MICHIGAN'S MEN'S BASKETBALL: 2015-2016

[entropy]

Webster is slowly coming along. We need size. Should have a good pt guard next yr, but he will be a freshman.


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[Cody_Russell]

You get Petteway back next year? I guess I do see he's 83rd best prospect on draftexpress. That seems low, but good for you if you have him as a senior. I have no grudge against Nebrasketball. Paint every single thing red outside Ann Arbor, for all I care. Paint East Lansing red and paint Columbus red too, though those clowns might not notice.

I think Nebraska will get their top 5 best players back

As for Michigan, well we know how young they are

[hack]

Oh is Michigan young?

[hack]

Seriously now, I get that Beilein doesn't have four-year guys as anchors of stability and it would be great to have some and soon enough we will. But, still, no excuse. IMO Beilein's got to get his bigs the ball at least two possessions a half (a la Larry Brown giving Benwa the post feed to start every half), and he's got to get them amped up whether they are underdogs or not. These teams play soft and lazy when they're at full strength and especially when they are favorites.

[The Oracle]

Tell me if I'm being too optimistic(I think I probably am). We finish the 1st half of BTT 6-3. Without looking, probably the softest schedule in the league so far. Can we beat Iowa, OSU, MSU and Rutgers at home? Then win at Illinois and at NW? Win one in the BTT and they're in.

Ah fuck, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

[hack]

That's too optimistic. You're talking about going 12-6 in conference, which should be more than enough to be on the right side of the bubble.

Overall, it's hard to gauge expectations now that the team's seemingly embraced the underdog role, and that the confidence issues are/ought to be falling away. Will Rakhman be in the rotation now? If he settles in to a comfort zone he gives us a dimension that hasn't been there all year, and puts a player aside from Spike on the court. Spike's seemingly too hurt to really contribute. I think 10-8 in conference is a nice and reasonable expectation, with an outside shot at 11-7. Basically we count Rutgers and @Northwestern as wins, and then it's 1 or 2 of MSU, OSU and Iowa at home. I think winning one of those three is most likely, and I also think @Northwestern isn't a gimme.

[iam416]

nFw just took OSU to the wire at home and lost in soul-destroying fashion to Maryland on the road. I'm not sure this particular M team can chalk up a win in front of 1700 strong at that dour, festering technicolor pit of ambivalence.

[Hannibal]

The NIT would be an okay place to bottom out.

[hack]

Definitely not a gimme.

[Kstat]

they're playing with house money at this point. No one expects anything from this group. I'm enjoying the wins and not really giving a crap about the losses.

Nobody really gives a shit about the NIT, but simply qualifying for any tournament would be an accomplishment for this team with a hobbled Walton and no LaVert at all.

[hack]

Now that they are actually playing hard I think it's clear that this is a tournament-worthy group. We can only imagine what this defence and effort would have done for the tournament resume if they had done it in December, but they pissed away their best chance at being competitive in the tournament by coming into the season expecting to win with offense and not on both ends of the court. From Beilein on down they should all feel like shit about it.

[Kstat]

I don't know if they're playing hard or they're just playing healthy players for once instead of letting more talented players limp around and play like shit.

They have nothing to feel sorry for at all. From the beginning this was not an NCAA-caliber roster. Expectations should have been adjusted as so.

[hack]

We disagree.

[*JD*]

I'm not sure why Donnal didn't play but I guess it was due to injury or illness. I also heard Walton might not play on Sunday vs. spartie. Something about him hurting his other leg due to overcompensating for his turf toe.

It was pretty crazy to have them with 5 different starters than what they finished with last year.

It's also crazy that The Beef is finally having some Jordan Morgan-like games.

[hack]

Donnal's sick, supposedly. Not injured.

It'll be interesting to see where it goes from here, because there's still plenty of talent, but it very well may be that the team is gelling now. Last year the inflection point came in late December, perhaps this year it just came later, in mid-January. But Beilein seems to know what to do with this group much more so than he did before. That starts with the defense. I'm wondering why Rakhman didn't get a look earlier, given how the core of his game is getting to the basket and that's what Michigan needed the most. Beilein may have been a little stiff in playing guys who had grasped his system the most. The problem might have been that maybe some did better than others, but not well enough, and in the process some players with skills available and needed weren't used. Doyle's another example. For a long stretch there 2s were so hard to come by but they didn't try to get it to Doyle down low very much at all.