Michigan Basketball: Iowa at Michigan — Recap with Season Thoughts

Posted at 6:00am — 1/20/2008

Michigan Basketball: Iowa at Michigan — Recap with Season Thoughts

Game thoughts along with season thoughts so far:
Well Michigan basketball took another one on the chin Saturday night. Iowa hit the free throws down the stretch even though they are only a 67% free throw team this year. We believe they hit eight out of eleven down the stretch to seal the deal on Michigan’s fighting to get back in the game. Great crowd and some excitement in the building tonight along with of course the football recruits which might have helped the situation. The one problem we keep seeing is the same problem every game. Every game Michigan goes seven to eight minutes without scoring or a stretch where the other team gets a big lead and Michigan always has to struggle to fight back, but end up short at the end of the night.

One thing we see differently with this team is they keep fighting even when they are down. They could have easily gave up when they were down sixteen point to Iowa late in the second half, but didn’t and continued to fight. They are aggressive, show heart and try to win. They just aren’t very good or talented right now along with not being very deep on the bench. This is a young team that is probably getting down on themselves right now and need a lot of support to get things turned around.

We never understood why so many people were so high on this upcoming season. Lost four starters and almost all the points scored and a lot of the minutes played. Michigan is counting on a true freshman (Manny Harris) to be the man every single game along with DeShawn who in his own right is basically a freshman as well with not getting much playing time last year and the problems he had to deal with off the court. Really only have Epke Udoh that really had minutes last year. Playing with a new ball club and nobody knew how things would work out along with some other players leaving the team during this year hasn’t helped especially for depth issues and also in practice. They showed a stat tonight that 46% of the scoring comes from DeShawn and Manny.

One thing people (IMO) are getting mistaken about this offense is that Coach Beilein can’t go out there and hit the shots, grab the ball, pass the ball rebound the ball, etc… We think the team is still learning the offense and frankly some aren’t playing as much because they don’t know it as well. They are missing guys cutting to the basket, they are missing wide open shoots that aren’t even being contested. I have seen guys dribble to the basket and kick the ball out to guys from 17-20 feet and don’t even come close to hitting the shot. We think the guys need to take better shots and look for easier shots especially when they are struggling shooting the ball. The players aren’t getting to the line either tonight’s game they only went to the free throw line eight times compared to Iowa’s twenty-four times which a lot of them came with less than five minutes to go in the game.

Defensively we like seeing this team switch it up and play the 1-3-1 zone, but they need to be more disciplined and not over extend and giving up easy buckets. We love the pressure that they put on when in the zone and truthfully they look more like an attacking defense when they are in zone than in man to man. Also against Iowa they pressed and really saw some things there that we really like and would like to see more of it, but that might limit them some what because of the depth issues right now.

One thing we would like to point out is a lot of this goes back to confidence and we believe if this team didn’t have the ninth toughest schedule in the country out of 341 teams in Division-I basketball things would be a little differently as well. A young team, new coach, new system and basically all new players you don’t give them that kind of schedule. You give them a schedule like Georgetown #121, Penn State #134, Purdue #142, Minnesota #147, Washington State #170 has which wouldn’t get them into the tournament unless they won a lot of games, but it would have gotten this program off the launching pad and got them some early wins which would have gave this young ball club confidence while learning the new system. Also what this would have done would have brought excitement to the basketball program with some wins and brought the fans to the games along with getting recruits interested in the program which has struggled in the past. An easier schedule would have gotten this team wins (like the schedule they had last year with a veteran ball club) and would have been something to build on and possible get into the NIT this year and make a run in that tournament and built some excitement around the basketball program with everybody back except for Ron Coleman.

The recruits right now have to look at Michigan in two ways that it will take sometime to get this turned around and do we want to be part of that or do we see playing time right now with a lot of minutes and could be the big man on campus by going there. Hard to sell a program when this program has been struggling for ten years and trying to tell kids we will turn this around. Right now the Michigan coaching staff really has to be great salesman to get kids to look at Michigan and try and tell them things will change. The 2009 class is going to be the class to either change this around or will be the class that will keep Michigan struggling.

Regarding the 2009 class we are hearing it is going a lot better than people think. Just because you don’t hear a lot of names going around doesn’t mean that some very good basketball players aren’t looking at Michigan. Will they come to Michigan? Who knows at this stage of the game, but at least they are looking right now. Also from what we are hearing the guys coming in the 2008 class will surprise people and will help this team next year. Just remember these guys getting the ball when a Manny or Grady are driving the ball to the hoop and kick the ball out to them they will hit those shots unlike we are doing right now. Another point LLP will help out big time as well next year and seems to be really hitting it hard now.

Keep your heads up “hoop-heads” and continue to support this team.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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