JINX FEARERS: Look man if Michigan makes the national title game I don't want to have to write a preview that I can have done beforehand, because then I can write about the game they just played. This does not assume victory over Syracuse.

YES I AM DOING WICHITA GAWD

THE HYPOTHETICAL ESSENTIALS

If you're having Hotline Miami flashbacks, you are not alone. [Via Card Chronicle.]

THE HYPOTHETICAL TEMPO-FREE

Four factors. Ranks are in parentheses and out of 347.

Okay, so. Remember Piston Honda? VCU is Minor Circuit Piston Honda. Louisville is World Circuit Piston Honda.

left: VCU. Right: Louisville.

On defense Louisville is VCU… with Jeff Withey at center. As a team, anyway. While Gorgui Dieng isn't quite in Withey's stratosphere as a shotblocker, UL's defensive numbers are basically VCU plus near-elite eFG% defense and fewer free throws ceded. That latter isn't likely to be relevant against FT-averse Michigan, which acquired just 11 attempts against the Rams. The former most certainly is.

The VCU comparison holds on offense, as well. The Cardinals have a decent eFG% offense propped up by defense-created fast breaks. (The next section attempts to quantify how much that ballhawking defense impacts their offense.) They're okay at turnovers. They crash the boards like whoah. They struggle behind the line, so they don't shoot many threes. The main difference is free throws, which VCU was poor at acquiring; UL is good at it mostly thanks to Russ Smith.

THE VCU THING

I SMELL YOUR FEAR

Michigan gets about 8% of their shots off of steal-generated fast breaks, which they convert at a lovely 71% eFG. Based on my ballparking of the various teams I've hoop-mathed this year, that's a pretty standard quantity. VCU was exceptional because they got 50% more of their shots in that extremely profitable situation.

Louisville is like that, only moreso: 14% of their shots are steal-generated fast breaks, a 75% bonus. What's more, VCU was a good bit less efficient than Michigan in those situations (63%). Louisville is at 68%.

If you've watched them in the tournament, you have felt this. Louisville doesn't look like anything too amazing until a three minute stretch in which Smith and Siva are going YOINK YOINK YOINK YOINK and the next time you look up Louisville is up 15 and the game is over. Duke and Syracuse, to name two teams kind of good at basketball, are all like "WHA HAPPEN" after Louisville transformed competitive games into laughers in the second half.

Meanwhile, Louisville does not run that much off misses, or at all effectively. The transition gap goes the other way: Michigan gets 19% of their shots in transition off misses, Louisville 14%. What's more, UL is hardly better than their halfcourt offense in that situation (52% versus around 45%). Michigan is at a crushing 65%.

Stage one of taking down the end boss is crippling their fast break points, bringing their iffy shooting into focus and fueling their own transition game. Michigan is better-prepared than any team in the country to do this.

THE HYPOTHETICAL THEM

Soon-to-be Kenpom Player of the Year Russ Smith shoulders a huge proportion of the UL offense—almost a third of UL shots are his. Here is a pile of waffles that represents Smith's importance to Louisville.

THAT'S A LOT OF WAFFLES I TELLYA

His efficiency is only decent, but given his sheer volume that's still impressive. His main asset is a ton of FTAs he hits at 82%. Shots from the floor are only eh—he hits 47/33. He converts at exactly the same rate 'Cuse's Michael Carter-Williams does on two point jumpers: 30%.

Smith's efficiency is dependent on going to the rim, and going to the rim, and going to the rim. Largely in transition. As of 22 games into the season, Smith was averaging 7.5(!!!) transition possessions per game, which is second only to Jimmer Fredette over the last four years:

Note that Smith's efficiency on these transition possessions is much higher than Fredette's. He was probably just launching threes with 30 seconds on the shot clock.

With Michigan a hugely foul- and turnover-averse team, this is an irresistible force versus immovable object matchup. Hypothetically.

On defense, Smith is an in-ur-base nightmare. Via Luke Winn:

Louisville is a nightmare in general, but if you're wondering who's going to hypothetically get Trey Burke it's Smith. If you want additional data, Smith had the same TO rate through nine games, almost all of which are out-and-out steals. 

Point guard #3 Peyton Siva is a mini-Smith. He's not much of a shooter (48/30 with a 32% mark on two point jumpers); he gets to the rack; he has the exact same steal rate but doesn't appear to be quite the chaos machine overall; he is dead-eye on free throws but only gets there at half the rate Smith does. Since he's the point guard his assist rate is considerably higher, in fact only a hair lower than Burke's. He has a TO rate approaching 25, though. Burke is about half of that.

Siva is super-quick and can tear up defenses by getting past the first guy. In the Duke game he was 6/8 from inside the line and had a 4:0 A:TO ratio, but against the super-quick Dominic Artis Siva barely got a shot off. It'll be important for Trey to hypothetically stay in front of him.

SF #11 Luke Hancock is corner gunner du jour. With "just" 70% of his shots from three, he's a bit less extreme than some of the guys Michigan has run across recently. Helping the corner gunner diagnosis: only 15% of his shots are at the rim. If he's not taking a three, he's taking a two-point jumper. At 6'6" he can match Nik Stauskas inch for inch, but Not Just A Shooter Stauskas has a 45-37 edge on threes.

Louisville's power forward is #21 Chane Behanan. The good news for Michigan: he's 6'6", just like GRIII, and doesn't post up. Behanan's an OREB menace but not much else. He gets most of his looks at the rim, hits 52%, gets fouled a lot, hits 53%. He is another ballhawking UL defender, but assuming he gets GRIII, GRIII hardly even dribbles so whatever.

PROTIP: Don't let him do this.

At 253—basically Mitch McGary weight—Behanan is a load to box out. GRIII is going to have his rebounding challenged. He has been better lately at this sort of thing. he D-ed up a 6'10" Euro-style forward in the Florida game in the last game and did help Michigan blow out Kansas on the boards the game before even if he got shredded on D.

That shredding doesn't seem too likely to repeat:

While Behanan finds most of his offense around the basket, less than 20% of his shots come out of traditional post up situations. Behanan does an excellent job of carving out space and holding his position while showing solid hands reigning in errant passes. He struggles with his footwork, as he really only has a handful of consistent moves, a running jump hook with his right hand or a fadeaway jumper. Improving here, given his lack of ideal size, is obviously very important.

That was his freshman year but from my observations of the Cardinals it doesn't seem like a whole lot has changed. Two-thirds of his makes are assisted, and most of the rest are putbacks. Mission one for GRIII: keep Behanan off the boards. Mission two: get his putback game on against Louisville's weak DREB. Hypothetically.

Center #10 Gorgui Dieng is projected in the first round of the NBA draft because he's nearly seven feet tall and can jump really high. Bad news, man:

At 6'11 and 245 pounds with a 7'4 wingspan, Dieng has prototypical size for an NBA center. He's long and explosive enough to play above the rim, strong enough to hold his ground on the block and quick enough to move his feet and defend in space. Generally, even the best collegiate centers will be lacking in one of those categories.

Hypothetical Mitch McGary matchup does sound a little bit better than these dudes, at least:

On Sunday, Dieng was matched up with the 6'10, 235-pound Mason Plumlee, a stringbean with a high center of gravity who lacks the raw strength to be a high-level starting center at the next level. In the Sweet 16, it was Oregon's Tony Woods, an explosive 6'11, 245-pound center without the fluidity or feel for the game to play in the NBA. In the Round of 32, it was Colorado State's Colton Iverson, a 6'10, 260-pound rebounding specialist who can't play above the rim.

McGary is heavier than Plumlee, more skilled than Woods, and more athletic than Iverson. Because his last four games are his entire career. Shut up, Chad Ford thinks so. I don't see why I can't.

The whole enormous-jumping-guy thing results in top 100 rates in OREB, DREB, and blocks on Kenpom. He gets to the line a fair bit, shooting 65% there; he is an eh 53% from the floor. He does have range—40% of his shots are away from the rim and he hits almost 40%. In the Duke game, Dieng knocked down a number of open jumpers as Duke picked that poison when Louisville went pick and roll. Michigan might actually want to let the guards shoot in those situations. One thing Dieng isn't going to do much is post up—while Michigan is by far the least post-oriented team in the country, Louisville is in or around the bottom ten.

THE BENCH: EXTANT

Unlike, uh, the rest of the Final Four, Louisville does have a bench. It's shorter now; you are of course aware that Kevin Ware suffered the most horrific injury on a basketball court in basically forever. He was playing almost 20 minutes a game down the stretch. While he wasn't much of a factor on offense—lowest ORTG on the team—he was an important component of the defense, both directly (an almost 4% steal rate, the second-best TO generator on the team in the tourney) and in allowing Smith and Siva to rest enough to keep up their defensive intensity. Siva is the only Cardinal to crack the top 500 players in minutes played, and that's barely.

In his absence, walk-on Tim Henderson got seven minutes. It's unclear whether that would happen in a closer game. It appears all but one of his minutes came towards the end of the game with Louisville up 18. He has 20 FGA on the year, 17 of them threes. He's hit four. I doubt he plays this weekend unless things get out of hand.

Even without Ware's contributions Louisville goes eight deep. Wing #20 Wayne Blackshear gets about half of UL minutes. He has corner gunner tendencies—incredibly low TO rate, not many OREBs or FTs—but does shoot effectively inside the line (55%) and not so much outside of it (32%). Despite that a slight majority of his shots are from three.

Freshman post #24 Montrezl Harrell is a fairly generic backup bug who blocks a fair number of shots, rebounds, and shoots twos at a 56% clip. He doesn't turn the ball over, like, at all, and is a significant downgrade on Dieng on the defensive boards. Junior Stephan Van Treese has a McGary-level OREB rate and essentially only shoots putbacks, with just 40 attempts on the year in about 10 minutes a game.

THE RESUME

A relatively weak nonconference schedule is highlighted by wins over Missouri and Memphis; Louisville also beat NIT one-seed Kentucky and lost narrowly to Duke. The Cardinals went 14-4 in the Big East. Three of their four losses were consecutive in late January; the fourth was the nutso 5OT game they dropped to ND a couple weeks later.

Louisville hasn't lost since that game. Only a March 2nd matchup against the Orange was even close. Other than that five-point win, they've blown out opponents. Their S16 matchup against Oregon is the closest game they've played in that stretch, and that was 8 points.

Their last outing was a 22-point win over Duke, which rightfully should have been the one seed in Gonzaga's region. Yipes.

THE PROTIPS

Don't turn it over! For the love of God, don't turn it over! Sweet hot pickles, don't turn it over. Easier said than done against the #2 turnover-generating defense in the country, but Michigan came out of a matchup with #1 with 12 turnovers, almost none of which led to fast-break points. They are currently #1 at avoiding turnovers, and have had that tested.

With Burke running the show and guy-with-ball-magnet-in-hand Spike Albrecht poised to get 15 pressure-relieving minutes (hypothetically), Michigan has a shot of turning off the transition spigot that pushes the UL offense from bleah to fifth nationally.

Try to keep Siva out of the lane. I'm not sure if Michigan's been actively giving up routes into the lane for opposing guards in an attempt to shut off the efficient three-point shooting of their tourney opponents or if they just can't stay in front of dudes. If it's the former, it seems like the strategy in this game is similar to the one they would hypothetically deploy against Syracuse: lay off the guards for the most part until one of them gets hot.

I can't confirm or deny my impressions with those stat things but from watching UL play it seems like Siva's eh two point shooting conceals a lot of Kobe assists as Dieng and Behanan cram home misses they've rebounded.

Meanwhile, Siva and Smith have a total of 19 unassisted three-pointers between them on the year. (Trey Burke has 36 by himself.) If you go under a screen, they're not inclined to rise up in response.

Zone backup plan? Yes this again. It's not too hard to see the above bullet going poorly. In that case this is a team in which you can maybe zone up effectively. The Cards will rip you on the boards when you go to that, but I look at Louisville versus Syracuse and I see:

• 70-68 home loss in which UL shoots 44/35 despite 16 Cuse TOs
• 58-53 road win in which UL shoots 37/35 despite 16 Cuse TOs
• 78-61 neutral win in which UL shoots 45/32 and gets 20 Cuse TOs.

Louisville was propped up in all those games by a ton of foul shots. Michigan's no Syracuse when it comes to length, but they're also no Syracuse when it comes to FTs allowed or TOs suffered. It's a backup plan Michigan's already working on what with the Syracuse game pending.

Again with the Minnesota assertion. If you have a shot, take it. Louisville is another high-TO, good-eFG%, bad-rebounding team. Don't turn down open threes and for the love of pants don't take that infuriating dribble inside the line off your shoulda-been-catch-and-shoot.

I have no idea if transition is good or bad. Normally this is about Michigan being secretly inclined to up-tempo offense and absolutely lethal at it. Against Louisville, things get a bit more difficult, because they're just as deadly in the open court. Trying to check Siva and Smith without a structured defense around you—forget it. On the other hand, transition is good and this is the #1 defense in the country.

Michigan's going to push when they think they have an advantage, and if they do screw up they will get it in their face on the other end. I guess you have to dance with who brung ya. They should…

Control transition. Effective UL transition is dependent on Michigan turning it over in the open court. Effective Michigan transition is dependent on UL missing shots. Make-it-take-it aspects are in play, but Michigan is in a much better position to shut UL off than vice-versa.

Burke versus Craft (Not That Craft, The One Who Plays For Louisville And Is Named Smith). This is a matchup in which Michigan has to get a win from their Player of the Year against Louisville's Player Of The Year. Michigan survived seven Burke TOs against VCU because the rest of the team combined for five. Not likely that repeats, and anyway Burke made up for his TOs by facilitating the press break that broke the Rams.

Michigan won't survive a crappy Burke Versus Craft output; they can get by with a good one.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

segfault divide by zero error

but they could totally hypothetically do this

The Point. You Have Missed It.

If you haven’t seen the ESPN Outside the Lines report on Mike Rice, you should probably watch it. The Rutgers head basketball coach was caught on tape chucking basketballs at players, grabbing and shoving players, and calling players the words that would STILL get mother to wash your mouth out with soap, including (according to ESPN) “m-----f-----s,” “p-----s,” “sissy b-----s,” “c---s,” and “a------g------ks.” Disturbing stuff, indeed.*

Fortunately, Rice was fired for, quote, “duh.” But I think we can all agree that this is was just a disgusting, shameful display by the Rutgers players and their parents. Wait… wut?

Lord I wish I made this up. But nope. Real.

That, of course, is Chief HEY LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME I’M BEING CONTRARIAN LOOK AT MEEEEE Correspondent Rob Parker, placing blame where it so obviously belongs: on the guys getting hit in the face with basketballs. Blaming the victim is a pretty common thing in our society, but it’s usually masked a little better than this. It’s supposed to be something oblique, like “you have to wonder if the victims tried to say something” or “it’s a shame these players suffered in silence for so long.”

So, curious about where this came from, I dug back through Rob Parker’s feed to see if he has a history of this sort of thing, and sure enough, it seems to be a pattern.

This didn’t actually happen

Obvious parody is obvious, yes?

Okay, this one is probably real

You may now go back to ignoring Rob Parker. He has been conveniently placed next to Skip Bayless for the optimal avoidance efficiency.

Elsewhere in the “when all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a market research question” category, we have Darren Rovell:

Rovell’s argument is that everything that has ever happened ever in the history of things the firing of Mike Rice is based solely and exclusively on money. To wit:

What put Rice on the chopping block is the fact that the tape went public. Nothing else. This was not a victory for human decency or for the players. This will simply be a victory for business.

The leap from the first sentence to the last is pretty impressive. Of COURSE Rice was fired because the tapes went public. And of course there were financial implications. But are we really supposed to believe that the primary reason they fired him was because of finances instead of “we need to do some serious CYA here.” Or maybe “OH MY GOD NO ONE COULD PUBLICLY DEFEND THIS JACKASS IN LIGHT OF THIS EVIDENCE?” Or because they are at a public institution and the state can bring down eighteen kinds of crap on you?

*Admit it: you spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out the last one.

[After the jump, Burke happens.]

The story of this game in three gifs:

Much, much more after the jump. Best of luck voting for just one favorite.

[JUMP, yo.]

We're still internet-bereft in our house so I've spent the last few days hanging out in coffee shops and being part of the weird couple who shows up at the bar on a Monday and sits in a corner with their laptops, not talking to each other. This is of course extremely unfortunate in the scheme of things, but being nearly off the grid did accidentally provide me with yet another reason to write about Trey Burke's shot—shots—against Kansas, and I'm sure we all agree this is a good thing.

We're down to our DVD collection if we want to pipe entertainment into our faces. I come home to the MGoWife stabbily grading papers and watching O Brother Where Art Thou. At the end, the three travelers are about to be strung up when the Tennessee Valley Authority floods the valley, sparing them. They pop up, taking in great gulps of air.

The yokels talk about providence; Ulysses Everett McGill glibly talks rationality and progress. He has the gift of gab.

He is then struck dumb by a cow on the roof of a barn. While this stands pretty much on his own as a reason to shut up and stare, it was also insanely prophesied to him at the beginning of the movie. In context of a movie so defiantly old-timey it created a minor American roots music revival, the cow is a thesis statement.

Part of why I find sports so compelling is the cow on the roof. See this here blog's previous post for a Ulysses Everett McGill take on the Syracuse game: numbers and averages and techniques for a better life. Progress towards a better preview than rebound margin and "they just wanted it more."

This is my day to day. Which lane seems faster, what is my model of this driver in front of me, which of the three egress points from my new house is fastest given the fact that one has a couple of speed bumps and turns but the other dumps you out farther away from most things. It's fine, the algorithmic life. I like it. It's served me well.

There is something to be said, though, for pointing up at the new star in the sky and deciding this means locusts. I like sports because I can be prattling on about the electrified South and be struck dumb by something I had heard about and not believed. In those moments the day to day evaporates and I'm presented with something that has no reason, that just is.

A great roaring silence fills spaces usually occupied with chatter, modeling, moment to moment estimates, and it occurs to me that there are things other than efficiency. Clutch may not exist, but it happens.

THE ESSENTIALS

THE TEMPO-FREE

Four factors. Ranks are in parentheses and out of 347.

Syracuse is mediocre at everything on offense save rebounding. They crush the boards in large part because they are huge, starting three guys in the 6'8"-6'9" range and bringing up to three more off the bench depending on the health of freshman DaJuan Coleman. Their guards are 6'4", minimum; point guard Michael Carter-Williams is 6'6".

The size plays into their defensive strengths. Despite not having a single dominant shotblocker like Jeff Withey, Syracuse is #1 in block percentage. Their zone confounds opponents into shooting a ton of bad threes: 40% of opponent shots are from behind the line. That's in the bottom 20 nationally. Normally that's a bad thing, but not when opponents are shooting 28% on them. Syracuse induces bad threes QED: in their Elite Eight matchup against Marquette they got a team that was 304th in threes launched because they were 323rd in making them. Almost half of Marquettes shots were threes; they made 3 of 25. They did not clear 40 points.

For what it's worth, Pomeroy ran the numbers and suggests that even in the random realm of three-point shooting Syracuse's 2-3 zone has a real, negative impact on opponents, but one that may be masked by Syracuse's typically… er… unchallenging nonconference schedule and the Big East's usual shooter deficit. The Orangemen were just 8th (of 16) in defensive 3P% in Big East play.

The zone's drawback is the usual: rebounding. Despite running out a fee-fi-fo-fum lineup, the Orangemen allow opponents to rebound more than a third of their misses.

THE THEM

Syracuse's offense starts with their guards. Michael Carter-Williams and Brandon Triche are the highest-usage players on the team, though 6'8" wing James Southerland gets off more shots. Neither guard is particularly efficient, largely because of shooting issues. Collectively they've launched 280 threes that they hit at 29%. Both also have TO rates over 20.

MCW makes opponent point guards go bug-eyed at the size matchup

PG #1 Michael Carter-Williams makes up for those deficiencies with a massive assist rate (he assists on 41% of Syracuse makes), a lot of free throws, and a steal rate that's near the top ten. He's just not a shooter, though: on the 70% of his shots that aren't at the rim he hits under 30%. If you want a comparable, Darius Morris is a close one. Both are huge, poor-shooting point guards who use their length to exploit passing angles smaller guards can't.

Defensively, Carter-Williams is a load. He doesn't have to D-up opposing point guards one-on-one too often because of the zone, so whatever deficiency in quickness his size provides is covered. Meanwhile, that length makes it difficult for guard-sized guards to shoot over him. He affects passing angles much like a huge team would disrupt passing lanes in the 1-3-1. You probably know this, but six-foot-ish Indiana guards Yogi Ferrell and Jordan Hulls combined for zero points in the Hoosiers's S16 loss to the Orange.

Brandon Triche is a couple inches shorter than Carter-Williams and a vaguely better shooter. He's still 35% on two point jumpers and 29% on threes. Triche is the only Syracuse player other than MCW who racks up an appreciable number of assists. Wing CJ Fair has a fair number of unassisted baskets, but other than that basically all of Syracuse's shots are generated by their starting guards.

Triche may or may not be affected with a sore back on Saturday. The "recurring, nagging" injury has been bothering him since February and may have something to do with his weak shooting numbers.

Speaking of CJ Fair, he is much more of a post-oriented offensive player than his fellow 6'8" wing-type guy. Despite hitting 48% from three he's only taken 60 attempts from that distance all year, and that's not a playing time thing: guy is on the court 35 minutes a game. He takes a huge number of twos, which he converts at 47%. Unusually for… well, anyone, a majority of his shots are two point jumpers. He's pretty good on them, and unusually crappy at the rim. Michigan should be able to check him with GRIII without getting pounded inside.

Once-suspended James Southerland is Syracuse's most efficient offensive player by some distance. He's their only serious three-point threat, hitting 40% on over 200 attempts. He's also the only Orangeman other than the centers to crack 50% on attempted twos.

His hoop-math profile is pretty weird. Only 13% of his shots are at the rim—this is tiny, Spike Albrecht is at  27%—but they appear to be 90% dunks because he hits 90% of them. His jumpers are frequent and meh. Transition? Guys closing out and getting Game Blouses dunks on their face? I don't know man. Syracuse guys say he "can't dribble and his bball IQ isn't the highest," so it appears that the only time Southerland gets to the rim is in transition or when provided an alley oop or whatever from one of the guards.

The recipe here is for hrrrd closeouts. If the guy wants to step inside the three point line and put up a jumper, Michigan will take that.

Syracuse splits their five spot about down the middle between Rakeem Christmas, a 6'9" leaper with a huge wingspan, and Baye Keita, a  6'10" leaper with a huge wingspan. Both block a ton of shots and rebound decently. Christmas is an elite shotblocker; Keita very good. Keita is a very good offensive rebounder; Christmas is okay. Both have an offensive game almost entirely restricted to putbacks and here-is-a-free-dunk-from-your-point-guard. Christmas will put up a jumper slightly more than once a game, Keita even more rarely than that. They shoot decently when they get something off, which is not often. Both are 60% FT shooters.

I suggest boxing Christmas out.

Syracuse brings two guys off the bench for their other four spots. At least they used to before the tournament. Now that it's crunch time, Syracuse is rolling its non-center starters out 35+ minutes a game each. Carter-Williams and Triche have been on the bench for a combined 17 minutes in the three vaguely competitive games 'Cuse has played in the tourney.

Here are the guys you'll see for maybe four minutes:

• Guard Trevor Cooney mostly shoots threes at a 26% clip. Yeah… okay guy. He'll come in to D-up in the zone when Boeheim wants to snatch a little rest for his starters. Chance of trillion: high.
• Wing-type-guy Jerami Grant is pretty nondescript statistically, mostly an inefficient two-point shooter with mediocre rebounding numbers. He does block a lot of shots.
• Center DaJaun Coleman is available, but except for the Montana laugher he hasn't played more than a handful of minutes since January. He's a high-rebound, high-usage, low-efficiency guy if he does end up seeing the court. Again, the only way that'll happen is if Christmas and Keita get in extreme foul trouble.

If any bench player other than Keita plays a significant role, Michigan is feeling good about that.

THE RESUME

Syracuse didn't do much in the nonconference schedule other than knock off future seven seed SDSU in the season opener. That was on an aircraft carrier; SDSU was 1 of 18 from three. Since that was outdoors that may not be a particularly meaningful game.

U-S-A! U-S-awwww we have to cancel this probably

Syracuse's other KP100 nonconference wins came against Princeton, Detroit, and Arkansas (at home, by nine). They lost to Temple at MSG. Their nonconference record against future tourney teams, then: 1-1, with a win over a #7 and a loss to a #9.

In Big East play they were kind of meh. They went 11-7; they finished fifth in the league in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Their prime scalp is a two point win at Louisville, which yeah okay nice win. They also won home games against Villanova, Cincinnati, and Notre Dame.

Their losses were numerous but at least they were all understandable. The worst loss was probably at Connecticut or a 22 point bombing Georgetown put on them at the end of the regular season. The Orange then made a run to the Big East final, downing Pitt and the Georgetown team that had just hammered them before getting thumped by Louisville in the final. Syracuse actually led that game 48-43 with 11 minutes left before the Cardinals finished the game on a 35-13 run. Yeah, 35 points in 11 minutes. But that's another game preview.

In the tourney Syracuse took it to the proverbial Next Level, demolishing Montana by a women's scoreline, easing by Cal in a game that was nowhere near a close as the final score makes it appear ('Cuse led by 13 with 2 minutes left), confusing Indiana into one billion Cody Zeller blocked shots, and strangling Marquette by 16. No one has put up more than 60 on Cuse in the tournament and that was Cal inflating their point total in a futile attempt to extend the game: they had 45 points 38 minutes in.

THE PROTIPS

If you can manage to get someone other than a Syracuse center in foul trouble, that would be great. If Michigan sees a lot of Trevor Cooney, things get a lot easier for them. The Orangemen are incredibly thin. They essentially cannot replace lost offensive production from any of their starters not named Rakeem Christmas. I'm not really sure Michigan putting them in foul trouble is possible, though: Michigan doesn't draw any fouls and only Southerland averages more than 3 fouls per 40.

It's hard to focus your attention on any particular player in a zone, meanwhile. Best bet might be trying to draw a charge on one of the guards if they pick up an early foul.

Beast up, Mitch. Michigan isn't going to turn it over much and Syracuse is vulnerable on the offensive boards. Mitch McGary is one of the country's best offensive rebound vacuums, and that's not just based on his recent run. He's top ten in OREB rate over the course of the season.

Meanwhile he's pumping in those putbacks at an incredible rate, finishing easily with both hands. A double double beckons if McGary can stay on the court, and he likely will since he won't be picking up a ton of fouls against 'Cuse's low-usage bigs and the play against Syracuse is to keep them away from the rim and see what happens.

Bombs away. Syracuse forces a lot of threes. Michigan's inclined to take them, albeit not quite as much as the usual Beilein team. Where and when Michigan gets the copious threes they'll be putting up is important. If they're coming off Burke stopping at the free throw line and facilitating this is ideal. Kenpom points out that once you focus on Syracuse's Big East schedule their intimidating three-point defense tends to drop away. Even in this year of crubberating defense the Orange were only 8th in 3P% D in Big East play. IE: average.

Michigan has long shooters and a OREB beast; they're playing a D that turns you over a lot and blocks you a ton but gives up a ton of offensive rebounds. When in doubt they should pretend they are Minnesota. Have a shot? Take it. If you miss there's a 40% chance it's going back up anyway.

You: stay away from the rim. If Michigan keeps Syracuse away from the rim, the Orangemen will either be having an out of body experience on jumpers or be idling a good distance under a PPP. The gameplan should be similar that against VCU, except with less respect paid to threes: sag off guys, try to stay in front of them, don't go for low-probability blocked shots. Let them put it up, and let's have a shooting contest.

Southerland is the only exception. Michigan needs to identify him at all times and live in his jock. He is Just  A Shooter.

As per usual, go get it in transition. Michigan's been climbing up the tempo charts and is now almost average. Most relevantly for Michigan, Syracuse turns the ball over quite a bit for a top outfit. They're especially vulnerable to steals.

Burke's trademark pickpocket might spot them a 2 or 4 point lead; Mitch might have an opportunity to get some of those perimeter steals against lazy passes, especially since if he misses the opposing big isn't likely to take two dribbles and cram it down Michigan's throat.

Like games against Kansas and Florida, the best way to avoid a clamp-down defensive outfit is to not let it get set up.

Trey Burke: maintain efficiency. If you're looking for a better sample size for that whole "Syracuse destroys small guards" meme, Peyton Siva's consistently miserable outings are worrying. The 6'0" Louisville PG doesn't have great numbers, but that may be because he's had to play Syracuse three times this year. In those matchups he's a stunning 1/20 from three and 3/6 from two. Siva shot 35% from three in games not against Syracuse this year.

Similarly diminutive Russ Smith had better luck, FWIW, with 25, 18, and 10 points at acceptable efficiency rates. What with the Big East being light on Burke-level guards this year we have little data other than those Louisville games and the Indiana demolition.

It goes without saying that Michigan's path to victory gets pretty hazy if Burke is turning in Siva numbers.

Win the high post. Michigan has three avenues into the high post area that is the traditionally-declared weakness of the 2-3 zone: pass to Hardaway, pass to McGary, or screen Trey in there. Hardaway's main weapon is a FT line jumper that he can vary. McGary can take the elbow jumper or drive if the big comes up. The question there is can he maintain an acceptably low TO rate when put in a difficult, decision-demanding situation?

Meanwhile, Burke is an excellent option anywhere on the court but getting him to the spot is tough. He might have to press a bit and risk some turnovers.

In any case, a key metric to look for is GRIII dunks in the half court as he plunges down the baseline.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by one.

They're the "ORANGE" not the "ORANGEMEN". That was changed because to Irish Catholics the latter sounds the same way "South Carolina Klansmen" sounds to you. To clarify, it's a oft-told myth that the school was named for the right-wing fraternal order. The two actually have nothing to do with each other; the school name came from the school color being orange, kinda like how the Cincinnati Reds were so named because the original pro team wore red socks, but they still sometimes get grouped in among teams with offensive Native American monikers.

The way they picked orange is kinda funny. If you go back and look at the original official colors of a lot of schools, pink was a fashionable choice, however 'cuse had adopted "rose pink and pea green" as theirs. When they took the field against Hamilton College in 1889 the Syracuse fans were derided for, well, let me teambuild that:

So to get everyone to stop pointing and laughing the students said "let's be orange." Good change. It's a good change.

How it works:

1. I put up a winnable prize that consists of a desirable good.
2. You guess the final scores of the designated game, and put it in the comments, preferably in the format of [M's Score]-[Opponent's Score]. First person to post a particular score has it.
3. If you guess either game correctly, we contact you. If not, go to (5)
4. The desirable good arrives at the address you give us.
5. Non-winners can acquire the same desirable good by trading currency for it.
6. Seriously, you don't have to actually guess a basketball score to get this shirt. You can buy it.

About Last Time:

It was 87-85 in one OT, but this one guy pretty much predicted we'd have subs:

It was crazy!

This Week's Game:

#4 seed Michigan versus #4 seed Syracuse. Winner is a basketball game away from the championship.

And the Prize: Three Goggles!

Nothing says "Nothing but nylon!" like a 100% cotton tee. Sometimes when you're on…

Fine print: One entry per user. First user to choose a set of scores wins, determined by the timestamp of your entry (make it easy on me and write your score in digits with a hyphen between them. Deadline for entries is sometime within 24 hours before the start of the game—whenever I can get online in that time and lock the thread. MGoEmployees and Moderators exempt from winning because you can change scores. We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm is not just a shooter. The algorithm always fouls Cody Zeller. The algorithm can’t explain why Big Ten officials think it’s their duty to help Bo Ryan. The algorithm spent 10 years as the Indiana of basketball, if that makes sense. This is not the algorithm. This is close.