2/18/19 – Michigan 65, Maryland 52 – 23-3, 12-3 Big Ten

A year ago Ace and I had a disagreement about Zavier Simpson in which I asserted he'd probably never be a 20% usage guy. A year later I'm technically, barely correct because of rounding; Ace is spiritually and functionally correct. Simpson is simultaneously a 19.4 usage guy with a meh 106 ORTG and the source of panicked consternation whenever he's not on the court.

In my defense I did not foresee Simpson bringing the skyhook back, because I am not insane.

But more than the shot itself is that Simpson's able to do enough around the rim that you have to pay attention to him. Coaches are yelling at their players when they "let" him go right, because now that's a thing you have to worry about.

So while opponents have slowed the parade of hook shots there are costs. There's no better example of this than two NBA posts staring at Simpson as he does a Spike Albrecht Memorial Lane Donut while the seven-foot guy ghosts in for a dunk.

Despite having a grand total of one off the dribble jumper in his career, in his junior season Simpson has developed gravity. The ubiquitous bent plane illustration is a pretty good approximation of the above clip:

He draws people to him, because he's got enough in the way of sweeping layups and hooks and whatnot, and then he finds the folks around him in space. This is a defiantly old-school way to be a point guard. The really nice part about that is that Michigan gets to see what Simpson looks like as a senior. If he continues to improve at the rate he's done so over the first three years that should be a real good time.

Locked in. A loss at Penn State tends to break out the smelling salts. That's a weird thing to know but here we are. Michigan came out of the locker room playing the kind of defense that results in multiple offensive possessions in which late-clock prayers get launched without much of anything dangerous-looking happening beforehand. Ten minutes in Michigan had a 19-6 lead.

This was a team effort but Jon Teske gets a special extra bonus star for forcing Bruno Fernando into an 0/4, two TO first half. Fernando was so out of sync that Turgeon put his first-round pick with zero fouls on the bench for much of the second ten minutes.

Isaiah Livers also deserves a mention here: Michigan stole some minutes with Teske on the bench and Livers checking Fernando. This went way better than it had any right to. Fernando didn't even get a post-up on Livers IIRC.

[After THE JUMP: verticality and transition]

few fouls for having contact initiated on you in this one [Campredon]

Verticality FTW. Maryland initiated a ton of contact to put up shots near the rim. This is how they are; they have two giant guys and a third slasher type in Morsell. In this game the refs did a good job of respecting Michigan's right to contest. I got momentarily irritated on the Smith and-one that moved Maryland up to four points, but on replay Iggy did indeed lower his arms into Smith and deserved the foul; on many other occasions Teske and others were allowed to go up vertically without getting the Lewis Garrison call.

We'll see if that holds up on the road against this team in a few weeks.

Cowan switch. After a desultory first half, Anthony Cowan started the second half with two off-ball screen sequences that got him open looks over Simpson. He nailed both. Michigan's response was to swap Simpson onto Ayala, who wasn't a threat to do much despite his size advantage, and put Matthews on Cowan. Cowan was immediately shut off. He had zero points when Matthews was his primary defender.

This space has mentioned the incredible luxury Michigan has when two elite perimeter defenders go up against teams with just one shot generator out there, and this was ample demonstration. If you find an edge against Simpson, here's Matthews. Enjoy. I imagine they'll switch on Cassius Winston.

Poole had two semi-transition takes at key second half moments [Campredon]

Transition attack. Michigan gave up 11 OREBs but IIRC about four of those were on one volleyball possession where Maryland kept rebounding missed putbacks, and Michigan's revenge for Maryland not getting back on defense was ruthless. Irritatingly, Hoop-Math has still not added data from the game but at one point the announcers asserted Michigan had a 14-2 transition points advantage. Some of this came off steals; someething like half of it was Michigan running on rebounds.

This has been part of a renewed emphasis as Michigan's normally deadly transition game has faltered:

Beilein …regrets that he didn’t drill his team more on core concepts during the summer.

“I shouldn’t have taken that for granted that people understand how to get wide when we really didn’t,” he said. “That’s on me.”

Thus, the past two weeks have been something of a crash course in transition offense, according to junior guard Zavier Simpson. On Saturday, Simpson reiterated that the keys to finding a transition groove are simple.

“Finding the open lanes, just to get hit and (Beilein has) been on our wings about running,” Simpson said. “I just tell my wings just to run and I’ll find you.”

A renewed emphasis there makes sense as Michigan's half-court offense can stagnate.

Meanwhile, living like Maryland on defense can be rough: they had one steal in this game, which isn't a surprise since they're in the 300s in that category. Michigan had seven, which helped lift them to a PPG. A halfcourt-bound Maryland offense had to work for everything.

This will be very relevant against State, which had 17 half-court points and 17 transition ones in about 30 minutes against Ohio State.

Matthews midrange. Stella's groove continues to be back:

Matthews got four transition bunnies so his two-point shooting (7/11) is a little optimistic, but I'll take 3/7 from the midrange.

Teske leaves everything short. In the aftermath of the game some folks said Teske was limping a little bit, which may explain his terrible shooting day. He got three dunks and was otherwise 0/9 until his dagger three late. And with the exception of one three that caught back rim, everything—including two free throws—grazed the front rim. These weren't close.

HOOK ALL THE THINGS [Campredon]

The hook assist. Ace noted this on twitter: Simpson's hook assist to Livers looked just like his hook shot:

Maybe kinda sorta helped that but mostly just a cool visual.

hello [Campredon]

DDJ exists. David DeJulius is the backup point guard, per Beilein. He got 5 minutes towards the end of the first half as Simpson sat with a rare-for-him autobench. He got a tough bucket on a drive where he was probably fouled…

…and Cowan didn't get anything up, let alone down, versus his dogged defense. He did miss a late-clock pull-up three. He's going to start hitting those; I'd say a majority of his threes in high school were off the dribble.

DDJ hasn't put together much in the way of on-court production yet but he already provides a different feel from Brooks. He'll get there.

Speaking of State. Kind of a big deal:

Yow. Some serious news out of Michigan State:

What was billed as maybe a dislocated finger for Nick Ward is now known to be a hairline fracture in his hand. Ward is out for an unknown amount of time. MSU says it hopes he will return before the end of the season.

— Brendan Quinn (@BFQuinn) February 17, 2019

Ward is almost certainly out for the game this weekend; if he can get back in four weeks he'd be able to play in Breslin.

Xavier Tillman's a good player in his own right but he's a 20% usage guy, not 29%. Critically for a Michigan team with zero center depth, he draws 4.4 fouls per 40 instead of Ward's giant 7.7, which is fourth nationally. And one thing that's allowed MSU to play so fast is their ability to swap guys at the five: Ward played just over 20 MPG, which allowed him to trundle at speed whenever he was on the court. Tillman's a big dude who might wear out if they try to use him in a similar fashion for 30+ MPG.

That also opens up minutes for Thomas Kithier, a 6'8" redshirt freshman with so little playing time you can't say too much about what he's like on the floor. One thing that does seem likely is that he's not going to be generating many shots: 90% of his makes at the rim were assisted or putbacks. Do I hear a 60% Winston usage game?

Weird MEAC team of the week! I think the Hoke failteam at San Jose State has switched sports:

San Jose State…

-Does not have a top-300 KenPom win.
-Is 1-28 in league last 2 years
-Has been within single digits of its opponent in just 7 of those 28 losses.
-Has a -35.1 net rating in MWC play this year!

This is a Cal-level disaster right now in Year 2 of Jean Prioleau https://t.co/hXnlxhAcpn

— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) February 14, 2019

And even these guys are 8/10 on dunks this season. Elon, you crazy kids.