Basketbullets: Blindsided
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 
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:
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:
synergy ranks out of 353 teams of michigan's defense against post-up possessions (passes included):
— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) January 13, 2020
- 349th in points per possession
- 348th in turnover %
- 350th in % of possessions ending in a score
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:
Michigan Film Review: Teske Post D v Oturu in 2019/20
— LAbound (@LAbound2) January 13, 2020
2019-Oturu backs Teske down w/2 dribbles but doesn’t get near a full revolution w/his nonpivot foot on the dropstep, isn’t able to seal Teske to mitigate his contest
2020-Oturu gets near full revolution, seals Teske, easy 2 pic.twitter.com/tBTFYiiEdd
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]
The opposite of Syracuse. HoopVision's subscription content touched on Michigan, which is the most man-to-man defense in the country:
The Wolverines guard you one-on-one and force the ball handler to score. Because of that philosophy, they allow the fewest field goal attempts out of spot-ups of any defense in the country.
Fewest field goal attempts allowed out of spot-ups
Michigan (10.9 FGA allowed per game)
UNC Asheville (11.0 FGA allowed per game)
Texas (11.3 FGA allowed per game)
Idaho State (11.3 FGA allowed per game)
Villanova (11.4 FGA allowed per game)
By sticking to shooters and guarding one-on-one, Michigan is placing extra burden on their on-ball defender. Given the defensive abilities of Zavier Simpson and Jon Teske, this seems like a reasonable scheme for Juwan Howard’s team to employ. But it’s not working — at least right now — in Big 10 play.
It would be one thing if the holes were at spots where Michigan had freshmen or backups playing. This is baffling.
The shot volume problem. The other issue vexing Michigan's defense is shot volume. With a rock-bottom turnover rate forced and mediocre defensive rebounding, Michigan allows more than one shot per opponent possession:
Early in B1G play Purdue's been all shot volume all the time. Opponents far superior in shooting from the field, but Boilers still show a positive EM. Track attempts with these guys.
— John Gasaway (@JohnGasaway) January 13, 2020
No. 3 in shot volume
No. 1 by far in defensive SV…. pic.twitter.com/lHnk3rTLaM
Last year's defense wasn't great in this department either but the above is abominable. Michigan has gone from 210th in TOs forced to 321st and from 34th to 134th in defensive rebounding. So not only is Michigan giving up a very high percentage from two in Big Ten play, they're also one of the least disruptive defenses in college basketball. You can get away with that if the shots you're forcing are actually bad, as they were in the Bahamas, and you rebound the misses. Michigan isn't doing either at this point.
Yeah that Purdue lineup is very situational. Michigan tried to go back to the three-guards-and-Franz lineup that eventually won them the Purdue game, whereupon Wagner got torched a couple times by Alihan Demir. Demir is a Drexel grad transfer who's shooting 45% on twos against top 100 opponents and went 4/5 here—and since he got six FTs that's more like 7/8.
Demir is closer to a big than a wing. He's listed at 235 on Minnesota's roster. Wagner is listed at 205 and I wouldn't be surprised if the gap was actually larger. Wagner was unable to check him on the block. His main asset as a defender—freaky long arms on a 6'9" frame—was way less relevant against a guy his size, and then he just doesn't have the beef.
Purdue was playing Nojel Eastern and Eric Wheeler at the four after Haarms went out. Both are more wing than big (Eastern actually styles himself a guard); both are currently enduring miserable offensive seasons. That's why Michigan could get away with it.
[Campredon]
Other Franz stuff trending up, though. He put up 17 on 15 shot equivalents. Michigan started the second half with a series of layups, a couple of which were Wagner getting post touches against guards who had zero chance to contest. That looks like a sustainable strategy since he's not going to see many folks who can reasonably contest him on the block as long as he's not playing the 4.
He was just 2/5 from two but one of the misses was a Kobe assist on which he drew help and Michigan got a putback; a second miss was a bunny at the bucket where he got pushed in the back and got Big Ten Road Ref'd.
Wagner's shooting is trending back towards what we expected preseason. He's up to 35% from three on the season and since a 5/23 start he's hit 14 of his last 32. He's a 90%+ free throw shooter so it's likely the latter is closer to reality than the former.
The one thing that continues to vex is Wagner's tendency to turn the ball over on drives. His handle leaves him susceptible to perimeter rakes and he doesn't yet have the muscle to tuck the ball in for a couple steps and then finish. Developments in that department seem like a next year thing; hopefully he can continue using his length to finish at the rim without having to drive down the stretch here.
Pumpkin time. Minnesota did a terrible job contesting threes in this game but Michigan couldn't convert on enough of them to win. Eli Brook managed to can his last one but missed his previous six, all of which were good shots. That was his first three-pointer against high major competition since the Iowa game. Brooks's ORTG against top 100 teams is 82. We're all the way back to preseason expectations here.
The one flicker of hope is that Brooks had three buckets in this game built on excellent cuts.
Since this is the place where we talk about DDJ's minutes we should also note that Adrien Nunez had a four trillion. Nunez continuing to get minutes is much less important than Michigan's post defense evaporating; it is about as inexplicable.
The ball did not lie. Four of Oturu's FTAs were hot garbage. Brandon Johns got a tieup that was called a shooting foul and Oturu tried to run over Davis only to get blocked for a couple more FTs later. A guilt-racked Oturu, normally a 70% FT shooter, hit just 3/7.
This was only part of a road officiating experience that was an 8/10. Michigan had 19 fouls to Minnesota's 7, and by the end of the game Robbie Hummel was in disbelief that Oturu wasn't called for two separate fouls on one Teske post-up. Then there was Eli Brooks taking a hit at the end of the first half that may have been an intentional foul since Minnesota only had two called at that point.
Michigan fouls aren't why they lost since Minnesota was less efficient on FTs than on shots from the floor. Cold comfort.
Just sayin'. When Shaka Smart gets fired for missing the tournament for the fourth time in five years at Texas and Phil Martelli takes a mid-major job somewhere, we should probably hire Yaklich back.
Situational, but interesting. I've wondered about fouling late in halves in the one-and-one:
College basketball end of 1st half situations are ripe for squeezing out more points. @CoachToddGolden's Dons did that last night by fouling a poor FT shooter in the single bonus and adding 2 more points to their lead, so I had to make a quick explainer video. pic.twitter.com/dntqNB81yW
— Neil Johnson (@neilmjohnson) January 12, 2020
I wonder where that 0.7 number comes from. Feels about right for an end of half possession but I haven't seen any articles to that effect.
January 13th, 2020 at 1:59 PM ^
Re: the end-of-half foul strategy - I see this more as a 1-1 FT strategy. Fouls 7-9 are a unique opportunity to put a bad FT shooter on the line for a low expected point trip. The math here of course mainly depends on how bad the shooter is, how likely you are to get a rebound, and what the alternative point per possession expectation is (other factors matter like the general FT ability of the other team, bc you’re putting them in double bonus faster).
that said, the reason I’ve thought about this a lot is bc it always seemed like an unlucky waste when giving up a shooting foul for any one of foul 7-9 (basically negating the defensive advantage of the 1-1).
TLDR version: I think in both 1st AND 2nd half one should strongly consider using fouls 7-9 intentionally on the other team’s worst FT shooter, if the expected point value calculation supports it.
January 13th, 2020 at 3:10 PM ^
Another factor here you need to consider is how much time is left and how likely it is that there will be any fouls after foul 9. I'm not sure it makes sense to intentionally foul on 7-9 if you are going to end up giving two shots on fouls 10 and beyond.
If you have 6 fouls with less than a minute left, by all means foul a bad free throw shooter.
January 13th, 2020 at 3:22 PM ^
Totally agree. That’s what I meant by the parenthetical on how good of a FT shooting team the other team is. The logic in fouling is that you’re forcing the 1-1 on the worst shooter, vs using on a 90% shooter (for example), or losing it all together (shooting foul on foul 7-9).
In the case of the 90% shooter, the expected points on the trip doesn’t change much between 1-1 and 2 shots (1.8 vs 1.71). So for example, if a team is full of 90% foul shooters, except 1 guy who sucks, I feel like the math could work here to foul at any time for fouls 7-9
January 13th, 2020 at 3:29 PM ^
This is definitely worth thinking about. But another factor is that if it's too obvious what you're doing, or, more to the point, the fouling player does so too aggressively, you run a risk of getting called for a flagrant foul. I don't think it would happen a lot, but it might change the numbers a little bit.
An additional factor, particularly if you're doing it at the end of the first half, is that it increases the risk that the fouling player will get in foul trouble. So you'd want to be sure that you have someone to execute the strategy who has zero fouls by the end of the first half.
January 14th, 2020 at 7:18 PM ^
I love this idea. Maybe if this strategy gains enough traction they will finally do away with the idiotic one-and-one rule all together
January 13th, 2020 at 2:06 PM ^
Teske's post defense collapse is just baffling. He was so, so good last year, especially when he had fouls to spare. His hands were everywhere. Nobody down low got open shots, ever.
Obviously, not the case now.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:11 PM ^
He looks like someone that is always playing as if he has 4 fouls.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:46 PM ^
Also, the officiating has taken a decided turn towards the offense. And is so inconsistently applied between the big men it is scary. Teske needs to set some harder edges and sharpen those elbows - a bloody lip, or two, does wonders for your reputation.
The B1G is letting them bang this year. Time for Jon to dish out some pain.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:58 PM ^
The officiating has taken a big turn in favor of the offense. Using hands on defense is no longer allowed. Those body shots this year need to be taken full-on in the chest, which is just bullshit in my opinion. If you put one hand on a dude, they blow the whistle. Yet Oturu gets to use his shoulder like a battering ram on a guy who has defensive position established. Only viable defense is the double team.
January 13th, 2020 at 3:09 PM ^
I think a lot of it has to do with him having to do more in the offensive department and them also lacking Livers, a great defender himself. What I don't get is why we don't rebound better and why the exact thing Juwan wants to do (play though the center) we can't do and actually other teams do magnificently against us...can we can the elite defender icon off Teske now?
January 13th, 2020 at 4:22 PM ^
Michigan athletics is exceptional at finding new and previously unknown ways to frustrate fans.
January 13th, 2020 at 4:31 PM ^
This is less Teske and more the stale defensive approach M is using. No one digs even. There are creative ways to apply different looks without compromising 3 pt defense, but M hasn't even tried. The drop defense on the P&R has also been terrible. Several times the big will drop, not provide a shot challenge, and also give up an offensive rebound. The only noticeable adjustment defensively has been to either front the post or play a bit of zone. As Brian pointed out, they don't pressure anybody and they don't rebound particularly well. Also, last year's best defensive players are now shouldering even more of the offensive load.
Nunez and Castleton are borderline unplayable, Brooks and Johns play timid too often (especially relative to their skill level) and Wagner and DDJ are still young but at least are more aggressive. This is an above average team sans Beilein development and strategy. We'll see how much the influx of talent changes the equation.
January 13th, 2020 at 7:04 PM ^
Too much golf?
January 13th, 2020 at 2:08 PM ^
One play of Teske's I will defend that this write up mentioned ("Teske looked at the ref for no apparent reason and Oturu got an uncontested layup"). It looked to me like Oturu caught the ball on his hip and clearly double dribbled. I think even Otutu stopped and waited for the whistle.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:19 PM ^
Teske and Simpson have had worse D this year without Yaklich emphasizing it every practice and being on the bench to call defensive change ups. Howard was expected to fill the defensive coach role but he has too much going on in game for a 1st time head coach. So the d strategy never changes. Also Beilein likely emphasized the little things in practice a lot more, so you see some sloppier defense than the last 2 years. Also I think why Michigan seems to have more travels this year than in the past. Kind of is what it is at this point.
Edit to add: With Livers out this team is really testng my preseason assertion that any team with a Simpson, Teske, and 3 scrubs has a floor of 20 wins and is a bubble team just based on their defensive ability.
Also, the stat that opponents get more than 1 shot/possession is the most depressing Michigan basketball stat I've heard maybe ever. How common is that in college basketball? That sounds like something reserved for teams at the bottom of low-major conferences.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:42 PM ^
There is some transition cost here. Ace alluded to it but you only get 20 hours of practice/game time a week and some of that has to be spent scouting the other team. With the loss of continuity in systems there is less time to install adjustments effectively because you are still just installing your base system to a level of competence.
January 13th, 2020 at 3:12 PM ^
Another factor that's been mentioned is that they've gone from options 3 and 4 or maybe even 4 and 5 on offense to options 1 and 2. I think that takes a toll.
January 13th, 2020 at 3:24 PM ^
Last year they had Matthews and Livers who could very effectively guard at least 2 and up to 4 different positions on the court at any given time. Helps with rotations tremendously.
With Livers out, the rest of the roster can barely guard 1 position effectively.
Matthews' athleticism cleaned up A LOT of mistakes with his help defense.
That makes a ton of difference when making a this comparison from last to this year.
January 14th, 2020 at 1:45 AM ^
Good point. Besides being great one on one, Matthews could basically guard 1, or at least 2, through 4.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:19 PM ^
All so true. But if we win--and a couple of bad Teske fouls and a pile of missed open shots would have done it--then we're all saying, 'Wow, three games Juwan gambled on not double-teaming the big guy and three times he won!'
So many ways you could slice that loss to Minnesota. The good news is that at home or with Isaiah we paste them.
Also, Carr and Oturo are very good players.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:20 PM ^
The fouls against UM may not have hurt so much from the FT points that Minn made, but the momentum (and points) it took away from UM. This was an even game with balance tipped by the officiating, regardless of how we performed compared to expectations.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:38 PM ^
However, had we not gone stone-cold from 3s the officiating would not have mattered. The motto of this team is "make our 3s and we win the game" ... otherwise shit happens
January 13th, 2020 at 4:28 PM ^
Completely true - for all the mistakes UM made, this was an even game. That doesn't necessarily excuse the officiating.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:46 PM ^
My beef was more with the uncalled stuff at the other end. Only seven team fouls on Minnesota?
January 13th, 2020 at 3:29 PM ^
it would be nice if they could just get their money's worth on some of those fouls, instead of a barley grazed call.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:40 PM ^
The Yaklich love is so baffling. The texas defense is rated in the same place as the Michigan defense in kenpom despite playing an easier schedule and its clear the defensive strategy is the same since Texas shows up third on the field goal attempts out of spot up stats. His forte was never teaching Teske how to defend the post and we never doubled last year. Two of the best four defenders on the team last year were Matthews and Livers and neither one is playing right now. Poole was also a good defender and instead of bringing an elite utility defender in Livers off the bench as your 6th man you are bringing in DDJ who can at best guard 2 spots to a level that would have made him 6th or 7th best defender on last years team. Its a players game and we don't have the players without Livers.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:48 PM ^
Yeah, I feel like this blog forgot that Charles Matthews, maybe the best all-around defender in the league, is gone from last year's squad. Similarly, Livers is out. Yes, Teske's defense has scuttled a bit but the idea that Yaklich would have pumped out another top-10 defense feels a bit wistful. The general sentiment around this team is that it lost a ton of athleticism off last year's squad, and a lot of defense is having athletes who can stick with guys. Michigan has some solid pieces but it's a step down and guys we all sort of expected to make that jump (Castleton and Johns esp.) haven't.
I also think basketball is a particularly weird sport when it comes to matchups and streaks, and it wouldn't surprise me if the pendulum swing back a bit and Michigan skunked a couple of big men in the coming weeks and those numbers go back down. It'll take some adjustments and maybe Howard doesn't make those, but I'm a little dubious that a bunch of teams have made massive adjustments to Jon Teske over the past couple of games.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:59 PM ^
Livers got cooked by the kid from L'Ville. I've never seen Livers get worked that easy. He was required to try and handle him with no help. The lack of help on anything is the problem.
Michigan isn't making anyone feel uncomfortable going the basket. It is also the reason they get beat in transition this year too.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:41 PM ^
I liked that end-of-half call in this specific case because a 37% FT shooter is practically begging to be fouled, but most teams aren't going to have a guy like that in their rotation out there. So at that point you'd have to figure out the expected payoff of another possession versus, I don't know, an expected point total of over 1 by your opponent.
As for the interior defense, part of me feels like it's opponents compensating, part of it is the lack of double-teaming/flexibility on defense, and part is just a run of good post players. I assume Howard will alter his lineup after another hamblasting, but at the same time had Michigan even shot semi-competently they probably win that game despite the interior explosion. Not having Livers hurts immensely in that respect because he gives them another weapon on that front.
Fans do need to sorta forget about Atlantis; two of those teams have turned out to be ass (UNC and Iowa St) and Gonzaga was a nice win. But this team is a top-25 squad, not a top-5 one, and so their deficiencies are going to show up on the road even moreso than at home.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:45 PM ^
Its a top 15-20 squad with Livers, 30-40 without him. For all the worry about the post defense we won 2 of the 3 games listed and Purdue finished with less than a point per possession.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:50 PM ^
If Wagner can start putting a couple of these offensive performances together then I think they're still a top-25 team without Livers, but I largely agree.
I will say that I've caught a log of college basketball recently and, like, it's hard to find more than 10/12-ish really good teams. And the top isn't particularly dominant. It's a weird year.
January 13th, 2020 at 4:33 PM ^
That example worked so well because of the 3 at the buzzer. If you have a play where you feel confident you can get off a good look at 3 in 10ish seconds then it makes sense even if you foul a guy thats a 65% FT shooter. Does Michigan have a play where they can get a good look at 3 right now? Some games it definitely doesn't feel like it.
January 13th, 2020 at 2:55 PM ^
Castleton being basically unplayable on defense has been a problem. Needed him to take some minutes and be a shot blocker even if he couldn't bang with bigger guys
January 13th, 2020 at 3:53 PM ^
"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.""
I just wanted to highlight this.
January 13th, 2020 at 8:46 PM ^
Maybe Beilein will come back. I love Howard, but Beilein was a great college coach. Too early to tell on Howard long term, but we're def a better team with Beilein as coach this year. Cavs are probably better without him.
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