THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#10 Michigan (9-0, 4-0 B1G) vs #21 Minnesota(10-2, 3-2)	he sees you when you're sleeping he knows when you're awake
WHERE	Crisler Center Ann Arbor, Michigan
WHEN	8:37 pm Eastern Wednesday, Jan. 6th
THE LINE	Kenpom: M -5 Torvik: M -6.3 Vegas: M -7
TELEVISION	BTN PBP: Kevin Kugler Analyst: Stephen Bardo

THE OVERVIEW

When the schedule came out, many people remarked that Michigan's soft opening part of the schedule came to an abrupt end against Wisconsin. But thanks to a critical transfer—also some more, uh, interesting ones—and the continued emergence of Marcus Carr, the Minnesota Fightin' Gophers are smack dab in the middle of conventional polls (currently #16)  and have cracked the top 25 on tempo-free analytics sites. Per the latter this is the best team Michigan has played this year by 20-some spots.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Austin Davis remains out. We decided against a terrifying gumb-zilla icon for Wagner, and are on the verge of removing the Brooks banana peel since his TO rate in conference play is a not great but not peel-worthy 15.6. Smith is on the verge of losing his cyan on defense since he's at least staying in front of his man consistently.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

We decided that Liam Robbins was more of a traditional big; even if he's getting up a couple of threes per game he's closer to Dickinson than Moe Wagner. We considered giving Gabe Kalscheur the brick but out of respect to his underclass percentages we forewent it. Also if he hits some shots in this game we cannot be blamed.

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

THE THEM

Minnesota starts with KPOY #10 Marcus Carr, a 6'2" combo guard with a deadly stepback…

Marcus Carr doing Marcus Carr things

He knocks down a textbook step-back 3 to close out a dominant first half for @GopherMBB pic.twitter.com/bDUnzi1XHZ

— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) December 29, 2020

…and an impressive combination of usage (27%), assist rate (37), and turnover avoidance (a TO rate of 12). Carr is probably the Big Ten's premiere pull-up threat; he's hitting 39% from deep on major volume and only half his makes are assisted. He creates virtually all his shots inside the line, and either directly creates or initiates offensive action for most of the rest of Minnesota's offense. Job #1 is limiting Carr.

This means forcing him to shoot inside the line. He's had a statistical leap this season, adding 8 points to his two point shooting, but 1) that only gets him to 49%, and 2) he has been extremely bad in Big Ten play. He's 12/34 from two in his five Big Ten games, and his efficient games have come against Iowa (Kenpom #94 on D) and Michigan State (#80), two of the worst defenses in the league. Carr has been relatively stifled by Illinois, Ohio State, and Wisconsin. He settles for jumpers a lot, and while 42% on longer twos is a good conversion rate that's preferable to anything else Carr does.

hopefully a preview of Dickinson vs OSU

Minnesota's other star is Drake transfer Liam Robbins, a 7-foot center who looks more like a top 100 recruit than an MVC refugee. Robbins was sixth nationally in block rate last year and and has seen most of that translate. He's currently tops in league play with an 11% block rate and is shooting 60/31 in Big Ten play. He's also drawing a ton of shooting fouls and hits FTs at a 71% rate. He takes care of the ball and has solid rebound rates on both ends; his only real statistical weakness is a slight propensity to foul. He's good.

The only hint of an issue has been Robbins going up against legitimate defensive centers with size. His two worst outings of the year came against Illinois and Wisconsin. He fouled out of the Illinois game in 16 minutes, putting up an 81 ORTG en route. Kofi Cockburn feasted with 33 points on 12/15 shooting. Things were a bit better against Potter and Reuvers but he had 3 turnovers and 12 points on 13 shooting possessions. Wisconsin bigs were 10/19 from two.

On the flip side, Robbins has demolished bad post defense. He put up 27, 18, and 18 against OSU/MSU/Iowa with no ORTG below 127. He was particularly monstrous against OSU's suite of undersized posts; in addition to the 27 he had 6 OREBs, 4 assists, five blocks, and two steals. There are EJ Liddell post-up possessions embedded above that are so, so doomed.

How is Hunter Dickinson's post D? Well… we don't really know. Michigan has barely played a back-to-the-basket center this year. This is going to be a measuring stick for both fives.

Kalscheur has developed into a 3-and-D guy… if he could just hit some 3s [Ben Ludeman]

Junior shooting guard Gabe Kalscheur is the other familiar name in the starting five. Kalscheur started his career as Just A Shooter, knocking down 41% of his 188 threes as a freshman. He ventured inside the line a fair bit with poor results. Last year it was much the same except he only knocked down 34% from deep (and 30% in league play). He is full-on scuffling in 2020-21, hitting just 23% of his 64 threes.

Kalscheur's added to his game a bit. He's more of a playmaker and his free throw rate shot up this year. He's also developed into an Eli Brooks-style defender: Kalscheur is not going to put up steal/block numbers but he's really hard to get past. Watching him force Aaron Henry into a blizzard of contested deep twos was impressive.

But at heart, right now Kalscheur is a shooter who can't shoot. For Minnesota to be where it's at despite this is impressive.

Minnesota's other two starters are, like Robbins, transfers. 6'8" WMU grad transfer Brandon Johnson was a co-alpha with Michael Flowers on a very bad Broncos team last year. (He missed the entire season in 2018 so he did not play in the WMU-M game a couple years ago.) He had an out-of-body experience in the Minnesota win over Iowa earlier this year, hitting 8/9 from three. Johnson is in his fourth year as a starter; those 8 threes are ~20% of his career total. Everything about his early 120 ORTG seems unsustainable as a result—he's 1/9 on his other 3 attempts in league play.

Johnson is a big guy with a nice free throw stroke who's good on the offensive boards and pops up with a meaningful amount of shot alteration. He's peripheral in Minnesota's offense; he could be an annoying source of second-chance buckets if Michigan's wings can't box him out consistently.

Finally… Both (pronounced "Booth") Gach. Gach is a Utah transfer who had to have been that conference's Disaster Factory POY in 2019-20. He had an 87 ORTG on 23 percent usage in Pac-12 play; his TO rate was 22 and he split his attempts about evenly between two and three despite shooting 20% from deep. It says something when you're a high-usage starter and you still decamp for greener pastures. It says "yech."

We talk a lot about numbers in these previews but ye gods the numbers don't really justify what's going on here. Gach is the kind of guy who fields color commentary about how he "needs to find his confidence" at the same time he's trying drives that prime Michael Jordan would find audacious. He's shooting 26/27 in Big Ten play. He's got a 21 TO rate. He does utterly stupefying things on the regular. Richard Pitino opened the last game trying to get him possessions. ¯\_(?)_/¯

He is close to physically ideal for a slashing wing at 6'6", 185, and when he's given opportunities to display it he can jump out of the gym. Almost any usage he has away from the rim is going to be a win for M.

Curry's a Brooks Bollinger Memorial Eighth-Year Senior [Luedman]

Minnesota goes nine deep but everyone on the bench is a bit of a disaster factory except backup C Eric Curry. Curry's barely played since his freshman season in 2017 due to a series of injuries. He's healthy now but has gone from a mostly ground-bound interior player (a 3.4% block rate in 2017) to a guy with Bill Laimbeer lift. Minnesota's OREB rate drops 10 points when he enters (and this seems directly attributable to him since his DREB rate is 10.3, 10 points worse than Robbins); opponents two-pointers pop up seven points. The dropoff from Robbins is steep. Curry plays within himself, at least.

That cannot be said for the rest of the bench crew. Freshman guard Jamal Mashburn Jr, sophomore wing Tre' Williams, and sophomore beanpole 4 Isaiah Ihnen are all wild chuckers who would be Disaster Factory candidates if they had enough usage. They are collectively 14/64 from three. Mashburn has the best ORTG of the trio at 92; he's shooting 40/24 from the floor. Any reasonably contested shot from them is a win.

THE TEMPO-FREE

We're sticking with conference numbers here since the only top-100 nonconference opponent Minnesota has played is St Louis. Thus these numbers are out of 14. Left is offense, right is defense.

Four Factors explanation

The drill-down numbers have some extremes as well:

• Minnesota is launching more threes (47% of FGAs) than any other Big Ten team despite hitting 31% of them, 12th in the conference.
• Their eFG defense isn't a mirage since they're second to you-know-who inside the line. However, when only 31% of opposition threes go down and you're about average at allowing them you might have some fortune on your side.
• The OREB thing is mostly because Luka Garza had 11(!!!) as Iowa rebounded half their misses. OSU, oddly, was their second-worst outing in this department even as Robbins was annihilating OSU bigs. There's some fortune in there since 6 of OSU's 10 OREBs were team ones.
• Minnesota is fairly dependent on assists and Michigan is top 25 at preventing them.

THE KEYS

the first big test [Campredon]

Quien es mas macho? This will be Hunter Dickinson's first game against a guy who can match his length. A dollar says both teams start out avoiding post doubles and the game turns on which of those gambles is more correct.

I'd think this favors Michigan a bit. Per the rosters Dickinson has 20 pounds on Robbins and may be able to blast him under the basket and/or force Robbins into shots away from the rim. Dickinson isn't Kofi Cockburn in this department but neither is he OSU's center rotation. Dickinson has a variety of options that shotblockers can't do anything about, meanwhile.

That said, Dickinson could easily struggle against the best post he's played in is brief college career to date. As I mentioned after Northwestern, there were a couple of Ryan Young post buckets that felt a bit ominous. 

How wacky does Michigan want to get with Franz? People talk about guys able to guard 1-5. Nobody really can, except when matchups allow. Well, we've had some matchups. Wagner got matched on stretch 5 Pete Nance and shut him off once his teammates stopped giving up straight line drives three minutes in. And if you're looking at what Minnesota does… do we maybe want Wagner contesting Carr stepbacks and living with whatever happens with Kalscheur and Gach?

I kind of think the answer to that is yes. Eli Brooks's particular skills on defense aren't a great match against a 6'2" stepback king, and Mike Smith will just get shot over. Meanwhile sticking Smith on Gach looks like quality bait to drive usage away from Carr and towards anyone else (but especially Gach).

Chaundee Brown minutes are much more comfortable: Brown on Carr, PG on Kalscheur, the end.

Keep 'em in the midrange, or at least contest those threes. This should be a win at the rim game. Minnesota is 311th at getting there and average at converting. Michigan is 18th at preventing opponents from getting there and good at defending. Minnesota is funneling a ton of shots into bad threes from bad shooters. Michigan's offensive efficiency makes it unlikely Minnesota can keep up if they continue to take half their shots from three, particularly if Michigan can get those shots to someone other than Carr.

Dodge Robbins. The other Robbins thing: he blocks a ton of shots. Michigan is currently 12th nationally at avoiding blocks on offense. That is in part because of the opposition, but it's also because Michigan's offense has created a ton of great shots where the shotblocker is either stuck in the high post, sealed off by Dickinson, or jumping at a guy who no longer has the ball. Also two of their high usage guys are absolutely enormous.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 5.