THIS
Eric Davis’ 0-5, 0-3 and a handful of unnecessary fouls needed to be addressed. Another correction I didn’t see. At what point does the coach evaluate his players and think about whether playing them is helping or hurting us?
Jacob Young didn’t exactly light up, (2-5), but played solid D and made two crucial momentum shift buckets on aggressive drives. One off a steal. He’s the only guy bedsides Jones that can penetrate, albeit a little wild, he protects the ball through acceleration and makes creative shots away from defenders. He plays with intensity and high energy. I’d honestly rather see him getting more minutes at point than Coleman at this point. Coleman has zero confidence shooting the ball inside. You cannot have a PG that's afraid to shoot inside or penetrate. If he's getting 10+ assists and 5+ boards a game, ok. But Coleman absolutely needs to be scoring, or assisting, (or both) consistently.
In addition to weak and inconsistent guard play, were seeing a lack of correction/adjustment on both sides of the ball. Michigan’s post defense is notoriously inept and yet somehow they managed to cheat on our bigs the entire first half, despite being in foul trouble. A lot of that had to do with Belien knowing we can’t shoot the ball from anywhere of course. But what’s most concerning is to see how Shaka didn’t adjust in the final stretch when Wagner left the game with an injury and Robinson was sitting out in Foul trouble. No adjustment. Michigan was totally exposed down low and yet we continued to struggle to get the ball inside, guard penetrate or get rebounds. Why is this? Scheme (or lack of scheme). I don’t buy that this group of players can be this ineffective on offense by nature. We have talented-athletic players. They just look lost, most of the time. Gameball to Dylan, again, for showing up big and trying to lead the team. As inattentive as Mo is everywhere, I'll give him credit for his consistency. We know he's good for 10pts-10reb and 4 blocks a game. One would think we could run a scheme around Mo and Dylan.
Andrew Jones is not the engine of this team. He's one guy of many. His injury is unfortunate and he's an integral component for sure. But that's sports. That's life. Soldiers fall and the platoon moves forward. Players get hurt, foul out, transfer, get suspended; we know these issues all too well. It's how coaches and players respond to the adversity that makes them great (or average). Michigan didn't play that well - they suck on the road. We could have and should have won this game; with or without Andrew.
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Last edited: Dec 13, 2017