next poll release.

They better be. They beat #6 and #8 soundly. If they jump into the top 5 that will be crazy. They beat Louisville they just might be number 1 the following week especially if they beat them bad. You beat #6, #8, and Louisville who will probably be #1 in a week span, wow!! Probably will be the biggest jump in rankings in a week that I can ever remember seeing. Like you said that was a lot of fun watching.

[Hannibal]

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

What's the catch?

[Kstat]

[lineygoblue]

I predicted before the season began that they would be in the sweet sixteen, and I like that prediction even better now. With some luck and some good breaks, they might go further. But I think at this point in the season they are clearly in the top sixteen in the country.

And Juwan Howard seems to be working out nicely, thank you. He's still going to have days where he gets schooled by more experienced coaches, but it looks like he's handled the transition from Beilein real well, and is on his way to establishing his own signature on the program. If he can recruit, he should be fine.

[hack]

Great to see the offense start to look smoother once the first action fails. Delightful week, and wonderful end with Juwan acting out the meme.

My only question is the extent to which he values four-star recruits who could become the next Simpsons and Teskes. We hopefully will be recruiting more like Nova and UVAbthan like Duke and Kentucky.

[*JD*]

I'd be okay with that but I'd really love to have Josh Christopher here for one year. I don't want to get too much into recruiting in this thread but it seems to me that Dickinson would be more of the 2-and-done variety. Add in Jace, and you've got pretty good depth for the next two seasons.

[WM Wolverine]

Sam Webb is saying M is a contender for Christopher.

[hack]

We're in the spot right now where that kind of player can actually make a huge difference. We've still in theory got a nice core of system players around which you can insert one-and-dones as final pieces. Pairing Christopher with Brooks and DDJ in the backcourt and with Wagner on the wing? Wow. (I'm assuming the NBA comes for Livers after this year.)

Dickinson might be a good example of a highly-ranked guy the NBA is not in a hurry to receive. Bruno Fernando was a similar-but-not-identical three-year player who went at the top of the second round. There's a good chance we'd have him for 3 years, especially since he'd have to share the position with Castleton, assuming Castleton reaches his potential.

From there, you hope that maybe Wagner sticks around one more year thought I wouldn't count on it, and that Bajema rounds into form as a nice system player. If Nunez sticks around you could see him emerging as a nice bench shooter in his final two years of eligibility. If Juwan also signs an elite wing this Zeb Jackson would have to steal minutes from the upperclass guards as well if he had any designs on leaving after two, and that could be difficult.

Jace is kind of another story. His recruitment doesn't tell us much because he's the coach's son. It won't confirm what I'm hoping to learn about Juwan's recruiting approach, which is that it's more of a UVA/Nova/UNC approach than a Duke/KU/UK approach. Just in terms of the right mix, in general I think you want to see an 8-man roster that features maybe 4 or 5 3- or 4-year players (X, Teske, Brooks, DDJ), 2 or 3 2-3-year players (Livers and Wagner look like they are on that level), and 1 or 2 one-year players.

[Kstat]

Michigan went from unranked to #4 in the country. That has to be the biggest leap ever.

the Louisville game tomorrow is officially a top-5 matchup.