Wednesday, February 10, 2010

More Morris kthxbye


This blog has made no secret of its optimism about Darius Morris and his potential elevation into stardom next year. I touched on it a bit on yesterday's podcast, and various other places around this blog, but more or less, I think Morris has arguably the most upside on the team and has the skillset to really run Beilein's system despite the massive deficiencies elsewhere.

It was no surprise then, that he started the game against Wisconsin over the weekend, a game I didn't watch the first half of because, well, why? Dude has been one of the more productive and effective players on the team in the last two games and really looks to be coming into his game. Against Wisconsin and Northwestern, he went 6-9 from the floor, 6-7 from the free throw line, and had a 2.5 assist/turnover ratio. And better yet, those numbers came against two pretty good teams--Wisconsin is a tourny lock and NW is a bubble squad.

I haven't been particularly happy with Beilein this season and have been upset with his lack of recruiting a big man in all the time he's been here. But then he gives us stuff like this, and I remember that he might actually be an intelligent NCAA coach:

Freshman guard Darius Morris started Saturday against Wisconsin because U-M wanted someone who could dribble into the lane and find teammates.

Really? What a novel idea. Why haven't we been doing this all season? Instead, we let Manny Harris run into the lane and try and draw a foul as he charges into four defenders. But Morris' lack of minutes early this season is almost certainly because of his lack of experience as opposed to some random aversion to playing him, but man, at the point when this season started to look like a toss up even--what's the worst that can happen at that point?--I'd have liked to see him in the game instead of the perpetually disappointing LLP.

I assume Morris' start against Wisconsin is the beginning of the Morris era and we rarely see him start games on the bench for the rest of his time at Michigan. A lot has been made of the fact that he can't really shoot from the outside, to which I say, bullpuckey. I don't want Morris shooting threes anyway. I want him to be a point guard, something that he's increasingly proving he might actually be. I'm exceedingly pessimistic about the 2011 season but that might change as Morris gets more and more playing time and we get to see just how well he can run the offense.

2 comments:

chitownblue said...

I haven't been particularly happy with Beilein this season and have been upset with his lack of recruiting a big man in all the time he's been here.

I could have sworn he recruited Cronin, Morgan, and McLimans.

Chris Gaerig said...

Cronin is a bad break; Beilein couldn't see that coming. But next year, when the team has one player at 6'10" or larger, it's going to be painfully obvious how lacking in size this team is.


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