Michigan Basketball and MSU Football Have a lot in Common

That headline immediately makes many Spartan and Wolverine fans shudder, shake their heads, and yell at their screen. I get it. Comparing the two is almost as bad as a someone playing for one and then going to coach for another (thank you Dan Enos). I have said often on our show that there are plenty of parallels between the program John Beilein runs and the one Mark Dantonio has. I'm going to share a few and then a big question that I don't have the answer to but would love your perspective.

Major Similarities

1) Both coaches are known for "doing more with less." Taking lesser recruited players and having success. Their overall classes are ranked in a similar range. UM basketball recruiting rankings since 2012 have been 8, 14, 30, 107, 41, 33, and 9 for next year. An average of 22.5. MSU football since 2011 have been 32, 33, 35, 25, 22, 17 and 36. Average of 25. I'll have more to say on this later.

2) B1G championships. They have both been at their school for 11 years. JB has won 3 Big Ten titles and Dantonio has won 3 Big Ten titles.

3) The lower ranked recruits seem to play with a chip on their shoulder. This seems to be even more true of Michigan teams the last couple of years. When a kid wasn't recruited by some other top schools, that is a great motivational chip for a coaching staff to use.

4) A belief in their system and player development - Both coaches believe in identifying a certain type of player and then developing them within their system. There seems to be some hesitancy about recruiting a certain profile of player for what seems to be a litany of reasons. Both feel confident in the ability of their staff to "coach them up."

5) 2017-2018 rivalry games - Plenty of similarities between what happened in Ann Arbor in football in 2017 and what happened at the Breslin Center yesterday. MSU basketball and UM football came into the season ranked in the top 10. UM basketball and MSU football were not ranked. Both had to play on the road. Both were big underdogs. Both of them played pretty mistake-free while their counterpart turned the ball over far too often. They both seemed to be the hungrier and mentally tougher team.

6) Neither has a national championship - Neither of them, despite some great success, has managed to capture a national title. Dantonio has been to the playoff once, finished ranked in the top 5 of three occasions, and Beilein lost in the national championship game. Back to "doing more with less." I will preface this with saying I think both of them are amazing coaches. Both institutions are very fortunate to have them. You could argue they are both top 10 in the game today, top 20 at the very least. But it leads me to a question.

* Question - Having said that, do you get credit for doing more with less, if you choose to have less? Isn't recruiting part of coaching? Hypothetically, if Bo Ryan said that he is not going to recruit any 1 and done players, then loses to Kentucky by one in the national title game with a bunch of 3 star kids, did he do a better job than Calipari? Ryan did more with less, but Calipari went after and landed "better"players. Is the recruiting strategy of Jim Harbaugh or John Beilein more likely to win a national title? Is Urban Meyer a better coach than Mark Dantonio simply because he gets better players? Just a few questions that I think are similar between the two of them as well.

I think there area lot of comparisons between Michigan basketball and MSU football as I've outlined above. Also, maybe some questions.