The Essentials

The Story

Signing Day has come and gone (on to the class of 2012!), and since last we previewed a game for the Men's Basketballing Wolverines, they've gone out and ended a 14-year road losing streak to their archrival, and taken care of business against a lesser opponent. The team's best player has broken out of a mini-slump with a solid performance in the first game, and a triple-double in the second. Good times in Crisler Arena.

Of course, it must be mentioned that said archrival is struggling like they rarely have under Tom Izzo, and Iowa is indeed terrible at the basketball (but way better than State! HAHAHAHAHA!). Despite both coming up short against the Wolverines, Kalin Lucas and Melsahn Besabe each had wonderful days offensively against Michigan. These Wolverines did not suddenly turn into... well, Ohio State.

Ohio State, on the other hand, remains Ohio State. They're among the tops in the country both offensively and defensively, and are the best team in Division 1 basketball by a healthy margin. Though Michigan played them close in Crisler Arena 22 days ago, they're likely to play much better at home.

The Buckeyes still have Jared Sullinger, and they still have an excellent supporting cast around him. In ValueCity Arena (about which: LOL), every single Wolverine will have to play some of his best ball this season to come away with a win.

Tempo-Free Breakdown

With a few games under each team's belt, it's finally reasonable to look at the stats. If you need an explanation of the stats, check out Ken Pomeroy.

Difference of more than 10 places in the national rankings get a 1-letter advantage, more than 100 gets a 2-letter advantage, more than 200 gets a 3-letter advantage, etc.

I think I've already made this joke once already this year, but hide ya kids, hide ya wife. Ohio State is good at the basketed ball. Even one of Michigan's strongest suits - not turning over the ball - is a statistical advantage for the Buckeyes. The only areas in which Michigan has performed better is rebounding Ohio State misses, and not sending the Buckeyes to the free throw line.

When last these teams met, the Wolverines outshot the Buckeyes, 64.1-60.7 eFG%. The teams were about equal in turnovers and rebounding. The biggest difference is displayed in the chart above: Ohio State shot more than three times as many free throws as did Michigan.

Judging by the statistics, it's likely that Michigan played above their heads the first time against the Buckeyes. While there could be matchup reasons for that, I think it's more likely that a rivalry game in front of the home crowd played a much bigger role. On the road, Michigan is more likely to struggle like the stats imply they should.

Predictions

Last time I predicted Michigan would perform better than expected but still lose, it worked out just fine, thank you very much. Ken Pomeroy predicts a 73-56 win for the Buckeyes, and Vegas says OSU by 16.5.

You've probably heard most of the details already - and if you want the full play-by-play, read through the end of yesterday's liveblog - but here are some greatest hits from Brady Hoke's Signing Day presser yesterday:

• All signed recruits are expected to qualify to play next year.
• Jack Miller was singled out as a center. Tamani Carter was listed as a safety. Chris Rock was listed as a defensive end, but Hoke mentioned that some defensive linemen in the class may end up moving inside.
• There is no update on Devin Gardner's redshirt status (so you can stop asking).
• Michigan will run a 4-3 defense next year, including under and over fronts.

And now, for the video I shot of Michigan's assistant coaches. What can you expect? Offensive line coach discusses the future positions of Michigan's three commits (it's still possible that Tony Posada plays tackle, and some current players may move positions as well), Fred Jackson breaks down the game of Justice Hayes and Thomas Rawls, offensive coordinator Al Borges discusses the skillset of QB commit Russell Bellomy and talks about adjusting his offense to take advantage of Denard's skillset, and recruiting coordinator Chris Singletary describes holding the class together during a coaching transition.

Be sure to pay attention at 2:35 for an EPIC FRED JACKSON, as he calls Thomas Rawls a faster version of Anthony Thomas and Chris Perry:

He is like the 2nd and 5th all-time Michigan rushing leaders...except faster!

One other quick note: Singletary told me off-camera that the coaching staff would solidify a couple dates for Junior Days in the next week. I would guess that February 12th and March 5th (home basketball weekends) are good guesses.

Kellen Jones M bowtie FTW.

Improving the not LOI. Compliance people complain to each other on twitter about people who abbreviate the "National Letter of Intent" as "LOI" instead of "NLI." Apparently there are other LOIs. You have been warned.

In any case they should be heavily reformed. Right now they're one-way binds with silly timing that have created a cottage industry of kids who attempt to reserve their spot by being "committed, but open." Paul Johnson's opinion of this is similar to Artur Boruc's about corn:

What I’d like to see happen, but I’m probably by myself: if you have 85 scholarships, and you can sign 25 a year or however many you have. When they commit, they sign the papers and you stop. It would stop all the verbal commitments and all the hats. The guys who weren’t ready wouldn’t commit. You’d call their bluff. They couldn’t make their reservation. We’ll talk to kids all the time, juniors right now, who are committing. We’ll say ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’

“Oh coach, I’m open.”

[HT: Get The Picture.]

I'm not really sure what the argument against early signing is. The way it's set up now everyone scrambles to get their class locked in on Signing Day, so someone like FL WR AJ King who has his scholarship pulled by Purdue is in a tough spot in his attempt to find a landing place. If he was signed, he'd be signed and hijinks both ways would be seriously reduced.

The Bylaw Blog has a few other suggestions, one of which I've made in this space before: the NCAA should implement a "no contact" agreement. That piece of paper would be non-binding but would allow the school specified by the player to contact the kid without restriction… and make it a violation for anyone else to. Official visits would also be off the table. That's a verbal commitment that actually exists and would help coaches figure out who's serious and who's just making a backup plan.

Heart-hurting. Remember that video of the Detroit Renaissance coach declaring Michigan's treatment of former Ren players "hurt his heart," thus explaining why Michigan couldn't get anyone out of there no matter what? Raise your hand if you're surprised that Ren's Lawrence Thomas recited the entire negative recruiting playbook:

"Why not Michigan? They had problems. There were some past experiences with other Renaissance players that I didn't like. Plus, Rich Rodriguez sent an assistant to our school to recruit me. He wouldn't even send the defensive coordinator, just an assistant. Then we'd hear that Rich Rod would be in Florida recruiting."

The Renaissance players were Andre Criswell, a last-second addition at FB who never saw the field and was kept on as a GA after leaving the team before his fifth year, and Carson Butler, the insane tight end who finally ran out of chances towards the end of Rodriguez's first year. Butler was treated so badly he stuck up for Rodriguez during the jihad. Michigan did as well by those kids as they could given the latter's hatred of nerds, be they in the wrong dorm room or playing for Notre Dame.

So… this was not a situation likely to produce a commitment even if Rodriguez showed up with every assistant he had, and one that would likely have continued under Hoke. Similarly, when Taiwan Jones complains about a lack of attention from Michigan during his visit to the UConn game he's complaining as a guy who had been a MSU commit for months already and who Michigan never even considered offering.

This continues the theme from these Blue Chip articles in the News since the beginning of time: Michigan commits asked about State say something short, polite and vague, State commits asked about Michigan rant about a lack of respect, and the guys towards the bottom of the list submit a tear-stained questionnaire because neither school thought they were good enough. This will happen next year, and the year after, and so on and so forth.

Adventures in re-evaluating wins. So… how about not losing to Iowa by twenty points? Yeah, got a whole new sheen on it today, that does.

I mention it by way of inserting this "Fran-graph" from BHGP:

Michigan's at the top and you can see the extreme focus on the rim or the three point line in Michigan's field goals. BHGP's Horace E Cow explains:

In men's basketball in the NCAA this year, players have made 34.5% of threes and 48.2% of twos.  The average value, then, of a three-point attempt is  3*.345 = 1.04, and the average of a two is 2*.482 = .964.  This fact has led many college (and pro) coaches to the reasonable conclusion that  three-point shots are better bets than two-point shots, and that their teams should take as many threes as possible (Todd Lickliter was one of these coaches, actually). 

Not all twos are worth less than threes, though: shots at the rim are usually made at a very high percentage (60-70%) and thus the average dunk or lay-up is worth 1.2-1.4 points, much more than the average three.  Putting  these two facts together (threes are better than most twos, but dunks are better than threes), coaches have developed what could be called a "hollowing-out" strategy on offense: threes and dunks are encouraged, anything in between in discouraged.

My first experience with this line of thinking was watching some Kentucky game back in the day when Pitino was coaching them and hearing the announcer go on about how Pitino loathed shots just inside the arc. Beilein's system is the logical extension of that thinking. Michigan's makes against Iowa: 14 threes, nine layups/dunks, and ten anything else.

If you can get it to work it's great, and it's not a strategy that seems to have a ceiling. One of this year's other proponents of the dunk-or-deep strategy is #1 and current opponent Ohio State. Because they have Jared Sullinger they aren't launching as many threes but both their 2PT% and 3PT% are off the charts—they're in the top ten in both nationally. They've got four guys who take a large volume of two-point shots, and two of them are shooting a Jordan-Morgan-like 59%. Ohio State's distribution isn't quite as extreme but it's essentially the same thing.

The slight difference between the programs is the ability to recruit Jared Sullinger and Deshaun Thomas every damn year.

BONUS: Do you like slow? You'll love tonight's basketball game.

180 update. Media 180, Signing Day edition:

• Brady Hoke's first recruiting class looks like unqualified success
• Brady Hoke earns first win as U-M head coach — in recruiting
• Brady Hoke's first recruiting class adds toughness to Michigan football team

And I'm not even looking at the Free Press, which remains dead to me. I can only imagine the tiny drawings of angels.

I like the one that says there's more toughness now. That's definitely true. Being not tough was the problem, not the secondary being old enough to drive only if they all stood on each other's shoulders in a huge trenchcoat. Also that's the same guy who wrote about the "impossible expectations" driving Tate Forcier away. Pete Bigelow needs to make up his mind about toughness.

[Disclaimer section: Hoke did an okay job, but nothing that should push opinions either way. Not going into the year down eight kids is good. Losing Willingham to Central Florida(!?!?) is pretty wack, but being in a position to say that's wack is impressive since Michigan was nowhere with that kid before Mattison showed up. Losing Jake Fisher makes the tackle depth chart terrifying. I also don't understand telling Rivals 250 receiver Devin Lucien, a guy who was seriously looking at Stanford and silently committed to Rodriguez during The Process because he liked Michigan's academics, "defense or GTFO." Even if you don't want Hakeem Flowers, Michigan had room for another five players and has no receivers in this class.

Meanwhile, most of the guys picked up were of the low-hanging fruit variety: guys who were committed to Indiana or Minnesota or Vandy and didn't have a ton of other confirmed Big Ten options (Heitzman, Carter, Taylor, Bellomy) or guys who had been openly coveting Michigan offers (Poole, Rawls, Taylor again) but didn't get them until later. TX TE Chris Barnett is the exception.

This class is a wait-and-see sort of thing. We won't know if these late pickups were players RR and other Big Ten schools misevaluated or warm bodies for a while, and we won't know about Hoke's recruiting prowess until the 2012 commits start rolling in and he's competing against Ohio State. Not that Rodriguez won many battles against OSU.

On the other hand, a quarter of the class won't fail to show up or wash out by the end of spring like the last RR class so that's cool. Snatching Frank Clark away from MSU despite his existence in close proximity to Ted Ginn is promising. Also: kicker. Hoke uber alles.]

Etc.: Thomas Rawls may be a member of the Jackson family. The awkward Hoke-Rodriguez video. Going back to the 4-3. Michigan finishes 21st in the Rivals rankings. Hoke's got 8 years before the deck stacks against him significantly. Don't play the Hoke "toughness" drinking game. Nutt greyshirt hijinks.

This is the front-page version of the post that lives in the "useful stuff" tab updated for 2011. Since Hoke announced Michigan would be running a shifted 4-3 I've changed the defensive depth chart to reflect what's likely to happen in spring. Defensive ends have been split into strong and weakside positions and Ryan Van Bergen has been moved back into the DT row on the assumption Michigan's starting DL reads Black-Martin-Van Bergen-Roh next year. Large sections of the secondary are wild-ass guesses we won't get resolution on until Spring.

Right now Michigan has 16 slots for the 2011 class and two players who are obvious candidates to not get fifth years, so with normal attrition they'll be in the mid-twenties again next year.

As far as the end result of The Process: Michigan is two scholarships short pending tomorrow's Willingham commitment, which right now looks like it won't go M's way. In addition, they're carrying Mike Williams—a likely medical redshirt—and at least two more players who could have not gotten fifth years after graduating this spring. Michigan forewent up to five additional recruits thanks to the awkward timing of The Process. They didn't sock themselves with USC scholarship penalties—they socked themselves with half of USC's scholarship penalties.

Anyway:

Allotted: 83  (Counting Kovacs and Grady as a scholarship players)

Seniors: 14.

Recruits: Right now Michigan has 16 scholarships. There are two redshirt juniors who may not get fifth years if Michigan finds it needs a little wiggle room: Terrance Robinson and Mike Cox.

Latest Update: 2/2/11 – Updated for 2011.

Michigan has gained a commitment from TX TE Chris Barnett.

INFORMATIVE PORTION