Michigan head coach John Beilein and his Big Ten coaching brethren have high-stress jobs, which comes with the territory given the enormous salaries. Ohio State’s Thad Matta was the latest casualty, resigning after a great run at OSU.
Matta had a great record against U-M, went to Final Fours and won titles, but his lack of success the last two years was apparently too much to overcome.
“I’m never surprised by anything anymore,” Beilein told The Huge Show’s Bill Simonson last week. “I’m sure everyone would have liked the timing to be better there, but this is a tough business. It’s really a tough business, and they’ve been hit hard by pro attrition over time. That can catch up, at times, to you.
“Kids transfer, and it’s been very difficult. But my God, five Big Ten titlesin the years when he was there … I don’t know if anybody else has had five during that time. That’s pretty good.
Matta won 74 percent of his games with the Buckeyes.
“None of us can plan on paydays, but it is a high stress job … high reward but high stress at the same time,” Beilein said. “All I know is he did a tremendous job against us for every year I’ve been here. He was never a delight to coach against, but is really a good man.”
Beilein felt a bit of pressure last year, as well, when his team started 4-6 in the Big Ten after two, injury-plagued seasons. A portion of the fan base started squawking, and even Beilein admitted his team was ‘missing something’ at that point in the year.
What it was, he said later — they were a bit complacent, even though they’d barely sneaked into the NCAA Tournament a year earlier.
“We didn’t realize until we were 4-6 in the Big Ten last year," he said. "The fact we made the NCAA the year before, grinded it out, got in and won a game … that was really good in ’16, really bad for ’17. Our guys thought maybe, ‘okay, we’ll be good again. We’ve got to be because we’ve got everybody back.’
“That didn’t work as well. We were not a good team on Feb. 1, but all of a sudden it clicked, and we were close to being an Elite Eight team. That’s the biggest danger … do we understand how we got to where we were last year, and how do we replace all that scoring, leadership we had from five seniors and D.J. Wilson? That’s six guys that helped us with points, leadership in some ways.”
Zak Irvin played some of his best basketball in February and March. Point guard Derrick Walton Jr., though, was the catalyst, and he’ll be extremely hard to replace.
Beilein quantified how hard in explaining just how good he was.
“Derrick was comparable to Trey Burke,” he said. “He has the same stats Trey would have had. Derrick’s three-week package at the end was comparable. To replace that … it’s going to be hard, but I feel we have enough guys lined up there.
“There’s a lot of competition, and it’s going to be really good. Xavier Simpson got some minutes there, and freshman Eli Brooks is coming in, got lot of talent for running a team. We’re also excited about Jaaron Simmons, a transfer from Ohio U., fifth year guy. I’ve never gone there. I don’t like the rule, but the fact is he’d be playing in the Big Ten for someone else if not Michigan. He’s a great student, loves Michigan, and it was an easy choice for us to make.”
Beilein isn’t sure how it will all shake out, and he hasn’t thought much about who will play, or how much. He said he’s think more about it after summer workouts with the freshmen, who arrive in just a few weeks, and how redshirt sophomore Charles Matthews, redshirt frosh Austin Davis and the others play when the lights are on.
Until then, he’ll continue with the recruiting grind and preparing for his 11th season at the helm.
“I almost laugh when people ask, ‘do you get any down time?’” he said. “Tom [Izzo] and I have no down time except maybe the end of August when the kids are done with summer session, September, a couple weeks to just relax. There’s never down time anymore.
“You’ve got to try to control that and create your own downtime. That’s what I’m going to do a better job of going forward.”
