THE ESSENTIALS

THE OVERVIEW

The last time Michigan faced Rick Pitino, the Wolverines ended his Louisville tenure with a second round win in the 2017 Tournament. Donovan Mitchell was on his team. But we had subs. And Moe Wagner. Tonight, they face Pitino in his first big game at his latest gig with St John’s. Gus is on the call. It’s at Madison Square Garden. There will be rowdy contingents of both fanbases laced throughout the arena. I’m ready for some Monday Night Basketball.

There are early season stakes to be had. The Bracketology crowd has bought the St John’s hype. They’re on 30 of the 44 brackets in the preseason Bracket Matrix, good for a 9-seed on its consensus tracker. From a traditional media standpoint, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi seeds the Storm just ahead of the First Four as an 11-seed while CBS’ mock bracket ranks them as an 8^th seed. Let’s take a peek at some of my favorite independent mock bracketologists: Bracketville has them in a First Four game, Blogging the Bracket seeds them on the 9-line while Bracket Wag isn’t fully on board, placing the Red Storm in his First Four Out.

Michigan is on eight of those 44 preseason brackets, but for the most part isn’t on a lot of radars. A win tonight shuffles the early season pecking in their favor, takes a bite out everyone’s offseason darling, and would be a good first step towards getting back into the NCAA Tournament. It’s also a chance to see how much the beautiful play and good vibes from a pair of high scoring wins last week carries over away from home against a Power 5 team.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Less cyan than the old us.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

Every player but Soriano and freshman Simeon Wilcher is a transfer, and they've only played one game, so we've used last year's stats above.

THE THEM

[St. John's Athletics]

So who are these guys on St John’s? Pitino has turned this entire roster over, bringing in 11 new players, including nine transfers. It’s not as Island of Misfit Toys as it sounds. There is some established talent in the haul including the nation’s leading returning scorer, an Ivy League First Team power forward, a pogo stick from the Pac-12, and one of Pitino’s best players from his Iona team a year ago. Here’s a quick rundown:

Let’s start with the only real holdover from last year’s squad, Joel Soriano. He’s 6-11 and a quality collegiate center. He was top-20 in rebounding percentage on both ends of the floor a season ago and made 56.3% of his field goals. He had 25 double-doubles last season and did the same in St. John’s opening night win over Stony Brook with 22 points and 11 boards. In St. John’s best result a year ago, he had 19 points and 13 boards in an upset of eventual national champion UConn. He had not shot a single trey in his entire career, then drained a pair in the opener. Please don't do that tonight.

The transfer headliner is Jordan Dingle, the nation’s leading returning scorer after dropping 23.4 points per game last year for Penn. He scored at least 25 points in 12 of Penn’s final 20 games. He's obviously not shy about getting his shot up, regularly taking more than 20 field goals a game a year ago. He’s had some injuries in the run-up to the season and sat out the team’s exhibitions games. He played in the opener, but came off the bench, scoring 13 points in 20 minutes. His shot looked rusty, making just one of his five 3-point attempts, after hitting 36.6% from behind the arc last year. He’s clearly this team’s starting 2-guard once fully healthy.

Chris Ledlum is the second all-Ivy Leaguer to join the St. John’s squad, after averaging 18.8 points and 8.5 rebounds a game a year ago for Harvard. He was a great mid-major power forward, creating matchup issues throughout the Ivy League, with his frame, athleticism, and overall court awareness. Defensively, he gets his hands on a lot of orange with more than 3 combined blocks and steals per game over the last two seasons. Within the first five minutes of his Red Storm debut, he had scored a couple buckets after beating a defender off the dribble, canned a 3-pointer, grabbed a steal, and delivered a sweet interior pass for an easy Soriano dunk. He notched a double-double by the first minute of the second half with nine offensive boards as part of his rebounding haul. Like he was all last year, he was a mismatch against mid-major competition.

Daniss Jenkins handles the point guard role after serving in a similar capacity on Pitino’s Iona team a year ago. He had one of the best assist rates in the MAAC last season while also shooting 36.1% on his 3-point attempts. He dished out eight helpers against Stony Brook in his St John’s debut. He also turned it over six times pacing a team that had a sloppy 22.1% turnover rate in that contest. Stony Brook, KenPom’s 278^th team, still was within single digits of St John’s in the early minutes of the second half because they scored 10 points of eight Red Storm turnovers during the first half.

Nahiem Alleyne arrives from UConn, fresh with a national championship ring on his finger. He was a solid role player, shooting guard for the Huskies, capable of chipping in a couple baskets including a trey here and there coming off the bench. He’s starting for St. John’s, but likely won’t offer much more production than he did the Huskies. He'll probably resume his role coming off the bench once Dingle is healthy to play more fulltime.

Glenn Taylor is one of the team’s best five players, but for now is their energy guy off the bench, after playing that role for Oregon State last season. He does all the things you'd expect out of a pogo stick off the bench, crashing the boards, drawing fouls, diving for loose balls. In the opener, St. John's just looked better when he was the floor. If plus/minus is your thing, the Red Storm were +23 during his 18 minutes on the floor. A year ago, he was among the Pac-12 leaders in free throw rate and shot at least six free throws in 10 conference games.

Sean Conway rounded out the starting five in the Storm’s opener. He transferred in from VMI where he averaged 35.7% on his 3-point attempts. He’s probably not one of the team’s best five players, but Pitino said on his postgame presser that he likes having his shooting skill in the starting lineup. That said, he only took three shots in the first game and made one of the two treys he attempted. A year ago for the Keydets, however, he drained at least a pair of treys in 18 of 22 games and averaged 12.1 points per contest before injuries marred his final month of the season.

Other possible contributors tonight are Simeon Wilcher, a real, live freshman recruit who program insiders feel could be the starting point guard by season’s end; Zuby Ejiofor, a 6-9 forward who is part of St. John’s “Go Big” lineup after playing sparingly as a freshman a year ago at Kansas; and sophomore guard Cruz Davis, who played for Pitino a year ago as a freshman scoring 6.5 points per game. These three combined for over 25 minutes in the opener and seem to be the next guys up after their primary rotation.

THE TEMPO FREE

Overall numbers:

Early stats are meaningless but Ledlum snatched 9 offensive(!) boards and St. John's collected 18 ORebs total from Stony Brook, which isn't a particularly short team.

THE KEYS

Defend the glass. Michigan must hold its own on the boards against the Soriano-Ledlum glass eating duo. Those guys look like dudes going after misses and this will be a good test for Michigan’s new look front court, which didn't see a lot of resistance on the glass during the first two games.

Keep Tarris Reed out of foul trouble. Defending without fouling is also a must. Dingle, Ledlum, Soriano, and Taylor all have spent time living at the free throw line during their careers. Between the quartet, they had 49 games a year ago with at least six free throw attempts. There is a version of this game where the Red Storm parade to two dozen free throw attempts with these guys leading the way. Who wants to see that?  Nobody. Michigan is annually in the top-20% nationally in defensive free throw rate, but in the opener allowed 28 free throws to UNC-Asheville, including 10 from its center Drew Pember. The Wolverines were much better against Youngstown as the Penguins took just 10 free throws.

Keep hitting shots. Lastly, Pitino has vowed to fix St. John’s notoriously leaky 3-point defense. It is working in the early going. Rutgers missed its first 11 treys in the team’s exhibition match, and they held Stony Brook to 4-16 from behind the arc in the opener. Can Michigan puncture Pitino’s and St. John’s new formed wall around the 3-point line? That and some gutsy work on the boards could be enough to win it for Michigan and once again turn MSG into Crisler Arena New York City.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 1.