Didn't watch it live but just finished watching the replay....
I was pleasantly surprised how Michigan got out to a big lead early. Last year's team struggled in some games early against bad teams last year, despite playing well in big games (aside from Sparty and Texas Tech, of course).
Teske dominated early, and then Appalachian State adjusted. Castleton and Johns weren't great, but they were decent, and I have no idea why they didn't play more, since the bigger lineups were working better.
Brooks definitely had the best game of his career, which is very encouraging. We'll see how he does against better teams, though.
Unfortunately, Simpson had possibly his worst game since his freshman year. Livers had a pretty bad game aside from hitting some open shots, as well. I don't expect either of them to play as badly again this season.
However, DeJulius and Nunez clearly just aren't ready, which is disappointing. DeJulius wouldn't have played as much if Simpson hadn't committed some dumb fouls, but he's just not effective as a 2-guard, either. Nunez was a liability on defense and didn't do very much on offense, either. I fully expect Wagner's return to relegate him to the bench. Also worth noting is that Bajema didn't play at all, which is disappointing. If he's even worse than Nunez and DeJulius then clearly he shouldn't play, but I had hopes that he would get backup minutes at the 2/3-spots. Hopefully he'll be ready by BigTen play....
Give Appalachian State some credit, too, though. They have a few decent players and a new coach who turned Presbyterian from a D1 bottom feeder to a Big South contender, and Appalachian State appears to at least be already improved from last year.
Overall, there were some dumb fouls and bad turnovers that I don't expect to be as problematic in the future. There were also some bounces that just went the other way. Some of the lineups just didn't make sense, either. The changes in the style of play were rather noticeable. I like how they get into the offense quickly, though some of the shots were certainly rushed or weren't that open. I don't attribute many of the turnovers to changes in the offense, since most were simply unforced mistakes. I think there's definitely room for improvement in transition offense. Meanwhile, the risk of being more aggressive in offensive rebounding is worse transition defense, which there were a few examples of tonight.
Wagner is clearly missed, and tonight shows how beneficial getting a quality graduate transfer would've been for this team. Even considering the timing of the coaching change, I don't know why that didn't happen because there were still some decent players available in the summer.
That said, the team is off a whole week before the Creighton game so they'll have plenty of time to learn from their mistakes. Creighton didn't pull away from Kennesaw (a bad Atlantic Sun team) until the second half, so I'm not sure how good they are, either.
