THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#38 Michigan (15-12, 9-8 Big Ten) vs #34 Michigan State (19-9, 10-7 Big Ten)	f
WHERE	Crisler Arena Ann Arbor, MI
WHEN	8:30 PM
THE LINE	Kenpom: M -3 Torvik: M -3
TELEVISION	FS1

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan has alternated wins and losses since beating Purdue on February 10th and so they're still here, hanging out on the bubble and scrapping for every last win. A Michigan State team that took advantage of some extremely questionable defensive tactics at the Breslin Center to beat Michigan by 16 now arrives with a "look, ma, a quad one win" sign on its back—or pretty close, anyway.

MSU was in free-fall until a buzzer-beating home win against Purdue on Saturday. Prior to that they'd lost five of six, suffering hamblastings at the hands of Rutgers and Iowa and adding in a loss to Penn State for good measure. They're still a tourney lock according to everyone but they've slid to a seven seed in the Bracket Matrix and at Torvik. They will of course be highly motivated for a rivalry game.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Juwan Howard is still unavailable. Houston lost his defensive cyan.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

Izzo just replaced Bingham with Marble in the starting lineup against Purdue; Bingham has been a starter in name only over the last five, with about 12 MPG. We're betting the Dickinson matchup makes him an actual starter in this game, but who knows? Big Ten coaches please stop tinkering with your lineups one game before playing Michigan.

THE THEM

Updates from the first preview:

• Marcus Bingham again finds himself marginalized; he's dropped down to about 12 minutes per game in MSU's last five outings while Julius Marble starts and gets a bare majority of minutes. He only got 16 minutes in the first MSU-Michigan game but that was because of foul trouble; while he was in he made a major impact defending Hunter Dickinson one on one. One wonders if he'll get a bigger role in this game.
• AJ Hoggard now leads the country in assist rate and still can't shoot so maybe let him take floaters instead of blitzing him.
• Similarly, Malik Hall has edged ahead of Joey Hauser at the four.
• Freshman Max Christie has struggled a bit in Big Ten play, shooting 45/30 from the floor on low usage and doing little else that makes a box score. He had an efficient 16 in the first game and limiting him would go a long way towards winning.

THE TEMPO FREE

Conference numbers:

MSU is #1 in assists in league play; they also shoot 38% from three while allowing just 31%. The former is second in the conference and the latter is the top mark. When I see excellent three point defenses I'm often suspicious that's just luck and here there's not a whole lot that indicates otherwise. MSU's two point D is just okay, they give up a fair number of three-point looks, and if you drill down in Synergy 37% of the catch and shoot looks they give up are unguarded, which is a pretty bleah number. (Michigan, for all its communication faults, has 30% of opposition jumpers classified as unguarded). MSU is long pretty much everywhere except for Tyson Walker PG minutes, so maybe they're contesting better.

Also: MSU is shooting 78% from the line so sending them there is a bad idea.

THE KEYS

two key players [Campredon]

For the love of God don't blitz AJ Hoggard. This site complained about that extensively after the first game. Purdue showed how it was done:

This is how Michigan should defend Hoggard Ballscreens.

MSU running Spain, but Williams in DEEP drop (just above restricted area) negates the backscreen.

Thompson simply stays with Hauser and there’s nothing left for MSU.

Hoggard elbow pull-up.

Scheme win for Painter. pic.twitter.com/6SYOpir2iZ

— LAbound (@LAbound2) March 1, 2022

Yeah, they lost but they shot 62% from two versus MSU's 49%; Hoggard was 4/10 inside the arc and only got up to an 84 ORTG because he hit an extremely anomalous three. 

Dickinson going to work. MSU will not double the post when Bingham is in. They ate 10/15 shooting from Zach Edey in 22 minutes so they could limit Purdue to 9 three attempts all game. Dickinson got up a total of 17 FGAs and 10 FTAs in his 34 minutes. Dickinson only hit eight of those, however, and his 25 points were only reasonably efficient.

Dickinson seems to have been working through something down the stretch here—there have been times when he's clearly nursing a leg injury—and as a result he's been less aggressive on the block, more likely to settle for a mid-range jumper. Those are decent shots, sure. Michigan needs better than decent efficiency to win.

I mean… we all know what this bullet is going to say. Hit a shot. The first half against Michigan State last time out was an agonizing parade of wide open looks that barely drew iron. Michigan went 3/19 from three. MSU went 9/18, and that was the whole gap between the teams. When MSU finds itself in a game with three point parity they are extremely beatable. See: their last seven games, in which two teams got blasted on the three point line (Indiana and Purdue) and five teams beat MSU.

New Devante. The last time these teams met Devante Jones didn't do a whole lot except miss some threes; Howard got so frustrated with him that he got yanked for big sections of the game. His 23 minutes in that game is a season low against Big Ten competition. Since he's turned the corner. If he could hit a three we'd be seeing a legitimate breakout; as it is he's become one of the three guys you can expect to show up every night. Since the Penn State game he's got 48 assists to 15 turnovers; he's shooting 50% from two with a healthy FT rate and 84% shooting at the line.

Maintaining that surge against MSU would obviously be a major factor in a win.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 3.