Hoops Column: DeVante's Peak
Michigan went into Columbus absent an All-American caliber player and their head coach, while playing a functional play-in game that would largely determine the season.
With everything on the line, it was senior DeVante Jones that answered the bell time and time again.
The Wolverine floor general carried the team to a rivalry win that likely punched a ticket to the Dance, while extending the tradition of regular-season finale wins over Ohio State with post-season implications at play. For that, he will live in Michigan lore.
Jones manipulated the Buckeye defense in every way imaginable. Let's take a look at his brilliance and re-live each agonizing moment for those jokers in Columbus.
Going Under
Coming into yesterdays' game, DeVante was shooting 25% from 3 in B10 play. So Holtmann opted to have his guards go under ballscreens to the start game. That approach cost OSU, as Jones connected on a pull-up triple less than 2 minutes into the game. The Buckeyes went back to that coverage early in the second half, with the same result. Pull-up three. Going-under was put on the shelf for the remainder of the game.
Soft Show
After going-under proved futile, OSU went with a Wisconsin-like soft show approach midway through the first half. In this coverage, the opposing big doesn't show at screen level to avoid a potential blow-by, but isn't deep enough to be considered drop coverage as there are open windows for the roll-man.
This was the most-used coverage by Holtmann against Michigan ballscreens and Jones shredded it as both a scorer and playmaker. The spatial awareness and timing here is just impeccable, as Jones served up easy buckets for Moussa.
Rejecting Screens
In the second half, during critical moments, Jones was at peak comfort level against Ohio State. He started rejecting screens with regularity to catch defenders cheating one way before shifting gears and scoring on straight-line drives.
You don't see this very much at the college level because head coaches are generally control freaks that don't want much freelancing. But you see it a ton at the NBA level where individual talent trumps coaching by a very wide margin. For a team that has lacked a perimeter closer, this sort of comfort + confidence was a welcome sight when the team needed it the most.
[AFTER THE JUMP, Jones delivers daggers!]
Isolation
DeVante was in his bag so much to close out the game that he backpedaled for 3 dribbles, giving Liddell the proverbial "we're about to dance" signal before blowing by him with a crossover + finish through contact.
That was an absolute dagger that may very well be the biggest play of the season. It also should've been a foul + 1, but apparently EJ Liddell needs to punch the opposition in the mouth to draw the whistle in Columbus.
Blitz
After torching the Buckeye defense all game, Holtmann sold out and blitzed Jones in a desperation attempt to curtail the onslaught with under 1 minute remaining.
DeVante welcomed that approach with a smile on his face. He literally took a dribble backward after the blitz, just to optimize the passing window/space for a wide-open Moussa Diabate on the roll as he throws down a dunk with the nearest defender being at least 5 feet away.
Blouses.
Transition
DeVante was absolutely brilliant with his decision-making in half-court ballscreen action, but he was also superb in the open-court. He pushed pace and was a large part of Terrance Williams' success, as he found him multiple times for wide open catch + shoot threes.
Jones isn't necessarily known for pushing pace, but his comfort level yesterday was at its highest level of the season.
Undervalued
Last month I stated DeVante was a more complete player in relation to Mike Smith. Undoubtedly, there were a few eye rolls and that's fine. This is a subjective thing without question.
What I will say is that Jones drew a lot of criticism from the fanbase in the early/middle portions of the season. During 20 conference games, DeVante averaged 11.6ppg and 5.2apg while shooting 45.1% from the field and 84% from the charity stripe.
Without Jones' epic performance, we're likely talking about an NIT appearance right now. But thanks to the undervalued point guard, Michigan is heading into the B10 tournament with some momentum and a real chance to improve their seeding.
Michigan's offense seemed a lot of more fluid and cohesive yesterday than it has all year with a lot more movement.
I am not sure how I feel about that.
Part of that is not having Dickinson allows Jones more freedom.
With Hunter in the game, ballscreens + Spain action are just mechanisms to get him a post-look as the first and second options. Since he's not really the quintessential roll-man threat, it limits what DeVante can do as a playmaker since his job is to enter the ball in the post.
With Moussa as the roll-man the complexion changes, as a new dynamic opens up.
Of course, this is very matchup dependent. If you trot out a Johns/Diabate frontcourt against Purdue or Illinois, we would be promptly destroyed.
Another aspect to Dickinson's absence is it caught OSU unprepared, as all their scouting and defensive game plan was most likely built around having to defend Dickinson. With him absent, Michigan was forced to do different things, which OSU had likely not prepped for.
Meh. OSU is a bad defensive team in general (121st nationally per KenPom) and they're even worse without Kyle Young in the lineup. More prep time wasn't going to make much of a difference.
That argument does not consider that Michigan schemed their offense and practiced all week on attacking Ohio with Dickinson as the keystone. The two pretty much cancel each other out.
It should make you feel better about next year than you otherwise might be inclined to feel. What a fun game!
Absolutely. And hopefully, we're looking back on yesterday's game--and Dickinson's absence--as hugely helpful three, four games deep into the NCAA tourney this year. This team can now play defense AND show other teams a lot of looks.
Well, like I said after everyone got excited about the effort and defense at Illinois...yesterday's defensive performance isn't really repeatable this year except in short bursts. At least, not the way they did it, i.e. flying around trapping and getting steals, switching screens, protecting the rim, etc. holding OSU well below their season average points per possession despite them shooting well from three.
We're barely more than a week removed from the second half of the home Illinois game which was probably the worst half of defense we've played all season, and the opponent didn't have much to do with it.
I don't think the roller coaster has leveled off.
I usually agree with your posts, TrueBlue. But the D has improved. And mostly I was thinking about the offense, the option to rest HD more, and to play smaller against teams that don't have monster bigs. Tell me what I'm missing.
I'd be curious to know what they're working on between now and Thursday.
Statistically, the defense hasn't improved. Here are Michigan's adjusted defensive efficiency scores per game plotted over time with trendline:
You can see a pretty dramatic upward slope here. Prior to the Minnesota game, the defense was good (EDIT: statistically), averaging an adjusted 89.7 points per 100 possessions allowed. Then you can see the roller coaster with the first spikes the Minnesota/UCF/Rutgers 1 games. Then it dipped back down for Illinois 1, Maryland (which was a bit of fools gold) and IU, then got pretty bad again for NW/MSU 1/Nebraska 2, then better for a few games, then the Illinois and Iowa spikes.
I do think part of this is three point luck (or bad luck as it's been lately). Opponent 3 pt % over time:
One could argue that good stretch of defense in the beginning was mostly 3 point luck and indeed during that early stretch prior to Minnesota they only allowed 25.1% from three which is just insanely lucky. Since then they've allowed 36.8% which is fairly unlucky.
Not sure if that fully explains it though. The first peak on the 3 point chart is UCF, but the Minnesota game was memorably the first game that Michigan's pick and roll defense really got crushed and that hasn't seemed to get better. Opponent 2 point defense:
That's also gotten worse, but in fairness Michigan's schedule has gotten more difficult as the season has progressed as well (which isn't a factor in the top graph since those are adjusted for the quality of opponent).
It's hard to argue their defense has gotten meaningfully better, but the Illinois second half was a masterclass in how not to play defense. I might post about that disaster later this week if there is a rematch.
As for prep for Thursday, probably need to do what they did in game 1 against IU and self-scout to anticipate what adjustments IU might make. I don't remember that game well so maybe I'll revisit this week.
For Illinois, they probably want to work on their zone and/or tagging off the wings to help on Kofi and be willing to give up some threes. Also, they need to do what they did against MSU when guarding Curbello and go under screens and drop way into the paint because you're happy giving up jumpers to him. I also thought icing screens worked fine. And if Plummer is going to hit step backs, tip your cap, but don't overreact if he does.
This is pretty eye-opening; was talking with a former coach friend this morning who affirmed my view that the defense was better, though this undermines that assertion.
From the standpoint of the naked eye, Houstan is markedly better; Dickinson is no longer a turnstile, as during some early-season stretches; and although he still gets caught out at times, Diabate looks more disciplined. (Johns, on the other hand, seems to struggle early in almost every contest.) I think that some pretty disciplined and exciting offensively-oriented ball is being played across the B1G this year, and that in fact the league is changing (that Illinois-Iowa game just featured two fine teams, at least until late), moving from the lunch pail style that Izzo bequeathed the league to something more fun to watch. So I will hope that these results fail to pick up an improved level of team D because better/improved offenses were in front of them.
I'm going to wager that the B1G, despite being viewed with only moderate enthusiasm by the experts across the season, excels this year in the NCAA tournament, or at least does better than projected. And if M gets to 20-plus wins I will be pleased with that. Thanks for the detailed response.
It should be noted that these are relative. So Michigan's defense might be getting "better" but if opponent offensive improvements (and you would expect that to happen to college teams over the course of the season) are outpacing Michigan's improvements, they're getting relatively worse.
And again, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable saying it's gotten worse because I think three point variance is driving a lot of this variance. And it does seem like they're making fewer mistakes, but again, that's typically a given over the course of a college season. The question is again, whether those improvements are outpacing your opponents ability to exploit the defense and in Michigan's case, the results don't support that.
Houstan appears to be getting better but Michigan has already deleveraged him as much as possible so his improvements aren't having much of an impact on overall team defense. They aren't putting him on the other teams best wing player yet.
Opponents are putting more and more leverage on Hunter and the guards and they pretty much are what they are at this point so by putting more and more leverage on them, the opponent moves things in their favor.
If it were a lock for Jones to come back, then absolutely. But that's no guarantee. That said, Collins is having some strong spurts down the stretch to alleviate some level of concern about the PG spot next year regardless.
Yeah, my assumption is that Frankie makes a sophomore leap or if that doesn't look likely, Juwan brings in another PG. Point being that most people assume we'll crawl into a hole and die without Hunter, and while we'll miss what he can do, not having a traditional post and having a better rim runner opens up other ways to attack a team, exactly as you detailed above.
IMO, getting Moussa back is hugely important as he has the potential to make a sophomore leap that could get him into the lottery and be unstoppable if he can add a perimeter game. But even if he doesn't come back, Juwan will bring in another big (and might anyway), that'll likely be more of a rim runner and rim protector.
Obviously, getting one of Hunter/Moussa back is HUGE. Quality transfers from the guard pool is a dime a dozen, wings a bit more challenging............but getting a starting level big at the P5 level is next to impossible via the portal. We NEED one of those guys back in a major way.
For NBA purposes, I think the bigger thing for Moussa is being consistent as a switchable piece that provides a bit better rim protection. Defense is always going to be the more critical facet at the NBA level, as it relates to bigs. He's a willing shooter with some flashes there, but defense is the primary reason he'll be compensated to play basketball.
Offensively, his face-up game + passing is where he'll make his bread and butter.
Do you see Moussa as a big at the NBA level? I see him more as a wing and doubt he'll be expected to frequently defend screeners in the pick and roll game or be the primary rim protector. But agree it's defense that he'll get paid for and I would think he would have to be able to defend the opponents best wing player or even a big guard like Doncic.
But as a wing that I also don't think will set screens in pick and roll, he'll have to be able to shoot to keep defenses honest.
I could be wrong but my view is that he moves his feet and defends the perimeter better than he protects the rim and hence fits better as a wing.
I'd actually go the other way. I see him as a small-ball Center in the NBA. Kevon Looney is my league comp for him. A switchable big with some passing chops that can thrive as a bench big.
The spectrum for Moussa is Looney (realistic) to Siakim (probably no way in hell) in the NBA.
Yep, Looney is definitely a good comp and totally agree with your spectrum. I think Siakam represents his ceiling so to speak, but if the offensive skills don't develop especially on the perimeter, a backup small ball center is the more realistic projection.
Space & pace better without Dickinson & Diabate filling (clogging) the lane?
Matt - Thanks for putting into words what we've all felt in the second half of the season. Love to see Devante's growth and comfort level. Just a monstrous game yesterday, when we needed him most.
Very happy to see this post documenting and analyzing DeVante Jones' massive contribution and performance in M's Cbus win. He stepped it up in a stellar manner. Congrats DeVante! Kudos to Matt EM
Totally agree with the praises being sung unto Devante!
I was one of those saying this was too big a step up in competition level for him around the time of AZ, NC & Seton Hall (blah! That game might still keep us out of the Dance if we go 1&done in the BTT!)
But he has just steadily improved throughout conference play, and yesterday was a Hero piece, probably season saving! Feel free to tell me & all the other doubters to take a hike DJ! Go Blue!
Great recap, love this piece. He was so good yesterday. Him being able to keep defenses honest by hitting threes at at least a decent rate makes him very difficult to guard.
Classic alpha dog effect for Jones when he's the guy. This is the reason I get so frustrated that Michigan usually takes Jones and Hunter out at the same time for a stretch late in the first halves of games.
Doesn't do Frankie any favors to put that pressure on him and you miss the opportunity for Jones to do a lot of these things (which he also did at Illinois but guys just didn't make the shots he set them up for like yesterday).
Guilty as charged. After a few early season games I traveled to Las Vegas to see the Wolverines torn up by AZ. I was ready to throw Devonte under the bus.
Thankfully the coaching staff knows way more about the game than this message board critic.
The "cure" was to (as Coach Martelli says) was letting DJ be DJ.
Great piece as usual, Matt. It's been so cool to watch DeVante find himself over the past couple months. If Houstan can figure out his away-from-home shooting, we might be able to do some damage in both tourneys.
DeVante' is a walking demonstration of how impressions, once formed, are hard to change. I'm sure plenty of people can't get his early season performance out of their heads. It would take a whole season of games like yesterday to budge them.
Nope! I'm fully budged!
Likewise, this reminds me of too many folks' impressions of Ronnie Bell.
The weight of an initial impression seems like an overly weighted factor even as new data points emerged suggesting contrary information that should lead to one revising our first impressions.
Basically, we don't like to admit we're wrong, and it often takes 3 times as much evidence/brain energy, etc. to change an opinion once formed
What a journey for Jones. Hope he can lead us on a little run in either tournament.
Great column Matt and Davante Jones' play the last few weeks has been Derrick Walton like for a similar March push like 2017.
Outstanding effort from Jones and the team stepping up to qualify for the NCAA tournament!
Bring back Martelli fan fiction!
Let's give him some credit, he's been beating teams with undersized 5's and skilled 4's like OSU for 30 years.
Give him a veteran point guard, a NBA rim runner/basket protector.. He was probably in heaven.
Sorry* edit I thought this was a Brian column. Great writeup Matt
I knew Jones had a great game yesterday but I didn't realize just how good until this writeup.
I was down on Jones early in the season, but a large part of his struggle was learning a new system while playing point for team with a lot of youth and inexperience at key spots. He has really seemed to settle in the back half of the season and is playing great ball. At this point in the season he is every bit as good as Smith was for us last year.
Sorry, there is zero evidence that EJ Liddell would be called for a foul if he were to openly punch a Michigan player in the face. To the contrary, if said player were Moussa Diabate holding the ball in the paint I am confident that EJ could hit him with a chair and hear no whistle.
First off, I don't think it was only the fans (me included) that were ragging on Jones early in the year. Most media outlets, including this one, were dogging him too. Happy for him and the program that he made us all eat crow.
Matt - One thing I'm wondering from your perspective yesterday was the impact of having Diabate only play the 5 rather than playing a mix of 4 & 5 and having to share with Hunter. I realize that he was often still out there with Johns but it felt like Diabate as a roll-man was much more effective than in past games. How much was OSU's defense? How much was Diabate being comfortable in that role more than being an awkward 4? How much was the added spacing afforded by not having Hunter?
(My believe is that Diabate is really an undersized 5 and not an over-sized 4 at this point in his development. Without a jump shot or strong handle and with him needing significant time in the weight room I think his best way to attack a defense is being the roll man in a ball screen offense. I think with an off-season of development that could change, so I'd love to see him come back to expand his game - especially when he's the focus in the middle instead of sharing time with the best player on the team.)
I think removing Hunter from the equation and inserting TWill (who was hitting jumpers) makes it somewhat easier for Diabate as a roller. But more importantly, I think it aids Jones.
He wasn't handcuffed with a Dickinson post-entry being the first, second, and third option. It was much more of a read + react type of ballscreen game yesterday.
Again though, this is very matchup dependent. OSU is an undersized team that presents a favorable matchup for Michigan. That type of gameplan isn't going to work against a drop coverage team like Purdue or Illinois that have giants on the backline.
Thought this was gonna be a down year at PG, but Michigan has been a point guard factory for 10 years running.
MattEM has been the best addition to the blog I can ever remember. Top notch stuff every time. Love it.
no doubt about it. jones' game has improved a lot the past several games. i for one was looking for collins to get more PT in December, since I thought it likely that Jones' was what he was as a senior. he obviously still struggles on D against good guards, but his offensive play is a key for this team.
There are way more reasons why we were headed to the NIT without a win yesterday. DaVante just bailed us out big time. Excellent write-up he deserves the high praise.
FWIW Michigan didn't really have a game-changing defensive performance IMO. The OSU numbers were very similar to the home-loss.
Loss: OSU put up 1.09ppp, but shot 14/29 on other 2s
Win: OSU put up 1.06ppp and shot 6/14 on other 2s
The fundamental defensive difference was Michigan decided to shade Liddell baseline and then send the double. Basically shrink the court for Liddell and make others beat you. Functionally, it didn't do much since OSU went 9/22 from three this time around. We just transferred the usage in essence and generated a few more TOs.
This game was won because of a vastly improved offense.
Loss: Michigan put up .92ppp and shot 4/17 from distance
Win: Michigan put up 1.15ppp and shot 8/21 from distance
Long story short is that DeVante single-handedly destroyed Ohio State and punched our ticket to The Dance. Our defense was adequate both games (not good), but Jones took over offensively.
Considering OSU has a top 10 offense, both games grade out as good to great games defensively.
The Torvik adjusted defensive efficiency (which adjusts for opponent quality, not sure if it adjusts for home/away) for yesterday was 92.9. It's one of Michigan's better performances this season and would be good for 17th best defense in the country over the course of the season, one spot ahead of Arizona which has an adjusted defensive efficiency of 93 with all their shot blocking bigs.
A key to this was forcing turnovers at much higher rate than they usually do. They did this by trapping much more than usual and applying more pressure on the ball than they're usually able to.
The adjusted def efficiency of the home game was a solid 95 which is what the 30th best defenses are doing on the season (Wisconsin and Villanova level). And again, not sure if those adjustments take into account home / away but it's impressive to play better defense on the road than you did at home.
Michigan's overall season defensive efficiency is 98.3, or 83rd nationally for reference.
Totally agree that the difference was Michigan's offense, but I would argue their defense was good at home, great yesterday considering the opponent.
Ehh, I don't really put a lot of stock into what OSU's offense is rated by the fancystats this season. That sort of logic is why those predictive/resume models claimed the B10 was the greatest conference of all time last season..........which was a joke.
I tend to look at things through a more wholistic lens, because KP/Torvik can't compare across years and so the decline of college basketball can't be captured in those metrics. All they're really conveying is "X offense/defense is good for this particular season, but we can't really adjust for how shitty CBB has become"
Long story short is that OSU is a pretty limited offensive team. They only have one player that can consistently collapse the defense in Liddell, and one perimeter player in Branham that can create his own shot. Other than that, just a bunch of average/below average players to fill out their roster.
Not hard to gameplan for given their relative lack of size + talent + athleticism.
For this purpose, it seems irrelevant that college basketball is supposedly getting worse. That might be the case, but we're not comparing across seasons. We're comparing Michigan's own performances within this singular season relative to other teams performances this season.
Their OSU performances were amongst the best they've had all season and compare very favorably to the way any teams are defending OSU this year.
We can shift the scale and call yesterdays performance that compares with the 17th best defense just mediocre, but that's still a lot better than the 83rd ranked defense that Michigan has been fielding this year. We can call their usual defense an abomination relative to yesterday if there's some historical measure against which you're making these determinations and I'd agree with that.
I'm thinking about this independent of some subjective metric that only delivers outputs (results based numbers) rather than considering inputs (Process and actual quality of defense).
So what I'm saying is that while I don't think Michigan was bad defensively in either game against OSU, I am saying that we've had better defensive performances from a process perspective, which is all I care about.
In essence, I simply don't care about a computer telling me a one-off performance was the 17th best when I have my eyes to trust.
I think you'd say the metrics are objective, and your eyes are subjective but totally agree that it's the process that matters and a well-scored grading of a defensive effort will wash out things like lucky (or unlucky) shot making, unforced/forced errors, etc. that the metrics don't see.
My subjective eye thought Michigan's defense was good (for them, ie relative to what they've done in most games) in both games.
The first game they pushed a lot of shots to tough, contested mid-range jumpers and OSU's best two players are good at those so they made some but less than usual.
And yesterday I thought bordered on great, given their ability to trap and switch like they usually can't, especially considering that poor reffing in the second half turned a lot of good processes (like taking a charge) into negative outcomes.
I didn't chart it in full so reasonable minds could disagree.
IMO, good points being made all around.
Basketball and objective vs subjective views: Basketball is a "subjective" game. The most advanced stats only give some definition as to "what happened" but give little to no insight into why things happened. The variability of making or missing shots destroys the objectivity that stats supposedly bring...there is no stat to explain Caleb going 0-10.
Michigan did not shoot particularly well in this game but my eyes declare that they, indeed, played the game pretty well-on both ends of the court. The flow, the opportunity, the control, the balance, the creativity, the energy...this was their best game of the season as far as the basic, fundamental playing of the game-the decision-making. Each of us have our beliefs and opinions of why these (good) things happened and translated into a win-and they remain highly subjective...and personnel matters.
Oh, and this is the Devante I was expecting to see this year-great game!
"blouses" - too funny. It look be a second to get the Prince vs Charlie Murphy reference.
Good breakdown, Matt. Tnx1M to DeVante' for an awesome game.
I've never fully understood the Mike Smith > DeVante Jones crowd. Smith seemed to regress in March and was an obvious weak spot in the loss to UCLA. I do like Mike, but I thought DeVante would prove his worth in March. I hope that still proves true.
So much fun to watch Jones and the team. Thanks for breaking down ways to appreciate.
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