Scouting the opposing team's bench
I'd like to talk a bit of strategy here. I know most of us are inclined to chalk up this loss to Villanova just being dominant, Michigan going cold from 3, etc. but I think there are a few lessons Beilein should build on from here.
I need to first apologize for my dad, who declared in a group text that this DiVincenzo guy was Luke Hancock 2.0... at a time when Michigan was still winning and DiVincenzo had just made his first 3 and had a total of 5 points. This was deja vu in the worst way possible: guy comes off the bench to light it up from 3 and Michigan has no answer. Meanwhile, we hold the Naismith winner to 9 points on 13 shot equivalents with 2 turnovers. What?
Did Michigan's defensive strategy simply not account for DiVincenzo's ability? I really hate the notion that sometimes players just get hot and there's nothing you can do. Clearly, there was something Michigan was doing defensively that was allowing DiVincenzo to get too many clean looks. Mathews was on him most of the game and did an abysmal job anticipating picks, Michigan tried to switch and DiVincenzo was able to either a) step back for a 3 if the switching defender played off, or b) drive to the hoop if the swiching defender played tight.
All in all, I think this actually was a very winnable game if Michigan had scouted DiVincenzo properly and primed Mathews to guard much tighter and evade the pick. Can't let this type of bullshit ever happen again, as it's now cost us 2 national championships in 5 years. Also would be nice if we could get one of these absurd 6th man performances in a national championship some day.
For every player that has lit us up, causing MGoBlog to declare him the second coming of Jim Thorpe... guh. Why the fuck can't Michigan have a player do this bullshit in a championship game.
Defense is complicated and I'm sure Michigan looked at a lot of film on Nova in the last few days and the last thing they expected was for DiVincenzo to light them up. However, I do think they could have had done *something* to stop him. Teams are abe to shut down guys like this all the time.
You can't stop everyone. Nobody has ever held an opposing team scoreless in an NCAA tournament game. The gameplan was to take away Brunson and let someone else beat them. It's not the gameplan I expected, because, frankly, I didn't think it was possible. I thought the gameplan would be more like Purdue -- let Brunson get his but don't let him get any help.
When a player is making open shots, you can adjust the gameplan accordingly, although you have to acknowledge that you'll start giving something else up instead. When a player is making contested shots, you tip your cap and hope the law of averages catches up to him. The kid had the game of his life -- just like Spike Albrecht did on the same stage, in the responses you've conveniently ignored.
BTW, I promise you that DiVincenzo was scouted. He was "off the bench" in the same way that Duncan Robinson was "off the bench" -- he played starters' minutes without starting the game. KenPom has him with the third most minutes on Villanova.
Would it make any difference to you if DiVincenzo had 18 points and Brunson had 22? Adds up to 40 either way.
If you want to question the defensive gameplan, the place to look is on the boards. Michigan held Villanova to 27 three-point attempts (although, admittedly, that was 47% of their shots, which isn't as good as they would have liked). Villanova made 10 of those, or 37% -- below their season average. Villanova was 56.7% from 2 -- also below their season average. They turned the ball over on 17.9% of their possessions -- slightly above their season average. The one thing they did much better than their season average -- and much better than Michigan had allowed -- was get offensive rebounds. They rebounded 36.4% of their missed shots; they're a 29.6% offensive rebounding team on the year, and Michigan allowed only 24.9%, which is top 35 in the country. Holding Villanova to 4 fewer offensive rebounds than they actually got could well have made the game competitive down the stretch.
Still, Villanova scored 1.18 points per possession. Against Power 5 competition, Michigan bested that number at Purdue, at Wisconsin, at Maryland, vs. Nebraska in the Big Ten tournament, and vs. Texas A&M. Michigan's defense was good enough to win, even with DiVincenzo's big game, if Michigan had been able to put together a stellar offensive night. They didn't. Put the blame partially on bad luck (for the 3-point shooting percentage) and mostly on Villanova's defense.
Plan for switching!
by not taking advantage of mismatches on the roll. It seems like we never even tried.
or something like him and their offense to go off. I agree with above, we didn't get enough boards and we didn't have enough offense. Villanova is strong and deep and deserved to win but I wonder what happens if we got more calls our way on drives to the basket in the first half. The refs definitely missed a few.
by not doubling.
We didn't have anyone who can guard their sixth man one on one. Mathews got abused.
DiVincenzo >>>>>>> Hancock. He's Duncan Robinson on steroids. That dude is a legit all-around great player and athlete. Great slasher and gets serious elevation on his jump shots. His block on Matthews was amazing. Did you see that behind the back dribble to split Wagner and Matthews? The guy was on fire. Tip my hit to him, because he controlled the game and was unguardable.
Bottom line: UM knew full well about DiVincenzo. He just did everything great last night. Sure, we could've been in his jock strap more on a few of his long threes, but we also had to respect the threat of his driving ability. Reminded me of Stauskas' sophomore year, but with even better athleticism.
This argument might hold water if Donte was not an athletic NBA first round guy, unlike Hancock. You apparently didn't do much scouting yourself.
He shot double digit free throws... had multiple and 1 finishes... and probably should have had 33 or 34 on us... Just accept that they had a better game than us... offense was the problem not our defense or coaching
Suprised OP didn't suggest putting CJ Baird on Donte. Baird's block rate is phenomenal. Would've locked him down.
OP: Take a look at this clip of DiVincenzo highlights from the game, and then tell us specifically what you think Michigan should have done differently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vmzyiYJX2s
Everyone else: Sorry about posting the DiVincenzo highlights.
They probably could have stopped him but it would have been at the expense of someone else blowing up. In this game that was the poison they picked and it killed them.
DiVincenzo is 3rd on the team in both minutes and usage. He is not some random guy. Even before this game, he was ranked on most 2018 NBA draft boards as a 2nd round pick.
He was on fire, he went 5/7 from 3 including several against very good defense. He was getting into the lane much more easily than Michigan typically allows, that's something to work on and improve, but it's not a lack of information / scouting.
Do you think Michigan's opponents don't scout Duncan Robinson because he's a "bench" player? Of course they do, and of course Michigan scouted DiVincenzo. If Duncan goes 5/7 from 3 with dudes in his face, is that a scouting error? No, it's just life sometimes.
We got beat by a great team with a good strategy and a guy who went ham. It happens, there isn't always some easy fix for next time like "scout the bench players".