THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

/shakes fist at Any Big Ten Road Game Center

Curse you!

Seriously though, I don't know what you take from the Iowa game other than "when John Teske plays 13 minutes against a team of giant folks you're gonna have a bad time" unless it's the fact that Michigan's not real good at going up against zones.

/sees Any Big Ten Road Game Center on horizon

Aaaaargh

/oh it's just Rutger

ah hahaha nvm

/thinks about the conference rooms

oh no (but it'll probably be fine)

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	3	Geo Baker	So.	6'4, 180	85	24	94	No
Carsen Edwards minus ~10 points of usage and ~20 of efficiency. Butt-ton of off the dribble shots, half his threes and 95% of his twos unassisted.
G	4	Montez Mathis	Fr.	6'4, 200	54	24	89	Yes
Composite #135 FR shooting 39/25 despite taking half his shots at the rim. Just 50% there.
F	10	Ron Harper Jr.	Fr.	6'6, 230	49	19	96	Yes
Composite #176 FR and yes that Ron Harper. Athletic guy who can't shoot.
F	25	Eugene Omoruyi	Jr.	6'7, 240	75*	29	101	Meh
Skilled stretch-four-ish F is a problem on the boards and able passer with 3 point range. Midrange at just 20%.
C	55	Shaquille Doorson	Sr.	7'0, 275	44	12	107	Yes
Tiny usage with a third of his makes on the year on putbacks. Top 100 block rate. Hack a Shaq an option as he's hitting 36% on FTs.
G	30	Peter Kiss	So.	6'5, 200	52	19	90	Meh
Erratic wing sort has improved his 3 shooting (from 28% to 32%)  and dropped a bunch of usage. Replaced by Harper in starting lineup about a month ago.
G	1	Caleb McConnell	Fr.	6'6 190	31	20	89	Meh
Composite #334 FR is just a shooter even if some of his usage is inside the line. Hitting 41/29, 25 TO rate
F	51	Shaq Carter	Jr.	6'9, 245	35	16	118	Yes
The only guy with a good-ish ORTG, based on a ton of shots at the rim and a bunch of assists.
C	15	Myles Johnson	Jr.	6'10 255	41	17	101	Yes
Composite #371 FR is OREB machine and offers some D stat stuff. 25 TO rate as well.

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

THE THEM

Pikiell looks so much like a fired mid-major basketball coach that he looks like a scandal-stricken politician [Bryan Fuller]

Well, look at these guys! The Rutgers University Cable Subscribers are almost certainly not going to finish last in the league for the first time since they became a provisional, temporary conference associate some years back. Conference rooms are exploding left and right: the Cable Subscribers have caused the implosion of Ohio State, Nebraska, Indiana, and Penn State rooms and are set to snatch three more, by Kenpom projections.

It lives. And… I don't know how to feel about this, but it lives as one of the least experienced teams in the country. Rutgers is 332nd in effective experience and will lose only one of their co-starters at center over the offseason. The prospect of Legitimately Decent Rutgers looms next year.

Rutgers has done this by being a very poor man's Michigan, with a top 50 defense and an offense more dedicated to putting up bricks than almost anyone nationwide. Rutgers is 326th in effective field goal percentage, surprising no one who's put on more than three minutes of Rutgers basketball this year. Your author pleads guilty on this charge.

It feels like every single Rutgers possession ends with Geo Baker forced into a desperation contested two, but while a fair few do Baker's usage isn't even the highest on the team. Everything does start with him; 24% of the time it ends with him. That's not an undue burden in statistics world. Watching live Baker feels like the most put-upon man in the world.

The stats do offer up some confirming bits: 5% of Baker's twos and under half of his threes are assisted. He shooting a stunning 38% at the rim and a less-stunning-but-pretty-impressive-in-context 36% from deep. Baker is a real-ish point guard with a 25 assist rate and the obligatory Amaker Memorial 20+ TO rate.

Anyway, Baker is Rutgers Carsen Edwards with most of what that implies. Except he's 6'4". And at Rutgers. Remember that Michael Flowers kid for WMU? Yeah, if Baker goes off that's what it's going to feel like. Survey says: guy has a 94 ORTG for a reason.

Rutgers surrounds Baker with guys who can't shoot at all. Freshman Montez Mathis just snuck into the composite top 150 and may develop into something; it is impressive that half of his shots are at the rim despite high usage. Hitting 50% there is less impressive, and hitting 25% on shots not at the rim is less impressive still. A 62% hit rate at the line isn't taking advantage of his driving, either.

Ron Harper Jr is the son of longtime NBA player Ron Harper and has the athleticism that implies. He's 6'6" and bouncy; he's fairly good at converting at the rim (66%); just like Mathis any shot away from it has a one in four shot at going down. He's a bit of a block threat but his OREB numbers are weirdly low for a guy in his genre of player, especially because Rutgers crashes the boards in an effort to prop up their offense.

Things change a wee bit at the four. Eugene Omoruyi is Rutgers's best player, a stretch four with sufficient beef to sport a 9.4 OREB rate at 6'7" who also cracks the top 500 in assist rate and can shoot a little bit from the outside—33% on 36 attempts from three this year.

Omoruyi does the vast bulk of his work inside, where he's able to get to the rim and finish at an acceptable rate while generating about half of those shots; he's able to power through contact and finish. Once you get him away from the rim the usual happens, and way too many of his shots (35%) come out there when he's hitting 20%. If Brazdeikis can wall up and just force the guy to shoot over him that'll do.

Rutgers has a two-headed center. Shaquille Doorson is the starter; freshman Myles Johnson is getting slightly more time of late. They're very close statistically but Doorson is better defensively and worse offensively:

No three point luck in that: Doorson brings a big 2P% reduction on defense and his 36% FT shooting hampers the O.

Both guys are top 50 OREB specialists that rely on putbacks for a lot of their offense; both guys are solid shot blockers, thought Doorson has an edge there and alters a significant number of shots that Myles doesn't. Neither can shoot away from the rim and neither is any good at the line, though Doorson is Tacko Fall bad.

The Rutgers bench aside from Johnson:

• Freshman wing Caleb McConnell has a 25 TO rate and is hitting 41/29 from the floor. Woof.
• SG Peter Kiss spots at the 2 and 3 and does a good job of splitting his usage between the rim and three. Getting the ball in the basket not so much: 50% at the rim, 32% from three. This makes him the most efficient Rutgers player under 6'7".
• PF/C Shaq Carter is another OREB hound who gets a big chunk of his makes on putbacks. He'll mostly see minutes backing up Omoruyi, which have been hard to come by since he got all the way back from his injury.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Rutgers's offensive numbers are grimly fascinating:

• 326th in eFG and 2P%. 288th in 3P%. 336th at the line. Good god.
• 220th in TO rate, and it's worse when it comes to steals. One in every ten Rutgers possessions is a live-court TO.
• But they crash the glass a lot!

Rebound and Rutgers will find it difficult to hit 0.8 PPP.

On the other side of the ball Rutgers's length—they're 6th in the country in effective height—and Steve Pikiell's relentless drilling—after going 209, 110, 236 in D eff under Eddie Jordan they've been 70, 28, 42 under Pikiell—has dragged the Cable Subscribers into the Kenpom top 100 for the first time since 2011.

There's no whiz-bang number unless its the all-important Free Throw Defense, in which Rutgers is sixth in the country. The other two things Rutgers does in a top 50 capacity are defend twos (49th) and block shots (48th), which they do without excessively compromising their defensive rebounding.

Unlike Michigan, Rutgers does sacrifice on the outside to get that two point D. Opponents get a lot up; opponents hit a lot. Also worth noting is that the glass-crashing has costs: Rutgers is bottom 50 nationally in allowing transition opportunities after a rebound, and bottom 50 at defending those.

THE KEYS

Rebound, rebound, rebound. Few games will hinge as much on one thing as this game does on Rutgers offensive rebounding. Rutgers is going to brick a ton of shots, so their OREBs are necessary for them to stay in contact. They're going to go all out to get them, which turns about 20% of defensive rebounds into transition opportunities in which Michigan does not have to deal with Rutgers's excellent half-court D:

Michigan has been excellent on the defensive glass against some tough customers already. Teske's presence would be nice.

Prevent Omoruyi from shooting at the rim. Tough ask for Brazdeikis as he gets an Eric Paschall-esque burly stretch four as his individual matchup. Brazdeikis did well against Paschall but may have gotten a wee bit luck as he did so. Meanwhile, Omoruyi's offensive efficiency goes from pretty good to lol what if you can force him to take other twos, which he does get baited into fairly frequently.

Hit threes. Rutgers offers them up, which is a bit odd in this No Threes edition of the Big Ten; Michigan is not a vintage Beilein marksmanship outfit. The main way that this becomes an ugly grind is Michigan starting 1/10 from three.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 10.