Previously: Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, San Diego State, Minnesota

Northwestern

Schedule:

• @ Boston College, 24-17 (W)
• Eastern Illinois, 42-21 (W)
• @ Army, 14-21 (L)
• @ Illinois, 35-38 (L)
• No. 12 Michigan, 24-42 (L)
• @ Iowa, 31-41 (L)
• No. 21 Penn State, 24-34 (L)
• @ Indiana, 59-38 (W)
• @ No. 10 Nebraska, 28-25 (W)
• Rice, 28-6 (W)
• Minnesota, 28-13 (W)
• No. 14 Michigan State, 17-31 (L)
• Texas A&M, 22-33 (L), Texas Bowl

Record: 6-7 overall, 3-5 B1G, 5^th place Bo Division

Stats:

Recap: My friend who went to Northwestern tells me that the campus isn’t as pretty as I remember it (from about a decade ago, when I went there for nerd camp) due to deforestation. Can someone confirm this? If so, that sucks.

That has nothing to do with their football season, which was one most Wildcats fans would probably want to forget. You kind of don’t feel too bad for them, though, because they set themselves up for disappointment. But hey, at least the Heisman campaign was pretty epic. I wonder if I asked nicely I could have some surplus Persastrong dumbells.

(more after the jump)

1/29/2012 – Michigan 49, Ohio State 64 – 16-6, 6-3 Big Ten

No one expected Michigan to go on the road against Kenpom's #1 team and come back with a victory, so frustration and alarm was kept to a low simmer as Michigan tried and generally failed to find a way through the thicket of arms and athleticism that Ohio State presents. While OSU also goes "small" by deploying just one post-oriented player at a time—6'7" Deshaun Thomas is the second-tallest player OSU starts, and he's an NBA-sized wing slasher who rebounds at a lesser rate than Trey Burke—there is small, and there is "small."

Michigan is the former, Ohio State the latter. Kenpom has OSU's effective height 78th. They're not huge but they're well above average while still getting to play four-out, one-in. So if a game in which an insurmountable three-point halftime deficit ballooned to 15 by the end is dispiriting, it's also an indication of Michigan's future, in which a post is surrounded by a point guard and bouncy guys ranging from 6'4" to 6'7". Just now, that seems like a pretty good recipe for success.

But Michigan's post guy is not Jared Sullinger and with the exception of Tim Hardaway, Jr., their bouncy guys range from 6'2" to 6'2" and have a tendency to bounce their arms into fastbreaking opponents' heads because they're not bouncy, so expected outcomes come out as expected. At the half, it seemed like Michigan's point total was about what you would expect and Ohio State's was a ton of missed putbacks. That proved itself in the second half.

Oh well. This one was house money anyway.

--------------------------------------------

Down the road, the team keeps scraping out narrow wins against good competition and is on track to meet expectations. The overall picture has some concerns. Ubiquitous Michigan basketball messageboardist MHoops1 compiled some stats on three pointers in league play that point to a burgeoning problem:

Tim Hardaway Jr., with 55, has taken more 3s in conference games than anyone else--he is second in 3s per game to Illinois' Brandon Paul (who is shooting just under 40% from 3). …

There are 8 guys who are shooting 20-29% from 3 in conference play--two are Hardaway at just under 22% (2nd worst overall in the conference…), and Smotrycz at just over 24% (4th worst overall, ahead of Walker, Hardaway and Keith Appling of MSU, who is shooting just under 23% from 3.

[Only players with 20 or more attempts are considered.]

I just don't know what happened to Hardaway's stroke. Last year it was the key component driving Michigan to their bid—they took just about as many threes but were third in the conference at hitting them. You can poke at all the psychological explanations you want; I don't buy them and am left with helpless shoulder-shrugging and an increased appreciation for Darius Morris's ability to create shots from everywhere.

No matter what the reason is, Michigan has the most prolific and least efficient three-point shooter in the conference now. This is a trend that extends to the team as a whole. Kenpom's conference-only numbers have Michigan first in three-pointers attempted (43%) and tenth (31%) in makes. Often poor percentages from three aren't that harmful since threes are worth more points (SCIENCE!). Here, though, each three point shot taken is 10% less effective than an average two*. That's a big difference when you consider the standard deviations involved here.

And then there's the free throws. There aren't any. (You may have noticed.) Michigan is dead last at getting to the line. Add it up and it's a parody of Beilein's reputation for perimeter-oriented fooferah.

No one is turning their nose up at 6-3 halfway through what seems like the slightly tougher half of the conference slate, or what looks like a third tourney bid in four years. Playing Ohio State drives home what looks like a ceiling for this edition of Michigan. To compare them, just line Zack Novak up next to DeShaun Thomas. Sometimes your physical limitations catch up to you, like when you're playing a Final Four contender. So it goes.

*[By this I mean the average three pointer is worth more than the average two. The D-I average 3 is worth 1.03 points; the D-I average two is worth 0.95 points. So you can be below average from three and still not hurt yourself too badly if you take a lot. Michigan far exceeds this margin of error.

I know fouls and getting to the line argue in favor of going inside and complicate this analysis considerably.]

Bullets?

And to think you could have pissed off Valpo's conference opponents. Man, do people hate Zack Novak. While in OSU's case it's standard "you elbowed our dude" lingering bitterness, it seems like 75% of previews express some sort of distaste for the gritmaster. That as much as anything else is a tribute to his career. If he ever has a plaque somewhere in Crisler he should be bleeding profusely and it should read "booed at every arena in the Big Ten for obscure reasons."

Free throw non-perturbation. To me it didn't seem like Michigan had a case for many more than the zero free throws they acquired before 37 minutes were gone. Maybe two or three—Craft obviously got Burke's follow through on a three he made anyway—but not so many that it would have had even a slight impact on the game. There was just little way through for most of Michigan's players. It's not hard to not foul a guy like Douglass when you can just follow him to the hoop and block his shot.

Sullinger attention == board obliteration. Michigan did an excellent job of rotating to Sullinger but all that defensive attention unbalanced Michigan's defense and allowed various Buckeyes to hammer the boards. OSU rebounded nearly 50% of their misses, which was death. Not sure what was the cause of the sudden inability to get the damn ball. Let's check!

Culprits in order: Hardaway, Douglass, Smotrycz, Sullinger double, Morgan, McLimans. Well… crap, try to fix that. I can't even claim that the Sullinger doubling was a major factor. It was just guys getting pushed out of the way and out-athleted by a 6-4 dude. Guh.

Smotrycz hat tip. Those possessions when he was matched up against Sullinger could have gone much, much worse. Still not contributing much on offense except in spurts. The small-ball lineup seems very effective defensively but lacks a certain something on offense.

Slightly tougher half in the rearview? I'd say so. Michigan had five at home and four away in the first half and must invert that in the second, but you can call the MSU, OSU, Indiana, Purdue, and PSU and Northwestern games a wash since Michigan will flip home and road with all those opponents. So then you've got:

• DONE: Minnesota, Wisconsin, @ Iowa,
• TO COME: @ Nebraska, Illinois, @ Illinois

Minnesota and Illinois at home are a wash. @ Nebraska is easier, and I'm not sure whether I'd play Wisconsin at home or Illinois on the road. Kenpom says definitely Illinois but it's been a little gaga for Wisconsin's nonconference blowouts all year. Anyway, I said slight. This section has been excessively defensive.

Iowa State watch. The Hoiberg Home for Lost Big Ten boys took out Kansas, which serves as a big, tourney-bid-validating win as long as they perform as expected down the stretch.

This could be going better. I was really thinking there'd be a Hello post yesterday. Instead, bupkis. Armani Reeves sticks with his buddy and Alex Kozan commits to Iowa. Michigan's 50-50 shots are coming up tails. With Sam Grant headed to Oklahoma, even their better than 50-50 shots are coming up tails.

Big deal? Somewhat. It's not a huge deal to downgrade from a 3/4 star type like Kozan to a sleeper three star like new DT hotness Willie Henry*. Losing Reeves and having Yuri Wright go off the board** because of various tweets about organisms (not those organisms) does leave corner a little dodgy, especially if you look at 5'8" Cass Tech corners skeptically these days. The depth chart looks fine there, though.

OL and TE not so much. Diamond is a huge priority now and if Chris Muller looks like he might shake free from Rutgers (survey says… probably not, but not out of the question) I would hop on that rather than vacate a bunch of scholarships. Michigan has five more slots and looks like they'll fill two or three from Henry/Diamond. Insert extreme confusion about Arnett situation here.

Along with Kozan, Iowa's getting guys from eight-man football who have commit posts begin…

Your average Iowan has probably never heard of Tabor, Iowa or the Fremont-Mills Community School District. Hell, they probably aren’t even aware that there are counties named Fremont or Mills.

That's Nate Meier, a running back/MLB who will either be Chad Greenway or a shiftless hobo in five years depending on which side of the ball he ends up on. The point: no one in the division is recruiting at Hoke's level and with a huge focus on getting character kids, eventually that's going to pay off.

*[Who is not the surprise I was talking about in an earlier post, FWIW. I think that is off the table now; not sure what changed but Henry certainly seems like a one for one drop in for mystery guy. Most likely scenario: they watched Henry's film just now and veered towards him over mystery guy.]

**[LEMON BET STATUS! since every post about Wright's situation ostentatiously mentions Michigan's withdrawal from his recruitment, it is void. The disbelief was that a player from NJ would choose to go to Colorado over Michigan; Wright basically had no choice.

Also: no, Yuri Wright did not get expelled for some frickin' tweets. That does not happen. Similarly, Michigan did not drop the kid for some frickin' tweets. Put the pieces together and you have something like Stonum. The relatively minor thing was the last straw. This is entirely speculation.]

Bye week hockey. Another chaotic weekend in college hockey saw Bowling Green win(!) and UMD come out of a weekend against Michigan Tech on the short end of things. Tech is now .500 on the year and 9-7-2 in the WCHA. Mel Pearson: I be like dang.

Anyway, when the dust cleared Michigan blipped down to seventh in the Pairwise and sixth in the CCHA, but it's not all that bad:

They are a point from a massive n-way tie for third. The schedule doesn't look that intimidating anymore, with series against #3, #8, #9, and 11, though of course there's little difference between 2-9 in the league.

What if we look at goal differential?

Michigan is #1 by a second ENG against OSU and faces #2, #7, #9, and #11. Suddenly things are manageable. After this weekend they'll be exceedingly so. Anything better than a split against Miami and they're rolling to the finish.

As for the Pairwise, pay no attention to the drop. Lowell, BC, and Ferris are ahead by RPI shavings. A collapsing OSU is ahead by a COP shaving. If Michigan plays like they deserve a one seed down the stretch they'll get it. The target number of wins to enter the CCHA playoffs as a top seed is six, which is very doable: sweep terrible BG and one other weekend, split the other two.

The only truly annoying comparison is versus CC, which overcomes a massive RPI gap by playing fewer TUCs (both teams are two games above .500) and beating Union instead of losing to them. Root against the Tigers from here on out.

Negative recruiting: not so much. Amara Darboh:

"A lot of the other coaches, when I would talk to them, they’d ask, 'What other schools you looking at?'" four-star Iowa receiver Amara Darboh said. "And then then they would talk badly about the schools, or bash where I just went.

"But, not Michigan. I don’t know why they didn’t, but I like that they didn’t, and it says a lot about them."

Wormley, Reeves, and Pipkins also vouch for that. And Darboh's guardian brings up Hoke's masterful self control during a key moment:

Dan Schaefer, legal guardian of Darboh, said he was highly skeptical of Michigan because of the failures of the Rich Rodriguez era and the instability of a coaching change. Two things changed his mind.

First, it was Hoke's measured handling of struggling punter Will Hagerup in the Ohio State game last season, which was Darboh's official visit.

"He wasn’t overreacting," Schaefer said. "Like, the punter missed the snap. But (Hoke) didn’t go over there and get in his business right away. I liked that. It gave me confidence he could handle Amara."

I was uttering every cussed cuss I knew and inventing six new ones as this went down. Mienke also has a story on Darboh's turbulent past. Turbulent as in "caught in a civil war."

'98 Wisconsin. Part of Michigan's recovery from that ugly 0-2 start ("Cross is boss! Cross is boss!"):

Via Wolverine Historian, obviously. You can also check out '83 Ohio State.

Well done, America. Texas hates Craig James:

Public Policy Polling just came out of the field with news that only 2 percent of Texas Republicans will vote for him for U.S. Senate. It's early yet, but if Republican political consultant Brian Mayes is correct, 2 percent is about where we should expect him to end up. In the interests of disclosure, I'm working for one of the Democrats in the race, and we aren't concerned with James in the slightest.

"I'm surprised it's that high," said Mayes. "If you ask the average Republican voter... he's remembered for the scandal at SMU and using his position at ESPN to get a wildly popular coach fired. He is by far one of the most hated men in West Texas."

Money quote:

"It's not that people in West Texas don't like him," said Mayes. "It's that nobody likes him."

The only downside to this is ESPN will rehire him on the Stephen A. Smith principle: ESPN hates us as much as America hates Craig James and knows we can't change the channel.

#rememberthefive

[HT: Blutarsky.]

Let the looting begin. The NCAA has come to a fairly obvious realization in the aftermath of finding out there's an Indiana State:

he NCAA will look this summer at retooling its Division I governance structure amid what some officials say is growing sentiment to further split its top football-playing schools.

Association President Mark Emmert said Sunday he'll appoint a working group to examine the issue, stressing it will focus on "the way in which Division I is organized for the purposes of making decisions" - and not on a competitive format that now groups football programs into bowl and lower-tier championship subdivisions.

IE, Indiana State shouldn't be able to say anything to anyone. Anonymous officials a bit later in the piece suggest Emmert is being coy in public and another split between football programs is at least going to be spitballed.

Anything that gets San Jose State out of I-A is fine by me, but it seems unlikely anything will come to fruition here. If it does, the break should be based on institutional support offered a football team. If it's over X, GTFO. Prediction: if there is a split, eventually those left behind from the current I-A will merge with FCS as it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the two lower divisions apart.

Success with… actually let's just scratch both. Penn State cuts freshman center Peter Alexis from its basketball team, effective at the end of the season. This is described as the result of a… "carefrontation." That is not a word.

Alexis appears to be a good student and has not gotten in any trouble. Two thirds of BSD voters say this is okay even if it was "purely based on his basketball ability."

This is what happens. Q: What is Molk talking about here?

"I don't like it; I don't care about it; it (ticks) me off," Molk said. "It just adds to my anger."

A: Everything.

Also, Molk has to be Michigan's internet-era record holder for most bowdlerized quotes in the newspaper. This story alone has the above plus:

"Missing the Senior Bowl (stinks)."

And then Barwis gets in on it:

"It shows something to the NFL that the guy tore a tendon off a bone and played with a tendon off the bone, and he said, '(Forget) it, I'm going to dominate a game."

Godspeed, Molk.

Etc.: The East side upper deck of Spartan Stadium is "kind of like 1980s Poland," says A Beautiful Day For Football, which I can vouch for since I've been in it three times. If it was just a holding pen for opposing fans it would make sense. It's not. How to tweet at recruits. I'm surprised Kenpom isn't sitting on top of something tall, screaming "COME AT ME BRO" about Wisconsin after the Badgers resurrected their season.

Bob Miller scouts U17 NTDP commits JT Compher, Tyler Motte, and Evan Allen plus fellow 2013 commit Michael Downing. TomVH gets Barwisized. Remember how Ohio State fans were outraged by oversigning? Never mind. Plague of non-caring students extends to MSU.

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRR

THE ESSENTIALS

AAAAAAAHHHRHHRRRRRRRRRAAA

THE THEM

Hmmm. This isn't good. Ohio State is #1 in the Kenpom rankings and not far off with squishy hoo-man voters. Their tempo free individual stats are pretty terrifying.

At the top of the heap is post Jared Sullinger, who is…

• shooting 61% from 2 on 26% of OSU shots
• in the top 100 in eFG%
• getting to the line more than five times per game
• rebounding almost 30% of opponent misses, fourth nationally
• not turning the ball over much
• getting a good number of blocks and steals

/shakes fist at NBA lockout. Okay, right, obvious high lottery pick on the other team. Super. Good thing they don't have…

Oh, right, they do. Seconday scoring comes from senior William Buford and sophomore Deshaun Thomas, both of whom absorb about as many of OSU's shots as Sullinger does. Thomas is actually better than Sullinger on twos (62%, 34% from 3) and almost as efficient overall; Buford has a been a little erratic but still bests Michigan's high usage players in ORtg. While Ohio State puts up very few threes (26%, 317th), if one is going up chances are its one of these two dudes launching it. Buford's hitting 39%. You can't leave these guys alone on the perimeter but neither are you asking for it, Diebler-style.

OSU plays four out, one in most of the time and Buford has to pick up a lot of the defensive rebounding; Thomas and Sullinger crash the boards on offense (along with Sullinger vacuuming up all those opponent misses).

The fourth guy on offense is PG Aaron Craft, a sophomore whose main role is setting up everyone else; his assist rate of 27 is the highest on the team amongst players who see a bunch of time. He doesn't shoot much but is efficient (53% on twos, high free throw rate) when he does. He can be prodded into the occasional three.

Where Craft thrives is on defense. He's by far the Big Ten's best at stealing the ball and his high-pressure defense starts opposing offenses in a hole even when he's not shooting down court for an easy bucket.

Past the big four it's a large array of young role-players. Guard Lenzelle Smith is the only other Buckeye to average over half of available minutes; he is an extremely low-usage player who rebounds, steals, and occasionally snipes from deep. Oddly, his FT% is exactly the same as his three-point percentage: 49%. Low sample size and all, but weird.

INTERLUDE

AAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

THE RESUME

OSU only played three top 100 Kenpom teams in the nonconference schedule, beating #13 Florida by 7, crushing Duke by 22 in the Big Ten/ACC challenge, and losing by 11 at Kansas in a game Jared Sullinger missed. They also beat SEC opponent South Carolina by eight; Not That USC also has losses against Elon and Tennessee State. So… yeah. Not good.

OSU's Big Ten schedule has been by far the easiest in the conference to date. Opponents are winning at a 39% clip in games not against Ohio State. The next softest schedules belong to Illinois and PSU at 45%; Michigan opponents are at 48%. This might make you feel a bit better if Ohio State hadn't annihilated all six of their victims. I mean, yeesh:

Their two losses in conference are by four at Indiana and by five at Illinois during the Chris Paul supernova; at home they are winning their Big Ten games by an average of 29 points.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Four factors:

Er. That adds up to the country's top defense, something you probably could have extrapolated from the Big Ten scores above, and the #14 offense. Other notable tempo free numbers are a high pace for the Big Ten and a huge quantity of twos launched.

THE PROTIPS

Um, so, like… you can… No, probably not.

Maybe try to… Not likely, that.

If you move it like this and shake it like so and squint really hard? Still kind of seems like a ten point loss even then.

Drat. You said it.

Get insanely hot from three. Hey, maybe. If the random number generators fall right and a bunch of jacked-up three-pointers are dropping, Michigan can stay in contact. Michigan kept it close in a four-point loss at Crisler last year by going 11 of 24 from deep.

Convince Big Ten refs to put two early fouls on Sullinger in a home game. That's the ticket! While you're at it, I would like three on Buford and a pony. A pony made of lemon ice cream.

Make Tim Hardaway a superior defender. THE State University of South of Michigan's two primary non-Sullinger scorers are 6'6" and 6'7" athletes. Stu Douglass will draw one, leaving the other to either Novak or Hardaway. Neither of those seem like a good matchup, but Hardaway is a match for either in terms of length and jumping. Zack "I'm not a very good athlete" Novak may end up repeatedly bashing one in the head until he's ejected.

Unfortunately, Hardaway's athleticism hasn't made him a good defender so far in his career. If he doesn't get lit up 1) I'll be surprised and 2) Michigan will be a lot closer to winning.

Maybe zone? The closest thing to an Achilles heel OSU has is their outside shooting. If a 2-3 or 1-3-1 zone can cut off supply to Sullinger and befuddle Thomas, I'll take the tradeoff given OSU's blistering shooting inside. Luke Winn's latest power rankings* (which are excessively bullish on Michigan) reveal a surprising fact:

This year's Wolverines are heavily man-to-man, though, playing 87.9 percent of their possessions in man according to Synergy.

What's curious is that, in a small sample, Michigan's defense has been much better this year in zone, holding opponents to 0.667 PPP using a combination of 2-3 and 1-3-1, as opposed to 0.856 PPP in man. Beilein seems to be employing the zones as a very effective changeup, in groups of just a few possessions at a time.

If you had asked me about that I would have assumed those numbers were reversed because it seems like going to the 1-3-1 ends up in a dunk or an uncontested corner three most of the time.

They aren't, though, and if Michigan can't match up on OSU's main perimeter scorers maybe they should pack the post with a zone and live and die by OSU three point shooting. This might be the ticket according to Eleven Warriors:

The mixed bag of Buford’s inconsistency to date and the lack of a consistent three point threat to complement Buford on the perimeter and give Sullinger and Thomas more room to operate will most likely be to blame if the Buckeyes fall short of the Final Four.

*[Which also contain a factoid that reinforces my dislike for those long Hardaway two pointers via the lens of Michigan State:

As a team, 26.2 percent of Michigan State's jumpers fell into the Long Two category, and the team converted them at a clip of just 0.682 PPP. This wasn't the only reason the Spartans' offense ranked 62nd in the country in 2010-11, but it was part of it.

This season, the Spartans are being much smarter about their jump-shot selection: Just 17.3 percent of their jumpers are Long Twos. Their two-point field goal percentage has jumped from 46.7 percent last season to 52.9 percent now, and their offense ranks ninth nationally in efficiency.

Death to the long two.]

Watch your pockets, Trey Burke. Maybe get a fanny pack or something for your passport. Burke had one of his poorer performances of the year against lightning-quick Lewis Jackson last time out and now faces a guy who inverts the danger to defense. Free transition buckets are not points Michigan can afford to give up at OSU, and getting into the offense efficiently will be required if Michigan's also-very-good two point shooting is going to keep pace.

Beast up, Morgan. Morgan has been a critical component of Michigan's offense in spurts against Arkansas and Purdue. Unfortunately, he has struggled against Sullinger, averaging just over five points in three meetings last year and getting destroyed on the boards. Sullinger had thirteen offensive rebounds in Michigan games last year to Morgan's three.

Closing that performance gap somewhat is feasible.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

OSU by double digits. It seems like there's going to be a horrible run by OSU at some point, whether it's the first five minutes or ten minutes into the second half.

Elsewhere

UMHoops talks with Eleven Warriors. Baumgardner on Trey Burke's return home in the colors of the Great Satan. Holdin' the Rope preview.