2/1/2020 – Michigan 69, Rutgers 63 – 13-8, 4-6 Big Ten

This space has been complaining about the repetitive scripts of this season's basketball games, so it was nice to get a different one even if it was a script recycled from previous years: the Rutgers brick factory. The emblematic Cable Subscribers possession ended after an interminable period of backboard volleyball that saw six different point-blank attempts get up. None went down.

Michigan got pounded on the boards and had six more turnovers than Rutgers for a whopping –26 possession differential. The only way to win that game is by watching the opponent heave up waves, nay, oceans of bricks. Rutgers provided, in the Rutgers way.

This was not weird at all in the context of watching Rutgers play Michigan. It's what happens. Rutgers paid fair tribute to that game a few years back by acquiring all of six assists. Not quite the one from back in the day. Not too far off.

The familiarity of the game made the context of the game downright bizarre: Rutgers is ranked. Michigan is playing them in a packed, partisan Madison Square Garden. Michigan is 12th in league play and in desperate need of some quality wins to keep them off the bubble. The situation entering the game is the exact opposite of even the recent, feisty Pikiell Rutgers teams. And then the game is the same way.

Rutgers has gotten good by turning the feistiness up to 11. They still can't shoot: they're 311th in 3P%, 324th in FT%. And while the 2020 Michigan three point curse gave it a run, not even it was up to the task of guiding Rutgers mortars into the net. For the first time in a month Michigan finished a game with a significant advantage from beyond the arc. It is possible.

[After THE JUMP: Johns emerges]

[Campredon]

Pupate! Brandon Johns built on his strong performance against Nebraska with 20 points on 15 shot equivalents, a couple of OREBs, a couple of assists, a block, and two steals against just one turnover. That's every column in the box score.

Johns was the recipient of various early kicks to the corner; in contrast to his earlier hesitation he went up in rhythm every time, finishing 4/7 from deep. His day would have been downright spectacular if he hadn't forced the issue in semi-transition twice in the waning minutes (or if he'd finished).

If Johns can keep it going against OSU we'll have a trend.

John Beilein started twitching and didn't know why. He didn't notice because he twitches most of the time now but this time it wasn't because Kevin Love called him a hamburger, it was because Michigan had three horrendous perimeter turnovers that led to fast break buckets. All of these were passes between Brooks and Simpson, with Brooks the culprit twice and Simpson once. Thinking about these events was pure agony as Rutgers whittled Michigan's lead down from 14 to 5.

I predicted that everyone would be twitchy about turnovers in the aftermath of Beilein's departure and can report: yup. Michigan is 22nd in the country—better than that after an ugly start—but almost every game there's a point at which it feels like Michigan has gone full Amaker. Beilein has broken our brains.

But also: cut that crap out before I have a stroke.

[Campredon]

Rutgers made their choice. Steve Pikiell went for the exact opposite strategy that Pat Chambers did against Zavier Simpson. Chambers played off Simpson and dared him to take a bunch of shots over guys. Pikiell had Rutgers blitz almost every screen and attempted to choke off Simpson's playmaking entirely.

Results were mixed on both sides. Simpson was able to get around the hedge enough for ten assists, many of them slip dunks for Teske and Austin Davis. Michigan's early blitz of corner threes was also a function of hard hedging, as opponents were busy tagging the roller instead of staying attached on the outside.

The tradeoff is that Simpson was limited to 1/4 from two. This space has noted that Simpson's skillset means he can be extremely effective when the opposition provides a lane—as they did on Simpson's lone make, a straight-line left handed drive for a layup—but when Simpson's bread and butter gets cut off his efficiency goes off a cliff. Rutgers wanted someone else to beat them; Johns did but it was still a reasonable approach. Michigan barely crested 1 PPP.

this did not go down [Campredon]

Brooks does some things. Brooks going 3/6 from three was the first time in Big Ten play he'd shot well against a team that is not abject on defense (ie, Iowa and Nebraska). He also did it in a raucous semi-road game environment; his last was a critical shot to blunt Rutgers's game-ending push. He missed all three of his attempts from inside the line and had three turnovers, two of them the aforementioned free buckets for Rutgers, but he also played excellent defense for 38 minutes.

I'll take Brooks's limitations if he can just hit open shots at the same rate he has against bodybag teams. His ORTG in league play has crept back up to 103 despite 32% shooting from three.

Pounded. I was going to make a clever point about how Michigan's defensive rebounding wasn't really all that bad because of that possession with six shots, and then they gave up 21(!!!) other offensive rebounds. That's 46 percent of their misses. Subtract the volleyball possession and that's 41 percent of their misses. Not a great point, Bob.

Let's forge on anyway: giving up a bunch of OREBs in one possession happens occasionally because a guy who gets a putback attempt is by definition in great position for an offensive rebound if that putback misses. And those situations can distort the overall impact of OREBs on the game since the maximum number of putback points on any possession is 2.

Michigan had issues outside of the volleyball moment. They had a major size deficiency—Rutgers plays one guy shorter than 6'4" and he's still three or four inches taller than Michigan's guards. Even Franz Wagner, who is very tall, was a problem from time to time. At a couple different points in the second half he identified a Cable Subscriber for a box out, put his back into the guy, and ended up under the basket.

The guy he was nominally boxing out duly grabbed the ball and put it back. Nothing's going to fix that other than Camp Sanderson.

The other issue was an artifact of the above: Rutgers was tossing up a ton of bricks that caught side rim, if anything. Those shots are notoriously more random since defensive rebounders set up in areas that assume you miss by a little instead of a lot.

Review, our ancient enemy. Of course Michigan didn't get a reversal on a ball Rutgers clearly was the last to touch with 30 seconds left. The Matthews overturn was definitive but this is not:

Mysteries of the universe.

On going to MSG. When this game was scheduled nobody expected Rutgers to have what's literally a once-in-a-generation team for them (they were last ranked in 1979!) and the resultant fervor that turned Madison Square Garden into a road venue for Michigan for the first time in a long time. So I get the thinking. But if Rutgers wants to play at the Garden it's gotta be a home game for them. PSU plays at the Palestra annually and it is never someone else's home game.

The silver lining is now that Michigan's through this game with a win it's a lot more likely to stand up as a Quad 1 win at the end of the season. If Rutgers was at home they'd have to finish top 30 to qualify, which will be touch and go. Since it was a neutral site game they'll be quad one if they stick in the top 50, which they should.

Every time. Probably 80% of the three point attempts in this game were from behind the NBA line. This is a common feature of games played on NBA courts and will only be exacerbated this year because the new college line is significantly closer to the NBA one. In addition, college courts have two three point lines again since they didn't move the women's line out so everyone is used to having two lines on the court, and they're supposed to shoot from behind the outer one.