Basically ruined so far are JNJ, Paar, Jack (this year's Toro) Battle (plenty of minutes, maybe too much, but not getting shots in the right position) all of whom showed some signs of progress last year and Battle being on the A10 All-Rookie team.
Also Ball and Brelsford and Brown who are (or in Balls case were) not getting usual OOC minutes because we cannot beat even the lowest level teams not named Coppin State.
Not a trade we want to make for some so far uneven transfers, with the jury out on Dean and of course, Lindo.
 

In a last minute of oddities, inserting cold Seymour was another one when you only need 2 to win. Wondered ;why when he subbed in. Not as if he creates his own shot as we painfully saw.
And as noted, would go to Maceo first.
Only thing I could think of was as a decoy or second or third option (that worked out well against William and
Mary). 
But Charlotte probably saw the tapes and realized all they had to do was focus on Bishop.

Is "Tremendous amounts of growth" the 2020-21 version of "The kids played hard"?

Story of the game is relegating our best offensive and defensive player to a bench role. Amazing.

To GwMayhem, Sr is no longer at Michigan. He’s working for the sixers (I think gm of their g-league team). 

To jf, not right to say toro was ruined. Watch him at St John’s.  He’s a VERY limited player, and about all he can do is rebound against low major competition.

To Mentz, the last play was not drawn up for Seymour. Come on, you know better.  The last play got blown up so we don’t know what it was supposed to be (probably put floor stretchers out there for spacing and let Bishop go to the hole or draw a foul). 


That said, this doesn’t feel like last year or two years ago.  I think there’s some actual talent on this team, but whatever JC is doing is just an epic fail right now.  Hopefully he figure it out.

FQ, I wasn't referring to Sr who I don't believe was ever employed by Michigan.  Phil Martelli however is Juwan Howard's top assistant (or he and Howard Eisley are co- top assistants) at Michigan.

GWRising, as for JNJ, he might be leading the country in steals per minutes played.  For that reason alone, playing on a team that is as defensively challenged as this one, he deserves better than how he's been utilized this season.

Free Quebec wrote:

To Mentz, the last play was not drawn up for Seymour. Come on, you know better. The last play got blown up so we don’t know what it was supposed to be (probably put floor stretchers out there for spacing and let Bishop go to the hole or draw a foul).

Are you new here? I assure you, I don't know better. 
But if Seymour is on the floor and hasn't been all game, what is the explanation. Decoy?

I'm sorry, do we not think JNJ is the best player on this team? I do. Most upside and explosiveness. Most aligned with Mayhem theory.

Well, I didn't think it was possible, but I think JC's postgame press conference actually made me more angry than the actual result of the game. His face seemed to contrast what he was saying. Not sure what exactly we did that showed an improvement defensively, or where the team grew if I'm being honest. The game looked like a crossover between the Delaware and William & Mary games. I think it's a near guarantee he isn't sugarcoating it to that degree in the locker room, but when the team is 1-6, I highly doubt that most fans or media buy the whole "we showed progress" thing. Maybe I'm alone in this, but as a fan I'd like to hear what could have been done better or points of emphasis ahead of the next game not the other way around. Sure we played a better team at home and was competitive, but even then we faced their assistant coach, not Sanchez.

The team had eight days in between the W&M game and this one. I can't say that too much changed though in terms of product on the court. The first half was well played like against W&M, partly because we actually moved the ball around and that Charlotte seemed to come out of the gate a tad slow. Our play in the first half has partly been what has been frustrating to watch - we just haven't put together a 40 minute effort yet or replicate what has worked for us well to start games. I don't know what it is about halftime, but the team looks like they are given anesthesia prior to the second half because the energy and awareness is just completely lacking once they come out of the locker room. Bishop looked a bit like Jair out there after halftime, he was dribbling seemingly away from the hoop towards a corner which enabled Charlotte to trap us constantly.

Seven games in, and I am still not sure what the identity of this team is. We tried playing very uptempo (top 40 pace nationally), but found we coughed up the ball probably a bit more than we would have liked, so in the past few games we have slowed things down quite a bit and operated in the halfcourt, which is especially confusing to me yesterday because that's exactly what Charlotte wanted us to do. Again, if we are passing the ball around this isn't a bad thing, but based on how we've played this only stalls the offense more. We had multiple shot clock violations, and we were too reliant on Bishop making something out of nothing in the final seconds or Jamison hoisting a deep three to bail us out of a bad possession (not to mention, we still coughed up the ball 14 times). Defensively, we market ourselves as "Mayhem" and after a few games when we actually pressed, we abandoned the idea altogether. We said we would take a lot of threes, aren't doing that. It's one thing to experiment with different things, but I honestly have no idea what the plan is for this team the rest of the year.

I've said it in pretty much after every game, but until the team dives for loose balls and actually shows the will to want to win on both ends of the floor, they will not win or should deserve to win. They might be working hard during practice, but it simply hasn't translated to games. There was a loose ball in the first half in front of Chase, and he just didn't dive on the floor to get it instead trying to reach it by just bending his knees. Maceo in the second half trying to save the ball from going out of bounds in the corner showed no effort to keep the ball in play, instead trying to save it himself by staying in bounds which more often than not will not work - for good measure he waited a few extra seconds for the ref to make the call that he stepped on the line.

These plays will all get overlooked because the game was close in the final seconds, but the fact is in close games the last play itself isn't always the reason a team has lost, but some of the small things leading up to that point. That being said, it's hard to not mention the two fouls Matt was called for down the stretch which were bad fouls - a shame because he actually had a pretty solid game otherwise and fought for a lot of boards down low. When I think more about it, I don't think the final foul that put Shepherd on the line was necessarily terrible, because without fouling Shepherd had a pretty open shot to knock down, something Charlotte had all game (and Shepherd was only 1/3 from the line at that point). I realize that Maceo and Jamison might have trouble staying with their man in man-to-man, but I am curious to see how we fare with Hunter down low more. I get why JC would think zone would be a good choice on this team, but the team just does such a bad job of rotating over - there is no reason why Charlotte had so many open shots near the free throw line. Banking on them missing those is very risky - this is a D1 team that we faced that will make that shot consistently! If anything, the bad play on Matt was in the final possession of the game. First of all, I agree with GWmayhem that I wouldn't have taken a TO there to let Charlotte get set, but when Bishop was trapped after the ball was inbounded, Matt was the only player who was not overly covered by his man - he seemed to kind of zone out in the final seconds. I don't get why Jamison and Sloan both went further away from the basket, leaving James with only Hunter and Matt as options to actually pass to closer to the basket. Even when Hunter got the ball, I'm not sure why no one else cut to the basket to help him out but just stood there. Dean was effectively forced to pass it to Sloan. I get why Sloan came into the game based on his tying FTs against W&M, but as others mentioned we only needed 2 and his other shot up to that point was an airballed three.

Speaking of threes, I guess I should mention once again how Charlotte consistently set screens for Young to get cracks at open threes while we had Maceo, Sloan, and Jamison run in circles to get their shot off. I will say Jamison finally had a few open looks in this game, but especially Maceo has yet to get an open look that I can remember this season. It's very impressive to me that Jack has shot 40% from deep on the year despite having a hand in his face on every shot this season. Kudos to him.

The Hunter dunk in the first half will be remembered as one of our best plays in the game. What led to that play? Passing the ball around the horn and spacing Charlotte out which gave us the chance to beat their guy one on one. Hunter was shown to show a lot of emotion/energy after the play, something that was carried over to his teammates. Of course after a play like that, what do we do? Not give Hunter a single shot for the rest of the game - and he played pretty much all of the second half over Chase.

I liked the energy Lincoln brought to the starting lineup and he definitely held his own defensively, but I agree that him playing twice the minutes as JNJ seemed to limit our potential on the court. I have been pretty consistent with saying I am not sure the coaching staff knows what to do with JNJ, which has been evident all season. I still think the dimension of this team still not yet unlocked is playing James off the ball, but it's becoming increasingly clear that we may never see that dimension this season. JNJ hasn't exactly made the best decisions with the ball at times, but I think he needs a slightly longer leash than what he got yesterday, especially given he may be one of the few players on this team with defensive aptitude (his instincts on that end are fantastic). This is something that I've been thinking, if a guy like JNJ or Jamison is struggling offensively, draw something up for them to get going. Some of JNJ's best plays on the year so far have been him cutting off the ball and finishing down low (sometimes with a dunk, like in the Navy game). Right now, the only times he seem to be open is when it's a deep three which isn't his game, otherwise when he has the ball he is forced to create his shot, which is only to take the ball recklessly to the hoop. There has been mentions of him possibly transferring in the future, and I'd be lying if that hasn't crossed my mind. He and Jamison are close off the court, and the thought of that I think could really affect the team in a bad way. Perhaps to appease him we should get him back to the starting lineup. We just have to find a way to get him going. JC had mentioned all offseason that JNJ would be the guy at point, I wonder what happened between then and now - again, I get he hasn't been stellar with the ball in his hands, but it seems like there is no faith in him at all to make a play. The issue with this team is that we just cannot take Bishop off the floor because he is the only one that can direct the offense right now (and PG still doesn't feel like his natural position). I would have loved to see Lincoln direct the offense even if it was for just a few minutes, or get Tyler out there as well who has looked pretty good when he's got the chance. (No idea why we haven't seen Noel lately either down low). Bishop shouldn't have to handle that position by himself.

The preseason is now over, and conference play is about to begin. Honestly, each loss doesn't mean too much to me, but I do think about what the team is thinking after each one, especially in the way we are losing. Hopefully we are able to keep the team together, and finally discover what the heck is going wrong after halftime. Leadership and energy have been pretty much missing so far. Perhaps we should look to the transfer market for a grad transfer PG to at least support Bishop/JNJ in the offseason. I like Brayon a lot, but he will only be a freshman.

Eight more days off to fine tune some things before Fordham. We might have a slight boost from them not playing a game yet this season due to COVID. Hope the team stays resilient, because we can definitely get some wins on the board if the things above are fixed - we are now the second unluckiest team according to KenPom; only Kentucky is less lucky.