THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

All basketball teams not sporting historic combinations of NBA talent acquired entirely on the up-and-up will fart out the occasional game like Michigan's most recent one, an inexplicable first half against Penn State that Michigan couldn't quite overcome thanks to oh I don't know a JOHN BEILEIN EJECTION so absurd in its deployment that I can scarcely believe it happened days later.

Anyway here's home/road in college basketball: Michigan has basically an identical chance to win at home against #15 than on the road against #62. This is good, mostly: Michigan's got almost 3/4ths of the happy feelings after this one. Just forget about the last game. Immediately, and totally.

THE LINEUP CARD

Click for big.

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

Pos.	#	Name	Yr.	Ht./Wt.	%Min	%Poss	ORtg	SIBMIHHAT
G	1	Anthony Cowan	Jr.	6'0, 170	85	26	109	Meh
Mini-Carsen-Edwards in a bit of a funk shooting just 46/33 on season with reduced FT rate. Otherwise same player as last year.
G	5	Eric Ayala	Fr.	6'5, 205	72	16	111	No
Composite #78 FR. 47% from three, worse inside arc with 24 TO rate. Get all his own shots inside arc though?
F	11	Darryl Morsell	So.	6'5, 200	61	18	101	Meh
Miraculously low FT rate for guy with half his shots at the rim. Doesn't convert there, iffy on threes (30%), high TO rate. In sum: bleah.
C	25	Jalen Smith	Fr.	6'10 215	64	23	117	Yes
Lanky goggled C playing a bit out of position most of the time thanks to Fernando. 56/27 from floor, rock bottom TO rate. Mostly assisted at rim; 66% there ain't great for 6'10 leaper.
C	23	Bruno Fernando	So.	6'10, 240	73	24	121	Yes
Modern NBA C on track for late 1st round pick. 69% from floor, huge FT rate, hits 'em, rebound vacuum, TOs only major flaw.
F	2	Aaron Wiggins	Fr.	6'6, 200	60	17	111	No
Composite #42 FR. May have bigger 2/3 eFG gap than anyone in the country: 32% from two with just 21 FTAs on year, 42% from three.
G	10	Serrel Smith	Fr	6'4 170	33	16	99	Meh
Composite #154 FR. Poor shooting inside and out, 20 TO rate, low usage.
F	14	Ricky Lindo	Fr.	6'8 200	33	11	90	Yes
#446 FR per 247, no composite. Does nothing except rebound.
F	13	Ivan Bender	Sr	6'9 228	9	14	55	Yes
Deeeeep bench guy hasn't taken a shot since Jan. 5th and usually gets 1-3 MPG.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

THE THEM

not to be confused with Bruno Fernandes [Campredon]

Maryland is weird and exceptionally young. Their rotation has exactly one upperclassman in it; they're 351st of 353 teams in effective experience. Two of those underclassmen are centers that are on the floor together most of the time, and while they do have a point guard he's the only guy on the roster under 6'4".

The resulting team is pretty good because that point guard is a great bail-out guy and the center who actually plays center is headed for the NBA. That would be Bruno Fernando—a gent whose Portuguese-ass name makes far more sense now that I know he's from Angola, a former colony of Portugal. Last year Fernando was a bundle of muscled-up potential that flashed but did not dominate. This year he's blown up into a high-usage wrecker of shop.

Fernando is currently the conference's Count Dunkula by a wide margin and while anyone who dunks is likely to have drawn an assist he generates just over half of his own shots at the rim while converting at 77%. There has been a slight regression in conference play but he's still 62% from two against the rest of the Big Ten; at the same time he's drawing a ton of FTAs and converting at a 75% clip.

The NBA has noticed. Sam Vecenie slots him in 29th:

He’s turned into a terrific defensive rebounder, a solid passer for a big man and a threat as a rim protector. It also helps that he continues to flash the outlines of a solid 16-foot jumper. …Defensively, he needs to keep fine-tuning his ability to move his feet and space and react to what’s happening around him in rotation on defense. But he’s also known as a tremendous, insatiable worker who continually tries to improve his game.

Even keeping Fernando away from the rim doesn't work that great; he's hitting 54% on his two-point jumpers. These are almost all from short range after his post up gets thwarted but that's a hell of a backup plan.

Vecenie notes a couple of NBA-level defensive flaws but on the college level his length and leaping ability make him an intimidating presence around the rim. He also vacuums up defensive rebounds. He's a three point shot short of being a complete player.

[Campredon]

In contrast to Fernando, Maryland's other star is exactly what he was last year. Anthony Cowan's numbers have barely changed from his sophomore year. You probably remember that time he put up 24 in the Nihilist MAAR game by hitting a bunch of frustrating off the dribble Steph Curry stuff and, yep, that's him. 21% assisted at the rim, 9% in midrange, 59% from three: this is a man who jacks shots up.

Often this is because he has to. Nearly a quarter of Cowan's FGAs occur in the last five seconds of the clock—his 68 late FGAs are 40 more than the next most-burdened Terrapin. And here is the most Anthony Cowan stat of all: his eFG on those late-clock jacks is higher than his overall eFG%. It does not matter to Cowan. He can get his shot any time.

But he can only get his shot. Cowan is barely more effective in transition, where another quarter of his attempts come from, and a dip in his three point efficacy means he's down to a 109 ORTG on 46/33 shooting.

A lot of this scuffle has come recently, as Cowan's riding a 3-game ORTG streak of 82, 64, 84. There's a clear bifurcation in Cowan performances between high FT games and low. Since conference play resumed:

• vs Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska: 49/55 from FT line, ORTgs of 134, 146, 131, 95, 114 129.
• 6 other B10 games: 5/10 from FT line, ORTGs of 82, 64, 84, 160 (on 3 shots), 65, 84.

He's 83% from the line and meh from the field, the imperative is clear for Michigan.

FWIW, Cowan is a true PG who will hunt out 5-6-7 assists in most games, but he can be wild with his passing. A TO rate of 19 for a junior PG is pretty bad.

Jalen Smith is the third banana and also the other center. I'm sure he's a forward in the game notes and whatnot but the dude is 6'10, taking a majority of his shots at the rim and wears cool goggles, he's a center. Also when Fernando goes to the bench Smith plays the 5. Pay no attention to the occasional three point attempt, because they are indeed occasional (48 on the season) and he's hitting them at a 27% rate even though teams almost never bother contesting.

Smith's offensive game is actually reminiscent of Jon Teske's even if Teske has 50 pounds on him: he's mostly a (very good) finisher of someone else's assists. This permits him a 11.5 TO rate that's superb for a guy so close to the rim. He's on the Count Dunkula tracker above, and almost 70% of his makes at the rim are assisted. In that context a 66% completion rate there isn't actually that good—his back to the basket game is a work in progress. And once you push him out he quickly becomes a below-replacement-rate option.

Smith provides offensive rebounds in quantity, like you might expect, and as an incredibly long defender (he's 6'10" and has crazy pterodactyl arms) who's barely heavier than most of the 6'7, 6'8 fours in the league he's a tough puzzle for a lot of players. His fouls per 40 of 2.8 is impressively low.

A three man rotation getting nearly equal minutes fills out the 2 and 3 spots. Freshmen Eric Ayala and Aaron Wiggins are pretty similar. Both are in the 6'5-6'6 range, both shoot threes in quantity and well, both are kind of a mess inside the line. Ayala, the nominal starter, will attempt to make plays and shoots reasonably well (45%) but has a 24 TO rate. Wiggins is a black hole who's shooting 32% inside the arc and has a tiny FT rate. Ayala's shooting 47% and Wiggins 42% from three; they cannot be left.

The third wing type is sophomore Darryl Morsell, a slasher who's three-averse. He's going to try to bull his way to the rim, miss a fair amount once there, and turn the ball over quite a bit. I was surprised when I looked up his stats and found a meh-to-bad offensive player instead of a disaster, because whenever I glance up at a Maryland game he seems to be clanging something.

The bench past Wiggins is a couple of low-usage freshmen. Combo guard Serrel Smith is shooting 42/33 with a 20 TO rate; F Ricky Lindo is one of those tallish guys who comes on the floor to rebound and do little else unless someone finds them for a dunk.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Maryland's offense is exactly what you'd expect from a young team with two giant dudes on the court most of the time:

• They crash the glass (28th) nationally and turn the ball over a lot (233rd).
• They don't take a lot of threes but make them at a good clip (74th).
• They're pretty slow (289th) despite the high TO rate.
• They suffer a huge steal rate.

On the other side of the ball, it's a Michigan State preview. Maryland:

• Is abominable at forcing TOs (352nd!!!).
• Blocks a ton of shots, has the #15 two point D, cleans its own boards, and doesn't send guys to the line.
• They're exactly average at giving up looks from three but 66th in preventing them from going down.

Usually you'd look at something like "dead average in allowing threes but good at defending them" as a fluke that's propping them up but in Maryland's case their two point D might force opponents into a high number of bad threes.

THE KEYS

Don't play like you've all hit yourself in the head with frying pans. JUST SAYIN'.

Teske vs Fernando. Maryland has a couple of guys Michigan does not want to leave and Cowan's probably a third since you have to imagine his open threes are going down at ~40% too. If Morsell's out there maybe you can double off him. Smith's another possibility… but in all likelihood Michigan is going to go with the same approach they did in their other games and have the big gents go at it by themselves.

Fernando provides a different kind of test than the crafty but not absurdly athletic Happ. But probably it'll be fine? Teske outweighs the guy and I'd rather the opponent be someone who relies on physically overwhelming his opposition than a guy who can get up crazy shots from anywhere. Fernando's excellent Other Twos performance does give some pause. OTOH: 23 TO rate.

Anyway: expect a lot of single post-ups early. Teske fouls early would be Very Bad. You can't even hack Fernando.

[Campredon]

Matthews renaissance continues, please. This might be a rough game for Iggy, whose two worst performances of the year were against Wisconsin and their dual-5 lineup. Jalen Smith is much better suited to coping with inside-outside stuff than Happ, so it would be real real nice if Matthews could continue with his whole "make a lot of shots" thing.

Hit some weird shots. Maryland will give you shots. They're really good at contesting those shots, even in the midrange, where they're top 30 in other two D. But they'll give you shot volume. Michigan is going to have to hit some goofy ones, but they'll have ample opportunity to do so.

Ejection aftermath. Will Crisler provide a home whistle? Will Beilein wear a porkpie hat? Etc.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 7.