Comments on: Good, Bad and Ugly: Michigan

By: hunteriualumni

hunteriualumni — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:22:46 +0000

Opinions are just that. Wisconsin is not winning by having great talent. They are winning by a good team playing with good fundamentals. Ohio State has Turner and I stand by my opinion with Michigan. Name any other players that would start at Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky or any other top school. We have talent. We don't go 10 deep. You have to play the best players. We are trying to play the 2-3 of our best players at a time so we have more depth. I like our team and like the direction we are headed.
Hunter

By: jgoldy

jgoldy — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:57:19 +0000

rivers should be banned from shooting outside of three feet

this team is too painful to watch

By: Diesel

Diesel — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:00:37 +0000

You lose credibility with your post when you say things like we have equal talent to Ohio State and Wisconsin and that Michigan has only 1 good player. I stopped readying right there.

By: Diesel

Diesel — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:38:33 +0000

I've been pretty quiet through the season on the board here, but I generally tend to be in agreeance with BGleas and this is one of the best posts I have read, particularly after a loss. We do have some talent, but not one-and-done talent, and it will take time for our talent to develop. Watford is the equivalent of a DJ White, and with Creek out for the season Christian could have a shot at freshman of the year in the B10, and he will continue to develop his body and skills and he will play at the next level, he's just not there yet. None of these guys are.

And with the recruiting situation the way it is with limited scholarships, the growth of this team will be through development of the players in the program unless we get an impact guy to sign. Even if we signed guys like J Davis, C Zeller, Plumlee, and DSR we would all be stoked, but even those guys will not be impact, they will be good 3-4 year guys. So it's going to take time, we are 2 years away from competing for a B10 championship plain and simple and any other expectation is foolish. To even be in the game with 5 min remaining on the road against Michigan down Roth and Creek, you have to give Crean a ton of credit.

Sorry stat of the year: I have more Pick to Click wins than our beloved Hoosiers have victories.

By: cooper

cooper — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:09:10 +0000

The team would be better on offense because his offense, and others like it, works with less talented players than Crean's does. Its the reason the Princeton offense can upset better teams in the tournament. He still wouldn't have anything for the defensive end and no I don't think he should be the coach.

By: JerryCT

JerryCT — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:59:21 +0000

FYI : IU was a net 0 in the score when Dumes was in the game. He sat the last 9:48 . This is 3 of the last 4 where we were net positive with him on the floor

Some folks are bored by my drumbeat for more DUmes minutes. To me it is totally consistent with the facts to play Dumes 30 min /gm if you a) want to win, b) worry about our youth and c) worry about talent.

If you donot worry about those things then I can understand your criticism of my point of view and the frequency with which I inflict it on this blog

By: IUDan

IUDan — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:21:11 +0000

I hate to say it, but this is silly. Bob Knight doesn't coach this team. Are you asking if Bob Knight had never been fired? Or, what if he miraculously came back after the KS mess? If it's the latter, then I think we're in roughly the same position, maybe with a few more wins.

I think he would be the FIRST to say you can't win with freshman/sophomores.

By: OldIUGymnast

OldIUGymnast — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:44:06 +0000

I HAD a 42' vertical back when I was at IU... but I still couldn't dunk because I am only 5'6 and my hands are too small to palm (so I needed another 6 inches to be able to 2 hand). I could shoot 3's but the guys who were 6'6 could block me from 5 feet away. Sucks being short and loving basketball. Thank God for gymnastics where short guys who are athletic are appreciated!

But I think Crean is a good coach and good recruiter. And the offense he is running looks a pretty good, except those guys need to screen like the mean it.

By: hunteriualumni

hunteriualumni — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:16:15 +0000

This was very hard to watch. We do not play with any passion. The excuse we don't have talent is BS. Michigan does not have much talent. They have one player and that is all. We have the same talent as anyone in the Big Ten except Purdue and Michigan State. We don't use the talent we have. We continue to play every other team's game. Why not try using some size(4 guys 6'9) and press with two guards. Elston Pritchard and Watford as the bigs with Capo and Bawa for a breather. If they get into foul trouble, so what they are in foul trouble every game. It is unacceptable for them to be winded during the game.
Coach Crean has done a lot for the program. He has brought back alumni and has a good class this year. We have a clean program and I believe we will continue to be clean. We have focused too much time on 5 star players that aren't coming. Find 4 and 3 star players that can play. I see plenty on other teams. We need to run some basic plays. We have shown nothing on the offensive end and zero adjustments during the games.
We need to quit accepting excuses and the team should start to play basketball. How can the talent at all of the schools we have played this year be better than ours? Our freshmen have more playing time than most get, and they continue to look like freshmen in high school. You can have all the talent in the world, but you won't win if someone doesn't put the right combinations on the floor.

By: BaseballBuc

BaseballBuc — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:53:13 +0000

Ive got a question for everyone. This might sound ridiculous, but i want to see what you think.

How do you think Bob Knight would do with this team? How successfull would he be and what would he do different?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, just want opinions.

By: cooper

cooper — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:41:20 +0000

Does anyone have a problem with Crean's comment that IU played a very very strong game until the end when they got rattled.

I'm not sure what game he watched but I didn't see much strong play at all

By: cooper

cooper — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:40:16 +0000

The only reason the game was close as long as it was is the fact Michigan couldn't hit a shot to save their life. This game was over after the first 5 minutes no matter how close it seemed did anyone realistically think IU had a chance of winning? I didn't. Once Harris started hitting and creating it was good night and drive safe.

By: hoosierbd

hoosierbd — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:57:43 +0000

Here is my Bad, Ugly & other observations: Watford played well last night, but I believe that's a relative comment compared to the play of everyone else. I see the upside potential of Watford, but he plays small for a 6'9″ guy – he doesn't appear to be a great leaper (see more lay-ups than dunks). Speaking of the big men – how many traditional post-up points have been scored this year – dump inside, move, score? IU is easy to guard when there is no worry of a post-up player scoring inside.

Unforced turnovers are about to kill me – especially by Rivers and the big guys. I hear commentators say Rivers is a first year player with IU – true but he is in his 4th year of college basketball – he is actually a senior and plays many times like a freshmen. For all his athletic talent, I don't feel he's contributing as much as he should (The ugly: any shot Rivers takes except a dunk).

Hulls to me seems more suited for a smaller D1 school – he can't penetrate off the dribble, he can't slash, not a great jumper, ok defender, and looks small compared to other PG's in the Big Ten. But he's an Indiana kid and I'm glad to have him – just want to see signs of improvement and that he has raw skills to be a great Big Ten PG.

I had forgotten about Roth a few games ago, but seeing him on bench in walking boot the other night reminded me that without him and Creek we have lost 2 of our first 5 guards in the line-up. So anyone having a bad night simply has to play through it.

By: BGleas

BGleas — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:47:29 +0000

I wish my vertical was 6 inches! Why do you think I played DII as a 6'6″ shooting guard 🙂

By: BGleas

BGleas — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:45:47 +0000

LOL, I can definitely have a sense of humor and laugh at myself :)

I agree with all you said there. IMO the most place Crean deserves criticism at this point is for the current state of the '10 and '11 classes. If he fails at IU, it's not going to be because of X's and O's, it will be because he couldn't back up the '09 class in '10 and '11.

By: iulineman

iulineman — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:39:21 +0000

I agree never before this year have i turned off the game am really disappointed don't think other teams fans have a true understanding of what we've had to deal with these last few years it is actually painful to watch at times and for the first time can honestly say im not that hopeful about the future sorry to be so negative will always bleed crimson and CREAM

By: MillaRed

MillaRed — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:38:56 +0000

And by the way, I'm 5' 11 and 3/4″ with a 6 inch verticle. But I can drain the 3!

By: MillaRed

MillaRed — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:38:00 +0000

I was an all-conference performer in High School, played DI ball at Indiana State, and was drafted in the second round in 1995 by the Houston Rockets. And I did all of this on my son's PlayStation 3. Eat that Mr. Gleas!

Just kidding buddy. All I will add here is there has been mention of the 1 year of recruiting, the plan etc etc. But until I see the Real Deal top 10 recruit that can help the others take it to the next level, I don't see Sweet 16s in the next 4 years.

Would you not agree the next 4 recruits are on par with the current talent? If not less talented? Call me pessimistic I guess.

By: JerryCT

JerryCT — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:37:02 +0000

I reject the lack of talent excuse. We have more 4 star players than Pitt. Which team is improving ......us or them ? Not only is Pitt improving they are ranked in the top 20. I don't see us beating UCONN at UCONN anytime soon.

To me the offensive scheme is too predictable. I don't think I have seen a weave work against a good team in years and we saw how easy it was for UM to turn us over on it.

Do you think we might see an off ball screen at least once this year to shake loose our best player Watford for a score ?

Hulls and Moore donot hurt us in small doses. I do not criticize their play alot just their allocation of minutes. Alot of our offense comes off the defense. As such, when Dumes and Rivers are not defending side by side we lose offense for everybody. Dumes also does not stand outside and pound the ball into the floor for 8 seconds.

Example: In one 10 second segment last night DUmes doubled Sims and forced him into a shaky pass to Harris who then was thwarted immediately by Dumes as well. What about Dumes pushing Sims too far under the basket at the end of the half to stop those points. The list of plays is pretty long actually for 13 minutes of action

It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

By: aceman07

aceman07 — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:33:27 +0000

You can't tell me it's the lack of talent that causes wide open layups and repeated offensive rebounds down the stretch of every game. I was watching specifically for the breakdown last night and counted 6 of 8 Michigan trips in the final 5 and a half minutes where we gave up a layup or dunk via dribble drive or offensive rebound. A couple of them were just plain blow-bys where no one even attempted to rotate over. One of two things causes that (because a team full of the worst athletes ever could avoid that)! It's either we wear down because we are young and can't sustain the energy level for 40 minutes or we freeze up and piss down our legs when we look up at the scoreboard and see that we may actually win. You can't tell me that Boston U is that much more athletic than us . . . and that fading hasn't improved hardly at all since then!