ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Stu Douglass decided it was time.

The Michigan junior guard didn’t want to beg or borrow anymore. And, as he watched freshman guard Tim Hardaway Jr. search frantically for dress shoes Saturday, he decided he had enough.

Stu Douglass, for the first time in his life, bought a suit.

“We had the thing Saturday, the dinner for Mott (Children’s Hospital) and people were scrounging around for stuff,” Douglass said. “So (coach John Beilein was) like, ‘OK guys, you need to figure stuff out. Wednesday you have this thing, so you might as well go buy a suit.’”

Coach's orders doesn't mean Douglass still didn’t wait until the last minute.

For banquets in years past, he always borrowed clothing or got away with being sans suit. On Wednesday, just hours before he joined the Michigan contingent leaving for Big Ten media day in Chicago, Douglass showed up at Macy’s in the Briarwood Mall. With the assistance of former teammate Eric Puls, he bought a suit and wore it Thursday.

“It fit enough,” Douglass said. “Just went with it.”

He wasn’t the only one.

Zack Novak, Michigan’s other player representative at the meetings, bought his suit Saturday during a shopping trip with freshman forward Colton Christian. Neither he nor his roommate Douglass had the suits tailored.

“We just went for it,” Novak said. “We needed it. We had practice and then a two-hour break, so I just did it."

For the record, Douglass ended up with a black pinstripe suit and Novak wore a gray pinstripe suit.

Lineup experimentation Michigan has a closed-to-the-public scrimmage Tuesday followed by its exhibition opener against Saginaw Valley State on Nov. 5.

Prior to that, Michigan coach John Beilein is still fiddling with different rotations, including at the power forward position where freshmen Christian and Evan Smotrycz are competing for minutes.

“The next two or three days, I’m going to experiment with a couple different things,” Beilein said. “They are very different in that Colton is a very athletic, defensive-minded tough (player). Not that Evan isn’t, he’s a very high-skilled (player). They are a good complement to one another.

“At the same time, it has something to do with who is the center at that time also.”

Speaking of which, it is possible both could play in the frontcourt at once. Beilein didn’t rule out the possibility of some rotations where Smotrycz played center and Christian at the power forward slot.

“That’s another option that we’re going to play with as well,” Beilein said. “That’s the quandary I was speaking of. Do you try to stay positional or do you try to get the five most-ready guys to play at the same time?

“So we may be big, may be small.”

Nothing but love Out of nowhere, during his 10-minute podium time with the media, Indiana coach Tom Crean went on a long, excited defense of Beilein and his program.

The two coaches are familiar with each other from Crean’s time at Marquette and Beilein’s time at West Virginia. The two are also in similar situations now as both try to rebuild once-proud programs recovering from NCAA violations.

“When you look at what John Beilein has done over his career and you look at his winning percentage over his career, the man is an incredible coach,” Crean said. “This goes back to my days in the Big East and it certainly is now. There might be some preparations that are as hard, but there are none that are harder than getting ready for a John Beilein-coached team. I think it is just a matter of time before that program is back where it needs to be.

“I mean, he walked into a situation, he didn’t walk into a Big Ten champion. He didn’t walk into a team that was going into NCAA tournaments all the time. He’s had to rebuild it. And I think he’s a phenomenal coach.”

This and that Michigan darted right from media day back to Ann Arbor to make a 4:15 p.m. practice. … Michigan women’s basketball coach Kevin Borseth, when he wasn’t fielding questions from the media, bided his time working on a crossword puzzle. … Beilein said no one has stood out in practice other than Novak, who is “consistently, every day, having good practices.”

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 or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.