wisconsin

The Essentials

*Line provided by online sports betting site Sportsbetting.com.

When Last We Met

The Wolverines led for much of the game, despite the traditionally... difficult... officiating atmosphere in the Kohl Center. Wisconsin was throwing up 3-pointers with little success, and shot very poorly in the game overall. However, the Wolverines fell apart down the stretch, allowing the Badgers to claw back into the lead, and emerge with a 54-48 victory.

DeShawn Sims starred for the Wolverines, scoring 23 points on just 14 shots from the field, while collecting 13 rebounds. Manny Harris scored 11 points in 36 minutes, and Zack Novak also played for 36 minutes, though he had a poor shooting day, missing all six of his attempts from the field.

Since Last We Met

Michigan has been the ultimate tease, showing improvement against Purdue and Michigan State, though they emerged winless. That tease was brought to a new level with a blowout victory against Iowa, but the charade was exposed in a thorough beating in Evanston against the Wildcats.

Wisconsin, on the other hand, is adjusting to life without Jon Leuer, struggling against Penn State (an overtime win) and Purdue (a three-point loss), but laying the hammer down on Michigan State by shooting lights-out and turning over the Spartans 13 times.

Tempo-Free Breakdown

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.

Thinking at the most facile level, a 6-point road loss could easily become a home win, but that hasn't been how it goes with the Michigan-Wisconsin series in the John Beilein era. In all three road games, Michigan has hung tough, and in both home contests, they've been blown out.

The Four Factors clearly favor the Badgers here, and I think the trend of Michigan playing close in the Kohl Center and getting blown out in Crisler is unfortunately going to continue. KenPom only likes Wisconsin by 5 (and Vegas actually favors Michigan, for some reason I don't know - free money, that), but I think a double-digit beatdown of sorts is in order.

The Essentials

*Line provided by online sports betting site Sportsbetting.com.

Michigan

Though UConn is hardly a world-beater this year, Michigan's win over the Huskies finally provides much-needed momentum for a hoops squad that has struggled badly. The Wolverines need to seize that momentum and steal a couple games they aren't expected to if they want the NCAA tournament to remain—or, rather, become—an option. This Wisconsin game is the first in a week of opportunities for that.

The defensive renaissance that started with the Kansas game (and has taken a couple breaks in losses to Indiana and Northwestern) needs to continue for Michigan to have a chance to win in Madison. It's clear that Michigan won't have a consistent third scorer, but if several guys take turns chipping in a few points, there should be enough offense with one or both of Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims carrying the load.

Something that's become a bit of a problem of late has been a newfound tendency for Michigan to turn over the ball. Everything is relative, as the Wolverines plunged from #1 nationally to 20th. That's an effect of shooting fewer threes, but Michigan has little choice but to go inside more given the ugly numbers they've put up from behind the arc.

Wisconsin

The Badgers come into this game perched near the top of the Big Ten standings at 14-4 on the year, undefeated record in the Kohl Center. (Michigan hasn't won in Madison in ten years.) In the noncoference, the Badgers lost a  neutral-site game to Gonzaga and at UW-Green Bay, with road losses to Michigan State and Ohio State in the Big Ten.

The Badgers will be without junior center Jon Leuer, who is probably out for the rest of the regular season with a broken wrist. He was one of the team's key players, leading in shot blocking and defensive rebounding. Wisconsin plans to go to a smaller lineup without him. Senior guards Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon play the lion's share of minutes for Wisconsin (both averaging over 32 minutes per contest). Sophomore Jordan Taylor will get a playing time boost from the newly implemented three guard look. Forwards Keaton Nankivil and Tim Jarmusz will be the primary frontcourt players for the Badgers.

The loss of Leuer is something Wisconsin is still adjusting to, but it might not necessarily benefit Michigan that much, as they performed so well against UConn's taller lineup by taking advantage of the Huskies inability to guard four players around the perimeter. On the other hand, Deshawn Sims has always struggled against significantly bigger opposition and was on a tear before he ran into UConn's usual array of enormous shotblockers. He could go off.

Expect Wisconsin to play their traditional style, slowing the game waaay down, and getting physical with the opposition.

Tempo-Free Breakdown

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.

This matchup favors Wisconsin in nearly every category, and rightfully so. However, Michigan's rankings in all factors have been climbing slowly but surely over the past month as they put together some of their best performances of the year.

Michigan's advantages come in holding onto the ball (which, unfortunately, is one of the few areas that has gone downhill of late), and keeping the opposition off the free throw line. They'll have to take advantage of those categories to pull off an upset, and play some of their best ball in other facets.

That's unlikely, however. The Wolverines haven't been able to play a team nearly as physical as Wisconsin in quite some time, and the Badgers are exceptional at defending the home court. They'll slow down the game, beat up Michigan in the paint, and take advantage of opportunities that Michigan provides. If Manny Harris learned his lesson from last year's contest in Madison (lesson: regardless of how hard you get fouled, the referees will not blow their whistles), Michigan has a much better chance.

In the end, this looks like a low-scoring game with Wisconsin never too far ahead. 56-50, Badgers.

Personnel notes: nothing unusual. Dorrestein was the RT, Omameh the RG. Roundtree played as the slot the whole game.

Video note: some of the cut points are a little odd this week; I was using a different file and was having some issues actually getting it cut.

Ah, let's just get to it. Charts?

Charts.

[Hennechart legend; MA is "marginal", screen results are in parens.]

TATE FORCIER

The zone read metric was 2 – 1 = 1.

DENARD ROBINSON

Robinson did not throw. As far as Forcier goes: he had a good day against one of the better overall defenses in the big ten. His downfield success rate is 11 / 19 = 58%, which is better than okay and maybe a tiny bit worse than good, but if you drill a little further into the numbers there were no bad reads and four TAs, a couple of which were effective scrambles or flips to tailbacks as he was getting sacked. The huge, mind-destroying errors that plagued him against Ohio State did not exist against Wisconsin.

Most of Forcier's inaccurate throws were long: he drew Mathews out of bounds on a late bomb that Mathews almost caught. He wildly overthrew a covered Mathews on another. And the last was a ball to Stonum that was short and to the inside when Stonum had a step and plenty of room to the outside. It seems like he's not recognizing his coverages fast enough and getting the ball out to his deep receivers in time for his arm strength to get it there. There were a couple of similar instances against Ohio State, where a throw against cover-two was late enough for OSU to get a safety over for a pass breakup or interception. The lack of accuracy can be interpreted as another form of a BR where he makes the right read but too late and ends up leaving a ball short.

Receivers:

Another indicator of how well Forcier played in this game: there is but one ball filed uncatchable.

About the receivers themselves: an excellent day with only one ball filed less than "circus" not brought in. Vincent Smith had one game as the quasi-starter and was targeted more than any other player. Though two of those were accidental targets as Forcier looked to avoid a sack, it's clear that we can expect Smith to be considerably more involved in the passing game than any of the backs were this year except maybe Brown, and in this one game Smith ended up with eight attempts to get him the ball to Brown's season-long total of 13.

The tight ends are falling off after a strong start because they're dropping a lot of easy balls. Grady and the tight ends have 9 of Michigan's 12 routine drops between them and with Roundtree's emergence into a totally reliable option in the same general area of the field their usage has dropped considerably.

The one complaint I have about the receivers is the same old one about Stonum: on the deep bomb that was intercepted, he failed to make a play on the ball, got undercut, and allowed an interception that should have been an incompletion at worst. It would have been a difficult catch but that seemed like another example of Stonum not adjusting well to balls thrown deep downfield.

Protection metric:

PROTECTION METRIC: 31/41, Ortmann –2, Schilling –2, Smith –3, Grady –1, Dorrestein –1, Omameh –1.

Probably the line's best day in a while given the level of competition they were going up against. 76% isn't great but four of the minuses go to tailbacks, three of them to tiny freshman Vincent Smith. The line did a pretty good job holding Schofield and company out of the backfield and the results were considerably improved passing from Forcier. Forcier still has to get used to the idea that  the line will do this for him; there were a couple of instances where he had a big pocket to step into but did not.

And our RPS: 5 – 1 = +4. Good day strategically—

Then why couldn't we run?

The flipside of the better than usual pass blocking was Michigan getting owned in the run game by the Wisconsin line. That stretch gap that opens up between the playside tackle and center was never there as one of the best rushing defenses in the country refused to let themselves get sealed. Michigan was running a lot of inside zone, too, so what happened a lot was Moosman not getting enough of a delay on a DT and one of the guards futilely attempting to seal a guy who was slanting directly into the play; Michigan didn't have an effective counter to that with Minor's rage severely limited.

Talent, experience, and injury: though Michigan's ground game took a step forward this year it was clear that when it came up against truly excellent run defenses there was something lacking. That's probably talent since Minor was largely absent against Ohio State and Wisconsin and Molk missed the portion of the season in which the run game alternated between okay and poor.

Vincent Smith!

Yeah, pretty much. The last time I broke out the Vincent Smith praise a commenter said he's not Mike Hart, but he might kind of be Mike Hart:

How many times did Hart do exactly that against Wisconsin to turn a three yard loss into a moderate gain? It seems like a thousand times. He will not grind piles forward like Hart did but I don't recall Hart having this sort of instant acceleration:

I will not be dissuaded on this: Smith performed pretty well in his first two quasi-starts against Wisconsin and Ohio State, scoring receiving touchdowns in each game and grinding out respectable YPC numbers against two of the country's best rushing defenses. He is probably going to start next year and he is going to be good.

Tangent: I think the threat of Smith on these screens and wheels may have had some impact on the line's ability to pass block. When there's a guy out there who can punish you for getting too far upfield, you adjust so that you are not useless when they screen it out.

Heroes?

Roundtree, Smith, and Forcier.

Goats?

There were a lot of minuses in the interior line on run plays, and not a lot of positives.

What does it mean for 2010?

It's an encouraging day for Forcier, an indication that Roundtree has a death grip on one starting slot job and an invitation for the tight ends to step it up lest they be displaced by a Roundtree/Odoms pairing, and maybe a sobering look at the maximum talent level of the line. Omameh did play okay, showing outstanding mobility on a couple plays, but it seems clear that Schilling is not going to live up to the five-star hype and will top out at "decent"; the prospect of starting Dorrestein next year isn't horrifying or anything, but he also seems like a low ceiling sort.

Ach: this one is late for no reason other than I forgot to post it yesterday. In keeping with our "you can't have one with the other" theme of late, Jamiemac of Just Cover appears but we forgo an Ohio State blogger on the premise that even if they tried really hard they couldn't be anything other than annoyingly condescending given the state of things.

Long, and mostly concerned with 2010 and basketball so timeliness is not a huge issue.

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Personnel notes: Smith replaced Williams for the whole game, and the linebackers were always Ezeh and Mouton. On (rare) obvious passing downs Floyd came in for Smith. I think there may have been a few plays where Floyd subbed in for Woolfolk, too.

Formation notes: Michigan spent the whole game in an eight-man front; late they moved up Kovacs for nine.

Video note: there was no HD torrent this week so the quality is poor.

Let's just get to the chart.

Before we get to this, I should say that I might have lost my mind at some point in the third quarter and started shooting out minuses to particularly incensing players on particularly incensing plays and some of the numbers may be exaggerated. It's tough to say that given the end result of the game, but I kept attempting to check my desire to throw out huge negative numbers; some rage probably slipped through into the numbers.

But, yes, chart.

[A reminder: RPS is "rock, paper, scissors." Michigan gets a + when they call a play that makes it very easy for them to defend the opponent, like getting a free blitzer. They get a – when they call a play that makes it very difficult for them to defend the opponent, like showing a seven-man blitz and having Penn State get easy touchdowns twice.]

If I'd charted Wisconsin's last grinding drive that ended in a field goal and game over, man, the numbers here would have been even worse but general policy is not to chart stuff after the game is effectively over, and down three scores when the other guy has the ball with nine minutes left is over.

You rage, contrary to the above statement, seems particularly well-focused.

Yes. Most of the poor performances on the chart that can be explained by size or youth or confusion or all three. Roh was always going to get pwned by beef machine OL 100 pounds bigger than him. Brown is basically a safety playing LB. And poor Brandon Smith is a redshirt freshman with no playing experience who has flipped positions twice this year.

What positions can't be explained by talent or youth or whatever… well, you know the story: Mouton and Ezeh. Wisconsin's passing game was almost exclusively zingers over the middle to incredibly open receivers 20 or even 30 yards downfield. On every damn one both MLBs were vastly out of position and the throws were easy. The pair was also very poor in run support: Graham and Martin combined for 21 tackles. They combined for eight!

These are returning starters and redshirt juniors. They have gotten so much worse this year, and it's obvious to everyone from Bret Bielema to stupid bloggers with charts. There is not quite enough data to outright support the ouster of a coach but I find it hard to believe that Jay Hopson could be any good. Maybe he just got stuck with mugs, but Jesus these guys can't even scrape to the right hole when Wisconsin is literally running the same play to different sides of the line four times in a row. Is this a defensive scheme change? I don't think so. Run to the damn hole.

The only possible mitigating factor is that maybe I'm not perceiving some errors by the defensive line that make it really difficult for guys to play linebacker. If one of the coaches who hangs around these parts thinks this is the case, please let me know and I'll post something about it. But I don't think that is.

Q: where were Leach and Fitzgerald? They busted a couple times against Purdue but good lord at some point I think you have to put them in just in case they do better. I thought they were okay.

Is Brandon Smith better than Mike Williams?

No. His contributions were on a couple of unblocked blitzes; he was very hesitant in the run game and often got blocked into the next county. He looked like a freshman in his first game in a new system, which he is. He's still got a lot of time to get better, but having Williams on the field was a necessary evil.

Is there anything we can take out of this for next year?

Well, Mike Martin probably turned in the best game of his career. He was in the backfield a ton, picking up a sack and a couple other TFLs amongst double-digit tackles, and nearly matched Graham's typically Graham-like performance. It's just one game and Martin fell off after a gangbusters first quarter, so it's possible that Wisconsin was just not prepared for his quickness, but if he can do something half (maybe two-thirds) as good against Ohio State that will be a step towards Martin turning into the death beast everyone thinks he can be and Michigan will need with Graham off to terrorize people in the NFL.

The rest? Bupkis.

Heroes?

Graham and Martin.

Goats?

MLBs. See above.

What does this mean for Ohio State and next year?

See above about Martin. For Ohio State: doom.

11/14/2009 – Michigan 24, Wisconsin 45 – 5-6, 1-6 Big Ten

Henri says post away

Well, I finally broke: I've checked out emotionally. This happened last year, too, and the game columns from the on were pleas for something else to do and grim, brief recaps of the latest indignity. It's progress of a sort that it took eleven games for the team to TKO any interest in what might happen the rest of this year, but it's not a fun sort of progress.

A serious thematic analysis of the Wisconsin game is pointless. Michigan's defense is exactly as horrifying as it's been all year. Everyone wants to fight each other in the liveblog. When the MGoPosse assembled to record this week's podcast, Paul said "at least we didn't muff a punt" and I responded "they didn't punt." (It turns out they did punt once in the first half, and Junior Hemingway misjudged a short one, almost fumbling it.)

Today I'll go on the radio and say the exact same things I've been saying all season to people who say the exact same things they've been saying all season. Here I could either repeat the assertion that firing Rodriguez after two years is idiotic or the description of what this season turned into in the third quarter of the Illinois game. Nothing has changed, and there's nothing to say when the team is turning in uncompetitive loss after uncompetitive loss.

There is an increased chance that sometime today I will read or hear something that cause my entire body to crumple and my head to thump audibly on the desk. So I guess that's different. Not different: for the second straight year the Ohio State week is only welcome because after it there won't be this unpleasant thing that happens every Saturday. The Notre Dame game seems like another decade.

BULLETS

• Surprised that Mouton and Ezeh got the whole game after their backups played at least as well as they did against Purdue. I guess there were huge busts by both Fitzgerald and Leach, but… um… right.
• Seriously: after Wisconsin completed their sixth or seventh big gain over the middle because Ezeh and Mouton were hugely out of position on zone drops, I was begging for the backups. No dice. The prospect of starting these guys next year is not fun.
• I'm betting the adjustment Wisconsin made to their running game was to start doubling defensive linemen for real and leaving the linebackers to their own devices, or down-blocking them on their slants and getting outside where the linebackers are on their own. Michigan was shooting into the backfield a ton early.
• Poor Brandon Graham: if Michigan would just cover anyone for two seconds he would have an incredible number of sacks this year. It wasn't Graham who had the most frustrating non-sack on Saturday, though. Stevie Brown came free up the middle on a third and five in the third quarter and Tolzien nailed a wide open tight end for a first down. That turned into the drive Wisconsin used to go up three scores, salting the game away.
• Vincent Smith is now your tentative leader for the starting tailback job next year, though that title figures to be a ceremonial one in a sea of options. I know Shaw's had the occasional nagging injury but I think he's just beat him out, fair and square. My favorite play from Smith was the screen he took past three or four defenders in the first half. He was one desperate hand-wave by a Wisconsin safety away from a touchdown a long run that looks like it should be touchdown but disappointingly ends short of it. He's got skills. There was one out that was incomplete that anyone else on the team would have caught by virtue of being bigger than a marmot, though.
• Brandon Smith seemed pretty mediocre on the edge. I know he didn't make any of the huge, obvious mistakes that Mike Williams did, but Wisconsin isn't the sort of team that puts you in the backfield unblocked to make a huge, obvious mistake. I bet a lot of the outside running Wisconsin did will be on Smith somehow.
• I did think Wisconsin was the grabbiest line Michigan's played against all year. Wisconsin's first drive saw Graham held twice on long completions, and while they got a number of calls later they just love getting their hands outside the shoulder pads. Default disclaimer whenever officiating as mentioned: would not have changed outcome of the game, would merely have led to more second-and-twenty conversions. Maybe I should thank the refs for mitigating the damage I would have done to my forehead and the sidewalk if I watched another guy wide open over the middle.