NOTEBOOK: John Beilein: Michigan basketball's defense is not a strength right now

Posted: Dec 14, 2009 at 9:32 PM [Dec 14, 2009]

In order to fix his ailing defense, Michigan coach John Beilein has thought of one simple solution. Practice his players harder.

Defense has been an issue for Michigan all season long. The Wolverines have been shredded by opponent’s slashers and dominated inside by their big men.

“There are certain times that you teach and you teach and you teach and you scold and you scold, and then there are going to be other times whether it is sprints, whether it is by playing time, you try one way, you try another way, you have to be more demanding,” Beilein said Monday during his radio show at Pizza House. “…But there comes a time where you have to make changes or they have to learn.”

Entering Monday’s games, Michigan was 219th in field goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to shoot 44 percent.

They have been better against the 3-pointer, ranked 64th at 30.3 percent allowed. But that stat is somewhat skewed because Michigan has played two of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the country in Houston Baptist and Utah. The Utes are 238th in the country and Houston Baptist isn’t even ranked by the NCAA because they haven’t made the minimum amount of shots to count.

“We realize right now,” Beilein said, “that defense is not a strength.”

John Beilein’s favorite road place

While Beilein has never coached at Kansas before and he’ll add to the list of famous places coached on Saturday when Michigan heads to Kansas and historic Allen Field House.

So where does Beilein, like the most? He’s been to Pauley Pavilion and Madison Square Garden and Cameron and Assembly Hall, but nothing beats Philadelphia and The Palestra.

“It’s an incredible place to play, one that we probably need to go back to and play,” Beilein said. “I love Madison Square Garden. But any place that we won on the road are my favorite ones.”

Anti-Diaper Dandy

Beilein said one of the things that is a yearly annoyance for him isn’t anything that happens on the court but what people say about freshmen - specifically who the best freshmen in the country are.

Jumping from high school to college isn’t the easiest thing to do, so Beilein appreciates what Dick Vitale does and his passion for the game. But still…

“It’s just really hard to do that. It’s very rare, and one thing that irritates me every year is when Dick Vitale gets on and talks about the diaper dandies,” Beilein said. “And I know he's a great announcer, the whole thing, but he'll talk about 15 people and there’s probably 1,000 freshmen that now think they are not good enough and they want to transfer, like what happened to me, I'm as good as that guy.

"It's very difficult for freshmen to be impact players, it's very difficult for them to learn all the things that go on in college basketball. So just sort of, you have to get them to embrace it, take it one day at a time and get better and better and better because it's a big difference once it slows down for them.”

Beilein, of course, has his own freshmen this year, including point guard Darius Morris and shooting guard Matt Vogrich, and said the process for them has been quite similar to other freshmen.

This and that
Beilein said he was surprised by the success of Northwestern after the injury to Kevin Coble. … Beilein called the nagging hip injury to redshirt freshmen Ben Cronin “a major blow for us.” … Michigan junior guard Manny Harris still isn’t at 100 percent, Beilein said, and that they’ll balance his week with rest and repetitions. He said he is still unable to go full-time in practice every day. … Beilein said he won’t do any tape study of Indiana until after he’s done with Coppin State. … Beilein went to Miami after Michigan’s loss to Utah to watch recruit Tim Hardaway Jr. play. Said he’ll be out “two or three” days a week the rest of the year watching high school juniors and some seniors play. … Players will go home from Dec. 23-26 and will have a night practice on Dec. 27 to get them back for Indiana prep.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com