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John Beilein

citygriz

Well-known member
When I heard the pairings yesterday, I was not as daunted by "Michigan" as I was by their coach, John Beilein. We've seen this guy before, and it wasn't pretty. In fact, lacerating.

That was late Fall of 2006, and it was Beilein's last year as coach at West Virginia. We played them in the first game of a pre-season tournament in Orlando.

Remember, it was earlier that year that we'd beaten Nevada, and taken Boston College to within one half of the Sweet Sixteen. While our tournament dreams were shattered the last half of that game, it appeared Montana was ready to step onto the national stage, possibly as a true mid-major power. West Virginia would be the first test, and many thought we would win that game.

Mr. Beilein had other ideas. His defense was suffocating, the screens and cuts utterly precise, leading to way too many layups, and they simply didn't turn the ball over. We got hammered. If he says he doesn't remember us, there's a good reason why. It was a forgettable game on both sides.

I just hope our fan base and our coaching staff know what they're going up against Thursday, because Beilein could be coaching a squad of Little Dribblers and make this a close game. With Michigan's talent? It's gonna be rough.
 
citay said:
When I heard the pairings yesterday, I was not as daunted by "Michigan" as I was by their coach, John Beilein. We've seen this guy before, and it wasn't pretty. In fact, lacerating.

That was late Fall of 2006, and it was Beilein's last year as coach at West Virginia. We played them in the first game of a pre-season tournament in Orlando.

Remember, it was earlier that year that we'd beaten Nevada, and taken Boston College to within one half of the Sweet Sixteen. While our tournament dreams were shattered the last half of that game, it appeared Montana was ready to step onto the national stage, possibly as a true mid-major power. West Virginia would be the first test, and many thought we would win that game.

Mr. Beilein had other ideas. His defense was suffocating, the screens and cuts utterly precise, leading to way too many layups, and they simply didn't turn the ball over. We got hammered. If he says he doesn't remember us, there's a good reason why. It was a forgettable game on both sides.

I just hope our fan base and our coaching staff know what they're going up against Thursday, because Beilein could be coaching a squad of Little Dribblers and make this a close game. With Michigan's talent? It's gonna be rough.

He knows and remembers very well. In fact, he reminds me a lot of Hugh Durham at times. Have to slow this down the first half and stay out of foul trouble. Going to be hard but Gonzaga was not built in one season either. Win or lose this year, DeCuire has this program on the cusp of being a great mid-major. Sweet 16 and watch the enrollment explode!
 
Beilein is a great coach. His teams always play great D and don't turn the ball over. Don't expect Michigan to give up the ball very often. We need to limit open shots and rebound a hell of a lot better than we did in the Big Sky tournament.
 
I was writing this earlier and I never got around to it, but if I were to build a program around a coaches philosophy, John beilein would be on my top 5 coaches list. He's great with personnel, great offensive mind and can manipulate the heck out of you defensively with his million and 1 offensive sets.

Always been impressed with what he has done. Pretty good at adapting to his personnel. This group isn't as adept at running the 1-3-1, but they are high pressure and will run and trap to speed teams up. They get so many teams to make lazy or ill-advised passes.

This is a well coached team, we just have to hope we are able to catch them on a cold shooting night. I am pretty sure we don't have a great matchup for their German. I'll be fascinated to see how DeCuire chooses to defend him or who they decide to put on him.
 
For those of you who have only followed him from a far...

The thing that has impressed me most, especially because many of us (myself included) were skeptical about it the first few years, is the way he recruits. To say he is a "system coach" is certainly accurate but as others have pointed out he adapts his system to his players.

That might seem like a bit of a contradiction so let me explain...his methodology is to collect as many skilled guys as possible and build a system to highlight those skills. While that might seem like an obvious thing to do Ive seen many more programs try to build off getting as many athletes as possible and trying to teach them skills.

This is not to say he doesnt like athletic players but time and time again he's shown he is willimg to pass on a superior athlete for the fundamentally sound player. He is one of the few people around who actually believes he can teach athleticism. And thinks doing that can be easier than teaching skill.

As crazy as it sounds he's done just that...or better said, he's gotten players to maximize their athleticism. While I've not heard him say it directly, it is obvious his belief.is that a kid who is already willing.to take 1000 freethrows a day, work on their handle for countless hours, etc wouldnt be too hard.to convince.to spend a couple extra hours a day working with S&C.

Again, it was never about not.getting athletic guys and in a perfect world he would get a super athlete with skills. But when he got here.our program was in a bad place and we weren't able to land those players. So he started gettimg guys who weren't exactly going to make plays that ended up on ESPN's Top 10 but won enough games to get him to the tourney.

Then once he did that he was able to better cherrry pick from the skill guys and upgrade athletically. Finally, he was able to break through and land a couple of the ideal and he broke through and got to a NCAA Championship.

But one thing he never did was compromise on the skill part. Even when he was able to start competing for highly ranked players he still would often pass on guys who could jump out of the gym, had ideal size, an ankle breaking first step, etc. if they hadn't shown a commitment to working on the details.

Our fans have often criticised him for his "over" meticulous scouting and background checks on kids....especially when it came to offering kids later than most (or sometimes not at all) when they seemed like "no brainers" because of their star rating and/or the names of the other programs after them.

But it has seemed to work for him. Of course you could argue that if you gave him a squad of Micky D All Americans he would be unstoppable but I'm not so sure. He's just not that coach....he's a system guy more than he is a personality manager.
 
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