THE ESSENTIALS

THE OVERVIEW

Hello! Basketball season is upon us. It's off to a reasonably good start from a schadenfreude perspective, what with MSU losing by 13 to a Jalen-Wilson-deprived Kansas and Ohio State barely escaping Akron 67-66. As for Michigan, they kick things off with a respectable mid-major opponent in the Buffalo Bulls.

Jim Whitesell has not been able to keep the Bulls at the level Nate Oats did (three bids in four years, two tourney wins, the #22 team in Kenpom in 2019) but hasn't exactly cratered the program, either. Buffalo finished second in last year's COVID-abbreviated MAC and took Syracuse to overtime in their only game against high-major opposition. They locked down an NIT bid and finished 77th in Kenpom.

They return four starters from that team and added GW transfer Maceo Jack. Both Torvik and Kenpom rank the Bulls inside their top 100; this is a legit opponent. 

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

This was Michigan's starting lineup in the exhibition and figures to continue being the starting lineup unless someone's hurt. Zeb Jackson and Frankie Collins did not play against Wayne State and are injury/illness doubts tonight.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

We're guessing here; Bertram was a 30% minutes guy last year behind Mballa and Hardnett but the Bulls might look at Hunter Dickinson vs a 6'7" guy and see if ol' Brock can do anything with the big man.

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

THE THEM

Mballa is an all out effort guy [ubbulls.com]

Mercifully for this previewer, the Bulls are relatively intact from last year. Thoughts go out to Will Warren, who just had to preview a team that returned zero (0) minutes from last year.

Center Josh Mballa will be able to jaw with Moussa Diabate in his native language—both guys are French—and is the reigning MAC defensive player of the year. He's a rebound vacuum on both ends, pretty switchable at 220 pounds, and a defensive pest with an unusual combination of steal rate (top 250 last year) and a reasonable foul rate. This is Oliver Sarr—who worked out with Mballa over the offseasons—on him:

“(Mballa’s) just relentless,” said Sarr, the Wildcats’ starting center. “Hunting every shot on the board, grabbing every offensive rebound, going up strong, playing defense one through five. He can handle the ball going on fast break. He can do a lot of things.”

What he might not be able to do is alter many Michigan shots at just 6'7". His block rate last year was 1.4—Austin Davis was at 1.1—and that was against mid-major competition. Just how he'll hold up against NBA-level size is an open question. Such an open question that Mballa might get most of his minutes next to a true center like Bertram, like he did for about 10 MPG last year.

Offensively, Mballa is a junkyard dog sort of player who's going to get up a bunch of heavily contested shots because of his height; he's only 56% at the rim, and that's against almost all lower-level competition. Michigan's trees might be too much for him.

LaQuill Hardnett is an old-school power forward who does almost all of his work at the rim, operating as a roll guy and from the dunker spot. Three-quarters of his shots are at the rim, where hits an eyepopping 77%, and about two-thirds of those are assisted. He can't generate a ton of his own offense and he turns the ball over a lot, so he's only getting off about 10% of Buffalo's shots when he's on the floor. Those are the most efficient things the Bulls did last year; too much Hardnett usage is likely to mean Michigan's defense is struggling to end up in the right spots on the floor early in the season.

Slashing wing Jeenathan Williams was UB's highest-usage guy a year ago and figures to repeat that this year. Williams is a reasonably capable three-point shooter but does most of his work inside the line, frequently on the block against physically overwhelmed opposition. He gets to the rim for most of his usage, getting up contested shots that he mostly generates himself; those go down at a 60% clip. When forced away from the basket things are predictably wonky.

Williams does not get to the line at the rate you'd expect a player with his profile to, FWIW, and his TO rate is relatively elevated.

GW transfer Maceo Jack was injured for much of last year and only got in 7 games. The prior two years he was a starter for the Colonials, operating as a stereotypical Just A Shooter, hitting 34% from deep on threes that were almost all assisted and doing little else that shows up on a box score. The MAC and A-10 are actually in the same ballpark according to Kenpom so his role is likely to be similar.

Point guard Ronaldo Segu is a shifty customer with a bunch of stepbacks in his arsenal and plus shooting ability. He hit 39% from deep last year and about a third of his makes were unassisted; as you can see in the highlights above he loves to stop and pop once he gets in the lane.

More than half of his attempts from two are long ones, and while he can bail out a bad possession those only went down at a 33% clip last year. This puts a hard cap on his efficiency inside the line, where he's a 42% career shooter. He's also fairly bleah at the rim (54%), but these numbers have to be taken in context since he's generating almost all of those shots himself and mid-major level teams tend to have more "someone do something" possessions.

Segu gets to the line a fair bit and is very god once there. On the downside his TO rate is mediocre as he tries a lot of flashy things, some of which come off and some of which hit a mascot.

The bench:

• Centers David Skogman and Brock Bertram have size more comparable to Michigan's bigs at 6'10 and 6'11, respectively, and may be useful just to run someone else out there to fight hard on the block for a while. Neither is much of an offensive threat, with usage close to single digits; Skogman does have a little stretch to him and could surprise since he was just a freshman last year. Bertram is a fifth-year COVID-shirt and is who he is at this point.
• Fordham transfer Ty Perry has been miserable inside the line during his career but is a reasonably good outside shooter (34%); if he's doing anything but launching from three that's good for M.
• Senior Tra'Von Fagan is another 6'8" MAC post/4 who doesn't do anything except dunk inside the line, but he's got a little stretch to him as well.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Last year's numbers are likely to apply this year:

In MAC play the Bulls' ability to switch 1-5 made their three point defense superb. They were 40th nationally in preventing launches and 6th in the country at defending them. We frequently dismiss 3P% as pretty random but in this case there's good reason to believe opponents were taking poor-quality threes because of the structure of the Buffalo defense.

One bizarre item: Buffalo forced a ton of steals (64th) and almost no other turnovers (342nd). That reads like a lot of gambling that results in a fast break bucket the other way or a dunk if it doesn't work out.

On offense the things that jump out are that OREB rate—which might be a problem after Michigan gave up a lot of OREBs to Wayne State in the exhibition—and their overall pace. They were 11th in average possession length last year, a holdover from the Nate Oats days. Not so much a holdover: threes. Buffalo was in the 300s at getting them up and just average at hitting them. Replacing the departed Jayvon Graves, a 28% shooter on 125 attempts last year, with Perry and Jack might help them in that department.

THE KEYS

Dickinson smash. Buffalo knows the scouting report on Dickinson and can sit on his left shoulder. Does it matter if the guy sitting on it is 6'7"? Can a backup MAC big do anything about it even if he's 6'11"? How did Dickinson's offseason go, and has he diversified his game? Michigan would very much like to get back to the version of Dickinson who was pumping in 75% of his shots, and this will be at least some indication of how that's going to go.

Avoid early-season sloppiness. Buffalo loves to go for steals; Michigan's integrating a new point guard and has a bench of mostly new faces. One of the ways this goes badly is if Buffalo ends up with a bunch of fast break points. This is a somewhat nervy opponent to be facing in an opener.

Clean up your own boards. Brandon Johns and Terrance Williams II will have to be alert because Buffalo gets a ton of OREBs from the four spot. Preventing Segu from drawing help will also be important; hopefully Devante Jones can translate some of that NBA draft camp hype into production here by staying in front.

Find a freshman. Someone's going to step up. Who?

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 17.