THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#30 Michigan (8-7, 2-3 Big Ten) vs #26 Indiana (14-4, 5-3 Big Ten)
WHERE	Assembly Hall Bloomington, IN
WHEN	3:30 PM Sunday
THE LINE	Kenpom: IU -4 Torvik: IU –5.5
TELEVISION	CBS

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan rolls into Indiana for a pivotal game. Indiana's pretty good and this is a road game so it'll be tough, but they're not so good that this one feels insurmountable for a team that really needs to turn it around immediately if they have any chance of making the tournament.

Indiana switched coaches, firing Archie Miller and importing the closest thing they had to a Juwan Howard in longtime NBA assistant and program alum Mike Woodson. Woodson managed to staple the roster back together, pick up some key transfers, treat others with a modicum of dignity, and pick up a recruit or two.

IU's quick start was pretty hollow until Thursday, when they beat Purdue at home. Prior to that their best win was against OSU, also at home.Third place? Kenpom #63 Notre Dame. IU's nonconference schedule ranks 325 on Kenpom, so there's a little paper in Woodson's first tiger. Even so the Purdue win puts them solidly on track for a bid in year one. The Juwan Howard model seems to work pretty okay.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

 

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

Indiana is more or less healthy.

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

THE THEM

 

TJD: present [Campredon]

Trayce Jackson-Davis is still the headliner here. Half of his possessions are post-ups he's converting at a 1.01 PPP clip, which is very good. When not putting his back to the basket he'll get in on some cuts and PNR roll man action but he is here to do the one thing—post—and the one thing only. Hunter Dickinson stuffed him into a locker last year with 10 point on 15 shooting possessions and a 70 ORTG, so this is promising from a Michigan perspective. If Jackson-Davis isn't significantly better against Dickinson than he was a year ago, Michigan can leave him alone in the post and cover the other guys. TJD is not going to float to the perimeter, where he has no shooting ability.

Jackson-Davis is a solid interior defender but sometimes lacks the size the compete with the monsters of the Big Ten. Last year  he was a 56th percentile post defender; this year he's in the 60s. You have to take that in context since in any other league Jackson-Davis would probably be the dominant big and in the Big Ten he's behind your Cockburns and Edeys and Dickinsons. He did fairly well against Dickinson last year, holding him to 13 points and a 101 ORTG. This was deep into "sit on his right shoulder" time, though, and Dickinson has developed some things.

Race Thompson plays the 4 and remains your lunchbucket man with hard hat and there's a whistle and Mason is saying something about the Goin' To Work Pistons. The first thing the above Journey clip says about him is he's "very intelligent," and lo it is true. Thompson's been astoundingly efficient inside the line thus far, hitting 67%—and 63% in Big Ten play. That's a big jump up from last season's 55% clip, and he's increased his usage to a bang-average 20%.

Almost all of this is peripheral offense, FWIW. OREBs, cuts, transition, and "miscellaneous" are the vast bulk of his shooting, with a side of posting up (which he's very good at, probably because he's going up against smaller guys as a burly 6'8" four) and a few 0.5 PPP spot-up possessions. Thompson cuts well but that's about all he does to generate his own offense. His production should be looked at as Indiana's offense functioning well enough to get him in spots where he can score garbage buckets.

Thompson's a dogged defender, excellent offensive rebounder, and solid at finding teammates. He's a PF version of Eli Brooks.

Northwestern transfer Miller Kopp plays the 3. You're probably familiar: he's Not Just A Shooter who had a promising start to his career but fell off last year as NW couldn't find anyone, let alone a middlingly athletic 6'7" guy, good shots. He's slashed his usage at Indiana and is really struggling to do anything inside the arc (middling athleticism plus two non-shooters manning the 4 and 5 will do that). It is inadvisable to give him open threes but other than that he's not likely to have a ton of impact.

UT-Martin transfer (and Pitt transfer before that) Parker Stewart plays the two. At the high major level he's Just A Shooter. He hit 39% his freshman year at Pitt and is at 46% so far with Indiana. At UT-Martin he was a combo guard who did okay inside the line; he's hitting about 38% of his twos at high majors.

Finally, Pitt transfer Xavier Johnson is the point. Johnson was a bright spot on a dismal Pitt team a year ago with the fourth-best assist rate in the country and very-acceptable-in-context 50/32/79 shooting splits. He's dialed it back slightly at Indiana and like his teammates it's been a slog inside the arc (32% in Big Ten play). He is still getting to the line a bunch and setting up his teammates. He can shoot threes but he's eh—career 34% with no indication that's improved.

Johnson runs a ton of pick and roll; production out of that is mediocre. He does take a fair number of pull-up threes, which he is again pretty iffy at.

The Indiana bench:

• 7-foot USF transfer Michael Durr backs up Davis at C. He blocks some shots and is highly ineffective as a scorer. He's only getting ~8 MPG so over/under on shots he takes is 0.5. He is unremarkable defensively.
• Jordan Geronimo backs up Thompson. Geronimo is one of those Indiana gritbucket kids. He rebounds excellently for his size, gets some blocks and steals, and is currently shooting unsustainably well (64% on longer twos). He a career 41% FT shooter and will occasionally take a 3.
• Former starting PG Rob Phinisee now backs up both the 1 and the 2, getting about 20 MPG. He remains a hideously inefficient scorer—he's a career 40/30 shooter—and turns the ball over more than you'd like for an experience PG type. In a bench role he's upped his defensive peskiness. He's coming off a Kenpom MVP performance with 23 points in 13 shooting possessions against Purdue, so watch for some early heat-checks from him.
• Combo guard Trey Galloway missed ten games and has been a consistent 20 MPG guy since his return.
• Freshman Tamar Bates also gets some minutes but hasn't had more than one bucket in a game since Merrimack on December 12th. 

THE TEMPO FREE

Indiana makes its hay on defense:

They're 5th nationally in two-point D, though competition level may have something to do with that. They're still good in Big Ten play, ranking third. They're far less of an outlier. Like many Big Ten defenses they don't turn opponents over much and prefer to let a meh shot get up and rebound. They block a lot of shots—12% in Big Ten play.

On offense they have scuffled a big in league play, where they're 8th. They don't get up many threes, because they play two non-shooters 100% of the time, and they're only hitting 31% of the ones they get up.

THE KEYS

Repeat performance. This was a 73-57 win last year because Dickinson held Jackson-Davis to 10 points without any help and Indiana didn't really have a plan B. Indiana still doesn't really have a plan B here. Their point guard isn't efficient getting his own offense in PNR, Thompson is a garbageman (a highly effective one but a garbage man nontheless), and the other two guys are just shooters. Winning on the block means Indiana's offense is going to have to rely on contested stuff they're not very good at.

Win the cheap buckets battle. Thompson is excellent at cleaning up others' misses and finding cracks in the defense to flash into; meanwhile Michigan will respond with Moussa Diabate and his OREB rate of 15. Indiana's defense is very good and Michigan's not likely to find a ton of good shots, so second chances will be extremely important. Quien es mas lunchbucket?

Throw Frankie more alley-oops. This is not really a key I just want it to happen.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Indiana by 4.