THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

Michigan gets the first of two tune-up games before heading to Atlantis at the end of the month; they face KenPom #329 Elon tonight and don't have another game until hosting #286 Houston Baptist next Friday. This will be a time of lineup tinkering, pulling players aside for in-game coaching sessions, and drilling down the basics of the system on both ends

THE LINEUP CARD

From Seth [click to embiggen]:

They're not as small across the board as Creighton was, but, yeah, that's a 6'7", 215-pound center with a 6'6", 230-pound backup.

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

THE THEM

Elon is a deceptive 2-1 in Mike Schrage's first season at the helm. Their wins came at home against D-II schools Mars Hill (by six points) and Milligan. The loss was a 23-point blowout at #62 Georgia Tech. They're changing systems from an extremely three-point happy offense to... we're not sure yet, but it's not that. That offense collapsed last year under Matt Matheny; meanwhile, the defense finished in the 300s for the second straight year. The team didn't record a dunk until mid-February and went 1-for-2 on the season. They return one starter and lost their top four scorers, including the guy who dunked (once). This is a salvage job.

The Phoenix were surprisingly scrappy on defense against GT, holding the Yellow Jackets to 0.83 points per possession. Elon, however, managed a paltry 0.53 PPP on offense. I imagine sitting through that game was not very fun.

The main player to watch is Stanford transfer Marcus Sheffield, who's averaging 15.7 points per game but needed 19 shots to get 12 points against GT. The Yellow Jackets managed to completely shut him down as a distributor; after 15 assists and three turnovers in the two D-II games, he had zero assists and two TOs. As a role player in Palo Alto, he was a decent three-point shooter who struggled with efficiency inside the arc. Between Zavier Simpson and Eli Brooks, Michigan has the defenders to force him into another GT-like performance.

Sophomore power forward Federico Poser has finished well around the rim so far this season, though like everyone else he struggled (3-for-8 from the field) versus GT. He doesn't really do big man stuff other than score inside the arc and draw fouls, and he shot 53% from the line as a freshman. He also turned the ball over on 31% of his possessions last year.

Meanwhile, the other main offensive option is freshman guard Hunter McIntosh, who's made every game look like the Tech game—he's shooting 11-for-37 from the field. 6'7" center Simon Wright has made one fewer shot on 18 fewer attempts, though he was 1-for-5 with four fouls in 23 minutes against GT. He's a pesky rebounder; Teske's size might overwhelm him.

That's probably more than enough detail on Elon. When these teams last played in November 2015, a Michigan squad that couldn't start Zak Irvin because of his back issues won by 20, and that was a significantly better Elon team.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Extremely small sample size caveats apply. Elon's stats are only from their lone D-I game against Georgia Tech.

Four Factors explanation

Yeah, the chart doesn't look great when you shoot 13/44 on twos and 3/30 on threes in your only D-I game.

THE KEYS

Box out and board. Creighton's ability to pull down 44% of their misses despite fielding one functional center was alarming. Jon Teske had a better game in the box score than he did upon review of the tape; while looking winded didn't keep him from scoring late, it seemingly prevented him from securing several defensive rebounds, among other things. While he could use a little more help on the defensive boards from guys not named [check notes] David DeJulius(!), his conditioning appeared to be a problem when it came to finishing possessions on defense, and that would be a major concern if it doesn't get better going forward.

Tighten up pick-and-roll coverage. While Teske wasn't bad at the initial drop against Creighton, he had major issues transitioning from covering the pick-and-roll to rebounding—some of that was fatigue, some was not identifying the right player to box out. Meanwhile, Colin Castleton just didn't look comfortable making his drops:

UM Film Review: Colin Castleton Drop Cvg

Drop Cvg Principles: Depth/Width

First 2 plays Colin fails to get enough depth on his drop & its an easy read for the G to hit the roll man

3rd play Colin gets too wide as he’s worried about the roll man & provides a free lane for the G pic.twitter.com/0S7MRIjkJU

— LAbound (@LAbound2) November 14, 2019

These are opponent-independent issues that can be fixed. It'd be great to see that process start before hitting the meat of the non-conference schedule.

Contain Sheffield. This shouldn't be too much trouble with Simpson and Brooks at the ready.

Don't let them dunk. This will probably be the most exciting subplot of the game.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 28.

For Moe!