post defense

LOOK AT THE BENCH [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Michigan stuffed Wisconsin's 11th-ranked KenPom offense into a trash can on Tuesday. The Badgers shot 11-for-37 on two-pointers, got to the line only six times, and recorded eight assists against ten turnovers. Of their 12 offensive rebounds, five were the knocked-out-of-bounds team rebound variety, which doesn't pose any putback danger. They went stretches of 6:37 and 7:26 without scoring—that's getting blanked out for 35% of the game.

The Wolverines laughed at the idea of potential mismatches. A big guard against M's small backcourt? Brad Davison posted up Mike Smith on UW's second possession, hurled up a brick, and proceeded to go 1-for-8 for two points, his lowest scoring output in almost a year and the third-worst game of his four-year career by O-Rating. D'Mitrik Trice scored five points in the first three minutes, then two more for the rest of the half, and the Badgers were down 33 points by the time he got on the board in the second.

The primary worry heading into the game was that Hunter Dickinson would have trouble with a pair of legit stretch fives. Wisconsin's center duo of Micah Potter and Nate Reuvers combined for 16 points on 7/20 shooting with zero trips to the line, zero assists, and five turnovers. So much for that.

Michigan boasts the nation's #1 two-point defense and are tenth in KenPom's adjusted defensive efficiency. Using the Wisconsin game as a lens, let's look at how Juwan Howard has created this monster.

You Can't Run

Scoring on the fast break is obviously easier than scoring in halfcourt. A team can get a lot of their defensive work done early by getting back. This has to be demoralizing:

Michigan gets back. Wisconsin scored two fast break points on Tuesday even though they recorded four steals. I need a college stats site to start tracking chasedown blocks:

The plays that don't show up in the highlight reel are even more important than the Tayshaun-on-Reggie moments. Despite often holding massive leads, they've had very few lapses. Only 3.3% of initial opponent field goal attempts against Michigan occur in the first ten seconds of the shot clock following a made Wolverines basket, the fifth-best mark among high-major teams, per hoop-math. They communicate, find their matchups, and don't lollygag.

The team's size and versatility helps too; if, for example, Dickinson is caught upcourt after a tough finish, Wagner can be there to pick up the opposing center for a few seconds while the team settles back into their matchups. When teams attack cross-matches early in the shot clock, they find it tough to score. Here's Chaundee Brown forcing Nate Reuvers into a tough fadeaway:

It would've been better for Wisconsin if Reuvers had given that up instead of forcing the action. That often happens against Michigan. According to Synergy, M faces transition possessions only 12.6% of the time, the fourth-lowest rate in the Big Ten, a conference not exactly known for permitting easy fast break buckets.

[Hit THE JUMP before someone blocks it.]

Michigan may miss Isaiah Livers's defense even more than his offense. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Today: Twitter questions. Tomorrow: your emails (and it's not too late to send those in).

I went to Hoops Lens and their on/off numbers to confirm, and while it may not quite be an all-caps situation... oh dear god:



guarantee games removed

As the numbers indicate, Michigan misses Livers even more on defense than they do on offense—and they miss him quite a bit on offense. While you can usually chalk up an 11+ percentage-point drop in three-point shooting to a lot of bad luck, it's less easy to argue that when replacing a shot-maker of Livers's caliber with a hesitant shooter like Brandon Johns. Some of that drop is Eli Brooks hitting a major shooting slump that's largely independent of Livers's absence; a lot of it is losing the team's best outside shooter and not having a reliable replacement in that regard.

But while Michigan has shown the ability—if they can shoot straight—to somewhat approximate their full-strength offensive effectiveness without Livers, the same cannot be said about their defense. The gap in two-point defense is a hair under ten percentage points, a massive difference. The Wolverines also rebound significantly better and foul far less often when Livers is on the floor.

Livers is the only wing defender on the team who can switch two through four without getting burned, and he can even guard point guards and centers in certain situations. Michigan didn't lose to Minnesota only because they couldn't stop Daniel Oturu in the post; when they tried to inject some offense by playing Franz Wagner at the four in the second half, he was the primary culprit in allowing 6'9", 235-pound senior Alihan Demir, not normally a major scoring threat, to pour in 13 second-half points. Wagner wasn't strong enough to keep Demir out of the paint; that wouldn't have been the case with Livers.

The shooting Livers provides gives Michigan's offense a major boost. His defensive ability and versatility, however, is what unlocks the lineup combinations that currently make the difference between an excellent defense and a bad one.

[Hit THE JUMP for a lot of questions about the centers and defensive strategy, plus keeping an eye on the future.]

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

1/12/2020 – Michigan 67, Minnesota 75 – 11-5, 2-3 Big Ten

I would appreciate it if the basketball games would start being different so that I had different things to say about them. Also then the opposing center wouldn't have a career high in points.

The last edition of this post worried about Michigan's post defense, which had reached Disturbing Trend levels. After Daniel Oturu put up 30 points while going 12/16 from two we've moved on from Disturbing Trend. We're at panic (from Big Jon) after Michigan's defense and Jon Teske in particular got posterized for the fourth time this year.

This one was unambiguous. Maybe Trevion Williams hit more than his share of circus shots; maybe the issue against Luka Garza was Michigan failing to get back in transition. There's nowhere to hide after the latest debacle. Oturu hit 75% of his twos because he should have hit 75% of his twos. Aside from a couple threes and one face-up jumper the average Oturu shot came from here:

image

13 of Oturu's 16 twos were at the rim. He had one turnover. Teske got worked. Late in the first half Oturu took the ball all the way in from the perimeter and bumped Teske on the block;  Teske looked at the ref for no apparent reason and Oturu got an uncontested layup.

I don't know if there's a way back here. As detailed in the Purdue version of this post, Teske was left by himself last year too. Michigan's post defense wasn't 114th in points per possession (with passes included), per Synergy. Since post ups tend to be one of the less efficient scoring methods that was a solid platform to base an elite defense on. This year:

Michigan's close to dead last in everything. I can't see any transition costs between "we're never going to double the post" and "we're never going to double the post." This is the starting center on last year's #2 defense going from an A- defender to a walking opponent career high. It is one of the more stupefying things I've seen since Michigan basketball ceased being holistically stupefying 12 years ago.

Matt D thinks that Teske has some limitations and opponents have adjusted, which is probably part of it:

Oturu has a higher ceiling than Teske and is improving faster. Okay, that's a part of it. Luka Garza is #4 in the KPOY rankings this year. A lot of guys are having trouble with the Peacock.

That can't be all of it. Last year Teske battled Ethan Happ and Bruno Fernando to a standstill; at that point he was a junior coming off extensive playing time the year before. In return games against both those opponents Teske's shortcomings, whatever they may be, didn't help Happ or Fernando perform anywhere near the level of efficiency Michigan's opponents are this year.

The good news, such as it is, is that nobody is consistently this bad at defending the post and doing a whole lot of butt-nothing should see improvement. The bad news is that improvement might not get Michigan anywhere near acceptable.

[After THE JUMP: defense Festivus continues]