2020-21 maryland #1

1 hour and 37 minutes

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1. Northwestern Recap

starts at 1:00

Michigan is so hard to strategize for. Hunter Dickinson demands a double, and you can't double him. Running horns with a high-low—incredible that they're already on the back end of the playbook at this point in the program. Rules say you can't do a pullup on the rim but Seth is still mad they T'd up Chaundee. Announcers versus added probabilities.

The rest of the writeup and the player after The Jump]

12/31/2020 – Michigan 84, Maryland 73 – 8-0, 3-0 Big Ten

Hunter Dickinson got the ball on the outer edges of what could be called the left block, patiently waited out a dig-down, and put the ball on the court for a couple dribbles before spinning back to his right. Then he launched Tim Duncan's shot.

This is not an analogy. That is literally the thing Tim Duncan—one of very few NBA superstars in history to have bank shot compilations floating around Youtube—used to do, except Dickinson is left-handed. The first clip of this, yep, Tim Duncan bank shot compilation is exactly the above:

I laughed in the same way Ace and Adam did in the press box after Jourdan Lewis's interception against Wisconsin. Encapsulated therein: relief, disbelief, happiness, the feeling of reaching in your coat and pulling out a twenty-dollar bill. Michigan may have pulled Tim Duncan But Angry At Maryland out of Juwan Howard's first recruiting class. Michigan State pulled a guy who can't beat out Thomas Kithier for minutes. Cackling is authorized.

Dickinson finished 10/11 from the floor. He's shooting 77% in Big Ten play and has cracked the Kenpom Player of the Year leaderboard*. Despite reports from the Maryland side of things that Dickinson was never particularly interested in the Terps—not a surprise since they haven't gotten a DeMatha player in 18 years(!)—he managed to inflate minor perceived recruiting disrespect into a reason to Kubrick stare at Mark Turgeon every time he scored. This was found to be so intimidating that Dickinson was assessed a technical.

On one level this was an outrage. On the other hand, yeah, I kind of get it.

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Michigan just had this game against Nebraska, except Maryland is not Nebraska and the level of unconscious Maryland shooters reached was somewhere between nuclear and… uh… I had something for this… really nuclear. There is one thing to do when your opponent hits 59% of their threes: bitch about randomness and take the L.

Except when you shoot 75% from two and 90% from the line, and the opposition doesn't quite crack 42% inside the line. Only good teams can survive strategic bombing outta nowhere games. Teams that have a lot of slack against a top 50 team. Michigan gets that slack in one line on Kenpom:

Michigan is a top five team inside the line at both ends of the floor, and conference play has not yet cracked that number. Michigan's actually better in conference play so far. (Against three lower-end Big Ten teams, granted, but this is a no-days-off conference.) They have the #1 eFG defense in conference play despite opponents hitting 44% from deep.

I entered the season with modest expectations. Two transfers, defensive question marks, the #1 recruiting class coming in next year: I was prepared to take a bid as enough and anything else as a win. Every time a tall guy does something against Michigan's backcourt I feel the "ah well" re-emerge. And then Michigan wins by double digits against increasingly good teams.

I keep waiting for the bottom to drop out of something and it hasn't yet. Maybe Northwestern and their five-out offense will be a problem. Wisconsin rather looms in 11 days. At this point it feels like those two games are inflection points between a top 25 team and a top 10—maybe top 5—one. This is encouraging.

It's especially encouraging because Juwan Howard did this by leaning into his wheelhouse. He grabbed the closest analogue to himself in the most recent recruiting class and has coached him—and his teammates—up to a point where he's a top ten player in college basketball eight games into his career.

Michigan's good at the repeatable, sustainable things. Being good at them also feels repeatable and sustainable. The program itself sort of has a Tim Duncan vibe right now.

*[Notable for a couple different reasons. #1: Big Ten players (Garza, Dosunmu, Jackson-Davis) are currently 1-2-3. #2: Loyola-Chicago center Cameron Krutwig is #5. Yes, that Cameron Krutwig. He was just a freshman during their Final Four run.]

[After the JUMP: is 90% good?]

I say this happily: I'm having difficulty putting my thoughts into words because I have an adrenaline headache.

Michigan burned up the Xfinity Center nets and my emotional energy with an exhilarating display of skill and talent to take down a solid Maryland squad on the road and move to 8-0 (3-0 Big Ten) on the season. The Wolverines will stay alone atop the conference until at least Sunday, when they face Northwestern at Crisler.

While the Terrapins kept pace through halftime, they did so by shooting a ridiculous 9-for-11 on three-pointers in the first half, leaving Michigan with a 46-44 lead even though the Wolverines shot 58% from the field and made 15 free throws to Maryland's three. Other than some open pick-and-pop hits by center Jairus Hamilton, the shooting didn't look particularly sustainable. Lo and behold, it wasn't: the Terps scored 29 second-half points and made 4 of 11 shots from beyond the arc, two of them after the game was well out of reach.

Hunter Dickinson proved much more reliable, leading all players with a career-high 26 points while missing only one of his 11 field goals, going 6-for-7 from the line, pulling down four offensive rebounds among his total of 11, and adding an assist, a block, and several altered shots. None of Maryland's centers could slow the freshman, so Mark Turgeon mostly played Hamilton, who at least got 15 points back on the other end. Dickinson, meanwhile, trash-talked the bench of his home-state team all game, even picking up a (rather soft) technical foul in the first half when he flexed in their direction.

wishing them a happy new year, surely

While Dickinson's performance had to lead the story, Franz Wagner was nearly as good, scoring 19 points on 14 shooting possessions, hitting jumpers in addition to getting his usual tough runners to fall, and adding four assists—including a gorgeous wraparound feed to Dickinson off a high screen for a dunk—with no turnovers, a block, and three steals. This follows a 20-point outing at Nebraska; it appears the layoff helped get him going.

Mike Smith also had a great game with 16 points on only ten shooting possessions, six rebounds, six assists, and only two turnovers. He showed a particularly strong rapport with Dickinson (surprise!), who was on the receiving end of a couple well-placed lobs from the grad transfer. Brandon Johns hit all three of his shots with an offensive rebound and a block in an energetic ten minutes split between center and power forward. Isaiah Livers and Chaundee Brown had relatively quiet nights on offense, though the latter made his presence felt on defense, as usual.

Michigan looked great the whole way. Maryland looked great when hitting contested threes, then got blown away when those stopped going in. Hunter Dickinson is a problem. Franz Wagner is, too. Deeper analysis can wait until 2021. Happy new year to you, fan of the first-place team in the toughest conference in the country.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]