Beilein's Best Team? An In-depth Analysis of This Year's Win-Hungry Wolverines.

With March finally arriving, so does the madness of the NCAA Tournament. One coach in familiar territory, Michigan’s John Beilein, will be making his 12th appearance in the tournament. After a 9-game win streak and repeating as BIG10 tourney champions, the Wolverines were rewarded a 3-seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament. This is Beilein’s highest seeded team that he has taken to this tournament. As always with a Beilein team, the offense is efficient with low turnover numbers, and offers an array of ways they can score. In the past years there has been a “live by the three, die by the three” feel to the offense that would sometimes have to rely on its best guard to execute the pick-and-roll at a high level, consistently reading the floor and finding the open shooters, or taking the shot themselves. Players like Burke, Stauskas, Levert, and Walton have all previously thrived in their roles. This team doesn’t have a player with the playmaking ability of those fore mentioned players, just yet at least. However, this is the deepest team that Beilein has had to work with since the team he took to the National Championship in 2013.

The two Michigan teams are completely different in their style of play, and in terms of how they were playing at this point in their respective seasons. The 2012 team was crawling to the finish line, finishing 6-6 including an early exit in the BIG 10 tournament. This group was made up of 6 future first round picks, 2 BIG 10 Player of the Year recipients, several all BIG 10 team members, and a player in Trey Burke who was fresh off receiving the Wooden Award (National Player of the Year). It was one of the best Michigan teams ever.

Thursday night, this year’s Michigan team will start its own journey in the tourney, taking on Montana for a trip to the Round of 32. Let’s say this team is wins that game, and a few more and can make a run at the championship game, or even just to the Final Four. Could they surpass the 2012-13 Wolverines that hosted a plethora of NBA talent, as Beileins best team ever?

We will have to wait to see if and how Michigan manages to carry its recent dominance into the tournament, but we watched the magic unfold as the 2012 team made their run through the month of March and played their way into April, with each matchup seemingly showcasing a different player with a breakout game. First, beating a South Dakota team that had a talented Senior guard in Nate Wolters, who some were predicting to lead them to an upset against a Michigan squad who had been struggling in the closing weeks of the season. With a 8/9 shooting performance and 21 points later from Glenn Robinson, the doubt that had clouded the Wolverines at the end of the season was gone in the blink of an eye with a first round win. Mitch McGary exploded onto the scene as well and created a draft stock for himself in the matter of weeks during the tournament after playing behind Jordan Morgan for much of the year.

Needed for a trip to the Elite 8 was a miracle comeback led by Trey Burke against 1-seed Kansas, which was capped off with a game tying three from Burke five steps behind the line after a great screen from McGary that took the game into overtime where they would later win. After “upsetting” the number 1 seed in their bracket the Wolverines yet again had a player put on a show when they mowed down Florida in quick work with a barrage of 3 pointers from Nik Stauskas finding the bottom of the net that they would later get the privilege of cutting down on their way to the Final Four.

The Wolverines came out on top in one more “down to the wire” game in the Final Four against Syracuse, and it had seemed that the rocky finish to Michigan’s regular season never even happened. Michigan would find themselves playing in a high scoring affair in the championship game that was a nail-biter up until the very end. One that had its roller coaster of emotions for both fan bases, starting with Burke’s early foul trouble that had the fan base panicking early. This panic vanished quickly, taken care of by an electrifying first-half 17 point performance by Spike Albrecht. The game, as we all know, ended up going Louisville’s way after a great performance by Luke Hankock and the rest of the Cardinal squad.

So, what about this Michigan team has them in position to win the National Championship this year? Versatility on both sides of the court. The ability to defend at an elite level is the glaring difference in this year’s squad. Previous Beilein teams have been sub-par at defending, but with the addition of Matthews’ length, Zavier’s elite lateral quickness and hand speed, the vast improvement in Duncan Robinsons ability to play defense, and the ability to bring in Jon Teske when Moe Wagner is overwhelmed with the size of the opposing big. A team you used to see riddled with defensive liabilities now has virtually none. On the other side of the court, they stretch the floor with Wagner through the pick-and-pop as good as anyone in the country, opening up driving lanes for Rahkman and Simpson, and drawing defenders off any one of the elite shooters that fill Michigan’s rotation. This team is armed with several different players that can have a breakout night, much like the 2012 team.

Beilein’s teams are always going to be able to score the ball, but the efficiency and variety of ways this team is doing it is unlike any of the past. The Defense this team is playing is certainly some of the best played in a Michigan uniform in recent memory, and that’s what separates this team from their predecessors. If Michigan continues to play the way they have been, they very well could be the last team standing in the mess of teams fighting for a spot in the history books.