1/17/2020 – Michigan 83, Iowa 90 – 11-6, 2-4 Big Ten

I have seen the bracketology. I have seen the projections. I have seen Reservoir Dogs. But I am here to say that twelve Big Ten teams will not be in the tournament. There will be more than two teams with records worse than .500 in league play. Improbably, I do have to say that. Look at this thing!

This isn't going to happen. The most likely scenario is that a couple of teams sort themselves out naturally; the second is that when push comes to shove the committee passes on a team with an 8-12 conference record to select some other bubble team with a virtually identical resume.

Someone in this conference is going to be last year's Indiana team, which beat Marquette and Louisville, got off to a 12-2 start, and then lost 12 of 13 games. Someone is in the midst of a scene where a dude walks into the lobby of a building with a bunch of nonconference bling and gets riddled with bullets in slow-motion.

It's probably not Michigan, which has a note from the doctor about its performance to date. Torvik's measure of elite schedule strength has Michigan behind only Kansas and well ahead of the rest of the country:

Added Elite SOS (percentage of games an elite team would expect to lose against given schedule) to team charts page. pic.twitter.com/xOKYdhUOV4

— Bart Trvik (@totally_t_bomb) January 19, 2020

An elite team would expect to lose six games with Michigan's schedule. Michigan has lost six games, half of those without its top scorer.

…But it could be Michigan. Probably not. But maybe. Losing the last two games has been painful because both were within reach. Michigan had second-half leads with under ten minutes to go in both. There's no shame in losing either, but when everything's a coin flip and the first few go against you some nerves start popping up.

The schedule's about to ease up a bit, which means that they're getting teams in the back half of the top 50 at home instead of the front half on the road. Nothing is a lock. Even the horrible teams are projected to pick up five more wins between them, each of which will be a cruel bullet indeed.

It's probably not Michigan. It could well be Ohio State, which is in free-fall, having lost five of six with the only win at home against Nebraska. It could be Minnesota, or Illinois, or Indiana—my money is on Indiana again. But it could be Michigan. Collar-pulling time.

[After THE JUMP: there is an officiating section]

Not the best time to lose Livers. Livers has missed games @ MSU, vs Purdue, @ Minnesota, and @ Iowa. Michigan had to go to double OT to beat Purdue and lost single-digit games to Minnesota and Iowa. Livers easily could have swung the latter two games.

Livers did warm up:

The 6-foot-7, 230-pound forward not only went through shootaround with his teammates, he was involved in the final round of warmups with the Wolverines and the other pregame festivities while in uniform.

Maybe he'll be back for Penn State on Wednesday.

Free throw disparity. Free throws in this game were 30-5 in Iowa's favor. Free throws against Minnesota were 27-6 in Minnesota's favor. When Juwan Howard got called for a technical foul in the second half my reaction was "had to do it," even though the only thing it bought Michigan was a couple of meaningless loose ball fouls.

Michigan shouldn't have achieved FT parity in this game if only because so many of their shots were uncontested. When you shoot 68% from two, the other team frequently isn't even in position to foul. But I mean, here's Garza jumping into Austin Davis, causing him to miss:

And here's Teske walling up vertically much better than Garza above and getting called:

Count Garza's steps here:

No travel, foul, free throws. This was the point where Howard got the tech.

This is a hook and hold that was just a point of emphasis last year:

On the other end of the floor, this was getting called.

I dunno what you do with that other than put on your Uncle Phil face and get a tech.

It actually says quite a bit about Michigan that they're able to stick in these games without Livers and with the above happening on a maddeningly consistent basis.

Another point in Robbie Hummel's favor. Hummel wasn't afraid to call out some absurdly bad calls in the Minnesota game; Steven Bardo can look at anything and justify a call. Describing the Wagner foul above as a "bear hug" was an eyeroll moment.

Yes, there are Big Ten officials. People will occasionally dismiss the idea the Big Ten is refereed differently than other conferences because officials aren't hired exclusively by one conference, like football officials. This is true but a lot of the lead referees are essentially B10 refs. Here's Terry Wymer's schedule since the resumption of conference play:

There is certainly enough consistency with B10 crews to have a distinctive difference between it and other conferences, where home court advantage is dying:

Home-court advantage is on the decline in Division I as a whole, and it is additionally on the decline in the smaller but highly visible arena of major-conference play. As recently as 2007, major-conference teams won 67.2% of their home games in league play. Last season that number was 60.3%, the lowest success rate of the KenPom era.

Even the Big Ten's incredible home-court numbers this season aren't changing these fundamentals. In fact, the ACC is just as extreme as the Big Ten, only in the opposite direction. ACC home teams are just 22-29.

The Big Ten is such an outlier this year that much of what's happening is just weird randomness, but it's hard not to watch these games and not get frustrated.

Teske did all right on Garza. Garza was 8/15 from two and did a lot of his work against Austin Davis during two stretches where Michigan went with two-big lineups to go up against Garza/Kreiner lineups from Iowa. Michigan got obliterated in these two stretches—Davis was on the court for most of an 18-2 Iowa first-half run—and a large part of that was Davis not having any ability to contest shots. Iowa shot 80% from two when he was on the floor:

I miss that year when Moe Wagner's backup was sophomore Teske.

Yosemite Sam Beilein. I have a great affection for Fran McCaffrey because he seems like what would happen if you gave the craziest, most spittle-flecked guy on the Iowa message boards the head coaching job. Not in this game, for reasons discussed above, but put him on the road and you can see the steam coming out of his ears. Also he's built his team to score a zillion points and give up a zillion points, so when you play Iowa you usually get an entertaining basketball game for a lot of reasons.

In this particular game I was struck by a series of post actions that were essentially feints. Iowa would post Garza on one block; Michigan would defend it, but in the process of defending it they'd end up with Teske on the high side of Garza. Garza re-posted on the other block and Iowa decisively swung it across the court for a great post entry angle. Or, like, this thing that is 100% a set play:

They're the #2 offense in the country for a reason. Iowa's doing this despite a couple of glaring roster holes. If Fran ever picks up a Yaklich, look out.

Step in twos are good shots for Brooks [Campredon]

Also a fan of Iowa: Eli Brooks. Brooks started out by missing two clean looks from three, whereupon your author may have pined for David DeJulius. Brooks then hit five of his nine next threes plus three step-in long twos en route to a career high 25 points. Brooks has 138 and 118 ORTGs against the Hawkeyes. Against other top 100 teams… not so much.

Movement for buckets. Brooks's first bucket was a cut off Michigan's now traditional opening possession post-up. Michigan appeared to anticipate a quick double and got it; Brooks was already on his way to the basket. Michigan also got some more buckets for Wagner off cuts, continuing a theme from the Minnesota game.

Michigan's offense felt great for much of this game. They got a ton of open looks from three that they didn't hit enough of; they generated a bunch of great shots off of offensive action without requiring dribbles; they took care of the ball. I wonder how much of this is residual Beilein stuff and how much of this will carry forward into the future.

Ups and downs. Two guys had alternately frustrating and encouraging days. Franz Wagner was perfect from two and even protected the ball a couple times to get to the rack; he was 2/8 from three. He had an entertaining jawing session with CJ Frederick, who is a hell of a find for the Hawkeyes. Frederick was barely inside the top 250 as a recruit and landed in Iowa City as a three-level scorer with an ability to get to the basket.

The other up and down guy was David DeJulius, who saved Michigan's ass at the end of the first half with some tough shots but also went 0/3 from three on two looks that were bad off the dribble attempts; he also gave back some of his efficiency when he kept taking tough floaters into the second half. DDJ is good at hitting tough shots but is taking too many of them. He did have 4 assists and zero TOs, in his favor.