The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/589596
2015-16 BASKETBALL PREVIEW are four guys that have played a lot of basketball — four scholarship ju- niors and seniors — but there are still plenty of young guys who will be playing, too. The good news i s t h e y w o n ' t h a v e t o s t o p practice as much for teaching mo- ments as they did last year. "We couldn't physically intimi- date anybody last year because we were just babies out there," Beilein said. "Some of these young guys a r e b e c o m i n g men now." Those men will be vying for play- ing time on argu- ably the deepest r o s t e r B e i l e i n has had in his 41 years of coaching. "It's going to b e i n t e re s t i n g . We probably have somewhere upwards of 11 guys who could be in position to play min- utes," Alexander said. "In our time- tested and known habit of rotations, which have been eight to nine, it will be very competitive. "The thing I'm very excited about is in the event we have adversity, whether it's injuries or whatever the case, we should have enough depth where we don't have to rely exclu- sively on our walk-ons." Not that they're bad options. Ju- nior Sean Loner- gan (6-5, 210) and sophomore An- drew Dakich (6-2, 190) helped out last year, and pre- ferred walk-on rookie Brett Hib- bits (6-8, 205) has potential. But the bigs on the roster w e re re c ru i t e d for a reason, and there's one thing in particular Al- e x a n d e r l i k e s about the group. " W h e n y o u l o o k a t R i c k y D o y l e , M a r k Donnal, Mo Wag- ner and D.J. Wil- son, I love the length we have," he said. "Jordan Morgan was a stalwart for us as a bookend, but this is by far the longest team we've had during my stay in Ann Arbor. "We're really going to challenge these guys to be better on the offen- sive glass and the defensive back- boards. They're long." They're talented, too. They'll have a chance to prove it in a tough Big Ten. ❏ Redshirt sophomore Mark Donnal added 20 pounds during the offseason and should be better suited to bang down low with the Big Ten's post players this season. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL