Notes, quotes from John Beilein on Big Ten teleconference

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John Beilein joined the rest of the Big Ten coaches on the conference’s weekly teleconference. Michigan’s coach discussed his team’s upcoming game against Nebraska, Trey Burke and Glenn Robinson III sweeping the Big Ten weekly awards and more.

Opening statement: “We’re pleased to get through the first two games of the Big Ten schedule with a couple of wins. One of the things that we all know is that you need to get some road wins and then hold serve at home if you have any aspirations of being in the top of this league. So I’m happy that we’re off to that start. We have another challenge Wednesday, then before we talk again, again on Sunday. We’re back at it, this will be our third game in six days, so we have to just keep on grinding away.”

• On Glenn Robinson III winning Freshman of the Week and the rest of the freshman class: “(Robinson) is just doing so many things for us that are behind-the-scenes, that I don’t think many people realize. … We run some very set looks that option out pretty quickly, and he reads the options as well as anybody that we’ve had, as a freshman. … All the freshmen, they all came in, thank goodness, with a great attitude, and they’ve adjusted very well to college basketball.”

• On Nebraska: “I see a team that really plays great defense … you’ve got to work to score.” Beilein said that despite being a team in transition, their timing is good. “If you look at their schedule thus far, they’ve played a challenging schedule. … I know they’ll be a challenge for us.”
• On Nebraska’s first-year head coach, Tim Miles: “The only thing I know about Tim Miles is he’s a St. Louis Cardinal fan like I am. So I know he’s got to be a good guy.”
• On the advice he’d give Miles, given that he’s rebuilding a program: “I wish I could say, ‘Embrace the process.’ … I wish I had embraced it more, because those first two years are … very difficult. But the journey is what you want to embrace, because when you get to some point when you turn the program around and you feel like you’re a real contender in the Big Ten, which means you’ll be a contender in the national picture, you’ve got to remember the work that you put in to get there.”
• On Trey Burke: “Every day, there are some things he does in practice that are the ones that the truly great college players do. I’m not talking about some incredible one-on-one move, which he’s talented in. I’m talking about leadership, focus, emphasis on defense, emphasis on picking up his teammates. Those are the things that I think have set his turning right now where he is now really playing well, as well as anyone in the league, if not the nation, because he really has things in great perspective.”
• On what’s so hard about going undefeated in college basketball: “I have never thought about that, at all, and I probably never will think  about it, but now that you’ve made me think about it, I think that the challenge right now that makes it very hard is that you play more games, number one. … There were times before, when someone would play a very soft schedule before they got to the league schedule, and anybody who wants to get in the NCAA tournament, you’d better play good teams outside your conference. I think those two things have made it virtually impossible for anyone to go through a season without a loss.”
• On if he thinks at all about 16-0, which would tie for Michigan’s best record to start a season: “What we’ve talked about was being 1-0 in the Big Ten and now 2-0 in the Big Ten, so we’re going to be talking about being 3-0 in the Big Ten. That will be the main focus for what we’re doing. … Right now, we’re just trying to be 3-0 in the Big Ten.”