Bracket Watch: Still A Thing!

Derrick Walton is settling in for a potential tourney run. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Michigan's NCAA tournament hopes were hanging by a thread heading into Tuesday's blowout of MSU. In the aftermath, well, they're still hanging by a thread, but at least the thread hasn't snapped. The Wolverines are the fifth team out of the field in last night's update of the Bracket Matrix, making 31 of the 99 included brackets. They're moving in the right direction, however, making 17 of the 40 that were updated on Wednesday or Thursday. That update doesn't include today's revised brackets; CBS's Jerry Palm, who already had Michigan as an 11-seed, bumped them up to a 10-seed today—clear of the last four in.

As ESPN's Eamonn Brennan points out in his latest Bubble Watch post, Michigan can strengthen their case for an at-large bid on Sunday by weakening the case for Indiana, a fellow bubble team:

Despite last week's home loss to Ohio State, this could end up being a net-plus week for Michigan's once-long NCAA tournament odds. The Wolverines blitzed Michigan State by 29 on Tuesday, and on Sunday they travel to Indiana, which is not only vulnerable but one of the bubble teams the Wolverines need to drift away if they want to secure their own bid in the coming weeks.

Not that you need the rooting incentive, but Michigan State is another one of those bubble teams that Michigan is hoping to pass; while they did so on Palm's bracket, most have kept the Spartans a couple seed lines above the Wolverines. Michigan still needs to win more than their fair share of coin-flip-ish games down the stretch to have a realistic shot at the field; a victory on Sunday would go a long way towards making that a reality.

[After THE JUMP: getting X going, transition threes, lineage of poodles, etc.]

Simplicity For Simpson

A smaller package of plays led to a bigger output from Simpson. [Campredon]

Xavier Simpson had by far the best game of his budding collegiate career on Tuesday. While the numbers may not pop off the page—7 points, 3/4 FG, 2 assists, 1 turnover—it was obvious Simpson was much more comfortable in the offense than before. After the game, John Beilein revealed that was far from a coincidence:

There’s been signs, slow signs. Saddi Washington’s done a great job. He really suggested that [Simpson] play more today, and he also suggested we just simplify his package. He understands everything we do, but the timing of it is still just a little bit off, and when you’re just a little bit off with Michigan State, they’ll get in the gap or they’ll get a hand on something or they’ll be physical with you, so we tried to really shorten his package today when he was in there, and he was really good at them. Saddi Washington, that wasn’t my idea, that was Saddi all the way.

I went back through the game and clipped the offensive sets that utilized Simpson. A common theme emerged: Michigan looked to get Simpson working off a high screen.

There are multiple benefits to this approach. With a simplified decision process, Simpson was able to be more assertive. Running high screens also drew MSU's big man away from the basket, a key factor in getting the diminutive point guard makeable looks at the rim. If the initial action was stymied, it was easy for Michigan to reset the offense, and Simpson did an excellent job of picking his spots to be aggressive late in the shot clock.

Even the missed opportunities were good ideas. On the play beginning at the 0:20 mark, a ball screen for MAAR gets MSU rotating, and Simpson only needs a small crease between two defenders to bolt to the rim—he doesn't quite gather himself to get the finish but it's a great look. The turnover at 1:18 is a similar case; Simpson has the right idea in lobbing the ball over the top for Moe Wagner but doesn't quite get enough air under it to prevent Nick Ward from making a strong recovery to knock the pass away.

With some help from the coaching staff, Simpson may have finally hit the point where the game is slowing down for him. He said as much after the game:

I’m definitely better. I’m improving every single day. … Mentally it’s changed, and also physically. The pace has slowed down. It’s not as fast as a month ago. Right now I have to keep working, don’t get satisfied with that. Hopefully we can create a little win streak.

Simpson as a viable offensive threat could be the key to the rest of the season. His presence in the lineup allows Derrick Walton to occasionally slide to the two, making him a deadly spot-up shooting threat, when both are on the court. His increased minutes against MSU also allowed Beilein to give a little more rest to Zak Irvin, who played his lowest minute total (32) in the last eight games. Simpson also took over the possessions that Michigan would normally run through Irvin; while Irvin once again had a quiet game, it was a turnover-free quiet game in which he only used 8% of M's possessions, by far his lowest mark of the season. I expect Irvin will bounce back from this unusually poor stretch of play; Simpson easing his workload may play a big part in that.

Adjusting on the Fly: Slipping the Pick

Wagner's ane-one bucket at the end of the first half came about due to a critical in-game adjustment from Walton and Beilein, who found a way to exploit MSU's aggressive pick-and-roll defense. Walton:

They do a great job of hedging, actually, making you really uncomfortable in the ball screen. After the first couple times, I kinda told Coach B that, they were showing so high that maybe we should just slip it. Moe’s a great guy catching it and making the next play, so we’ve got supreme faith in throwing him the ball in a crowd and for him to make a play.

Here's a compilation of Michigan's first-half pick-and-roll possessions (and a successful pick-and-pop after a stymied pick-and-roll):

While Michigan still had success early on without the big man slipping the screen, much of it was Walton making difficult shots. Successful dives to the hoop by Mark Donnal and Wagner started softening up the defense, though, and after Walton made a tough pull-up two with Wagner popping out, the setup was there for Wagner to slip for the late and-one.

Transition Triples

I love the way Michigan is approaching transition offense. According to hoop-math, the Wolverines rank 18th nationally in transition offense eFG%, with transition offense defined as initial shots of a possession occurring in the first ten seconds of the shot clock after a steal, rebound, or opponent made basket.

The old way to run the fast break was to get the ballhandler flanked by one or two guys going hard at the rim, looking for a layup or a foul. The new way, certainly not unique to Michigan, is to spread the defense thin on the perimeter and look for a quick-hitting three. 42% of M's transition shots come from beyond the arc, and they're connecting on 46% of those triples.

Duncan Robinson is 11-for-23 on such shots. He knows his role well. On this play from the Indiana game, he immediately gets to one of his favorite spots following a DJ Wilson block, and his teammates know to look for him right away—he launches only three seconds into the shot clock:

He's also lethal on the secondary break. From earlier in the same game, Michigan forces a turnover and looks for an immediate spot-up three from Walton. When IU collapses on Walton, he drives while Robinson fills his spot and ends up with an open look before the defense can recover—Robinson's quick trigger really helps here:

Walton has been even better on transition threes, going 12-for-22 this season. He benefited from his own steal and the looming threat of Robinson to get all alone from long range against MSU:

Michigan isn't passing up layups to get these shots—they're 52-for-63 on transition shots at the rim—but when there isn't an easy lane to the hoop, they've got a deadly fallback plan to take advantage of unset defenses.

John Beilein, Very Literal Motivational Speaker

Left: bad. Right: good.

Beilein was quite serious about getting his players to take on a "junkyard dog" mentality.

You can be pretty consistent about guys who are going to make shots, but what type of edge are they going to play with? That’s hard. And is the edge too much that they get emotionally drunk during the game? You worry about that a little bit. Today was, like, perfect. They were right there. They were angry. They were junkyard dogs. That was the whole idea, the picture of a doberman that I wanted them to go out and play like. I think it was a doberman but he had big teeth. We’ve got to go out there angry and play with that edge that we so desperately need. (You showed them a picture of the dog?) Yeah, I had a picture. (In their lockers or something?) No, we had it up where I do my talk. I showed it to them a couple days ago. I showed them dogs before a whole lineage of poodles, you play like this but this is who we have to be. That’s another story.

That is all.