12/31/2020 – Michigan 84, Maryland 73 – 8-0, 3-0 Big Ten

Hunter Dickinson got the ball on the outer edges of what could be called the left block, patiently waited out a dig-down, and put the ball on the court for a couple dribbles before spinning back to his right. Then he launched Tim Duncan's shot.

This is not an analogy. That is literally the thing Tim Duncan—one of very few NBA superstars in history to have bank shot compilations floating around Youtube—used to do, except Dickinson is left-handed. The first clip of this, yep, Tim Duncan bank shot compilation is exactly the above:

I laughed in the same way Ace and Adam did in the press box after Jourdan Lewis's interception against Wisconsin. Encapsulated therein: relief, disbelief, happiness, the feeling of reaching in your coat and pulling out a twenty-dollar bill. Michigan may have pulled Tim Duncan But Angry At Maryland out of Juwan Howard's first recruiting class. Michigan State pulled a guy who can't beat out Thomas Kithier for minutes. Cackling is authorized.

Dickinson finished 10/11 from the floor. He's shooting 77% in Big Ten play and has cracked the Kenpom Player of the Year leaderboard*. Despite reports from the Maryland side of things that Dickinson was never particularly interested in the Terps—not a surprise since they haven't gotten a DeMatha player in 18 years(!)—he managed to inflate minor perceived recruiting disrespect into a reason to Kubrick stare at Mark Turgeon every time he scored. This was found to be so intimidating that Dickinson was assessed a technical.

On one level this was an outrage. On the other hand, yeah, I kind of get it.

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Michigan just had this game against Nebraska, except Maryland is not Nebraska and the level of unconscious Maryland shooters reached was somewhere between nuclear and… uh… I had something for this… really nuclear. There is one thing to do when your opponent hits 59% of their threes: bitch about randomness and take the L.

Except when you shoot 75% from two and 90% from the line, and the opposition doesn't quite crack 42% inside the line. Only good teams can survive strategic bombing outta nowhere games. Teams that have a lot of slack against a top 50 team. Michigan gets that slack in one line on Kenpom:

Michigan is a top five team inside the line at both ends of the floor, and conference play has not yet cracked that number. Michigan's actually better in conference play so far. (Against three lower-end Big Ten teams, granted, but this is a no-days-off conference.) They have the #1 eFG defense in conference play despite opponents hitting 44% from deep.

I entered the season with modest expectations. Two transfers, defensive question marks, the #1 recruiting class coming in next year: I was prepared to take a bid as enough and anything else as a win. Every time a tall guy does something against Michigan's backcourt I feel the "ah well" re-emerge. And then Michigan wins by double digits against increasingly good teams.

I keep waiting for the bottom to drop out of something and it hasn't yet. Maybe Northwestern and their five-out offense will be a problem. Wisconsin rather looms in 11 days. At this point it feels like those two games are inflection points between a top 25 team and a top 10—maybe top 5—one. This is encouraging.

It's especially encouraging because Juwan Howard did this by leaning into his wheelhouse. He grabbed the closest analogue to himself in the most recent recruiting class and has coached him—and his teammates—up to a point where he's a top ten player in college basketball eight games into his career.

Michigan's good at the repeatable, sustainable things. Being good at them also feels repeatable and sustainable. The program itself sort of has a Tim Duncan vibe right now.

*[Notable for a couple different reasons. #1: Big Ten players (Garza, Dosunmu, Jackson-Davis) are currently 1-2-3. #2: Loyola-Chicago center Cameron Krutwig is #5. Yes, that Cameron Krutwig. He was just a freshman during their Final Four run.]

[After the JUMP: is 90% good?]

Dickinson's ridiculous numbers. Bart Torvik notes Dickinson's efficiency at the rim, where his 41-46 mark is tops nationally. If you look at the Big Ten his efficiency jumps out even further since his production is lighter on dunks than his immediate competition:

Dunks are good, of course, but they tend to be set up by other players. Once you remove dunks:

Player	Made	Attempted	NDARFG%
Dickinson	30	34	88.2%
Zach Edey	9	12	75.0%
Luka Garza	60	82	73.2%
Kofi Cockburn	33	46	71.7%
Micah Potter	20	30	66.7%
Giorgi	18	28	64.3%
Myles Johnson	14	23	60.9%
Trevion Williams	31	52	59.6%
Trayce Jackson-Davis	37	65	56.9%

Garza stands out for his efficiency and huge volume. Dickinson is on another level from everyone else since his 90% shooting(!) barely drops when you remove dunks(!!!). BONUS: his 50% mark away from the rim is also close to tops in the conference.

Entries. Dan Dakich made a good point when he talked about Michigan's ability to enter the ball into the post. Michigan had approximately zero post entry experience when Juwan Howard arrived—Beilein teams would literally post up under five times a season, and almost always by accident—but has evolved into a very disciplined and successful outfit in this department. I'm sure they've turned it over on an entry to Dickinson at some point but it's difficult to remember one of the top of my head.

What jumps out to me is the frequency with which Michigan will post up Dickinson, make a perimeter pass to change the angle, and then immediately throw the entry pass. The initial post ups are more bait than real threat. Michigan's also had a few opportunities to throw over the top when Dickinson gets fronted; Smith executed a difficult entry to set Dickinson up in a fronting situation in this game.

Dickinson makes this a lot easier because he's huge and can work with basically any situation you give him. But still!

[Campredon]

Franz on the runway, again. Feels like there was a section in every game column last year about how Franz Wagner was just about to take off, and eventually he did. He closed last season with a five-game stretch in which he hit 22/28 from two and 10/24 from three against four Kenpom top-25 opponents (and Nebraska, which was his worst game in that stretch). Everyone was hyped about postseason Franz, and then the plug got pulled.

Hopefully we're on the verge of another liftoff here as Franz has upped his usage and efficiency in the last two games. He hit two early threes, one of them from NBA range, and the then started attacking closeouts. If he can maintain—really develop—a consistent threat from deep, look out. The version of Franz Wagner who gets over-aggressive closeouts looks amazing because once he gets downhill he's a problem.

He's finishing through contact this year and since everyone else on the floor with him is a shooting threat those kickouts should be easy money when teams collapse on him as they must since he's shooting 66% on twos. Still early going but his assist rate has increased ten points. Eyes emoji:

Also he hit a late-clock pull-up. Maintain that confidence and Michigan drops the throttle.

Also he's got atomic elbows. Darryl Morsell left the game permanently after Wagner contested one of his shots. The replays available showed what looked like innocuous contact but there was clearly something more since Morsell had a dent in his head:

Morsell went to the hospital afterwards; there's been no further update. Hopefully he's okay. I'd imagine a Rip Hamilton mask is on order.

Mike Smith is so close. Smith needs to fix his turnover rate and he's golden. (On offense, anyway.) In this game he had six assists and 16 points on nine shot equivalents, and one or both of his misses were Kobe assists that Dickinson immediately put back because Maryland had to abandon the ogre to contest.

Two more turnovers were the only offensive blemishes, and one was particularly painful. Smith grabbed the ball after Johns erased a shot at the rim and pushed up the court with ~36 seconds on the clock. He lost the handle, so instead of Michigan getting a shot up and Maryland trying to respond in the dying seconds Maryland got a half-ending three from Donta Scott. In the land of Maryland shoots infinity percent from three that felt really bad.

Interesting side note: I perused a couple postgame Maryland fan threads and there were a lot of people moaning that Turgeon had lost out on Smith to Michigan and that he would fix so many of their problems. Since Maryland is currently running out no identifiable point guards it's hard to disagree.

Opposing three quality. It's really hard to judge how good a three is without letting results color your view. To my eye Maryland's threes in the first half were mostly good looks. There were not 9/11 looks because those don't exist, but only a couple were even close to the Allen/McGowan category from the last game. There has definitely been a backslide from the Yaklich days.

On the other hand, Jairus Hamilton had ~150 career three point attempts entering this season that he was hitting at a 29% clip. After last night he's hitting 44% this year on 36 attempts. Wiggins hit 32% last year and is at 26% this year. I imagine part of the gameplan was helping. This Hamilton look is a terrible idea if he's really a 44% shooter but eh fine if he's a 29% shooter:

Other shots were clearly bad defense; Smith and Brown both got lost on open looks that went down, Dickinson was late getting down the court and got switched on Ayala, etc. If there's a glaring issue on the team this is it.

Blocks-a-plenty. Michigan's rim protection in this game was outstanding. Maryland shot just 50% there and multiple Michigan players—including Eli Brooks, of all people—volleyball spiked Terp attempts. Everyone who saw the floor got a block except for Smith.

Speaking of things I did not expect Eli Brooks to do. JEROME!

Getting that out of the way. Brandon Johns was determined not to suffer the indignity of another trillion. Immediately after entering the game for the first time he grabbed an offensive rebound and backed down Jarius Hamilton for a bucket. Dickinson rather limited his minutes—he got stuck on six—but he still managed a block and a couple more buckets, one a pogo-stick alley oop from Smith.

A huge reversal at the line. Michigan is shooting 79%, 12th nationally. Last year: 154. Two years ago: 190. Three years ago: 326. Everyone except Terrance Williams (4/11) and Chaundee Brown (4/6) is shooting at least 73%.

Zone stretch. A large portion of Michigan's game-deciding second-half run saw them run out a 2-3 zone. This seemed insane given Maryland's shooting, and then the Terps hit a semi-contested three on the first possession. Michigan stuck with it, though, and oddly enough the follow-up threes were probably the most challenged ones of the night. Maryland was discombobulated into a couple of turnovers as well.

Contrast that with Maryland's deployment of a 3-2 zone that was effective for a couple of possession when Michigan had a lineup without Smith or Dickinson on the floor but got shredded like their man to man most of the time.

I'd still love to know how Michigan approaches zones on both ends; I've assumed that much of their proficiency comes from Martelli since he's probably gone up against every kind of junk zone imaginable. I imagine we're going to see more when Michigan comes up against stretch bigs.

Married to the mob. Some humdingers on the Maryland boards after that one:

Gm pic.twitter.com/h4e3MdiSX5

— Dan but with a Nintendo Switch (@ThiccStauskas) January 1, 2021

What are we doing here? First, a double technical on both benches. That took five minutes and changed the game state 0%. Then a technical on Turgeon, which resulted in two free throws. Then a technical on Hunter Dickinson for giving the Kubrick stare to the Maryland bench. End result: nothing of not except Dickinson being forced to sit for a chunk of time since the technical was also his second personal.