MICHIGAN'S MEN'S BASKETBALL: 2015-2016

[hack]

Smart move by Iowa to use the 2-3. Beilein's kryptonite this year.

[Kstat]

I'd say his kryptonite is having an Ivy League roster.

[hack]

What a weird year -- after beating the premiere zone program in the country, Michigan all of the sudden is helpless against the zone. Beilein didn't suddenly forget how to coach, but this is all with the same players. Just a weird year. Learning experience for Beilein, I'd hope.

[Kstat]

"The premiere zone program in the country" is also a very shitty team this season.

Michigan is helpless because they have no talent, and their most talented players are extremely raw. They have thee worst active roster in the conference outside of Rutgers and maybe northwestern. If beilein had Minnesota's roster they'd be fighting for first place.

Chatman is easily the best athlete they have right now and he's easily the worst basketball player in their rotation. He makes Josh smith look smart.

Iowa's roster is legitimately 15-20 points better than the one on the floor for Michigan tonight. If they played 10 times they might win once. If Michigan drops every game from here on out aside from the finale vs Rutgers (finishing up at 7-11) they will still have surpassed my expectations by a good margin. I didn't think they'd win more than four games before B1G play started.

I think it's great that this team gives everything they have pretty much every game despite being laughably overmatched basically every game, but reality is what it is. Next year will be very different and I credit this year's team for what they've already accomplished. Looking forward to one last upset before the season ends, preferably at home against MSU.

[hack]

My feed's gone off, blessedly, but notable are the number of comments regarding effort here: http://www.umhoops.com/2015/02/05/ga...#disqus_thread.

You think Chatman's easily more athletic than Dawkins?

[Kstat]

Chatman wouldn't even be a decent highschool player if he wasn't athletic. He has basically nothing else going for him. He's a less freakish Josh smith.

Regarding effort, it's easy to mistake a lack of talent for a lack of hustle, especially tonight against a team that's both bigger and faster. I saw plenty of Michigan players go after loose balls. Iowa players just got there first. Iowa took this game seriously. If minnesota and illinois had done that they would have won by 20 too.

[hack]

You think he's more athletic than Dawkins?

[Kstat]

If he's not then beilein wasted a scholarship on him. Yes, I think he's a fantastic athlete for his size, not that he has any skill to put it on display.

He may never be as good a player as Dawkins, though.

[hack]

He played at a low level of comp in Oregon, and IIRC didn't even play his junior year. It's easy to see a long learning curve. I don't see why we should write him off now. This year's been different. Nobody returned to the team significantly better than last year, which isn't one thing that's unusual.

[Kstat]

I'm certainly not writing him off now. He's only a freshman. That said, he's currently terrible and doesn't even deserve the time he gets. Hopefully he works hard on his game over the summer and comes back a real basketball player instead of just a tall guy that jumps high.

[hack]

Mgoblog knocks the effort level too. This team is just OFF. Bad-chemistry year. IMO if Beilein is going to continue to recruit guys for their skills he has to make sure one of them has a bit of an edge to him. We can't continue fielding entire teams of soft technicians. Somebody has to have some fire.

[Kstat]

We had almost no candidates to return much better. Walton was never healthy, LaVert was healthy for about 10 minutes, Albrecht already hit his peak last season and the rest of the rotation was in high school last year. Irvin is the one real disappointment, I suppose.

[Kstat]

Mgo blog is an echo chamber. Anyone that puts on a Michigan uniform is a great athlete and if he doesn't perform it's obviously because the coach isn't getting the most out of him. Sometimes it's okay to admit the other team just has superior talent.

This is an Ivy league quality roster that's 6-5 in the B1G. There's no way that happens without fantastic chemistry.

There's an old saying hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Iowa worked hard tonight. That's how every team outside of Rutgers and NW should be pummeling this depleted roster.

Take the two best players off of any B1G roster and most would be getting killed like this too. Not all, but most.

[hack]

The threads at mgoblog are an echo chamber, but that wasn't in the thread. It was in the game review. And jives with what's in the umhoops game thread (it takes a ton over there for people to criticize), and also jives with what I'm seeing too. And parts of your post seem to agree and other parts don't, so, well, whatever.

Basically Iowa was smart enough to nail them with the 2-3 zone -- that's what stopped Michigan's early success. It was 16-6 at some point for Michigan, and then it was 18-18, and I remember 31-21...

I agree that Spike's hit his ceiling, though. That's a valid point.

[Kstat]

Iowa was smart enough to take this game seriously and put them away without messing around like illinois and minnesota did. I don't think tactics really played a part. They just had a much better roster.

The zone certainly stabilized them, but given their level of intensity they could have had the ball boys coaching and still won easily.