The great John Beilein is wading through oblivion again this season. After coming to Michigan as a "nobody" in 2007, then rising to "superstar" status while using non-college players for three seasons, he is struggling to get out of the shadow of the expectations of his delirious fan-base. Many UM fans expect Beilein's program to win the league and compete for a Final Four every year, despite the losing record last year, his third losing season over eight years in Ann Arbor.
Beilein has fluffed-up his schedule (again) this season, playing Northern Michigan - - - a Division Two team - - - and counting the inevitable win as a regular season victory. He also brought in a series of lightweight patsies to pad the schedule before the onslaught of B1G conference play. That makes it hard to know how good, or how bad, his team will be in 2016.
So we broke down the Wolverine non-conference schedule to get a best guess of how they will do in the league race.
Our prediction is that Michigan will finish 10-8 in the B1G, leaving them squarely "on the bubble" with a 19-11 record
heading into the conference tournament in March.
From there, a quick loss would leave them with an N.I.T. bid, while two wins would probably get them into the Big Dance. Splitting a pair in Chicago would leave Wolverine Nation in a two-day panic session as they floated on the very edge of "the bubble" while watching scoreboards from dozens of games across the country.
To make this prediction, we first assigned rankings to the nine teams that UM has defeated, along with the three teams that have defeated them. We used three comprehensive data-based systems that rank all 351 teams in Division One, ESPN's "RPI" and "BPI", along with the Sagarin ratings. We will give the details of our process in the next article to be posted later today.
In case you think a winning record and a post-season tournament bid is satisfying to Michigan Basketball fans, think again! The loyal UM fan-base was pounding on Beilein and complaining about his players only two weeks ago. The links below have samples of the blue-bitching:
To make this prediction, we first assigned rankings to the nine teams that UM has defeated, along with the three teams that have defeated them. We used three comprehensive data-based systems that rank all 351 teams in Division One, ESPN's "RPI" and "BPI", along with the Sagarin ratings. We will give the details of our process in the next article to be posted later today.
In case you think a winning record and a post-season tournament bid is satisfying to Michigan Basketball fans, think again! The loyal UM fan-base was pounding on Beilein and complaining about his players only two weeks ago. The links below have samples of the blue-bitching:
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