THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#52 Michigan (14-10) vs #21 Indiana (17-7)	no idea
WHERE	Crisler Arena Ann Arbor, MI
WHEN	6 PM Saturday
THE LINE	Kenpom: IU –1 Torvik: M –1
TELEVISION	ESPN

THE OVERVIEW

Okay: win this one and we will start glancing towards the bubble. Michigan has won three straight for the first time since it was cupcake season early in the year, and while none of the teams Michigan has recently defeated are, you know, good, Michigan's handled their business. Now it's Indiana, which is solidly in the tournament despite the same conference record as Michigan thanks to nonconference wins over Xavier and UNC plus recent wins over Purdue and Rutgers in conference.

IU lost fairly noncompetitive games to Arizona and Kansas and got off to a rough start in league play, going 1-4. They've won seven of eight since and are on a major heater despite having some injury issues. Michigan's at home and has been shooting well; this is another winnable quad 1 game. Running out of time to win them.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

No changes.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

Xavier Johnson is out, and backup Jordan Geronimo may not be healthy. He played one minute in the last outing.

THE THEM

Trayce Jackson-Davis returned for his senior year and has defied expectations (same player for the fourth straight year) to become a true star. He's second in the KPOY standings—a very distant second to Zach Edey, but second nonetheless. The one thing that sticks out statistically is that TJD has doubled his assist rate in Big Ten play to a Trevion-esque 26. Well, that and a 32 usage rate in conference play without losing any efficiency.

Jackson-Davis remains athletically excellent, capable of running the floor better than most bigs and agile enough to show and recover on hedges. His shooting remains pretty meh; if you can keep him away from the rim and force short jumpers and hooks he's only converting those at 36%.

Historically, Jackson-Davis has been okay to good against Hunter Dickinson. Last year he put up 110 and 107 ORTGs, getting a lot of points but not being super efficient doing so. Dickinson outperformed him in efficiency terms but in Michigan's BTT loss to Indiana last year Dickinson only had 16% usage; Jackson-Davis almost doubled him up. This is no doubt due to contrasting attitudes towards doubling the post, which Michigan does not do and Anyone Playing Michigan does.

Freshman Jalen Hood-Schifino is a 6'6" five-star point guard who shot right into the starting lineup for Indiana. He's high-usage but dubious efficiency, as freshman point guards tend to be. He's shooting 42/39 on the season but focuses most of his usage inside the line. He takes a ton of pull-ups, both from deep—only half his threes are assisted—and inside the arc. Those are tough to stop given his size, and he's hitting 39%. That puts a fairly high floor on an Indiana possession.

His TO rate is elevated, as you might expect; he runs a ton of PNR with Jackson-Davis and tries to get him dunks. Sometimes these don't work out but in the TJD video embedded there's an alley oop over Edey. Sooooo… yeah.

Dickinson does not have the mobility to reasonably challenge Hood-Schifino's pull-ups without exposing Michigan to TJD dunks on the inside, and lacks someone with the requisite size to deal with him. They may just have to let the elbow jumpers come and hope that they're not falling at an insane rate.

Race Thompson has probably reached Geo Baker status wherein anyone who watches Big Ten basketball is like "oh right, him, no explanation necessary." If you are new, though: Thompson is the conference's premiere junkyard dog. He rebounds, he blocks shots, he gets a ton of buckets off of smart cuts. He is the rare player where a plurality of his shots come off of cuts. He'll post, too; shooting is not a strength.

Thompson is a poor finisher around the rim when you're able to contest him and prevent a dunk—23rd percentile—but turn your head and he's gone.

Miller Kopp returns for year five. He has finally reached Killer Mopp Usage Nirvana where he does basically nothing on offense except take wide open shots. He's shooting an astounding 70/47 in Big Ten play and is at 46% from three on 96 attempts on the year. This is a huge leap from last year's 35/36. The good news, such as it is, is that Kopp doesn't generate much himself and if you stick to him he's not going to get shots up. This would be an extremely inopportune game for Jett Howard to get lost on switches, however.

Similarly,  6'4" junior Trey Galloway mostly stays out of the way on offense with a 12.6 usage rate, but when he gets something up it's good: he's shooting 56/50(!), and to say that latter number is a shock understates it after Galloway was 12-61 from three in his first two years.

The IU bench:

• Freshman Malik Reneau, the #30 composite player in the most recent class, backs up at the 4 and 5; these days it's mostly the 4 since Jackson-Davis hardly ever leaves the court. He's a 6'9, 235-pound post with a lot of back-to-the-basket game; anything that's not at the rim is a short hook near it. He's not a good post defender at this point in his career. If he's out there in a twin towers lineup that may be Tarris Reed at the 4 time.
• Tamar Bates is another excellent three-point shooter who doesn't do a whole lot, usage-wise. He will venture inside the line, usually for a pull-up.
• Jordan Geronimo has six minutes in the last five games after a brief stint as a starter—and a healthy bench role before that—because he injured his leg. He dressed and played one minute against Rutgers, so he's close to back but not actually back. When healthy, Geronimo is a terrifically entertaining jackrabbit of a player. He's got a massive vertical and is a defensive stopper with a stunning-for-a-6'6"-guy block rate of 7.6; he's an OREB and steals threat as well. He's not very polished offensively, but that's not where he does his damage.
• Freshman Kaleb Banks has seen a smattering of minutes lately with Geronimo out. Too early to tell much about his game. He's 6'7" and apparently a non-shooter (52% FT), though.

THE TEMPO FREE

This is not a good defense despite having a ton of size and a veteran center:

However, what it struggles at is shot volume and fouls. Their FG defense is excellent; they have the second-best block rate in the conference, soemthing that no doubt correlates with that defensive OREB number. Michigan will have to exert itself to take advantage; they're just 9th in OREBs.

Indiana hits threes—16th nationally—but barely takes any—346th. That's real weird. Other than Hood-Schifino they don't have a pull-up threat and so can't really force it I guess, and teams have chosen to endure TJD on the inside instead of let the shooters feast. That's probably a good stategy for Michigan as well. IU suffers a lot of steals, another weakness that goes up against a Michigan weakness.

THE KEYS

Hood-Schifino pick and roll. To some extent this is going to be an exercise in watching Hood-Schifino get to his pull-up and hope it doesn't get down; Michigan will want to limit the damage the roll man can do since they don't really have the personnel to do much else.

As per usual. Dickinson has to win this matchup for Michigan to win this game short of Jett Howard going for 40. That means dealing with doubles, probably, and cutting off the supply of cheap points TJD gets in transition and as a roller. If Michigan can make TJD work for his usage those shots from outside the paint are probably going to be rolling off the rim enough for Michigan to endure.

Meanwhile, some continuation of the three-point blizzard off of Nebraska doubles would be welcome.

Do the McGary things you don't usually do. You have to crash the boards against this team because they try to block everything; you should get handsy on the perimeter because they turn the ball over a bunch in the open court. Meanwhile the guards don't really get to the line. Kopp, Bates, and Hood-Schfino all have paltry FT rates; this is a game in which you can and should be gambling a bit if there are ten minutes gone and you don't have a foul. It's probably not going to bite you.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Indiana by 1.