2/16/2020 – Michigan 89, Indiana 65 – 16-9, 7-7 Big Ten

Sports fans are prone to wild swings in mood, often with little justification. Everything that just happened will keep on happening, and this goes double when things are bad. Back when I ran the Blogpoll voters tended to overrate their own teams a hair when things were going well, but it was a dead certainty that they'd under-rank them significantly after a loss. Every voter, every time.

Lose painfully for a month and your perspective gets jaundiced. When Michigan played at Nebraska a few weeks ago they were down Zavier Simpson and Isaiah Livers. Then Franz Wagner got in foul trouble. Michigan spent a big chunk of the first half with Adrian Nunez and CJ Baird on the court. Our photoshopper-in-residence Abraham wondered on twitter why he was watching a random MAC game, and I laughed sardonically.

At some point in January I said I wanted to sim to the end of the season and get the Howard croots on campus. This season felt like a snakebit write-off: Livers couldn't stay on the court, the trident was haunted, Michigan would get a million good looks they miss while opponents poured in every variety of garbage known to man.

At the same time I tried to argue that Michigan's January was a massive statistical outlier that could not last, because Michigan was not the second-worst team in the country at all things from behind the three-point line. And lo:

Opponent	M 3P%	Opp 3P%
Rutgers	47	25
OSU	32	39
MSU	39	26
Northwestern	35	23
Indiana	53	25

Those five games are the five they've played in February.

Michigan is starting to look like Michigan again but the key is playing this way through March (and staying healthy) via @ethan_sears https://t.co/U1qQIU8WDS pic.twitter.com/2sqv103WZd

— Dylan Burkhardt (@umhoops) February 17, 2020

The situation is now flipped. Michigan's probably ahead of its skis a little. But you've seen the shots. You've seen Michigan tee up open corner threes over and over again as the opponent issues a contested jack from NBA range. Reality is somewhere between 59 and 1. It's a lot closer to 1.

[After THE JUMP: The Mona Lisa of floor slaps]

livers meme face [Campredon]

Oh no baby. Michigan put up 41 in the first half on a series of excellent shots, most of them generated at least indirectly from ball screens that Indiana hedged hard on. "Surely Indiana will change their coverage at halftime," I thought. "It is worrisome to only be up seven since the sledding will certainly be tougher after the break."

Nope!

maybe 20 is the magic number? https://t.co/1T1pwlcXS3

— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) February 16, 2020

What was Archie Miller thinking? Miller blitzed Zavier Simpson all game and all it got Indiana was 1 turnover. Simpson had 11 assists. When not assisting he and other Michigan players got to attack out of position players; here Simpson has a wide open lane as soon as his man tries to bat a pass; De'ron Davis has his back to the play, recovering to Teske:

And the hedging pulled Indiana bigs out of position, leading to a sneaky hammering on the boards. 10 offensive rebounds doesn't sound like a ton but since Michigan shot above 50% from both two and three and got to the line a ton that was 42% of their misses. Utterly baffling when you can go under Simpson ball screens.

While I'm complaining about Archie Miller: way too many of their possessions end up being midrange jumpers from their crew of guards who are collectively under 30% there. Durham, Green, and Phinisee combined to go 3/12 on other twos, and a large number of those were shots by choice relatively early in the block. Throwing away possessions.

Attacking the hard hedge. Michigan had a plan for it from the drop. Their first point were both Eli Brooks plunges into the lane that Indiana did not seem prepped for. This is understandable since Brooks is allergic to the paint, but twice in the early going Michigan caught the guy tagging Teske trying to close out on Brooks:

Michigan had Indiana on a string, alternating dumps to the roll man for easy buckets or fouls and kickouts for three.

The good stuff is replicable. Michigan's in-conference stats on offense are highly encouraging since the things that they're best at—turnover rate and two-point shooting are both #1 in conference play—are the most sustainable things over the long term. Last year's team finished first in TO rate and second in two-point percentage; to lose Poole/Matthews/Brazdeikis and have Livers miss 8.5 of the 14 games in that sample and improve is remarkable. That's a great sign for the rest of the season.

Jury's out longer term, of course. Returning Simpson and the rest of a Beilein roster is a massive help in maintaining Beilein-like offense. But this does not feel like a Wile E Coyote year, which are often marked by the new guy unimaginatively running the same stuff the previous guy did. Howard's brought a lot of his own toys to school.

at the basket [Campredon]

Livers fired up. I think we're seeing Isaiah Livers evolve into more of a driver and cutter. He had those tomahawks against Northwestern and in this game he repeatedly attacked the basket to good effect. These are mostly guys recovering to him, not straight up isolation drives, but that's fine because people have to recover hard on him and he's on a team with Zavier Simpson. These opportunities aren't going to dry up.

He was able to attack another couple closeouts, getting layup attempts. He bashed one too hard off the backboard; the other was a make. Add in his FTs on another tomahawk attempt and six of his ten shot equivalents came from two, with four of them at the rim. He's moved from shooting 3s 61% of the time last year to 49% of the time this year. 

Inevitable follow-up: Livers status. Another one of the far-too-frequent updates on Isaiah Livers body parts: he twisted an ankle going for a loose ball and left for the locker room, then re-entered the game and looked a little gimpy doing so. Afterwards:

Isaiah Livers is in a boot after appearing to injure his ankle in the second half. He’s wearing it as a precaution, per a spokesperson for the team.

— Abby Snyder (@abbyhsnyder) February 16, 2020

An ankle is much better than a recurrence of the hip or groin injuries. Hopefully a situation where he misses the next game at most. Please find enough bubble wrap for the rest of the season.

different guy [Campredon]

Johns continues to go. 3/3 from three and earned four trips to the line when Indiana fouled before what looked like they were going to be excellent looks. One of the threes was a friendly roll, but he also pulled in a Simpson pass well out of his shooting pocket and still got up a confident rhythm three. No way that gets up earlier in the year.

Johns also played excellent defense, picking up another of his recovery blocks—a burgeoning trademark. He's currently #1 in conference ORTG, shooting 60/47/71 with a solid free throw rate. Usage is still a little low but statistically he looks a lot like Isaiah Livers last year. 2019 Livers is in fact his #3 player comp on Kenpom.

Johns almost certainly picked the right coach for himself when he picked Beilein; now he's got another relatively calm builder type. We're mostly past the "sim to end" feeling but I am eager to see what the Livers/Johns/Wagner triumvirate looks like next year.

Big Country continues to country. Mighty Casey missed a shot—two in fact—but still went 4/6 from the floor, the most mansome of which was this OREB on which Joey Brunk got put under the basket:

Big Country Austin Davis punched the clock and doin work. Again. pic.twitter.com/fUE1e4SkTX

— Due# (@JDue51) February 16, 2020

That brought an immediate Indiana timeout and probably some Miller screaming.

You could feel it coming, and yup: it's Davis Profile time. Both Andrew Kahn…

Juwan Howard said on Sunday that he met redshirt junior Austin Davis for breakfast four or five weeks ago. They discussed Davis' role for this year and beyond. It was, Howard said, "a really good conversation."

Coincidence or not, Davis has been playing the best basketball of his Michigan career since.

Here's how far Davis has come. Early in the season, many Michigan fans hoped the Wolverines could survive when starting center Jon Teske left the game. On Sunday, it was a shock that Davis missed two of his six shot attempts.

and Brendan Quinn…

Onsted followed Davis to Michigan. The whole town was considered friends and family, so they’d travel en masse up U.S. 12 to Crisler Center, damn-near filling an entire section of the arena, even as he sat out his first season. Early in his redshirt freshman year, they’d hope for blowouts so Davis could see the floor. The fad passed with time, though.

“Can’t blame ’em at all,” Davis said Sunday with a laugh, a shrug.

…oblige. Both articles touch on Davis's uncertain status for next year—an upgrade from "certainly somewhere else." Quinn's article gets a direct quote:

“It’s been a great experience and I’m very, very thankful that I’ve been able to go through it and have these experiences, but, yeah, I don’t know what’s next for me,” he said. “That’s a little bit … it’s on my mind a little bit.”

Is he open to playing at Michigan next year?

“Absolutely.”

His status hinges on at least one departure. In 2020 that's almost a certainty.

Bonafide zone. Michigan ran zone on a fair chunk of possessions in this game. The first was after a timeout, as per usual, and then it felt like Howard liked the way it messed with Indiana's ability to post any of their three frontcourt players so they stuck with it for a while. Early success (Michigan got stops on 8 of their first 10 zone possessions) was followed by a couple of easy buckets as Indiana figured out a hole, and then it was back to man to man.

IU got an and-one on one of their buckets so that was 0.75 PPP, a success. FWIW, their zone has given up 80 points on 83 possessions this season, which is considerably worse than their man to man D, but Synergy does not attempt to adjust for opponent strength even on team measures.

the second-most cumong man of Davis's makes [Campredon]

The Other Davis. Indiana's craggy old mountain man, De'ron Davis, went 9/9 from the floor. This spooks folks like me who are leery of any functional post players in the aftermath of last month; Brunk going 3/10 and Jackson-Davis getting limited to four shot equivalents do mitigate our concerns a bit.

Also the nature of Davis's makes were closer to Trevion Williams humping up a bunch of tough shots that went down than Daniel Oturu living at the rim: only three of Davis's shots were at the rim and 4 or 5 were somewhere between tough and cumong man.

Still a potential Achilles heel for Michigan down the stretch. At least it seems like the only one now?

I am looking forward to years of Juwan Howard ref face. Already a burgeoning genre:

my man is aggrieved [Campredon]

I'm not sure if these would count for the Bo Ryan index or not, since they're mostly expressions of man's futility in a vast and uncaring universe.

Oh noooooooooo. Why can I only speak evil into existence?

The Cleveland Cavaliers and John Beilein have discussed the possibility of the coach stepping down before the end of the All-Star break, and Beilein was expected to reach a decision in the next 24-48 hours, league sources told ESPN.

Beilein was expected to speak with Cavaliers general manager Koby Altman again about his future as soon as Monday, league sources said.

"Indiana head coach John Beilein" is perilously close to becoming reality. This suggestion from twitter is even closer:

My guess is Northwestern. Yak will come as an asst/coach in waiting

— Jeremy Spiegel (@SpiegelJeremy) February 17, 2020

Northwestern's athletic director is chasing Chris Collins around campus with a giant novelty buyout check as we speak. If Beilein wants a nice college job where the recruiting won't be too onerous and his players won't bolt for the NBA, Northwestern fits the bill.

When Beilein left there was a lot of debate about whether he was crazy for leaving a college job where he is an icon for the Cleveland Freakin' Cavaliers. Beilein is contemplating pulling the ripcord less than a year in after a season that "tumultuous" doesn't quite cover. The answer would seem to be yes if he's taking a haircut on his buyout.

50/50 whether Dan Gilbert thought this would actually work out. On the one hand, Beilein seemed like the worst possible kind of college coach for an NBA transition. On the other, Gilbert uses comic sans. If Gilbert decided that his NBA franchise was hopeless and that he might as well sabotage Hated Rival's program if the opportunity was there, that backfired magnificently.

Should have sent a poet. The MSU floor slap is a tradition that reaches back at least a decade now. In that time a Michigan State floor slap is always a bucket for the opposition. This is canon. When the Journey covered the "whoop they ass on three" BTT semi in New York, they used the floor slap as the turning point in the MSU loss:

Hopefully someone won an Emmy for that.

The MSU floor slap's rich history was all in preparation for this moment:

Slapping remains defeated. pic.twitter.com/iRqYZVG2Ze

— Ryan (@Haggs_88) February 16, 2020

I flipped this game on when Maryland was up 15 in the first half and have watched them slowly piss their lead away with one useless offensive possession after another. Maryland is passing the ball around the perimeter with no purpose and then jacking up contested threes when the shot clock gets thin. They've gone from eight up at halftime to seven down because they have 14 points in the second half, 17 minutes in. Maryland's win percentage is 6%.

Then you have two different floor slaps. Aaron Henry gingerly touches the ground. He knows this is a terrible idea but has been momentarily possessed by the MSU poltergeist that makes them keep doing this well after it became clear it never worked. Thomas Kithier does not need to be possessed because he is a Trademark Izzo Scrub*. His entire life has been lived so he can hammer the floor like there's gold underneath. This is the completion of his quest. He drinks from the Grail of Floor Slap at this moment.

Also at this moment:

Maryland does not have a three in the second half before the slap. Afterwards they hit four in a row. MSU does not score again. Maryland ends the game on a 14-0 run. *chef's kiss*

*[Foster Loyer is going to slap the floor at some point.]

Schrodinger's program. Purdue is the bar-none most schizophrenic team in the country. Bart Torvik's "game score" graph for the Boilers:

They're 14-12 and in the top 30 at both Kenpom and Torvik. Torvik actually has them top 20. Let's hope Michigan gets the Clark Kent version.