arkansas

12/8/2012 – Michigan 80, Arkansas 67 – 9-0

mgouser Blazefire wins a cookie for being inside my brain / Dustin Johnston/UMHoops

A guy named Kikko Haydar popped off the bench, and John Beilein wondered who he was. So did the rest of Crisler. It turned out we already knew him: Haydar is from the Merritt/Lee school of useful walk-on that Michigan fans know so well. He hit a three, and then another, and then another, and when Michigan lost him again in the second half Kikko Haydar got a Nik Stauskas Memorial Road Crowd Groan. It was warranted. He hit it.

This is a problem. Some walk-on jumping off the bench to pick up 12 points on 5 shots throws a wrench in many of your victory plans, especially when this is part of a team-wide 60% effort from behind the line. For most teams, it is a problem that affects your win-loss record and makes everybody sad. For Michigan, it affects their Kenpom ranking in a displeasing way and just makes super-nerd subscribers to Kenpom slightly annoyed that Pitt has jumped Michigan and I mean seriously Ken let's get some margin of victory capping up in here. I may or may not be in the latter group.

Anyway. When an overeager Haydar picked up the blocking foul in the shot above, he laid on the floor theatrically for a moment, and then Tim Hardaway Jr. helped him up. Haydar smacked his hands together and smiled. Dollars to donuts he thought something like we are going to lose but at least I've got a story to tell about the time I rained on future NBA players. His parents are both professors, I mean.

Arkansas did lose. By a lot, while shooting 60% on 17 threes.

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

Arkansas made a push in the second half thanks to a bunch of Michigan turnovers and their unconscious three-point shooting, and I had an experience I only recognized as strange afterwards: I was annoyed. Not frightened or despairing or waiting for the inevitable thing that always happens to happen, like any sports fan who's watched a frustrating outfit has. Annoyed.

Like when Penn State scored on a screen to bring the Pit Bull game to within a touchdown. You know, this game:

Annoyed because the scoreboard isn't going to reflect what happened here today.

I thought back to watching Beilein's first team against Boston College, 3-3 on their way to 10-22. The BC game was the first one against a real opponent in Crisler, and I remember thinking the second-half run the Eagles used to put the game away was something bound to happen to this collection of young guys without much direction. A few players who saw the floor for at least 25% of Michigan's minutes: Zack Gibson, Jevohn Shepherd, Anthony Wright, Ron Coleman. Lee and Merritt were still a year away from maximum playing time. At some point you're going to have a collection of players out there that loses the plot, and then that's that.

Saturday I had the exact opposite experience. This team is too good and too deep and just too damn efficient to let a middling team keep it close even when they execute their impression of Beilein's first team.

So: here we are. It took nine games of watching these guys to go from thinking they're overrated to comparing them to the 2006 football team's defense. The capital-e Expectations have arrived, and are settling in for a long stay. This is going to be a different thing for all of us.

I spent large chunks of last year talking about how lovely it was to be able to appreciate a Michigan team with Novak and Douglass for exactly what they were, and be content with how they ended up as soon as they got that banner in Crisler. The loss to OHIO in the tournament sucked but it didn't suck in that way I know so well from hockey fandom:

The guys leaving brought Michigan from a program that hadn't been to the tournament since my dad was wearing his preposterous multicolor neon ski jacket to one that had been there three of four years, from a program that hadn't won the league since Joe Paterno was only kind of old to a sleeping giant with the alarm blaring in its ear. Their story is not Brandon Graham's. Their story isn't even Mike Martin's or Ryan Van Bergen's. It's better…

The loss doesn't erase the previous 34 games, or the previous hundred and change that saw Douglass set a record for the most games played in a career and Novak near it. The story of the outgoing guys is one of construction and triumph in the face of doubt. DJ Cooper going ham doesn't change that. Novak and Douglass have the luxury of exceeding all expectations, still and always.

These gentlemen do not have that luxury. They are too too good at basketball to lose to a short guy nailing a bunch of threes, as OHIO did last year. They are too too good to get flustered by a full-court press, or even see much of one.

This is no longer a scrappy program. This is a program that will step on your throat. It took nine games.

They are the hunted now.

Media

Shots from Bryan Fuller:

Bullets

Forty minutes of mildly annoying warmth with mosquitoes. Arkansas's vaunted press was rarely applied in this game, in part because Arkansas rarely got an opportunity to set it up because they weren't making many baskets—they stayed in it by making most of their makes worth three. When Arkansas did get a make and set up, Michigan broke the press with a couple passes and that was it. I don't recall a single turnover forced by the press.

That's another example of the growth on the team after they got flustered and behind 17-4 last year. This time out they were calm and prepared; they've now got four guys on the floor who are above-average handlers for their position most of the time, and a plan. Once Michigan got it to Burke it was over, and Arkansas knew it. Nice to prove that.

BOX OUT! …is something Mike Anderson must scream in his sleep. Michigan—which I remind you is Michigan, a historically rebound-allergic team—outrebounded Arkansas. On Michigan misses. Yes. Michigan had 16 offensive rebounds to 15 Arkansas defensive rebounds. On the other side of the ball, it was 5 to 23.

This is something you could have predicted as Arkansas is horrendous at defensive rebounding and meh on offense; it's still something to marvel over. It's hard to remember that Mike Anderson took three Missouri teams to the tournament before moving to Arkansas, because the team Michigan just went up against looked Amakerian in its inability to do anything right. Just year two for him, I guess.

[@ right: Fuller]

Ruthlessly hacked to the bench. Matt Vogrich, we'll always have the 2011 Tennessee blowout in which you went 5-5 from the floor for 11 points in 16 minutes and got a gritty offensive rebound and a gritty steal and generally contributed to a huge fun tourney blowout that eventually produced this picture:

He'll probably show up in a game or two this year when injury or foul trouble forces him to but it really looks like short of that he's joined the McLimans brigade. Which is something, because though he'd had a dismal start to this year Vogrich had some bonafides coming in and now he's seemingly done save for extenuating circumstances.

I can't say that's wrong—Vogrich was really not playing well. I'm just pointing it out as another example of Beilein changing his mind in ways some other coaches would not.

Now. Now. Now. That Caris LeVert hasn't done a whole lot in Vogrich's stead is actually evidence that the coaches are planning for this to be the year. LeVert has a lot more upside, and if he doesn't get there this year you can always try Vogrich again in February and make a decision as far as march goes. But Beilein went into this year thinking about LeVert's redshirt senior season; now he's thinking about ten to fifteen possessions in a game this march. That's the right call, I think.

Fuller

Let's hear it for Horford. Another game without a shot attempt in which Jon Horford comes out seeming like a potentially key piece in some game down the stretch when Michigan is struggling with a post player. UMHoops highlighted this defensive possession that is an I be like dang moment:

Three blocks, four rebounds, and a steal in ten minutes on the floor is exactly what Michigan needs from Horford when the starting lineup is pouring in at least twelve per person. McGary and Horford are producing a lot of extra possessions, and the offense doesn't need that many more to be lethally efficient.

Fuller

Little Big Dog is also a highly efficient peripheral scorer. He lead Michigan with 17 in this one and did it in two ways, mostly: on wide open shots from behind the line and on layups/dunks other people set up. Robinson has the athleticism to make those assisted interior buckets extremely high percentage and is beginning to finish through contact effectively, but Michigan doesn't really run anything from or through him. He's there to finish, clean up, and shoot when you sag off him, and he's doing all of those exceptionally well: he's got a top 100 ORtg, a low TO rate, and a top 250 OReb rate.

Part of the reason this team is playing so well is it has guys who are extremely effective without the ball, and Robinson is probably the best example of that.

BONUS DAWSON COMPARISON CHECK-IN: Creepy, in fact.

• Rebounding rate (O/D): Robinson 11.6/14.3, Dawson 11.2/13.2
• Twos: Robinson 32/53, 60%. Dawson 47/77, 61%
• FTs (FT rate/FT%): Robinson 39/76%, Dawson 28/45% (he was 60% last year FWIW)
• A/TO rate (A/TO): Robinson 7.3/13.8, Dawson 13/25.6

Dawson has a higher usage rate by a few points and seems to be in a situation where he's being asked to generate some offense of his own. The big differences are in shooting (big edge to GRIII, who's hitting 38% from three and is a non-liability on the line) and defense (statistically a big edge to Dawson, who is blocking a ton of shots and getting a ton of steals; in this case I think those statistics bear out a real difference since GRIII is not an impact defender by any stretch of the imagination).

Hardaway complete player watch. Michigan's an extraordinarily good defensive rebounding team this year, currently fourth behind some small schools. They'll come back to earth some in the Big Ten like they did last year. I don't expect that will be nearly as harsh that decline to ninth in the league, though, as you've got Robinson replacing Novak, McGary and Horford replacing Smotrycz, and Tim Hardaway's massive improvement in this category pushing things over the top. Hardaway is mere decimal points away from passing Jordan Morgan in DR%.

Spike! Albrecht isn't giving Burke much more of a rest than he had last year—Burke minutes have dropped only 5%—but he is proving a nice player to have around. In this game he hit a key three and pushed a partial break off the press to set up GRIII for one of his layups. On both plays he showed a confidence that belied his class status if not his years—he's actually a few months older than Burke.

He's probably never going to be a starter aside from a few games at the beginning of next year before the Derrick Walton era gets under way, but he's an excellent guy to have around steadying the ship for the next few years. Burke and Beilein on Spike:

"There was a time around the seven- or eight-minute mark (of the second half) where it was just up and down for about six or seven possessions," Burke said after Michigan's 80-67 win over Arkansas. "I don't know if I had gotten a foul or what, but there was a dead ball and I was pretty tired because it was just non-stop.

"But Spike did a great job. And coach Beilein did a great job of getting guys in and out."

And, sure enough, moments after entering the game with under eight minutes to go Saturday, Albrecht made a difference. The freshman backup point guard nailed a 3-pointer to push Michigan's lead up to seven.

The next trip down the court, he found Glenn Robinson III for a layup. When he left the game two minutes later, the Wolverines were up nine and things were basically in hand.

"Spike was terrific, wasn't he?" Beilein remarked afterward. "I don't think he had a turnover, his numbers were terrific and they continue to be. He really helps us."

John Beilein is good at talent evaluation. E-fact.

Morgan silly foul re-evaluation watch. Repeating myself here but when Morgan shot out to the perimeter to get a silly foul on a screen hedge late in the first half, my reaction would have been…

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

…last year and has now become…

…and this was a game that Morgan was dominating. I was just like "okay McGary or Horford will maintain approximately this level of play" and that was basically right. I like depth! It's fun.

Three headed-center totals in this one normalized to 40 minutes (they got 49): 15 points on 53% shooting, 16 rebounds, 8 of them offensive, 3 blocks, 3 TO, 2 steals. That center spot may be the least glamorous on the team but it is producing as well as any of the other starters.

Elsewhere

UMHoops recap plus five key plays. Also more photos from Dustin Johnston. He got a goodun of the hanging on the rim tech:

I was not surprised when they called that, FWIW, and don't care if it was slightly unsportsmanlike. (Neither does anyone else.) Look how much joy he is bringing Mitch McGary. Mitch McGary only feels that much joy six to eight times an hour. Would you rob him of that?

Wojo:

There's a new ceiling for Michigan basketball these days, and it figuratively extends from the top of the polished Crisler Center straight to the shiny floor. You could argue the structure, from the arena to the team, looks as good as it ever has — and expectations are higher than they've ever been.

The Wolverines aren't some quick-shooting oddity anymore. They're deep, talented and feisty, and here's the notion that should warm Michigan fans — they're getting tough in the trenches, with the size and gumption to rebound.

John Beilein is not impress. Dave Telep hypes up Derrick Walton. Recruiting roundup. Hardaway's not shooting well but other things he's doing mean no one's noticed. Nesbitt column.

Since there are only three of these today I'm not going to bother with the screencap/lightbox thing—if you need to stop the animation for the sake of bandwith, hit 'escape'.

Pretty nice play by the team's second-best freshman/"weak spot".

/removes pants

[Hit the jump for Burke's throwdown, panda.]

THE ESSENTIALS

THE THEM

Last year's game at Arkansas was something of a nightmare, as the Razorbacks pressed like madmen, hit their first 11 shots from the field, and held on for a two-point victory as Trey Burke's attempted game-winner rimmed out. In the aftermath, I called the game "about as bad as it gets from a fan perspective," and I stand by that statement.

This year, the result projects to be a little different. Arkansas will still bring their "40 Minutes of Hell" full-court press and look to push the pace, of course. As you're well aware, however, this isn't last year's Michigan team, and this game takes place in Ann Arbor, not Fayetteville. Meanwhile, Arkansas has struggled to a 4-3 start, albeit against a difficult schedule. KenPom gives Michigan a 93% chance of winning, which, like, woah.

Sophomore guard B.J. Young runs the show for Arkansas and leads the team in both points (19.5/game) and assists (3.7). He's the one player who can really create his own shot off the dribble—74% of his field goals come at the rim, and only 26% of those are assisted, according to Hoop-Math—and while he's only 3-21 from three this year, he was a 41.3% shooter from beyond the arc last season. Young is also remarkably adept at holding onto the basketball, sitting at 11th in the country in turnover rate.

Due to their frenetic pace, a large cast of characters will rotate into the lineup for Arkansas around Young, whose 62.5% of available minutes played leads the team. Joining Young in the starting backcourt are 6'2" junior Mardracus Wade and 6'5" sophomore Rashad Madden. Despite his size, Wade gets most of his shots around the basket and draws a lot of fouls (4.8 per 40 min.), while Madden is in the same mold but with fewer trips to the line—both have issues with turnovers.

6'3" guards Rickey Scott and Anthlon Bell get a fair amount of minutes; both have had terrible shooting seasons but take care of the basketball far better than Wade and Madden. 5'10" freshman DeQuavious "Dee" Wagner earned a start in their game against Oklahoma on Tuesday, but only played six minutes; he's a bit player currently boasting an extraordinary assist rate (32.7%) and good outside shooting (4-9 from three) in a pretty small sample.

6'7" junior power forward Marshawn Powell is the team's biggest threat outside of Young, shooting 52.5% from two and 43.8% from three this year while drawing a ton of fouls. He'll line up next to Hunter Mickelson, the 6'10" starting center, and 6'7" reserve Coty Clarke, who actually plays more minutes than Mickelson. Mickelson is by far the team's best shot blocker but is surprisingly absent on the offensive boards (3.7 OReb%), while Clarke is the best rebounder for the Razorbacks on both ends of the floor.

A couple freshmen—6'8" forward Jacorey Williams and 6'5" wing Michael Qualls—will rotate in as well; again, Arkansas goes deep so they can turn games into a 40-minute track meet on hardwood.

THE RESUME

Arkansas's best victory came on Tuesday, a three-point home win over KenPom's #82 squad, Oklahoma. Their other three wins also came at home, versus #304 Sam Houston State (by only three—yikes), #346 Longwood, and #333 Florida A&M. They lost neutral-site games to #144 Arizona State and #9 Wisconsin in the Las Vegas Invitational and suffered a nine-point home defeat at the hands of #5 Syracuse.

THE TEMPO-FREE

The four factors for Arkansas paint a rather extreme picture:

	eFG%	Turnover %	Off. Reb. %	FTA/FGA
Offense	48.1 (171)	14.4 (1)	32.4 (160)	42.2 (74)
Defense	52.3 (277)	24.3 (53)	34.3 (233)	41.4 (246)

The offense never turns the ball over and gets to the line frequently; they're an average shooting and offensive rebounding unit. The defense, well, it's turnover or death for the Razorbacks.

Other state of note: Arkansas is having a very tough year shooting the three (28.8%) but are solidly above average both inside the arc (50.0%) and at the line (72.8%). Their adjusted tempo is 12th in the country, naturally, in extreme contrast to Michigan (327th).

THE PROTIPS

Hold onto the damn ball. I have other things, but the game pretty much entirely comes down to this. Michigan actually did a solid job of not turning the ball over against Arkansas last year after the opening blitzkrieg; unfortunately, there was the opening blitzkrieg. There are more guys to handle the ball this year than just Trey Burke, and in the comforts of Crisler that bodes well for Michigan. If the Wolverines don't cough up the ball against the press, it's tough to find a way that they lose this game.

Play your game. One of the cardinal sins when playing against an up-tempo press team is to get out of your offense and try to match their tempo. Despite running out on the break more often than in years past, Michigan is by no means an up-tempo squad. With Burke, Stauskas, Hardaway, and Albrecht, the Wolverines shouldn't be overwhelmed by the press. The key is, once they get the ball upcourt, to slow it down and run the offense. If Arkansas isn't forcing turnovers, they have a pretty awful defense; they'd like nothing more than for Michigan to throw gratuitous skip passes and alley-oops when they break across half court.

Keep Arkansas off the line. The Razorback offense largely relies on drawing fouls to generate points, especially if their outside shots aren't falling. Michigan is currently third in the country at keeping opponents off the free-throw line. This should be advantage, Michigan. If it is, it's going to take a herculean effort from Young just to keep Arkansas competitive.

Keep doing what you've been doing. I mean, yeah.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 19

Elsewhere

UMHoops preview. Tremendous preview. ClearEyesFullHart's extensive preview diary.