jon horford

Previously: Part One

After looking at Michigan's stellar pick-and-roll production and how they do it last week, I dove deeper into Synergy's database to try to put this year's team in a historical context. At first I was just looking at other lead ballhandlers, then I was putting tables for every season together, then I realized I needed to add the screeners to the equation and look at how each team varied their P&R attack to do this right.

So what was going to be the second half of this series is now the second of either three or four parts. I'm trying not to make these too long to digest. These posts are going to be heavy on Synergy's stats, so I want to make a few notes before going any further.

While Synergy uses the terminology "points per possession" to describe how they measure production, that's very misleading when you're used to looking at KenPom. I'm switching over to describing Synergy stats as "points per play." The distinction is described in this useful Cleaning The Glass post:

CTG distinguishes between possessions and plays, and this distinction is important when diving into context information. A possession starts when a team gets the ball and ends when they lose it. A play ends when the team attempts a shot, goes to the foul line, or turns the ball over. If a team gets an offensive rebound, that results in a continuation of a possession but a new play. So a possession can have multiple plays.

Play contexts are per-play, not per-possession. For example, a team might come down in transition and miss a shot, get the offensive rebound, kick it out, and run a halfcourt set. Then might miss that shot but get a tip in to score and end the possession. That was all one possession, but three different plays and three different contexts: the first shot was in transition, the second in the halfcourt, and the third was a putback.

Because offensive rebounds start a new "play" within a possession, points per play are inherently going to be lower than points per possession. To help contextualize, I've included each player's national percentile rank for that season along with their stats.

For ballhandlers, "own offense" includes plays that finish with a field goal attempt, shooting foul, or turnover. "Passes" measure the result of shots that come as a direct result of the ballhandler's pass out of the pick-and-roll. "Keep percentage" is a stat I added myself that simply measures the percentage of a time the ballhandler uses his own offense instead of recording a passing play—Michigan has had players arrive at similar efficiency despite sporting very different styles.

an enjoyable pick-and-pop example

For screeners, you mostly just need to know the difference between popping, rolling, and slipping a screen:

• Popping: setting the screen and then stepping out (usually to the three-point line) for what's almost always a spot-up shot. Occasionally a more versatile big man will drive off a pop. Think Moe Wagner.
• Rolling: setting the screen and then going to the basket in the hopes of getting a layup/dunk. Think Jordan Morgan.
• Slipping: faking the screen before running to a predesignated spot—usually the rim, sometimes spotting up if it's a Wagner-type or perimeter player—as a changeup to keep defenses from overplaying the ballhandler.

As a general rule, points per play are going to higher when the screener finishes the play than the ballhander because of the nature of the pick-and-roll. A pass is usually going to be thrown to an open man when the play works; while the ballhandler could take a shot because he got open himself, he also usually has to finish the play if it's well defended.

Consider the degree of difficulty of Zavier Simpson's or Cassius Winston's shots; it's hard to be a really efficient scorer off the pick-and-roll. Morgan, while a great roll man, often just had to catch the ball and finish an uncontested shot at the rim. Most of Wagner's pick-and-pop threes went up without a real shot contest. This makes sense: there's little reason to pass the ball to your big man if he isn't open. Teams also often default to a quick screen in late clock situations, which tends to create more difficult shots the ballhandler has little choice but to take.

The other thing to note in the screener stats: under number of plays in each category, "%" shows the percentage of the time each player popped, rolled, or slipped out of their overall screener plays used. The "%ile" under points points play in each category, however, measures percentile national rank. I realize this is a little confusing but I couldn't come up with a better way than Synergy in this case.

With that out of the way, let's dive in.

[Hit THE JUMP for a year-by-year history of Michigan's pick-and-roll offense and what we can learn from it.]

[Bryan Fuller]

John Beilein has spent ten seasons in Ann Arbor. As of the most recent, he's the winningest coach in program history with 215. He snapped Michigan's post-sanction tournament drought in 2009, the first of seven NCAA appearances with the Wolverines, three of which have extended at least into the second weekend.

In recognition of the above, as well as the need for offseason #content, I've put together a series of All-Beilein teams, inspired by this twitter post and the ensuing conversation. My guidelines:

1. I'm attempting to put together the best possible lineups, which isn't necessarily the same as picking the best individual players at each spot.
2. I'm choosing individual player vintages (i.e. 2013 Trey Burke). A player can only be chosen once for each category, but different player years (i.e. freshman bench gunner 2014 Zak Irvin and well-rounded senior 2017 Zak Irvin) can be eligible for separate categories.
3. Eligibility for certain categories, like today's best bench players, may be slightly fudged because of the limited pool of players.

I'm not putting too many constraints on myself for this exercise since the point is to let our imaginations run wild. Without further ado, here's the first All-Beilein team, which wasn't easy to put together given Beilein's tendency to roll with a tight rotation: the All-Bench squad.

POINT GUARD: 2014-15 SPIKE ALBRECHT

The YMCA Scoop. [Fuller]

We start with the fudged guidelines right away, as Albrecht ended up starting 18 games in this particular season because of Derrick Walton's foot injury. This was the best version of Spike, however, and any of the previous versions would also have earned this spot; between injuries, early draft departures, and the occasional recruiting miss, depth at the point has been hard to come by in the Beilein era.

For the better part of four years, Spike was the exception to that rule. He was an excellent passer. He covered for being undersized by displaying a knack for jumping passing lanes. He did donuts in the lane. He broke out the old-man scoop for critical layups. Most importantly to Beilein's offense, he had defense-extending range and the confidence to hit big shots, after which he just might do the Sam Cassell big balls dance:

Spike was a 41% three-point shooter at Michigan. While he probably would've earned this spot based on one particular half of basketball alone, he did a whole lot more than just light up Louisville.

Honorable Mention: 2008-09 CJ Lee. Another player whose selection is borderline cheating since Lee finished the season as the starter, but he came off the bench in twice as many games as he started as Beilein searched for the right guy between football-player-turned-scholarship-point Kelvin Grady and two walk-ons, Lee and David Merritt. Lee eventually won out by being the most reliable offensive player and best defender.

[Hit THE JUMP.]

Let's feel good! Here's a danged good college football hype video that features Michigan a surprising amount:

YEAH LET'S GET HYPED FOR THE OPENER AGAINST [record SCRATCHHHHHHHH]

Well, that didn't last long. A casino has set an over/under for Michigan football wins next year…

At the moment, 5Dimes has Michigan's over/under for wins in 2014 set at 7 1/2. Presently, the money line is set at -170 on the over of 7 1/2 wins, which means most bettors are going with at least eight wins for the Wolverines in 2014.

…ugh. Not hitting that number would mean losing all three rivalry games and two more from the pu-pu platter that is the rest of the schedule.

Let's feel good again! Jabrill Peppers ran a 100 meter dash in 10.52 seconds, a veritably Denardian high-school-meet destruction.

He wiped out fellow touted corner recruit Minkah Fitzpatrick by a half-second.

Well, that didn't last long. Peppers is still slower than a robot velociraptor. Ugh.

Now you're just rubbing it in. ESPN gentlemen are trying to make college football better, and two of them say Michigan has to stop sucking. Thanks. We agree. And then there's this:

From the day that Bo Schembechler died in 2006, on the eve of No. 2 Michigan's 42-39 loss at its archrival, No. 1 Ohio State, the Wolverines have a record of 50-41 (.549). That's an average of 7-6, pretty much the definition of mediocrity.

Yeesh.

Thank you for coming, now go away. Florida's president was trying to say something about how he doesn't like the graduate transfer rule and ended up saying something about his latest incoming graduate transfer:

"If they really wanted to transfer somewhere else, they should sit out a year,” Machen said Friday at the SEC spring meetings. “Why didn't Horford stay at Michigan another year? Because he had a free pass." …

“Go to grad school at Michigan," Machen said. "They have some pretty good grad schools. … It’s really just a way for a school to fill a void at the very last minute, or a player going to get more playing time without having to sit out.”

Is that bad? I mean, it's bad for Michigan. But the guy's already got a degree, which is the tenuous reason transfers are discouraged by forcing kids to a sit out a year.

I do think it's unfortunate that guys are now transferring upwards with frequency; that would really grind your gears as a low-level coach who developed this player for four years only to see him depart. Now you've got a bizarre incentive to not have your players graduate before their eligibility expires.

At least there's a trend. Florida's done playing FCS games, albeit for the same reason Michigan is. More interestingly, Nick Saban is hoping to cut out the lesser schools entirely:

Nick Saban wants Power 5 conferences to play only games against other P5 schools. “Better for fans & for players"

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 27, 2014

It's better for Saban, too, as there will be fewer pretenders with shiny records to compete against for playoff spots. The difficulty there is that everyone needs their seven home games even if two of them are necessarily bad.

HELLO. South Carolina president Harris Pastides:

“I think we're holding the fort,” Pastides said. “If we allow this reform to fail, the obvious next step would be to give up amateurism.”

I'm pretty sure that was intended to be the rhetorical nuclear weapon that makes everyone gasp whilst Mark Emmert is fanned by the people near him, moaning "lawdy." But someone said it.

Incoming? USC transfer and former five-star Ty Isaac is on campus… uh, now. Isaac is seeking a hardship waiver to play immediately, which would make him a slightly awkward fit for Michigan for two reasons: 1) you need a waiver for your waiver if the school you pick is more than 100 miles from home and 2) that would put him in the same class as De'Veon Smith and Derrick Green.

So, if Isaac does get his waiver it's more likely he ends up at Northwestern or Illinois or Notre Dame, which was supposed to be restricted to him but may not be because of a paperwork error on USC's part. While Illinois and ND are technically outside of the 100-mile radius they're outside by a few miles and would probably get meta-waivers. Michigan would be a harder sell.

If Isaac doesn't end up getting a waiver then Michigan has an excellent shot—they finished second for Isaac. And they didn't bring in a tailback last year.

Ohio State is apparently trying to get involved, but they'd be in a similar situation with the waiver.

Etc.: Sherman built this system, now Sherman's going to burn it down. NCAA #2 is getting out of dodge. Congrats to Bruce Madej, who won a major award. Guess who's mad about harmless spicetweets from Alex Malzone.