Abnormal Distribution
3/7/2021 – Michigan 64, Michigan State 70 – 19-3, 14-3, still Big Ten regular season champions
This game was in the 17%. That's the shot Kenpom gave Michigan State at a win, and that's what it felt like: a somewhat functional basketball team playing over its head as Michigan played under its level and escaping with a win.
This stands in marked contrast to the Illinois game, which was not in the bin of regular-ass outcomes. That felt like a paradigm shift in which previously unkillable Michigan—nevermind that Minnesota game—was brought low and showed an Achilles heel. Maybe an addressable one, down the road. A long-term issue. One that would be difficult to replicate, but a worry whenever a team with some athletic guards and a mountain shows up.
Meanwhile this game was clearly one of Those Games from the drop. Eli Brooks left and did not return five minutes in after coming down on Marcus Bingham's foot. Rocket Watts went 7/11 on midrange shots—virtually all of them off-the-dribble long ones.
cumong basketball gods [Campredon]
Hunter Dickinson was stuck on 3 points for much of the game, less because of anything MSU was doing and more because he seems stuck in a late-season funk. Dickinson eventually scored on this possession but his first shot going off the side of the backboard was ominous:
The officiating managed to provide MSU with six more FTAs (before Michigan put MSU on the line six times in the last minute) despite Michigan having six fewer fouls and seven more attempts at the rim. A typical passage of play was Michigan missing a decent look and MSU canning a bad one.
I mean.
Okay. Have a day, I guess. I'm not going to put a whole lot on a game where Michigan State shoots midrange twos at the same clip (50%)Michigan shoots at the rim.
All of the above takes some remembering since the last time Michigan lost a relatively competitive game was last season. Everything else has been a win or a 20-point loss, the latter occurring just twice. So things could be worse.
[After THE JUMP: closeouts on midrange jumpers should be de minimis for centers.]
BULLETS
furk [Campredon]
The important thing. Brooks went down and did not return; he had to be carried off the court and returned in the second half in one of those air casts. After the game there wasn't much to say:
“I don’t have much information to give you about Eli’s injury,” Michigan head coach Juwan Howard said after the game. “When we get home we’ll take a look and see, after we’ve had our doctors take a look at it. Right now, I have no information to give you.”
The program was pretty open about Austin Davis's injury and return timeline so there's no reason to believe this is a Harbaugh-esque paranoia thing.
Your amateur Guy Who Looks At Things perspective is Brooks's injury seemed pretty bad and Michigan will be lucky if it's not season ending, particularly because this year's tournament is on a compressed schedule.
This is a problem. Games Brooks missed are two of the four bad games Michigan has played this year (the three losses + Oakland). Chaundee Brown can step in and provide another 15 minutes but things get thin fast past him. Livers, Wagner, and Smith played 37, 36, and 36 minutes, respectively. Meanwhile Zeb Jackson got eight minutes in which he didn't take a shot. He's 3/20 from the floor this year.
That compressed schedule could bite Michigan if Brooks isn't able to return and the starters have to go virtually the whole way.
Foul discipline. Hunter Dickinson leapt at a Rocket Watts 18-footer, fouling him on a closeout that was more ornamental than functional.
That single decision put him in a game mode where he was always under threat. He ended up limited to 26 minutes (although sometimes it felt like Howard was pulling him because he wasn't happy with his play, not because he had foul issues).
It seems like he's picking up a foul like that in most games these days, usually because Michigan has switched him onto a guard. The previous column had a similar complaint. Dickinson has to make those closeouts more token on long twos. The upside is so much lower than the downside.
That downside. Austin Davis on/off splits in Big Ten games + Toledo:
Good God. A 12-point two-point defense gap is the largest I've ever seen in the wild. (Second place is Joey Brunk, who had a ten-point gap at Butler before transferring to Indiana.) The three-point shooting gap is probably somewhat luck but I imagine there are more open looks when Davis is on the court because he's less able to challenge shooters on switches and the rest of the team is collapsing into the paint.
It doesn't matter if Dickinson is scuffling offensively, Davis should only be deployed 1) during the occasional situations when he can body up against a Trevion Williams or 2) when absolutely necessary for rest and/or fouls.
To repeat: making an iffy shot marginally worse is absolutely not worth anything that takes Dickinson off the court.
The zone gets toasted again. Michigan didn't go with their zone very much after it gave up good looks on most of the possessions they used it in the first game. It wasn't use much here either but for whatever reason Michigan pulled it out during crunch time possessions. Davis fouled on an alley-oop attempt on one. A second possession resulted in a late clock jacked-up three from Watts; a third saw Langford drive and throw the ball to Wagner. Alas, the fourth:
That is a rough shot to give up from that action while down two in the last minute.
Man, I don't know about Johns. Have to wonder if he's ever going to be able to consistently lock in mentally. The OREB sequence that led to Dickinson's third foul was possible because Johns unnecessarily helped off Bingham and then never boxed him out:
That's pretty rough for a guy in the tail end of his junior year.
On the other hand, this is a great block on help defense that is Breslin'd:
Love it when the official farthest from the play makes a weird call.
[Campredon]
Zeb did a thing. Zeb Jackson got eight minutes in Brooks's absence. These were mostly so quiet as to be invisible but he did set up Livers for a three with a nice hesitation move:
This has been Zeb Does A Thing.
MSU this year is apparently an example of a team with a really strong homecourt advantage. Kenpom has a hard time quantifying that. They've now beaten three very highly ranked teams (Illinois, OSU, Michigan) in the last two weeks at Breslin, when they were a huge KP underdog each time. At some point that can't just be a fluke. Meanwhile, they regularly get destroyed on the road.
It's less clear to me why they are so much better at home, with no fans at the games, but the results speak for themselves.
Unfortunately for them, they're done playing there for the year.
It has to be the officiating. Every one of the three games you nentioned, I watched wondering if the officials forget how basketball was called in the modern era. They just let Izzo teams get away with the stuff they’re not supposed to at home.
They've definitely gotten a favorable whistle in these home games. But why, when there have been no fans in the stands? It's weird.
I'm a reknown ref conspiracy theorist....but I didn't particularly think the refs were that "biased" in either MSU game. I didn't think they were GOOD and I did think they blew their whistles far too often in both games....but it didn't seem skewed entirely to MSU's favor or that they were getting away with things. Most of Dickinson's fouls were legit.
Meanwhile, Langford, Hauser, and one of their centers had their share of fouls called. I think a mucked-up game with lots of stoppages, fouls, contact, etc. definitely favors MSU based on their style of play and inability to win a track-meet type of game so I guess I'll concede that.
This felt like Michigan's offense sucked for most of the game with bad post offense, missed jump shots, and good defense by MSU. In some ways it highlighted our over-dependence on Hunter I think. When he was scuffling and/or in foul trouble we end up with Davis (good post player but very easy to scout, foul magnet, bad defender) or Johns (roller coaster ride of a player).
The week off couldn't come at a better time.
I don't think officiating was a huge factor yesterday, although it does seem generally like MSU is allowed to defend more physically at home than on the road. That definitely was the case in their OSU game, which was one of the worst officiated games I've seen. And in their Illinois game, the refs lost control of the battle inside and it finally led to the cheap shot.
I agree that officiating wasn't the culprit here, we just got beat (winning a home-and-home against a desperate MSU team was going to be difficult, especially after losing Eli).
But to your point about the whistle, it seems like the Big Ten officials give Izzo (and his teams) a lot of leeway, especially at home. This would potentially explain why they fizzle out in the tournament every year. I mean their strategy this year has been, "we now have 4 centers which is 20 fouls." That won't win you a tournament, as eventually a team will beat you from the line.
Doesn't it seem like the MSU Centers were able to move Dickinson around a lot more than usual? No one else has been able to do that except Kofi. They are not strong in the middle but at home it seems like they are just leaning/grabbing on the bigs for the other teams and it doesn't get called at Breslin. I think yesterday was us being flat. Not officiating. But I have watched all three of those wins against higher ranked teams and it seems like they push the boundaries of what is allowed and it is not a foul in that building.
I didn't think the foul calls were favoring MSU. Only thing I questioned, and the broadcast was no help, were some of the the out of bounds calls.
Izzo is in the officials ear all game long (and probably before the game), but I assume he does that on the road too.
I do think the Kenpom 17 percent win chance did not take into account the widely divergent motivation/ desperation level of the two teams. I had yesterday at about a 60 percent MSU win chance and told several people that, before the game.
The 17% win chance is post hoc, i.e. an approximation of how that game as played might have gone with normal "luck". This is probably largely based on shot quality vs. normal shooting percentages.
As Brian said, they made more mid-range jumpers than usual (Watts had a career game out of nowhere) and Michigan missed more shots at the rim than usual. So MSU played well enough to win 1 of 6 times and they happened to get that one time, even given the divergent motivation / desperation levels since whatever that effect was, is factored into the fundamentals.
Familiarity? Given MSU's style of play? Easier to hit shots in an arena you practice in all the time vs. an unknown arena? They're not a great shooting team overall, so maybe the difference in home vs. road is higher due to that.
Not just let Izzo teams get away with stuff but the block by Johns was all you needed to see. That was a gorgeous defensive play.
I didn't grumble too much during the game looking at the foul differential, but Brian's point about the FTs definitely stresses how different the calls were. Not to mention some of the calls on staee that were while M guys were shooting and buckets were waved off.
smh and shruggy shoulders. Get healthy, play well this weekend.
It’s pure dumb luck. The B1G is so brazenly, shamelessly corrupt that it would make the ghost of Al Capone go, “Now hold on right there, let’s cool our heels a bit,” but Brooks going down early was 1,000,000 times more crucial than the officiating.
The rest, as Brian said, was MSU hitting long twos.
truth.
drawing some larger truths from a loss to an illinois team that still has a mathematical chance to win the conference title? fine. go right ahead.
draw larger conclusions from a game five days later, with 'letdown' written all over it, in gigantic letters, against an opponent that's desperate for a win AND making shots? nope.
i'll still take the future and current prospects of this program over sparty's. all day. this was the last gasp of sparty as a viable program, and they did it on pure dumb luck.
I haven't watched a ton of games this year, but it seemed weird how many possessions they gave to MSU on balls knocked out, that looked like they should have gone to Michigan. Especially in the first half (seemed more even in the second half). CBS didn't seem to want to review any of these instances, so it was hard to see if they were called correct or not.
Michigan also had three shots where they scored on a foul that were turned into floor fouls, so they lost the two points, plus the possibility for the third point, with just an extended possession. This seemed most critical on a Mike Smith layup late in the game (I think the other two were another on Mike Smith and Hunter). He is one of the top free throw shooters on the team, and would have brought Michigan within two, when they were making a run. Instead I think it ended on a turnover.
I don't know basketball well, but it seemed like they got hit a lot with those floor fouls that should have been shooting fouls. Oh well, they need to play better than that if they want to go far in torunament. Ref's didn't lose them the game, but they didn't help on a bad night.
I'm sure some of it is comfort but some of it is fortuitousness timing - in their three big ones starters were injured/out for stretches of the game, and it undoubtedly helped them just scrape by in those contests. The biggest difference I can tell is that MSU shoots better from 2 at home than on the road by a pretty significant margin, which probably have something to do with sight-lines and comfort in the arena as much as anything else.
I would say that before this late end-of-year surge MSU was a .500-ish team at home in the conference, so I'm not sure what changed in the past couple of weeks.
No Foster Loyer? Since he was hurt Izzo couldn't play him?
They are the poster boys for homecourt advantage this season. They've played 7 teams home and away. Their road record is 2-5. Their home record is 5-2. In the 7 road games, they've been outscored by 68 points, almost 10 points per game. In the 7 home games, they are +18. They are barely winning at home and getting blown out on the road. Lets see how they do on a neutral court. My money (if I was a betting man) would be on Maryland.
Torvik allows to split venues:
MSU #35 at home with 0.895 rating; #116 away + neutral with 0.625 rating. (Same rating and ranked #113 in pure road games--they have no neutral court games to date.)
Even as a Michigan fan, this is one of the fastest decelerations from "we are the planet-destroying best team in the country" to "we are doomed" I can ever remember.
Agreed, but if anyone put this team into context correctly, the worst possible fear was a starter or heavy rotational player going down, and it unfortunately happened.
It’s a great team with no depth, one of their key players went down, and the injury immediately led to a loss against a mediocre team.
I mean, that would do it.
Yeah, as soon as Brooks was out and Dickinson got into foul trouble, we were rolling out line ups featuring Zeb and Johns for extended periods of time. Plus Davis' obviously limitations on defense. The line up gets rough and/or young pretty quick beyond the top 6 or so
MSU had Hoiberg on the floor. They weren't getting out talented, they just played badly. Livers, Wagner, and Dickinson didn't show up despite being the three best players on the floor, that was the problem.
Haha, yeah I was literally just talking someone off the ledge by pointing out that exactly one week ago, there was a legitimate debate about whether Michigan or Gonzaga should be the top overall seed. As long as Eli is healthy this is still the team that blitzed Iowa and a bunch of other teams en route to being potentially the best team in the country.
And they still have a #1 seed locked up.
What bothers me most are the fans that seem to be radiating hate toward Livers and Wagner because they "weren't trying" or "didn't care".
dickinson's second or third shot also went off the side of the backboard. he took that one a few minutes after the first clunker, from the other side, at nearly the identical distance IIRC.
He needs to decide to kick it out if he can't get within 8 or so feet. The drop in accuracy from further out is staggering.
going off memory, both of those shots were, at most, on the edge of the paint where he'd spin toward the baseline and shoot a hook. both clanked off the side of the backboard. it wasn't the distance, it was simply the aim (IIRC).
Is the tournament really "compressed" this year compared to normal? I just checked, and while it's definitely different, I wouldn't call it any more compressed. Isn't it normally over three weekends?
https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2021-march-madness-schedule
Yea it isn't really compressed. Friday through Monday, then Saturday through Tuesday. There's actually an added day off between the 2nd round and Sweet 16 with this set up.
The Final 4 the third Saturday then loses two days off (for a grand total of one less day rest) after the Elite 8 Monday and Tuesday.
Gotta wonder if Hunter is hitting that Freshman Big Guy Wall.
He seems to be relying more heavily on his left hand. He had two easy paths to the basket if he went to his right and he passed them up. Teams are overplaying his left hand, forcing him to take tough shots. He also seems to be rushing his shot to the point where I wonder if he's even getting a good look at the backboard on his bank shots. A few of them recently have been way off.
Noticed this too... we've seen him use his right and be semi successful with it, but he seems to not have much confidence in spinning to his left and using his right
Agreed. Especially early in the game, I noticed exactly the same thing. He rushes the shot, with no touch, almost not even looking at the basket. Also, man, would I leave him open for a 10 foot jumper right now. He doesn't even come close.
I noticed that too. Seemed like several times he could've easily rolled to his left and laid in in with his right hand, but every time he would roll to his right and take the more difficult left handed hook. I assume team's have realized this by now because it seems like everyone is clearly guarding his left handed shot more than his right
I think he is....mostly because the B10 has scouted the hell out of him at this point. He's been the #1 line item in the scouting report for three months and the B10 has a bunch of good coaches with good defenses. Meanwhile, practice time has been limited with the Covid pause and the compressed game schedule so Michigan can't work much on new wrinkles.
I'm hoping this week let's them work out a couple of different looks for how to get him better position for teams that are over-playing him and maybe run some different actions/screens to either open him up or use him as a passer. It feels a little like his decision tree is "if double team, then pass....if single team, then throw up a hook".
Good news I guess is that we have some time off the next two weeks to clean some things up.....and this is a good sign that he probably needs another year to refine his game. If he can hit a 15-foot jump shot that would open things up for him too.
I am a bit more sanguine about the Brooks' timeline for recovery. This is total feelingsball - but the way he was interacting on the sidelines in the second half with the team: engaged, active (jumping up to cheer), smiling/joking - none of that felt like someone who just played their last game in a M uniform. My bet - the aircast was a total precautionary measure, and if he's not back to playing strength by the BIG tournament he will be certainly by the NCAAs.
I noticed that, while he was carried to the sidelines, he did walk a little once he got there.
I feel like we'll see him in the NCAAs. BTT might be up in the air.
I think I saw on Twitter that he walked off to the locker room on his own. I still believe the question here is not whether or not he will play again, but rather what condition he will be in when he plays. A Brooks playing only at 50% will still severely limit this team’s ceiling.
Yes, because moving hard on that ankle trying to defend shooting/driving guards will be rough unless it is pretty near 100%. Look at Watts' day - I don't believe he does that with Brooks in there. Watts doesn't have his day, Michigan wins.
This injury is a very big deal.
Yeah, and he walked off to the locker room under his own power. Sometimes ankle injuries linger, but I’m hopeful that he’ll be back sooner than later
I'm hoping it is a sprain and not a break. I did that once before (landing on the side of my foot) and it ended up being a nasty sprain. Took me a good week to get back to walking correctly. As for getting back to playing competitive basketball...that could take a bit longer. Although, I didn't have world class trainers helping me recover. I walked on that damn thing for that week. Ouch! And no, before you ask, I didn't do it playing basketball. I was doing something much less athletic ... hackysack.
He won't be back for the conference tourney but my completely uneducated guess based on nothing but the three ankle sprains I suffered in HS bball is that the most likely scenario is he's back for ncaa's with his ankle taped.
The main question is whether it's a high ankle sprain which could make a two week timeline iffy. But even still, he could get back for sweet 16 if M gets there.
I'm confused about the compressed schedule comments. I thought it was largely the same as previous years, just moved back a day? Per the NCAA website (https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2021-march-madness-schedule):
For the opening weekend the games are Friday through Monday this year (normally it is Thursday through Sunday - the same amount of days). There is also an extra day off between the end of the Big Ten Tournament and the start of the NCAA tournament first round.
The second weekend this year, the games are Saturday through Tuesday (normally it is Thursday to Sunday - again, the same amount of days, but moved back two days).
And this actually provides an extra day off between the first two weekends - normally the first weekend games end on Sunday and the second weekend starts on Thursday (3 days off), whereas this year the first weekend games end on Monday and the second weekend games start on Saturday (4 days off).
Or am I missing something obvious?
This was exactly my thoughts.
No, you're right.
The only compressed part is the gap between the quarterfinals (I won't call them regional finals this year) and semifinals. Usually there are 5 days off--Monday through Friday. This year, there are only 3--Wednesday through Friday.
No this is correct. The only teams that will deal with an abnormal compression are those in the Final Four. Which at that point I wouldn't care about rest anyway.
Why is the schedule shifted like this?
TV $$$$. This will allow every game from Sweet Sixteen through Final Four to have it's own TV Slot with zero competition from other games.
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