THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#7 Michigan (10-0, 5-0 B1G) vs #5 Wisconsin (10-2, 4-1)	from the jaunty sailor period
WHERE	Crisler Center Ann Arbor, Michigan
WHEN	7:01 pm Eastern Tuesday, Jan. 12th
THE LINE	Kenpom: M -2 Torvik: M –0.6 DraftKings: M –3.5
TELEVISION	ESPN PBP: Dave Flemming Analyst: Dan Dakich

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan's obliterated all comers except Penn State and (uh…) Oakland en route to a 10-0 start and a #7 rank in both AP poll and on Kenpom. One thing they have not done is play a foe currently in the Kenpom top 25. This is in part because they fired Minnesota ten slots down the rankings after beating the Gophers by 25, but Minnesota's performance since indicates they're not quite the team people thought they were when they arrived in Crisler as the #16 team in the AP Poll.

Wisconsin is what people think they are. They, too, have not played a top 25 Kenpom opponent, but like Michigan that's largely because they obliterated someone at the cusp in a 37-point demolition of Louisville. This should be one of the games of the year.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Changes: Davis is close to a return, Brooks gives his banana peel to Smith, and Smith loses his defensive cyan.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]

[UPDATE: I fixed the coaches box -seth]:

Asterisk for the lowest TO rate bit: it would be the lowest rate in Kenpom history if they were able to maintain it for the duration of the season. They're actually "just" third in TO rate thus far this season.

Also my request for all the Wisconsin players to have wizard beards came in too late for production. [ED: has been honored] 

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

THE THEM

A stat that was said on the broadcast by @kevinkugler and is awesome:

Chicago Bulls starting lineup average age: 21.6 years old

Wisconsin #Badgers starting lineup average age: 22.6 years old

Oh, and every senior could come back next year for Wisconsin lol

— Asher Low (@alow_33) December 29, 2020

Return game previews usually cite the first preview for personnel and offer whatever updates are needed. For the first time in preview history we considered that maneuver for a team Michigan has not yet played. The only personnel change from last year's game is freshman Jonathan Davis replacing departed Just A Shooter Brevin Pritzl; the starting lineup is literally all seniors who haven't changed their games that much. Surely we can get away with it.

But no, norms reign in this place if no other. So here are the Badgers. Again.

here's Trice checking DERRICK WALTON [Patrick Barron]

Wisconsin's offense revolves around twin hubs at point guard and center. The point guard is D'Mitrik Trice. Please don't close this tab. He's different this year! I promise! Sort of! Trice is still an undersized rim-averse sniper. He's done a full senior level-up this year, improving in virtually every category. His usage is up 4 points; his ORTG is up 14. This is deeply uncommon, especially when you're going from an age 23 season to an age 24 season. (Neither a joke nor a typo.)

When you watch Trice play he looks like the same guy except he's hitting everything. A stat check reveals the same. Trice has actually migrated about 10% of his shots from threes to long twos. He's burying those at a 42% clip, up 10 points; he's still only getting about 15% of his shots at the rim but those are up 14 points; he's about 4 points better from three. This early in the year so a regression to the mean is probably on the way. Hopefully Michigan can be the start of one.

If there is a late critical possession it is likely to be Trice driving for a pull-up. He has seemingly hit 110% of his attempts in this situation so far this year.

Potter did damage last year [Campredon]

Then the centers. Wisconsin starts both Micah Potter and Nate Reuvers but over the last five games they've only been on the floor together for about seven minutes a game. They play together until the first media timeout and then they're almost never together again. Ace detailed why:

Micah Potter, F/C, Wisconsin. One big question facing Greg Gard this season was how he'd handle his two bigs, Potter and 6'11 senior Nate Reuvers. So far, they've played a similar number of minutes, with each getting a little over half the available time on the court because they share the floor for about 20% of Wisconsin's non-garbage possessions.

The issue is that those two-big lineups, while great defensively, destroy UW's spacing and bog down the offense—it's a niche lineup, not one to be used for the long-haul. Meanwhile, while Gard is slightly favoring Reuvers over Potter when he plays one center, the numbers indicate he should be leaning the opposite way, and pretty hard at that.

Personnel	2P% For	2P% Allowed	Off. Poss.	PPP	Def. Poss.	PPP Against	Eff. Margin
Both On	45	43	111	0.87	112	0.74	0.13
Potter On/Reuvers Off	52	41	185	1.25	182	0.93	0.32
Reuvers On/Potter Off	44	48	218	1.03	213	0.97	0.06

Potter has been a significantly better offensive player, both individually and functioning within the team, and his individual defense is good even though he doesn't amass blocks like Reuvers. Wisconsin's worst defensive group, in fact, is when Reuvers is their only big man.

If there's an adjustment coming, it wasn't on the way last time out, when Potter appeared frustrated in the huddle and saw only 24 minutes in a double-overtime game—hey, maybe it wouldn't have reached that point if he'd played more—despite Potter going 5/7 from the field with four boards, one turnover, and only two fouls. I'm not sure what's going on between Gard and Potter but I hope it continues through Tuesday night.

I find this a little odd because both Cs are three point threats and it seems like you could stick one in the corner and it would be fine. IMO this says that Wisconsin's offense only works as a pure swing five-out unit.

In any case, expect one and only one of these gents to be on the floor after the first few minutes. Potter has superior rebounding, assist, and shooting numbers (56/43/82, yeesh) but is not a rim protector. Reuvers has a 6.2 block rate, good for 100th nationally, but is a career 47% shooter from two who's shown no progress in this department so far. Reuvers is scuffling badly in A+B tier games, of which Wisconsin has had eight. He's shooting 39/27 in those contests and that block rate slips significantly.

Given the context it was strange to watch the Indiana game. Potter and Gard got into a sideline tiff; Potter sat for an extended spell; Reuvers went 4/12 from the floor while Trayce Jackson-Davis went 10/16. ¯\_(?)_/¯

Gard must think Reuvers is a significantly better defender for this minutes distribution to make any sense. If Dickinson is able to bury Potter a couple times and his minutes get limited that will help on defense.

i'm just sayin' [Campredon]

The other two starters are also old hat. Shooting guard/psychopath-in-recovery Brad Davison is still a guy who you really want to shoot as long as he's inside the line, but even more so right now. A career 43% two-point shooter; he's at 32% this year. He's a 36% career three-point shooter; he's hitting 43% this season. He is picking up more assists and has upgraded his TO rate from excellent to absurd.

A potential exception to "you want him to shoot from two": Davison is a big swing guard so he might pose Michigan some issues in the post. I'd imagine Brooks gets Trice, leaving Smith on Davison. While Smith's improved his defense our discussion of that always works in something about how he's small and that's not changing. That could be a problem.

Yes, he's also the cup-check guy but since he hasn't done anything barbaric this year we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Aleem Ford has followed up on his junior evolution and is the Wisconsin player who may surprise long-time observers. Ford began his career as Just A Shooter; last year he added a "Not" to the front of that by hitting 54% of a significant number of shots inside the line. This highlight reel should open eyes for anyone who's still stuck on the idea of Ford as a perimeter gunner only:

He's up to 61% from two this year and that number has actually gone up in A+B tier games. Franz Wagner would be a waste on previous editions of Ford. Against this version he's a critical, potentially game-swinging matchup against a guy with a 129 ORTG in Big Ten play.

The sixth man is a starter in all but name. He is freshman Jonathan Davis, a 6'5" slasher. Davis flashes impressive takes to the bucket, rebounds well, and has a solid steal rate. He's not much of a shooter so far—just 32% on twos away from the basket, 4/13 from three, and hitting 63% from the line. He also has a rock-bottom TO rate for a freshman who gets to the rim a lot.

If we file Davis as a starter, Wisconsin's bench consists of the center rotation and a couple of low-usage guys. Sophomore Tyler Wahl is a defensive pest who saved Wisconsin's bacon with 12 points on eight shot equivalents in the double OT game against Indiana. He'd scored a total of 11 in his other four Big Ten games. Wahl was rough last year, with a 28 TO rate despite only 15% usage. At those rates your usage is artificially high because you keep hitting the timekeeper with your passes. He's halved those TOs and has had a three-point shooting uptick, but career 52% FT shooting means that's probably a flash in the pan.

Senior Trevor Anderson is hovering around 10% usage and may take an open look if he finds one but isn't going to do a whole lot else. He's 8/9 from three this year, oddly.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Conference numbers are out of 14. Left is offense, right is defense.

Four Factors explanation

Very Wisconsin: no turnovers, no OREBs, no DREBs, no opposition FTs. Also this is the slowest team in the conference and 336th nationally.

The drill-down items of interest:

• Wisconsin is living at the three point line, hitting 41% of their triples. That is fourth nationally. Despite this they're slightly below average at getting them off.
• Compounding that oddity: they're under 50% from two, 204th in the country.
• UW crushed their nonconference opponents in 2PT% and are third in conference play at 46%.
• As per usual this is a team that relies on jump shots. They're barely above 300th in getting to the rim. Like Michigan they push a lot of opponent usage into the midrange; that usage is very inefficient.

THE KEYS

Potter is the second big test [Campredon]

The stretch test. Michigan's drop coverage got torched by Potter last year. He put up 18 points on 13 shot equivalents; the 3/6 from three particularly stood out as a problem. Wisconsin now asks Hunter Dickinson the same question they asked Jon Teske: can you contest on the outside?

The answer seemed like a definite no until Dickinson was surprisingly spry when tasked with hedging Marcus Carr ballscreens. We've upgraded the prognosis here… but only to a probable no. Meanwhile Wisconsin doesn't have a Robbie Beran to swap Dickinson on to.

Of course, there is a flipside to this matchup. Last year Teske had seven points. Dickinson will have more than that. If he's able to maintain his efficiency in the post, twos can outrun stretch 5 threes.

The other issues five-out presents. One of the main reasons Michigan lost last year's game was Wisconsin's performance at the rim. The Badgers had more attempts there than they had longer twos and went 13/18. That 72% conversion rate was 15 points higher than their season number—one that has a bunch of cupcakes in it—and they had 3-4 more shots at the rim than their season average. Napkin math indicates those disparities are all of the final margin (7).

Michigan gave up an alarming number of straight-line drives, particularly early, and even when that well was shut off Wisconsin rained in a bunch of threes. The prescription is clear: stay in front of your man.

The good news for Michigan is that Eli Brooks missed last year's game. Michigan started Brandon Johns; Wagner and Livers were tasked with guards and struggled. Brooks is available, Chaundee Brown projects as a good matchup, and Wagner has taken major steps forward. The biggest question mark is thus Mike Smith, who's improved a ton but may not be ready for the 38-year-old Trice or able to hold up against the 6'4" Davison.

Can you still find your shots? This is the first elite defense Michigan will go up against. To date Michigan's shot creation has been incredible. They lead the country in conversion at the rim; they're 26th on longer twos. They run a ton of different actions, with tweaks every game so that it's difficult to sit on things they've done earlier.

It is also true that they have not come up against a defense this veteran and disciplined. Wisconsin has near-elite results at the rim defensively(52%) despite very little shot-blocking. They force a ton of bad, long twos. If Howard's able to win the tactical matchup here the sky is the limit.

Shot volume. Wisconsin's TO rate is miniscule and Michigan forces very few TOs. Meanwhile the Badgers give up very few OREBs. Michigan has been able to outpace teams like Nebraska and Penn State despite significant gaps in shots attempted. They probably cannot do the same to the Badgers.

The Chaundee factor. If Michigan is struggling with one of the UW guards, Brown could be a game-changing defensive presence on either. Davison is not likely to post him up, and he's a 6'5" guy with long  arms who can stay in front of Trice.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 2.