If you know a player's going to sit on the bench at the end of the game anyway, all the more reason to give a longer leash for foul trouble, since one justification for sitting a player is so you have them in high leverage end-of-game situations.
Illini in the Pros (Basketball)
Dusty did a great impersonation of a Michigan Man in his short time there.
Are you saying that Weber left Augie in and he got his third foul in the first half?
Regardless, I'm not sure how that game would support your contention.
There's probably nuance to these decisions. But yes, almost universally it's handled with sitting the player.
Whether its Dusty or Morez, one things that's for sure is there is a lot of meat riding of "Michigan men" going on here
Its weird
I wish Morez had stayed but I’m fine that he left. Just the nature of the game these days and we would up pivoting nicely with Mirk.
And speaking of nature of the game, I will admit I don’t hold a ton of animosity towards Dusty for poaching our guy. Literally hundreds of guys enter the portal every spring, and many of the most sought after players commit to a new program within a week or less. To assume that those conversations aren’t happening all the time is naive.
Do you think we weren’t in contact with Andrej before he portaled? Does the fact that we poached out of conference make it okay and it’s only an issue if it happens in conference? Do you think we weren’t kicking the tires on Blackwell, and vice versa, before he portaled? Although never confirmed, I would be surprised if we didn’t have a secret meeting with Storr at the BTT and tell him see the unstoppable force that is TJ? That could be you! Just because neither wound up coming here doesn’t mean we weren’t interested and I think if we could have kept our entire roster together and added Blackwell, everyone here would have been thrilled.
Morez isn’t the only good player to be poached. We’ve been poached, and we’ve also done the poaching. I don’t like it and if I were king I would try and get back to the days where transfers were the exception rather than the rule, but nature of game these days. I don’t like Michigan or Dusty, but that’s 99% because they are an in conference rival and 1% because they enhanced their roster at our expense. If tables were turned we would do the same thing.
And speaking of nature of the game, I will admit I don’t hold a ton of animosity towards Dusty for poaching our guy. Literally hundreds of guys enter the portal every spring, and many of the most sought after players commit to a new program within a week or less. To assume that those conversations aren’t happening all the time is naive.
Do you think we weren’t in contact with Andrej before he portaled? Does the fact that we poached out of conference make it okay and it’s only an issue if it happens in conference? Do you think we weren’t kicking the tires on Blackwell, and vice versa, before he portaled? Although never confirmed, I would be surprised if we didn’t have a secret meeting with Storr at the BTT and tell him see the unstoppable force that is TJ? That could be you! Just because neither wound up coming here doesn’t mean we weren’t interested and I think if we could have kept our entire roster together and added Blackwell, everyone here would have been thrilled.
Morez isn’t the only good player to be poached. We’ve been poached, and we’ve also done the poaching. I don’t like it and if I were king I would try and get back to the days where transfers were the exception rather than the rule, but nature of game these days. I don’t like Michigan or Dusty, but that’s 99% because they are an in conference rival and 1% because they enhanced their roster at our expense. If tables were turned we would do the same thing.
Let's actually look at these games and see if your cursory glance actually holds up.
This site notably doesn't just give box scores. It also gives us play-by-play. That will be important for some of those games where you argue Morez "could've played more minutes (but didn't)."
So I went through all 30 games Morez played and divided them into 4 groups.
First up are the buy games. There are 5 of them, and Morez never had more than 2 fouls. These games don't really do anything for your argument that Morez could have played more, however, because Carey Booth played 14, 16, 12, 7, and 11 minutes in these games. Furthermore, there were only 2 times someone played more than 30 (Kylan and KJ once each). These early season blowouts mean nothing for any arguments about Morez's playing time.
Next up are the games where Morez played significant minutes. Against NW in Jan, OSU in Feb, and MD in B10 Tournament, Morez played 34, 31, and 28 minutes, respectively. And against OSU, he only had 2 fouls. That was notably one of your 16 games he "could have played more." Curious. And since he only had 3 fouls in the other games, they were part of your 23. Curious.
Next are the games where fouls impacted his playing time. This is where the play-by-play is important. Fouls impacting playing time aren't just about foul count. They're about timing. For instance, in our Dec game against NW, Morez picked up two quick fouls in the 1st half and sat the remaining 6 minutes of the half. That absolutely impacted his playing time. Or the game against Arkansas where he picked up his 3rd just over a couple minutes after checking in. With timing factored in, there were 12 such games where his playing time was impacted by foul trouble.
Our last group of games are the games where both foul count and timing didn't appear to impact his playing time. There are 9 such games, and in the first 6 of these, Morez did not play more than 20 minutes. However, not even that is the full picture. The other part of your argument was Ben playing starter minutes while Morez could have played more. In the 7th game in this group, against MSU, Morez played 25 minutes to Ben's 31. I don't really think this game supports your argument, and you could even make the argument this game belongs in the significant minutes group. The final 2 games in this group were our NCAA Tournament games where he played 13 and 17 minutes, respectively. Ben, on the other hand, played 16 and 13 minutes, respectively. I don't think those support your argument, either.
If you've done the math, you'll note that this only adds up to 29 games. The 30th game doesn't really fit in any of these groups as it was Morez's first game back from injury, and since it was such a quick return, using that game as part of a "Morez should have played more" argument seems pretty silly (he played 11 minutes with only 2 fouls, 1 per half).
So with an actual look at all 30 games, only 6 of them seem to support the arguments you're making while 12 of them support arguments about foul trouble limiting his playing time. And of your 16 games where he "could've played more," 5 were buy games that don't mean anything, 1 he played significant minutes already, 1 was his first game back from injury, 2 were games where he played just as much as Ben, and 1 he picked up two quick fouls in the 1st half and sat for the rest of the half.
So like, you're not even good at boxscore watching? Dude, come on.
Actually, I think it's weird that people extend comments about players, coaches, or teams to mean that people like or hate the particular player, coach or team.
My real circle of friends has never called me a BU hater when I questioned a game strategy decision or called me a Michigan Man when I compliment something on that team.
Sports discussions are very boring to me when people try to shut down honest discussion.
Congrats on your highly logical real-life friend circle, but this is an Illinois message board. If you want an emotionless spreadsheet discussion about Michigan's roster, there are plenty of national media sites ready to overhype them for you. People here are allowed to care about loyalty and (as you so pointed to) honesty.
There is a massive difference between having an object strategy discussion and the blatant, over-the-top defense of two guys who either (1) tampered with one of our players and (2) walked out on our program after signing 3 different contracts in a matter of a week or two, each time due to asking for the amount to be raised, before finally reneging on his multiple signed contracts and bolting for a bitter in-conference rival.
This isn't an NBA analytics seminar or a Michigan puff-piece article here, its an Illinois message board. So you can expect that Illinois is going to get a fair share more support here in general. When a guy signs 3 separate contracts and then still flips to Michigan, fans are allowed to call out the weird worship they both seem to get here (again, on an Illinois message board). Its not about shutting down a discussion, but more about reading the room.
So, there are people here in fact trying to promote 'honesty', as you said. As opposed to promoting 'dishonesty' which is what both Dusty and Morez are guilty of.
Of course, loyalty should be expected.
But you kinda outed yourself for the behavior that drives me crazy. "to call out the weird worship they both seem to get here". Ya know, sometimes what you "seem" to see isn't actually the case. Just in the last couple days I opined that Bruce Pearl was worse than Morez and I somehow got painted as an apologist for Morez.
Just today someone pointed out that the NIL store was run by an alum. He was called negative. It's just a damn fact. Worth pointing out for those who weren't aware.
I don't know about others, but the only thing I'm blaming Morez for here is continuing to publicly criticize Illinois. It's fine that he left, just like it's fine that all the other guys who transferred out left. I have no hate for guys like Adam Miller and Skyy Clark who've gotten a ton of flack on this board. The difference is that those guys haven't made it their mission to trash the program after they left. And for that piece of it, the trashing Illinois, trashing the Illinois coaching staff, who is to blame for that other than Morez?
Fine to point those things out.
Also fine to point out what Morez and Dusty did.
It cuts both ways.
Nobody here has the means nor the authority to shut down any discussion so it’s just a strawman that gets used when two people disagree.
That's all fine but you clearly don't understand why people feel they way they do. People are still mad because Morez and his camp talked !!!! on the way out and continue to talk !!!! whenever they get near a microphone. Not so much the poaching, I think everyone understands thats a two way street nowadays.