The But I Thought Beilein Sucked Appreciation Thread
Substitute for class and consistent winning, all while doing it the right way.
It was crazy
It wasn't this year people wanted him fired. It was last year.
But yeah, people need to stop writing his teams off in December. From the UCLA game onward we've gone 21-4.
Pretty sure after the LSU game people wanted him canned.
It was this year too. I had to start avoiding basketball posts here early in the season because it was mostly fighting about whether Beilein should be fired or not.
I don't recall that this year, although I tend to avoid the game threads as those seem to bring out the stupid in people.
People sometimes need to take a deep breath and remember that Beilein's teams usually get better as the year goes on.
That 21-4 stat is great, but the 2-0 stat is even better!!!
I understand it was last year but can we still neg Maizen for the fun of it!?!?!?!!?
I hope he's around for another ten years. Just look at the recruits he's about to bring in to boot.
This team has special written all over it next 2 years.
fans last year. “Izzo’s best class ever. Final four or bust.”
Don’t even get me started if anyone calls for Beileins job including myself ban them from this blog for a month
I couldn’t agree more with you
For excellent use of the underused ‘dickbags’ insult
Beilein is what coaches should be. Unfortunately, his mold was broken and we have scumbags who go into coaching. Sure, there are other good ones but money and the pressure to win have both caused the college coaching profession to give up on ethics and push morals to the side.
I'd argue that Beilein sure can frustrate fans by taking us through the gamut of emotions with all the ups and downs we've experienced while he's been at the helm.
At the end of the day, we know he's a great coach and someone who we can say we are proud to represent Michigan basketball because he is someone who wins honestly and cares about being ethical. That's a trait we don't see much in today's society.
That's all I have to say about that.
I am sure he has a strong moral fiber, but sometimes I wonder if part of Beilein straight edge is the fact he has never been an assistant for a coach. he literally doesn't know how to cheat. he has never been around it. I'm sure he could if he wanted to, but maybe so many coaches are dirty because they learned they had to be.
John has never been an assistant coach? Who knew? You would think they would have mentioned that on teevee once in awhile. And now I find out Moe is from Germany.
and I'm pretty sure I heard in on t.v. I do a lot of reading though, so that's entirely possible as well. I'd rather remain a hc at a smaller school if you didn't believe in what the larger school was doing because they would have been upset when you changed once you took the job.
Better to do what he did. Run his system at smaller schools, keep taking promotions, although at a slower pace and always teach one system. Keeps it easier and definitely makes you THE expert in that system. No one does it better than him.
I never even considered firing him or anything like that but his recruiting worried me a little bit a couple years back. We seemed to miss on a lot of guys. You can see what he can do when he has the horses. The 2018 class looks amazing. They remind of the class that played Louisville for the title. With all the information leaking from the FBI case you can see why we probably didn't recruit at a higher level. Recruiting in basketball is just ugly business. You really appreciate him being on the straight and narrow especially when he is winning all these games as well. Just a total class act.
Given the shadiness he has had to compete against, it turns out that Beilein is an outstanding recruiter.
As far as I'm concerned, JB can coach at Michigan as long as he damn well pleases.
Nobody should judge JB's teams by what happens in December. Judge them by what happens in March.
There are three guarantees in this life: death, taxes and John Beilein having his squad ready to play stellar hoops in March. Think we can call that fact by now.
Isn’t that what they use to say about Izzo?
He may be the best coach in the conference. Recency bias and all that but seriously.
Is there even a question about this?
And people had decent reasoning at the time. HEAR ME OUT! At the time his recruiting wasn’t good, they didn’t play strong defense, and looked to be soft.
But to his credit he EVOLVED! Brought in new assistants, defensive specialist and handed over that area of the team (which he had never done before). He continued to develop the guys he had and encouraged the ones who were not developing to look at transferring. He also got a bit lucky having some top recruits being from the state of Michigan and getting his younger assistants to connected with others.
He needed to evolve, and I’m so glad he did because there is no one who can do X’s & O’s better not develop better players as well as people.
At the time his recruiting wasn’t good,
You mean like when he recruited the current roster?
At that point last season Michigan had lost several games people didn’t think they should lose. The roster was turning over with busts. Chapman the highest ranked recruit in one class really struggled, several others had transferred out.
It’s east to look back with hindsight now that things are rolling but for awhile things looked bleak. Like I said I’m super glad it’s working out now because he’s one of the best at in game coaching and does things by the book 100%.
The biggest problem was that we had terrible injury luck two years in row.
No one should have doubted the man's ability to coach and develop talent. We saw him build this program from 10-22 to the Final Four. His teams raised banners three years running from 2012-14. The current success shouldn't surprise anyone.
It really did hinder things. But it wasn’t just random people calling for his job, people like Brian were saying maybe it was time for him to go. Good to know those people were wrong and glad to know that old dog could learn new tricks.
I know Brian created this forum, but that alone doesn’t make him some expert or deity.
I don't remember Brian calling for Beilein to be fired. If he did, he changed his mind pretty quickly. He's certainly argued the opposite many, many times.
I don't believe he called for him to be fired, but he had begun to believe that Michigan was just gonna be a perrenial bubble team under Beilein. I would guess it likely came after the loss to Illinois last year.
I think critiques of Beilein's performance were valid. Maybe he was unlucky with injuries, but the failures of roster management still made us worse than we should have been during those two years. It's easy to say everything was gonna work out now after D Walt randomly turned into a NPOY level player and this team is turning into an elite unit, but there was some real bleakness that was systemically concerning.
But Beilein made significant philosophical shifts in the way he coaches/prioritizes defense and it is really paying off. If anything...the message board goons were right.
The calls for Beilein's job were loudest just over a year ago (January-early Feb. 2017). By that point he'd already recruited all of the current roster (save Simmons) and had hired a "defensive coordinator" (Donlan). So it's not that he needed to evolve - he already had. People were just emoting and needed to let the season play out.
It was an evolving process. It needed to be done because the teams had been weak defensively and I would say it worked out even better with Donlan leaving for NW this year because the defense has gotten even better.
He got lucky recruiting guys from the state of Michigan? What?
Two of the signed recruits are up for player of the year for the state of Michigan. Sorry if what I said wasn’t clear enough. I know sometimes I’m not always clear enough. Just because it makes sense in my mind doesn’t mean it always makes sense without enough details.
stop digging.
Guess I’m sorry for saying good things about Beilein?
When a coach changes his approach to his program by recognizing flaws. Because despite what this thread tries to imply JB has changed his entire Philosophy.
This team is a defense and rebounding team first and foremost. Let me repeat that this team is a defense and rebounding team. Two huge areas of basketball that were absolutely ignored under JB and stat heads trying to prove it isn’t important. He goes out and hires Dolon(sp) then going the next step with Yelich(sp) orchestrating just an outstanding defensive team. This group helps the helper better than every team in the country except Virginia. 1-4 can guard anyone on the floor and guys like Mo and Duncan have come a long ways.
There weren’t too many gripes about offense except for 1 that I had. They shot too many 3s and didn’t attack the basket enough. Watch how this team attacks the basket. It opens everything up. They also have made it an effort to get touches in the post. Something that Michigan rarely did.
Recruiting started picking up again with this last freshman group and next years group is flat out fantastic.
JB is a fantastic coach and for the main reason after all these years of coaching he decided to change. That is not easy for coaches especially for one who has had success doing it one way.
Harbaugh take note!!
You really think this team is better offensively than past teams? And you think that because of post touches and driving to the basket? And don't have stats to back up those things, which can be, and are, counted. God bless Dolon and Yelich.
EDIT: Weird. I guess whoever I was replying to had their comment caved. What they said wasn't flamebait though. Just thought it was wrong.
Would I need stats to back up post touches and drives to the basket when I have the capability and basketball IQ to see it with my own eyes? Just so you know stats have is a 8 or 9 seed so yeah I’ll take stats as a tool not the end all.
I can tell you they get Wagner and Matthews posted up on ball reversals into a backside post up. Doesn’t go into a post move as much as it goes into a kickout which is fine. Post touches suck defenses in. Crazy what happened against Louisville last year when they did that. I watch these guys attack the basket at will including Mo. Two of the most important players on the team, Mattews and Simpson aren’t good 3pt shooters. There main focus is getting to the basket. Heck even Duncan tries to get there more.
I can't remember who it was but someone made a thread after losing to lsu or unc and called for his head. Come forward! Now! Kneel before his thrown of sub sandwiches and basketballs. Ask for forgiveness!
that one here and on Twitter. It was titled "Fire Beilein NOW!". Brian captioned it on twitter and said something like nuked this and nuked 100000 points.. It was as stupid a post then as it would be now.
Hiring Bo predates me by a little bit. Beilein is, without question, the best hire by our athletic department in my lifetime.
I love coach Beilein, but Red is a legend.
Red is indeed a legend. And also has national championships after bringing a program back to national prominence. Red is also a class act. I guess my statement comes from the fact that basketball is a higher exposure sport with more national attention.
i was never one to call for his firing, but was concerned about recruiting and defense which was in a lull off and on. but after last year's plane crash and the exceptional leadership and poise he showed, i wouldn't have cared if he'd gone 0-30 - i'll take that type of character each time, every time.