I'm curious how differently we would view him if the Football program wasnt in complete shambles.

On the other hand, 3 years ago we were in the Elite 8 after a National Title game appearance.

I will admit, recruiting has not been promising and we need to get some better talent coming in if we're going to be more competitive. I think we need one or two more years of nothing improving before we move on from JB.

You certainly need to give him at least one more year. He should pretty much never be fired, but I'm sure he would step aside in another year or 2 if he was approached and there wasn't much improvement.

The real problem the last few years has been LeVert not being able to stay healthy and Walton/Irvin (especially Irvin) not getting any better. The classes prior to them had done such a good job developing and it's not just happening with these guys. Get Zak Irvin far away from the roster and see what happens next year.

Irvin not fixing his busted ass jump shot in 4 years is so terrible. The only way that Irvin is a productive player is if the space one step right of the right elbow had a MTV Rock N Jock style 8 point hot spot right there, because he struggles so hard shooting from anywhere else.

The problem is that our offense just doesn't have much better options. Walton has become pretty useless on offense, if we had a couple more guys who could play more productive minutes, we should just make MAAR the PG and reduce Walton's minutes, but we just don't have enough depth at guard to do that.

looks like they didn't like being called white collar

Beat Sparty

so are we back yet or what

nah

still nice to have a couple better performances tho

Can't wait for Izzowheelofexcuses.jpg to happen Sunday

I think ive had enough of the Beilein era and his offensive philosophy. Find the PJ Fleck of the mid-majors and bring him in.

Do bad things always happen when Irvin touches the ball??

That bank shot just ruined this game. Sigh

Bad Zak is really, really, really bad.

Just saw Terry Mills doing radio on the sideline. Dude has clearly never went one day without a cheeseburger.

Terry Mills loves him some Belleville Applebee's

It's just unfathomable how bad B1G refs are. They actually get paid for this.

We played hard. I'm satisfied. Is it opening day yet.

Our sister institution is chanting "Little Sister". WTF is going on with this world.

When it is on, the Belein offense is still a thing of beauty.

Apparently it's really, really, effing ON tonight.

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL SPARTY

watched with an ex-NCAA assistant tonight and even he was like "holy **** this is beautiful."

Team can beat Nova when they play like they did last night. Unfortunately they just don't have the ability to put that type of game together often enough.

I was at the bar so I wasn't able to pay close attention, but Wagner really stepped up and has shown improvement. That's very encouraging because this offense really requires a good big man to run effectively. Even Morgan was never a great big man but he was so crucial to how the offense operated, they are often the ones setting up plays, and having someone who hustles off the ball and knows where to be is a huge step for this offense.

Also take a look at Zak Irvin's stat line from last night.

32 minutes. 1-5 from the floor. 3 points, 3 DReb, 1 Steal, 0 Personal Fouls.

He's our poor man's Kelvin Torbert. Has shown zero improvement over his 4 years in the program.

I was just talking to someone about Jordan Morgan the other day and how important he was. Since he's left, there really has just been a massive drop off in pick and roll coverage. The defense started falling off a cliff his senior year and that was the year McGary missed most of the year and there was a ton of turnover. Morgan just hedged and recovered so well in the pick and roll, and it really was critical to the team defense given how Beilein likes to play pick and roll defense.

With that said, I think the pick and roll defense has been a million times better lately than it was early in the year. There's still some lapses, but that's always going to happen. If they can continue to tighten that up, I think the team could make a pretty good run to end the year.

I forget who it was (Wagner I think), but we even successfully blitzed a State pick and roll last night. I can't remember the last time we did that - seemingly every time, the opponent turns the corner effortlessly.

It would be really nice to be able to do that somewhat consistently. I think a significant problem defensively is that we run the same pick and roll coverage every time. It's just too easy for offenses to gameplan when you do that.

One final thought: Xavier Simpson is going to be a good player. I've been on this bandwagon since before last night even though things have been going pretty rough for him. He's already a very good defender, which is super rare for a freshman point guard. He's struggled offensively, but he just oozes baller to me every time I watch him. He's always in the right spot, almost always in control, makes good decisions, etc. Reminds me quite a bit of Caris as a freshman where he just isn't quite ready to produce offensively but he's showing all the signs of being a good player.