3/2/2021 – Michigan 53, Illinois 76 – 18-2, 13-2 Big Ten

It does a body good to snap back to reality after a pleasant daydream. A splash of water; a bracing winter wind; a playful pinch from a person you love. All of these are ways to return to a full, unblinkered view of your surroundings. There are also other ways. Ways that are less good. Ways like being shoved out of a plane by a bear, and then having that bear jump out of the plane and plummet into you, flipping you off the whole time. This is guaranteed to make you hyper-aware of your surroundings for upwards of ten seconds.

Anyway, a basketball game. Technically. Yesterday's… uh… event felt less like a sporting contest and more like one of those nightmares where you show up to an exam with no knowledge of the subject matter, wearing only your underwear and maybe an unflattering hat. A fever dream of how Michigan bombs out of the NCAA tournament.  So bad it felt unreal.

I don't really know what conclusions to draw. It started off as an ugly slugfest where Hunter Dickinson and Kofi Cockburn took turns demonstrating that the other guy was pretty good on defense, too, and then Andre Curbelo came in and broke the game open. Curbelo got to the basket almost at will; he went 6/7 there. Michigan—the whole team—had a total of 7 makes at the basket, period. Three of those came from Austin Davis, who occasionally bamboozled Cockburn with sheer persistence.

Eventually it became clear that Michigan was getting Michigan'd.

lol so this is what other teams have been feeling like all season

— Noah Neidlinger (@candor_for_sale) March 3, 2021

The preview noted that Illinois was very similar to Michigan statistically: eFG kings on both ends, turnovers optional on defense, limit threes, limit assists, no post doubles. Illinois, unsurprisingly for a team that has a couple of lead-footed centers, is a drop coverage team that doesn't leave shooters. Jordan Sperber's diagnosis of what happened last night is almost word-for-word what Michigan did to teams like Wisconsin:

Then came the point in the game where UM handlers stopped trying to attack Cockburn/Bezhanishvili & started probing

Illinois did a GREAT job of still not helping off shooters. With the Illini staying home on players not involved in the screen, UM's probes led to late clock iso pic.twitter.com/z1EIVwZtXI

— Jordan Sperber (@hoopvision68) March 3, 2021

Michigan got up 7 threes, 15 shots at the rim, and had 27 midrange shots. Seven of the latter went down. That's a cool 0.52 points per possession.

You don't need any explanations other than that, which is unfortunate because you can weave other problems that are ephemeral. Their legs were shot, they had a bad shooting performance, Franz saw the wrong kind of dog that morning, etc. These are often thrown out when something inexplicable happens; what happened here was nothing of the sort. It followed from the actions Michigan could run and the shots they could get. Since those shots were largely garbage, Michigan scored 53.

In a way, this is a blessing. Illinois stuck a finger into a heretofore unknown weakness and started ripping out big chunks of wall. Minnesota did the same thing earlier in the year when their rampant doubling neutralized Dickinson and forced him into five turnovers. Michigan fixed that emphatically.

This one feels like a tougher fix, but at least the recipe to throw at Michigan is much tougher than "double the post." To replicate what Illinois did you have to be able to play Dickinson one-on-one, relentlessly stick to shooters, and overwhelm their guards athletically. A lot of teams might be able to do one or two of those things. Three is a tall order. And now Juwan Howard will go back to the lab and see what he can do.

[After THE JUMP: perimeter ball denial]

BULLETS

this end went okay [Campredon]

I just don't know, man. Hunter Dickinson's third foul was extremely frustrating because it came immediately after Cockburn picked up two quick ones and had to go to the bench early in the second half. Dickinson's third was boxing out Bezhanishvili on a rebound that ended up nowhere near either of them. The result:

Michigan trailed by 8 when Hunter Dickinson exited with 3 fouls and 17:51 left.

Michigan down 20 when Hunter Dickinson returned with 12:18 left.

— Brendan Quinn (@BFQuinn) March 3, 2021

Davis was minus a billion in his 13 minutes despite going 4/4 from the floor; Dickinson finished with three fouls. He was also 1/8 from the floor, so you can see some rationale for making the switch. Once it starts going badly, though, it felt like a switch back was necessary.

Hopefully this isn't as much of an issue going forward because Michigan will be overwhelmed with centers who want to play for Juwan Howard. Foul trouble will be far less terrifying for next year's Dickinson/Diabate battery.

Denial up top. Another key part of the Illinois defense: aggressive perimeter ball denial, particularly on Mike Smith. Michigan struggled to get into their sets because Illinois was super aggressive on dribble hand offs; with time ticking down there were few opportunities for Michigan to run the varied and elaborate parts of their offense that have worked so well to get Michigan open shots.

This is partially an athleticism thing. Illinois has a lot of it, even without Dosunmu, and while Smith has been excellent this year he still has the athletic profile of an Ivy kid. Trent Frazier is not supposed to be the Illinois defensive specialist but he was certainly the most impactful Illinois defender outside of Cockburn in this one:

Trent Frazier’s defense was absolutely instrumental in Illinois’ win over Michigan.

This is just one sample of Frazier blowing up the Wolverine offense by himself.

Here, Michigan attempts to run Motion Weak (Post), and Frazier destroys the entire action. pic.twitter.com/fhx8g294X2

— LAbound (@LAbound2) March 3, 2021

Also:

Again, Illinois speed + acceleration advantage presented a big matchup issue for Michigan in the backcourt.

The Wolverines simply couldn’t get anything going from the perimeter because of it.

This was very much a “our guards are quicker than yours” game pic.twitter.com/gYUUlWb5Yk

— LAbound (@LAbound2) March 3, 2021

Michigan will no doubt go back to the drawing board in an effort to combat this kind of thing, which threatens to become a Book on them.

Yeet me into the sun. If you're looking for someone uninvolved to blame, it's definitely me. One: I have been trying to make Weird Illinois a thing. I did not think the consequences of this endeavor would be an Ayo-less version of the Illini beating Michigan's head in on the road. I should have known, because that was the weirdest possible outcome.

Two: the previous game column was all about how Michigan does not suffer runs. Right on cue:

I was surprised that Illinois didn't have a ten-point run somewhere in there prior to having a 21-point lead; instead they had a couple different 8-0 spurts.

The defense was mostly fine? Michigan gave up 33 points in the first half, and things only got really bad late in the first half and early in the second when Dickinson was stuck on the bench with foul trouble. When he was present Illinois struggled to score, at least until the game was out of hand and we had reached the desultory period.

Hoop Lens has not incorporated this game yet, which is unfortunate because I'm guessing the Davis on/offs on defense are eyepopping.

contested [Campredon]

Silver lining. Dickinson to the NBA takes are cooling off significantly. He has definitely hit a scouting wall; he's down to 58% from two in Big Ten play after scraping absurd heights during the first half of the season. I have faith he'll get back to being dominant—and even during this period of struggle he's been an incredible defender—but probably after an offseason to focus on self-scouting and adapting to how people are playing him.