ROSEMONT, ILL. — Michigan head coach John Beilein meant it when he opened his Big Ten Media Day press conference with, “It is great to be here this year.” Beilein, coming back from double bypass surgery, is back at the helm and trying to mold yet another NCAA Championship contender.
It won’t be easy, he knows. Despite getting to two NCAA Championship games in the last six seasons, winning it in this climate is tough. Even winning the Big Ten will be difficult, he said Thursday.
“We had four teams in [the NCAA Tournament] last year, and there was a reason for that. We were a very young league,” Beilein said. “We have teams that have almost everybody back that are going to be terrific. They’re not going to be the 10thor 11thteam in the league like some of you predict. They’re really good.
“It’s going to be a dogfight all year long. The league is balanced as it’s ever been, maybe more than it’s ever been.”
Scheduling out of conference has been so difficult that he would agree to 24 or 26 conference games, he said, if the Big Ten asked them to. He didn’t think he’d like the 20, but now he’s all for it. Games against Indiana and Ohio State last December were great for the students, he noted, and they embraced it.
This year’s team, though, is going to take some tweaking. They lost much of their three-point production in Moe Wagner, Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Duncan Robinson and will once again rely on defense to carry them early.
“It’s more than just the players; it’s the style we can pay with those guys,” Beilein said. “Muhammad had 135 and 35 turnovers, led the country in that category. Not having a shooting big [in Wagner] make 69 threes changes everything. Duncan Robinson allowed us to play four on four.
“It’s not just the style we have to play, but we have to adapt again … and we had to adapt last year midway through the season to some things.”
But that’s one of the things he loves most about coaching college basketball.
“It’s embracing change and trying to change a team both offensively and defensively to what can work,” he said. “I think we have a chance to be a good defensive team again, but offensively we’re a work in progress. It evolves. We could see it more this year, and I hope we’re right. With the four hour we could work with kids in the summer, you could see some things. Now, after the 10 days of practice you see, ‘okay, we’re going to be able to do this, but how are we going to create points?’
“Last year there was no question after four weeks of practice we weren’t going to be as offensively efficient as we were with Derrick Walton, DJ Wilson and Zak Irvin, so I said we’re going to have to spend more time on defense. It’s really hard. You’re a hell of a coach if you’re top five in both, top 10 in both [offensive and defensive efficiency]. I said, ‘it’s okay. There are a lot of ways to win.’ If we’re going to slip to 30 to 50 in offense, we can’t be 100 in defense. We’re not going to have a very good year. We were able to flip those.”
The goal this year will be to find the balance between the two that allows his team to contend. Chances are they’ll be there again at the end.
NOTES
Beilein said getting to the NCAA Championship game but not winning it would never define him.
“My regrets are that I was never able to lead those kids to win it. I say this as honest as I can say anything,” he said. “There’s nothing about me personally. This is not going to define me as a coach, whether I can win this thing. It’s about how could I have been better to get all our guys to a championship last year, Trey [Burke] and Tim [Hardaway] and all those guys a championship, as well?
“Wisconsin has been there a couple of times, Michigan State has been there, and we’ve been there in the last 10 years. We’re right there. This is a referee’s call, ball bouncing the right way, an injury away from us winning. It’s that simple. It will all come back around. Our programs are just too good not to win a national championship somewhere along the line.”
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