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Fundamentals still a primary focus for John Beilein during Michigan’s historic success
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Michigan is off to the best start in the long and successful history of the program. The Wolverines sit at 17-0 on the year, sit atop the B1G standings and will have an opportunity to earn the No. 1 overall ranking in college basketball with a win over Wisconsin on Saturday.
But all praise and glory hasn’t changed John Beilein’s approach to practice this season. He’s still worried about the little things and plans to continue to working on the fundamentals, even as the Wolverines possess one of the best teams in the sport.
“Practice will still be 30 minutes of dribbling the ball and passing the ball and individual instruction,” Beilein said during an interview with WXYT-FM. “It won’t be about plays.”
Throughout the season, Beilein has talked about how he wants to continue to see improvement from his team. He hasn’t been caught up in the hype, even as Michigan has posted a 29-1 record in its last 30 games.
Beilein is utilizing every opportunity as a learning experience. He plans to continue to do that even if the Wolverines’ perfect season is spoiled somewhere down the road.
“You don’t want to lose. At the same time, if some losses come up along the way, and I’m pretty confident there will be some bumps in the road along the way, that’s usually a good thing,” Beilein said. “We’ve grown through this success. But you can grow much quicker through adversity sometimes.”
Regardless of what happens along the way, Beilein isn’t changing his approach. His team will continue to focus on fundamentals first and try to perfect the things it can control.
So far, it’s worked pretty well. Why change the formula?
Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB