IU Snowflakes
Just a pathetic effort on all ends... IU wanted to hand it to us in the first half turning the ball over on every possession, but there was no effort made to get guys open. Nobody stepped up with Stauskas being held in check, and the offense was just stagnant. However, I think this team needed a little wake up call after being on top of the world for the last two weeks. Frustrating but not the end. Pick it up for Nebraska and Iowa on Saturday.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:17 PM ^
The fact that he is the only person other than Stauskas that can take anyone off the dribble?
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:10 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:25 PM ^
I blame Dick Dastardly for doing that.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
1. There are two peaks to every successful basketball season. Recall last year, we went through a very problematic period late in Big Ten play. We are not a 32-5 type of team. I think we are a contender, but it is going to be from a 3 or 4 seed (just like last year), not a 1 or a 2. The Big Ten is still very much in play, but we were going to come back down to earth some time. The sky is not falling at all, and this game is not an issue (except in the case of #3 below).
2. Teams are overplaying Nik like crazy. It has been evident since the Iowa game, and I am surprised that JB has not found a counter yet. The backdoor does not seem to be there (I can't really figure out why), but I really think that some double screen baseline action would at least get him some looks inside the 3 point line. He is too good of a player to only operate from one set. I think work will be put in to get him the ball in more that one scoring position. He is dynamic but he is too easy to defend right now.
3. If that is all we are going to get from GR 3 our ceiling is the Sweet 16. He has got to step up.
4. Michigan and Bloomington do not get along. F Assembly Hall.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
IU scored with the shot clock off - a cardinal sin in basketball when the result is not in doubt. I won't forget that classless act and the team better not either. I don't want to just beat Indiana in March. I want to beat those motherfuckers by 20 points minimum.
And while I'd never blame the current players/staff for something over such a long period, losing 16 of 17 at Assembly Hall is just disgraceful to us as a program.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:16 PM ^
I'm really never surprised when guys like Crean rub it in. He comes from the Tom Izzo coaching tree, the same guy who was throwing alley-oops up something like 25 points.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:17 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 5:46 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
And apparently a large crowd angrily chanting "U S A" can almost blank your leading scorer.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:12 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:12 PM ^
Really this thread should renamed the "what went wrong thread: starring the entire Michigan offense". Maybe even spice things up and add Yogi Farrell as the special guest star. What a horrible opening to Sunday afternoon.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:13 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:15 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:13 PM ^
Refs were there usual horrid selves. One play that sticks out is when they gave the ball to IU after it went out of bounds off of Yogi. Yogi the hit a three and changed the game.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
Team was due for a loss, and maybe this re-focuses after that gauntlet. When one basket seems to have a lid on and the other team has a guy who can't seem to miss, games like this happen. I do think games like thus should silence some of the Stauskas is going pro talk, because NBA GMs are going to notice that he's had trouble getting his shot against certain teams, and all seem to apply the same general principle of denying the initial pass and facing him up throughout the possession.
Sadly, I think the past couple of games have shown the issues with GRIII as well; for all the athleticism, he just can't seem to get his shot off. He has rudimentary elements of a game, but right now he's all jumping and little else.
This may temper the NCAA seeding a bit, but teams have been losing at a breakneck speed, and at some point UM was due to have a horrible game shooting. That said, they kept it close against a quality opponent on the road, so all is not lost.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^
I'd rather win both.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:15 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:18 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:23 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:15 PM ^
I would rather have an off day at this point in the year then later on at a more crucial date. Have to rebound against Nebraska and take it one game at a time. I still think this is a good team but just can't let Indiana beat us twice. They were the more desparate team now its our turn to get back on track. This next game at home is absolutely crucial and Nebraska won't just give it to us but Michigan has a great chance.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:15 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:16 PM ^
These things happen and we always knew we were going to lose a game or two just inexplicably. As long as this doesn't turn into a long term thing the team is fine. I agree Robinson needs to figure it out.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:17 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, last year's team lost to Penn State, which is still one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history considering the difference in their kenpom rankings.
Charlotte is a run of the mill bad loss. This is fucking Indiana at Assembly. And, by the way, Northwestern is 4th in the conference.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^
and so that team sucked
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:23 PM ^
Look, I don't think this team is as good as last year's, but this still isn't as bad a loss as PSU last year. Also, five Big Ten teams have lost to Northwestern, so it's not quite the barometer of crappiness you think.
February 2nd, 2014 at 4:29 PM ^
A Trey Burke team, plus THJ, plus McGary, went into State Colllege last year against a horrific Penn State team and lost. The B1G regular season was on the line. It was a huge game. And we lost. Hostile crowds, rigors of travel, etc. will bite a team in the ass at least a few times a year.
So we lost to what we all thought was mediocre Indiana team today. Your transitive property Northwestern shtick has played out. And in case you haven't noticed, Northwestern has beaten a few teams on the road in recent weeks.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:18 PM ^
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^
By the way, PLEASE don't believe the narrative that's about to come out - "Yogi shut down Stauskas, Crean showed the way to beat Michigan's offense."
Nik shut himself down. He's the key to everything in this offense, and when he chooses not to participate, it becomes Caris doing whatever, because no one else wants to or can.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:46 PM ^
Ended today, we would still be the #1 seed in the BTT. Obviously a win would've been nice, but if you actually thought 18-0 or 17-1 in conference were in play, you're kidding yourself. Off shooting night coupled with Ferrell en fuego. Happens.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:21 PM ^
I love Beilein, but this game is on him. He didn't make the right offensive adjustments and his defensive adjustments were wrong.
On offense, he should have noticed right away that Sheehey was guarding out 5 while Vonley was on Robinson. He should have put Horford in for Morgan (who did have a solid game minus the FTs), because Horford has a much better post game than Morgan. This would have caused either a switch of defensive philosophy by Crean or someone from the top helping out by scrapping down low. If he choose the later option, it would have opened up the 3 ball amd lanes to penetrate with ball movement.
Even without that, the offense started struggling with limited movement as Ferrell sticking on Stauskas. The answer for this is not more iso, which let the offense get very stagnant, but instead even more movement. Then set up the overplay with backdoor cuts to the basket.
Also I was unhappy with Beilein's defensive choose of going to the 1-3-1. Man-to-man was working great, Indiana had a lot of very crappy positions that Ferrell bailed them out on with 3s at the buzzer. Just because they were going in, doesn't mean it was a good offensive possession for Indiana. Instead, the 1-3-1 allowed Indiana to have better ball movement and be able to get into the paint, which they were not able to in man. The defensive was good this game until he changed it. A made shot =/= bad defense.
In the end though, it was just one game and Michigan will move on with hopefully lessons learned after a film session. The Big Ten title still goes through Crisler. Hopefully Robinson decides to wake-up.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:25 PM ^
I agree that Horford would have been a better option in the post against Sheehey. However, Horford has no chance to stay with Vonleh. He probably would have fouled out and given up about 15 points. Coach B would have had to trade offense for defense. We really, really missed McGary.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
I agree that Morgan was a much better defensive match-up on Vonleh, but we were not able to generate anything on offense while Indiana wasn't really looking too much for Vonleh on the inside. Sometimes you just need to test it out for a couple possessions to get momentum back.
February 2nd, 2014 at 4:01 PM ^
It was a lose-lose for Coach B. When Horford tried to guard Vonleh, he went right around him and drew the foul. He went right back to Morgan after that. I think he knew Horford was on the fast track to foul out if he left him in. It would have been a nightmare for Horford to come out and defend the screens for Yogi. JH just can't move his feet. It's frustrating, but at this point you can't expect more out of Jon/Jordan. We know what they are. They give great effort but have low ceilings.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:32 PM ^
The 1-3-1 stopped Indiana's scoring. Ferrell lit us up in man-man. Yea they got a few buckets/fouls against the 1-3-1 but overall that's when they slowed and we didn't take advantage by scoring off of stops/turnovers.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:44 PM ^
He lit us up when he was forced to take a 3 with under 2 seconds left on the shot clock because that was their only offensive option without getting a shot clock violation. Maybe it was just my eyes, but I would be billing to bet the PPP of 1-3-1 vs Man-to-man was higher if you discount the forced 3s (which is good defense IMO) at the end of the shot clock.
The only turnover I can remember the 1-3-1 forcing was 1 shot clock violation. This also happened in man-to-man but it was harder to throw up a deperation 3 against the 1-3-1. But this opened up a lot of driving lanes and instead led to a lot more drives and fouls against Michigan. Just look at the number of fouls and FT attempts for Indiana in the first vs second half.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:52 PM ^
I believe all, or almost all, of his threes came against man-to-man. In the second half, they also started to get a lot of penetration against and our defensive rebounding fell apart. I definitely thought at the time that we needed to try something different defensively. The game was on the verge of slipping away by the time we went to zone.
February 2nd, 2014 at 4:13 PM ^
They did, but the 3s were not setup by good offense. They came off a stalled Indiana offensive possession with the shot clock under 5 seconds and Ferrell was forced to shot a contested 3 or else it would be a turnover. This is very good defense and exactly what you want the offense to do. It was just one of those days where anything he put up happened to go in.
The only other 3 from him I can remember (I'm sure there were others), was after an offensive rebound and the D was scrambling. That would happen against any type of D formation though.
As far as giving up offensive rebounds, that is the major knock of zone defenses. It is a scramble to find a man to box out.
I thought it was a panic move to go to the 1-3-1 just because Indiana was scoring. Michigan had very good defensive possessions in the man-to-man that didn't work out because sometimes that just the way the ball bounces. If someone did a UFR of the defensive possessions, I believe the man-to-man vs 1-3-1 would grade out much, much better.
February 2nd, 2014 at 4:52 PM ^
Not sure how you can say that - our man to man looked pretty bad in the second half (I think only two of his seven 3-pointers came at the end of the clock). The zone wasn't fantastic either, but it was worth a shot.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^
IU bball to Michigan bball is like Michigan football to ND football the past few years.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^
- Crean completely out-coached Beilein. I didn't think it was possible. Crean showed no respect for our ability to score inside, and it won him the game. He knew Stauskas wouldn't post-up Yogi, and he knew Morgan/Horford wouldn't be looking to score even with Sheehey guarding them in the post. Crean just made the blueprint on how to defend Michigan.
- This is the first game we truly missed McGary. It allowed Crean to go small in the post defensively. If he tried that gameplan with McGary, Mitch would have scored 20+.
- GR3 is lost. Those long 2's he kept chucking were basically turnovers. Right now he's the 4th option on offense after Nik, Caris, and Derrick.
- Coach B waited waaaay too long to go to the 1-3-1. I don't know why he tried the 2-3 before trying the 1-3-1. All of Yogi's effectiveness was generated around the top of the key. The 1-3-1 took care of that, and forced the ball into the corners.
- Nik has a rough road ahead of him. Harris and Ferrell showed how to defend him. Deny him the ball, and get into him before he gets his turned towards the basket. He doesn't have the ability that LeVert does to get around defenders. His long, swooping dribbles are only effective when he can turn the corner and get going towards the basket. Defenders are going to be face guarding him all season.
- Horford and Morgan have no post game. They never have, and they never will. It was painful to watch. They combined for 5 points with 6-7 200lb Will Sheehey guarding them. That's going to be embarrassing to watch when they see the film.
Most of all, this will probably be the game the costs us an opportunity to win a B1G Championship. We couldn't afford to slip up against the bottom-half of the conference. Michigan State has handled their business. We're almost certainly going to have to sweep MSU to have a chance now.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:32 PM ^
If Harris showed how to guard him, I hope every team we play gaurds him the exact same way. He had 19 points on 7 of 12 shooting.
February 2nd, 2014 at 3:57 PM ^
Harris played great defense on Nik. You're crazy if you think differently. It is ok to give an opponent some credit when they play well.
Nik scored 19 because he was on from 3. It happends when you play shooters (see Yogi Ferrell). Harris had 3 steals which led to 3 easy buckets, and didn't let Nik get 1 FT attempt.
The change that Crean made was putting Sheehey on our 5. That way when our 5 set the screen for Nik, Sheehey could switch, as opposed to a big man who would have trouble stepping out on Nik. Nik's 3's against MSU came on the switch or on transition. It definitely wasn't Harris' fault. That kid can play some serious ball on both ends.