Dodd, "Michigan good-guy John Beilein is just what college basketball needs"

Submitted by Occam's Razor on

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/2018-ncaa-tournament-…

First half of the article is posted here. Click the link for the second half. Glad Beilein is finally getting national recognition for what he has accomplished here at Michigan. 

This tournament, this game, needs John Beilein.

Oh sure, there are other good guys who are likeable and have clean reputations. But their numbers are shrinking faster than the tuna population.

In both cases, there are too many sharks. Michigan's coach has walked the walk again. In a sport of charlatans and blowhards, in a sport of millennial power brokers and unrepentant millionaires, John Beilein literally rolls up his sleeves each night.

This time, he fooled us again. "Plodding Michigan" might as well had been a registered trademark. Then against Texas A&M in a West Regional semifinal he unleashed his sprinters.

 

Michigan took the Aggies' celebrated front line and ran it into a puddle of maroon.  In short, these Wolverines can do anything. Or it seemed like it in a 99-72 win that catapulted No. 3 seed Michigan to the Elite Eight for the third time in six years.

The 99 points were the most by Michigan in an NCAA Tournament game since the Fab Five in 1992. Their efficiency was perhaps the best all season -- 62 percent shooting, 21 assists on 39 baskets.

With 5:39 left in the half, Michigan had as many 3s (eight) as it had in 16 games this season. It ended with 14.

"This felt like Madison Square Garden to us," Beilein said of the Staples Center that was 90-10 Michigan fans.

 

The season seems like it will never end for the Wolverines. They can play any style, winning a pair of grinders against Montana and Houston before running the Aggies off the floor.

Some might even say the bracket is opening up for a team that tied for fourth in the Big Ten. The Wolverines are the highest-seeded remaining team on the entire left side of the 68-team bracket -- thanks to first-weekend exits for VirginiaXavierCincinnatiNorth Carolina and Tennessee. Beilein is in his 11th season at Michigan. If he wins the national championship, he'll be one of six active coaches with 800 games.

But it may it's what didn't happen this season that defined him.

Senior forward Duncan Robinson remembers getting calls from friends when news broke in September of the now-infamous FBI investigation.

 

"To be honest with you, it was a cool moment to be part of this program," Robinson said, "because I had some friends playing at other programs. I'll talk to them and people [were] reaching out to them. Asking questions and stuff."

One of those players was from Louisville, Robinson said, which eventually had its 2013 championship banner taken down due to NCAA sanctions. Four other schools were implicated in the FBI investigation -- Oklahoma StateUSCAuburn and Arizona.

"Nobody even reached out to me, 'cause everyone just kind of knows," Robinson continued. "It's kind of an expectation at Michigan that [Beilein] has established."

 

Occam's Razor

March 23rd, 2018 at 12:59 AM ^

Here's the poll for that. 

Rank

Coach

School

Vote percentage

1.

John Beilein

Michigan

26.6 percent

2.

Mike Brey

Notre Dame

10.5 percent

T3.

Tony Bennett 

Virginia

7.6 percent

T3.

Greg Gard

Wisconsin

7.6 percent

5. 

Mark Few

Gonzaga

5.7 percent

T6.

Chris Holtmann

Ohio State

4.8 percent

T6.

Tom Izzo

Michigan State

4.8 percent

T6.

Bruce Weber

Kansas State

4.8 percent

  • "John Beilein is a by-the-book, letter-of-the-law guy. LETTER-OF-THE-LAW. ... You get two hours to work out guys for the week. If he works out a kid and, say, they go one hour and one minute, he's going to start the next time with 59 minutes on the clock and go 59 minutes. That's the truth."
  • "Personally, we've gone up against him [in recruiting] ... and there's never been any issues. You go head-to-head with some of these guys, and you know what's going on. ... But nothing has popped up that's even been in the gray area [with Michigan]."
  •  "If you look over the course of his programs, they have a very unique way in how they recruit players. It's a very old-school approach. He has to see them. They only offer kids if they come to campus twice. Stuff like that. His background is such, and this is way vague, but guys that typically have cheated or do things the wrong way, they live their lives at a certain level of athletics for such a long period. But John Beilein worked his way up. He's never been an assistant -- only been a head coach his entire life. He's like, 'This is the only way do it, and I'm going to continue to do it.' [Guys like him] get to a point in their careers where they've been able to operate that way for so long, why risk their job and reputation?"

B-Nut-GoBlue

March 23rd, 2018 at 1:22 AM ^

Goddamn right.

Now I'm all for blowing up the currents system and am not against kids getting money...but holy cow the way this guy has succeeded with his approach is truly incredible.

LabattsBleu

March 23rd, 2018 at 1:30 AM ^

Great articles, both of them.

puts a smile on my face reading the articles, but also hearing coach Beilein speak at the post game press conferences... Man has got to be one of the most genuine, down to earth head coaches in all of college BBall, if not all of the major P5 sports.

great run so far - hoping the ride doesn't stop for 3 more games

 

JFW

March 23rd, 2018 at 8:52 AM ^

may end up being the saving face of college basketball; showing that its possible to be clean and successful. What a great coach. 

 

6th Blagdon

March 23rd, 2018 at 9:04 AM ^

Great article.  Been seeing a lot stuff on B this week.  The LA Times had a nice article a couple days ago as well.  Switching gears slightly, is "shrinking faster than the tuna population" now a saying? 

karma police

March 23rd, 2018 at 9:10 AM ^

we have the best coach in the country. Some bases are apparently willing to do anything to win. We know who they are. But that's not who we are, and I'm as proud of that as our athletic performance. 

1VaBlue1

March 23rd, 2018 at 9:27 AM ^

I can't believe I saw Izzo on that list.  I mean, even before Bridges paid back that $40, I'd have never thought Izzo would be on that list.  The entire world knows he lost the bidding war for Bowen...

ska4punkkid

March 23rd, 2018 at 11:29 AM ^

Great article, but man it needs to be proof-read before publishing. Not only spelling and grammatical errors but even more mind-boggling was the interchanging of "Baird" and "Blair" when talking about the same person, CJ Baird. Great article, but man, have some pride in your work

snarling wolverine

March 23rd, 2018 at 11:35 AM ^

Good article overall, but this line is annoying:

 

The Wolverines had been outplayed for 39 minutes by the Cougars

We were down two points, dude.  So they outplayed us by a point every 19 minutes 30 seconds, apparently.

 

MichiganExile

March 23rd, 2018 at 12:17 PM ^

Blair=/=Baird and Trey hit a 3 in the regional semifinal not the national semifinal. The rest was aces.

On a separate note, wasn't Dodd the guy who didn't realize his twitter follows were public and it was filled with porn?