11/10/2021 – Michigan 88, Buffalo 76 – 1-0

No column for a quick turnaround column on a WTKA day, but here are some

BULLETS

Dickinson things. I'm not sure if this is a sane thing to say, but it felt like Hunter Dickinson had a quiet 27 points last night. For some reason I thought that he wasn't doing all that much; then you'd look at his stats and think "uhhhhhhh am I having a stroke?"

Best I can figure is that there are various Hunter Dickinson moments where my brain fast-forwards through the inevitable hoop and starts thinking about how Michigan needs to get back on defense. Supporting evidence is that when Dickinson does miss there is a record scratch in my head and I have to remember not to be offended at the cosmos. It is amazing what you can take for granted, and how quickly.

Dickinson went to his right hand a couple of times here, once spinning baseline for an and-one dunk over a befuddled Generic White Post Stiff. He also did a good job not picking up charging calls on the very frequent occurrences where he was provided a pocket pass in PNR and Buffalo was rotating over extremely well. The one call he did pick up was hot garbage, naturally.

if 29 minutes counts as a sixth man [Campredon]

Sixth man: hello. Much of the offseason chatter centered on Terrance Williams II, and how he was a different guy in year two. That bore itself out here as Williams had 15 points on 9 shot equivalents, a couple of offensive rebounds, an assist, and drew the defensive assignment on Jeenathan Williams after his outburst in the second half. Per Craig Ross, Williams already had 28 points when Michigan stuck TWII on him and finished with 32. The buckets he did get were heavily contested.

Williams has clearly slimmed down after a year of Camp Sanderson and took a step towards trashing his freshman numbers by hitting 2/3 from deep, one of them a semi-transition look that was Chaundee-esque in its authority. He also hit a late-clock Dirk fadeaway and took his man to the bucket on a drive.

That was an impressive suite of skills to display in just one game.

Williams isn't a guy who's likely to end up on NBA radars and so I am looking forward to having him around as an upperclassmen, when opposing fanbases are going to moan about how this guy is still around and isn't he 80 and why does he have to do various this well while not being an NBA caliber athlete.

[After THE JUMP: Spain!]

contested [Campredon]

Meanwhile on Jeenathan. Mostly whatever, right? Dude made a ton of heavily contested shots. Michigan has some things to work on defensively but this was just a guy being a dude.

Spain PNR. Michigan twice busted out consecutive possessions featuring Spain pick and roll in the second half, getting four buckets on those four possessions. First the backscreen got Dickinson free at the hoop for a layup, then Brooks pressed it himself.

Later, a Brooks floater followed by Houstan getting an open three after the backscreen.

Read Matt's article above; you're going to see a lot of it this year.

Hedging. Michigan was almost exclusively a drop coverage team on pick and roll last year, and that seemed to go just fine. In this game there was significantly more hedging. Why would Michigan change a strategy that resulted in opponents shooting 32% (13th nationally) on long twos, which ended up being 39% (5th nationally) of opponent shots?

Uh… I don't know. I liked the drop coverage. It provided opponents with a lot of bad shots and generally kept Dickinson out of foul trouble. After a couple years where it seemed like Moe Wagner or Jon Teske would pick up a hedging foul in the first minute of every game, I enjoyed the predictability of drop.

If I had to guess at the reasons they're at least exploring a different hedging scheme it's mostly about the fact that Michigan has Moussa Diabate instead of Austin Davis. Dickinson foul trouble is going to be less of a problem, and Diabate is probably going to be astoundingly good at hedging and recovering. The defense will be better if they have the versatility to play either, and there may be certain matchups in which hedging does a lot for M.

Ronaldo Segu may have been one of those matchups; he hit 39% from three last year and had a ton of unassisted makes. Against less pull-up happy guards we may see drop again.

set up by Diabate running the court and Houstan finding him [Campredon]

Court vision. Encouraging starts from both Caleb Houstan and Diabate when it came to identifying open guys and getting them the ball.

Sometimes freshmen either force it up or don't see openings early; here both guys made some slick passes that belied their youth. I did think Diabate was a little too content to go one-on-one with a dude, but that'll likely work itself out.

Headband density. I do not believe I have seen a Michigan lineup with three guys in headbands before, but a brief stretch where Williams, Nunez, and Collins were all out there checked the box. I'm not sure what happens if you get four guys out there in headbands but it may be automatic relegation to the NAIA so let's keep it reasonable folks.

Rim dominance. Michigan was 15/16 at the hoop, and I think the one miss may have been the one where Dickinson was triple-teamed and Williams got the world's easiest putback as a result. Buffalo was 6/8.

Introducing Devante'. Devante' Jones certainly looks like he'll play the part Michigan needs him to. Limited by foul trouble but 5 A, 1 TO and two steals in 18 minutes is about all Michigan needs from him. Points are a luxury as long as he's getting his teammates into good spots and generating some extra possessions.

Buffalo is pretty large and athletic for a MAC team and this is a more reasonable test of what Jones might look like against high-major competition than you'd expect from an opener. After he was talked up at the NBA G-League camp this offseason I didn't think he'd have a problem transitioning, and this is another bit of evidence he'll be just fine.

[Campredon]

Also introducing Caleb Houstan. Houstan had the aforementioned court vision, one nice drive to the basket…

…a couple of threes, and a struggle on defense. To some extent everyone who got stuck on Williams got got in this game; that's one thing. Getting a drive-by from Maceo Jack on a closeout is a bit rougher.

I don't think Houstan is likely to ever be an elite defender—those guys tend to pop out immediately, see: Diabate, Moussa—but he'll show a lot better in the future, IMO. Michigan was able to get Mike Smith to passable last year, and he was much older and smaller. Houstan's not elite laterally; he is good enough to work with.

Chirping. Three double technicals in a game is a personal record for games I've observed. This did not feel like good officiating, what with those counting as personals. Let them talk. Ronaldo Segu has sauce, it's okay.