Michigan NCAA Hoops

bclintonk
Sun, 24 Mar 2013 02:28:04 +0000

Great win, great team play. Great move by Coach B to take the ball out of Trey Burke’s hands, not only because VCU was going to be keying on him, but because tMichigan actually had better ball distribution than they’ve had in the last few weeks. I love Trey’s talent and heart, and there’s a lot to love about his skill level and his game, but I actually thought Michigan’s offense became sporadic and sometimes one-dimensional about midway through the season. My perception was that Trey started to buy into his press clippings and all the national hype, and decided he had to be Superman and superstar because that’s how people were describing him–and because his NBA draft stock depended on it. His assists went down, his shots went up, he started forcing some things that just weren’t there (especially late in close games). And the more he scored the more individual accolades he got, but the more inconsistent Michigan became as a team, losing 5 of their last 10 regular season games. He’s a much better player, and Michigan’s a much better team, when he’s looking to run the offense and distribute rather than to score. And for that matter, when he’s willing to let other guys get the assist by making the pass that sets up the play, rather than trying to force the pass that gets the assist. He’ll get his scoring chances in that offense, and he’ll get plenty of assists–he just needs to play more unselfishly than he did in the latter part of the season.

Today, more players were involved in a team effort to break VCU’s press, resulting in a lot of fast break opportunities and open looks. Burke’s stat line wasn’t bad–18 points, 7 assists, right around his season averages. But what jumps out at me is that the rest of the team had 10 assists, more than they’ve been getting lately, because they moved the ball around and weren’t just waiting for Trey Burke, superstar, to make something happen. If they keep playing like that, they could make a deep run.