I can already hear the "MSU is still playing, so they're not looking ahead yet" comments.
Fine, whatever.
UM's season came to a close and exceeded most national expectations. So what's next?
Well, they certainly lose 3 players - CJ Lee, David Merritt, and Jevohn Shepherd. Some have wondered if anyone will transfer. Kelvin Grady's minutes were anyone's guess and there have been rumors of him considering a transfer. Anthony Wright could parlay his Oklahoma game into a bid for more minutes or a transfer of his own. You never know.
They add 5 players, so where are the minutes going to go? The players are:
Darius Morris - this PG is already being talked about by some as the guy that takes UM the next step. First, he's big for a PG. 6'4" is huge compared to Lee, Merritt, and Grady (Lee is the tallest at 6'0"). He supposedly has good handles, a nice shot, and most importantly the ability to break down a defender and create his own shot. When Harris wasn't doing this the offense was often stagnant, and his ability to do so went downhill as the season went on and defenses keyed on it. The 3 players leaving combined for about 40 minutes combined. How many does Morris take up? 20-25? LLP gets 18 right now, does that stay the same, go up? Novak got 28 per game. That might go down. The shooters might all lose some minutes as they work in Vogrich fits right in with Douglass and Novak. Do they each go about 20 minutes? Of the three, Douglass is the best ball-handler, Vogrich the best shooter (supposedly), and Novak the most gritty. I love Novak's hustle.
But with Manny playing SF, Novak often essentially played PF at 6'5". We basically never saw Sims and Gibson on the floor together. With both gone after the 09-10 season, Beilein certainly needs to work the three new bigs into the mix. And they are big. The shortest is Jordan Morgan at 6'8", but at 245 he's actually bigger than both Sims and Gibson. How a box out guy fits in will be interesting to see. McLimans gives a nice size advantage in a guy with a SF skill set. At 6'10" he will rarely face anyone taller. We'll see if he can handle the Big Ten. After a year of prep school, he theorhetically will have a more mature body and should be better suited than he was after 4 years of HS. Cronin is huge, but what he's capable of, how that hip will heal, and how he fits is anyone's guess. I get the impression there will be games when we only see a combined 10 minutes from those three, and others when we'll see close to 30.
Distributing minutes will be quite a chore for the coaching staff, who will likely alter each game based on matchups. Keeping everyone happy and making the right choices might be a challenge. Potentially, they could be 12 deep, all averaging 8-9 minutes or more per game going into the Big Ten schedule next year.
Depending on how many people bite on the NBA draft, the Big Ten might be even better next year. Penn State should take a step backward, and MSU will have to adjust to life without Suton, Gray, and Walton - but they're deep and have bigs coming in. Meanwhile, the worst team (Indiana) has the best recruiting class, with 6 recruits coming in with players at every position and four 4 stars. It seems the entire league is sophomores and freshmen. Minnesota and Illinois also have top 15 recruiting classes.
It will be hard to tell what the non-conference season has in store before the schedule is released, but it may be even more difficult to go .500 in conference next year.
So could the team improve greatly on the court but take a step back in the standings? Only time will tell, and we might not know very much until 8 months from now.
At least we know this much, this team has moved on. During a 5 year stretch, this team totaled 77 wins (outside of NIT wins). That's less than 16 per year. Those days should be long gone, and hopefully Selection Sunday becomes an annual tradition of looking for where they will play, not if.
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