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College Basketball

You wanna get Jay Bilas fired up? Just mention Michigan


Jay Bilas is usually a fairly reserved guy from what we can tell. Sure, he can be annoying at times because he’ll talk Xs and Os until you’re blue in the face, but he still seems like a pretty nice fellow. But it seems that Bilas has a sore spot when it comes to Michigan coach John Beilein. How sore? Let’s just say that these two probably didn’t spend the holidays together.

Beilein makes his players sound so stupid and clueless that it is insulting. First, and I say this as a guy who thinks that basketball is far more complicated than most seem to understand, to refer to your own basketball understanding as ‘wisdom’ seems a bit much. Knowledge, yes. Wisdom, take a pill. Even John Wooden wouldn’t refer to his own knowledge as ‘wisdom.’ Second, if your system is so complicated that you need to refer to recruited athletes and students admitted to the University of Michigan as the basketball equivalent of toddlers, maybe you should simplify things so you can compete favorably with Harvard, Central Michigan or Western Kentucky.

Bilas’ hate isn’t exclusively reserved for Beilein; turns out that he has a problem with the entire Wolverines program, starting with their AD, Bill Martin. Here’s his take on the team from mid-December.

Asked in a college basketball chat of which program was in bigger trouble — Michigan or Kentucky, Bilas said, “Michigan. They just don’t get it. I think that John Beilein will do a great job, with time. But, it will take time. Michigan had a dirty program, brought in Amaker to clean it up, and he did that. Along the way, he won. He just didn’t crack the NCAA Tournament barrier. Now, with good talent, they are getting their heads bashed in because they are starting over. How do you think those kids feel? Their heads are spinning. It is clear to me that one person needs to go…and that is Bill Martin. He has presided over this, and if the prior coach needed to go, then Martin should go too. If an AD’s job is to put the pieces in place to have a winning program, then Martin is not living up to that end. Sorry, but that is how I see it.

Links:

[Freep.com]: ESPN’s Bilas: `Beilein makes his players sound so stupid and clueless that it is insulting.’
[Freep.com]: ESPN’s Jay Bilas believes U-M AD Bill Martin needs to go

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