THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

Welcome back to the graphic, Isaiah Livers.

While Michigan still stands as the last 8-seed on the Bracket Matrix, their standing in the field has solidified after the win over MSU; they're in the field on 95 of 96 brackets—the outlier is a weird/irrelevant one based on RPI—and are listed as a 7- or 8-seed on the majority of updated projections. A loss tonight would cancel out a lot of that progress even though it's a road game.

This game provides a great opportunity for Michigan to move up the conference standings. At 5-7, they're one game in the win column behind Minnesota, and in the other Big Ten game tonight 5-7 Ohio State hosts 8-5 Rutgers—the Buckeyes have already dropped home conference games to Wisconsin and Minnesota.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

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

THE THEM

I had written a detailed Northwestern preview and the site ate it. So this is going to be quite short, because they are quite bad and not worth writing about twice.

Their best player is a four-time All-American... in lacrosse (Pat Spencer). They recently ejected Pete Nance, who still looks like a skinny lost freshman, from the starting lineup in favor of Boo Buie, who like much of the roster is a solid three-point shooter whose offense falls off a cliff as soon as he goes inside the arc. For another such example, here's the Big Ten shot chart of their other main outside threat, Miller Kopp:

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Shooting better from three than at the rim is not an uncommon occurrence on this roster. Impeccably named 6'9" freshman Robbie Beran, the nominal power forward, also falls into this category.

The centers are both freshman and can clean up some misses but they're not post-up threats or rim protectors and the Wildcats are not a good defensive rebounding team.

It is Chris Collins's seventh year. He has two upperclassman contributors, one of whom is a grad transfer who played lacrosse. His team is on pace to finish behind "fired the coach and literally returned one player" Nebrasketball, the only Big Ten team they've managed to beat this year. It's impressive, in a way.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Four Factors explanation

Northwestern is dead last in the conference in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Further analysis feels unnecessary.

THE KEYS

Make your threes. Northwestern is dead last in the Big Ten at both three-point attempts allows and percentage of assisted field goals allowed. Michigan is going to be able to run their offense and create open looks from beyond the arc. It'd be very nice if those looks fall.

Run their shooters off the line. As mentioned above, this is a team that does the majority of their damage offensively when they're hitting threes. Anyone who's liable to spot up on a regular basis can safely be chased off the line and forced to contend with Jon Teske, which doesn't project to go well for Northwestern. The main path to a Wildcats victory is them hitting a bunch of threes—that's how they almost upset Rutgers—but Michigan is capable of opening up a huge attempt gap that should make that path far more difficult.

Keep them out of transition. Northwestern scores 1.09 PPP in transition, which ranks in the 85th percentile, according to Synergy. That drops to 0.84 PPP (38th percentile) in halfcourt play. The Wildcats don't do much to force steals, so this is mostly about Michigan avoiding silly mistakes and getting back after misses. There's no need to hand this team easy buckets.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 5.

Given these trips to Evanston usually result in harrowing two-point games, a five-point margin against an usually bad Northwestern team feels about right.