Z vs Winston
Hark back a few years ago when Michigan abandoned its pursuit of Winston in favor of taking Zavier (who expressed late interest). I’m sure the details of that recruiting dance are more complicated than that, but – watching Z’s game and growth compared to Winston’s – I’m so happy things worked out the way they did. We got the better point guard.
In both cases we heavily pursued a higher ranked local player, but recognized the talent that practically fell into our lap. Both are working out very nicely for us even though the players we missed on are doing well.
How can recruits not be banging down Beilein's door now?
Must be the lack of $
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/cassius-winston-wins-michigan-mr-basketball…
http://mgoblog.com/content/cassius-winston-drops-michigan#comment-33493…
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/fire-coach-michigan-basketball-tradition#co…
I'm choosing not to look for any more recents comments made last year if I walked that back. Haha.
has aged very well......
/s
I'm glad we have X, but I'm not going to dismiss how good Winston's been. Winston still shot +50% from deep this season and 89% from the line. Also, who knows how good Winston could be on D if he had Yaklich coaching him.
that looks more like wagner vs ward
triple post?
double post
...it should make his players even more appealing to the NBA. It also makes you wonder what might have been if he had recognized the value of this change a few years ago.
I don’t know who ultimately would fare better.
Ehh, that's an oversimplification based on two years of additional changes that mitigated it. I mean, Winston was number 1 for Beilein, and he's a prototypical Beilein PG. He shoots 50+ from 3 and is top 10 in the nation in assist rate. I would take him in a hot second. Hell, put him on the current team as not even starter minutes and really helps the offense. If I remember correctly, Winston visited like 15 times and was on the 'verge' of comitting forever. Then the whole Battle/Langford thing happened, Beilein got burned, and it kind of went, 'well screw it, this other guy we like too is ready to commit, so we'll just take him'. Then Winston went to MSU.
But let's not pretend we saw the current team happening when Simpson committed. It wasn't until after he committed that Beilein made the defensive switches that Simpson can thrive in. If Simpson is on previous 'make the games HORSE' type teams, UM would be terrible. I think it's more of a 'UM has the better coaching staff and head coach', than UM got the better point gaurd.
Don't agree with the second paragraph. Simpson's a classic shutdown on-the-ball defender. You don't need any particular scheme to feature a guy like that, you just need to play man-to-man defense. He would have made those bad defenses better by himself. (Not top 10 good, but top 50, most likely.)
Nah, it was pretty clear that Cassius is not fleet of foot (see my post above) and a subpar defender. I'll pass on that. You need guys that cause matchup problems against high level teams. Cassius just doesn't do that right now. He may get a lot stronger and add a Darius Morris bully element to his game, but until that happens he'll put up nice stats against the NWerns of the world and have a lot hard time when it matters. Take away Bridges and JJJ (and possibly Ward if the message board rumors are onto something) next year, and I think his limitations will be on full display.
Shows - again - that Beilein's earned the benefit of the doubt in his recruiting choices.
This version of Michigan basketball needs Zavier Simpson more than Cassius Winston. They need a relentless, game-changing defender over what Winston offers.
to Simpson's. Maybe part of Winston's defensive shortcoming is lack of desire/effort but Z has a big edge in quickness.