A series looking at Michigan's 2021-22 basketball outlook. Previously: center, power forward, small forward.

ROSTER

Eli Brooks (Sr.+): Ultimate glue guy shot 45/40 last year and hit 91% of his FTs while providing secondary playmaking and taking opposition's best perimeter offensive option. COVID bonus year is massive for program.

Zeb Jackson (So.): Pops physically as a 6'5" guard with a lot of lift but limited playing time as HS senior and last year. Bit of a mystery man. Crucial year for him as he'll either establish himself a rotation piece or get wiped out by freshmen.

Kobe Bufkin (Fr.): Willowy 6'4" combo guard steadily rose in rankings over cycle, landing at #42 in the composite, despite wrist injury that cost him much of his senior year. Three-level scorer but might need Camp Sanderson to bust out.

Adrien Nunez (Sr.): Deep bench option unlikely to break through in year four.

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS

Uh… do I?

 

TVLand, the player [Campredon]

Brooks's return means this spot is going to be the most stable and predictable on the roster. Dickinson might look pretty different next year; we don't really know what to expect from Johns; there will be new starters at SF and PG. Eli Brooks is going to be Eli Brooks. I probably don't have to explain what the last two years of Brooks looks like to anyone who stops by this blog, but for the record:

• 36-40% three point shooting, with virtually all of those threes catch and shoot attempts.
• Pull-ups in the midrange that are reasonably good late clock options.
• Missed floaters and questionable finishing at the rim because of a lack of size and bounce.
• Plus defense that isn't quite lockdown against bigger guards who can get to the basket and finish over him. (EG: Duane Washington roasted him.)
• Ineffable sense that things work well with him and do not work well without him.

[After THE JUMP: splits splits splits splits]

Here are Brooks's on/off splits from last year. On offense you see the ineffability in the TO rate. The defensive numbers look a lot like Franz Wagner's except with some really bad three-point luck:

So the question is how much of that did Brooks drive and how much did Wagner drive? Parsing answers out of the available data is difficult, but maybe Brooks's junior year helps clarify:

Wagner was around for that, too, but that version of Franz was not the Great And Terrible Passing Lane Kraken. Michigan was actually a bit worse on defense when freshman Franz was on the court:

So yeah, he's pretty good. Juwan Howard putting Brooks on guys like Cam Thomas even though Chaundee Brown was around should be evidence enough if those 2P% D numbers don't sway you. Juwan Howard knows things about basketball, and he consistently put Brooks on the opposition's most dangerous threat even with other good options.

Does Brooks have some upside left to explore?

old vs older [Campredon]

Players aren't static, even guys coming back for fifth years, but… uh… probably not. Brooks is the definition of a heady, maxed-out player who's taking advantage of everything he's got already. He doesn't make many mental mistakes. His shooting is already at a level where expecting an improvement would be foolhardy. He's not going to be much different physically in year five.

Michigan actually moved usage away from Brooks last year, and with the addition of Devante' Jones it would be a big surprise if they asked Brooks to have more of a role in shot creation. His PNR numbers are pedestrian: 0.84 PPP on offense derived from 132 PNR possessions last year, 50th percentile. Since Brooks is emphatically not an isolation player (and Michigan, being well-coached, sends almost no possessions into the iso bin) it's hard to envision him having an appreciably bigger role in the offense without a big uptick in PNR possessions he uses. I don't think anyone's expecting that to happen, especially since the primary PG options are questionable shooters who are probably going to need the ball in their hands for maximum efficiency.

I expect a rerun of last year, and that's just fine.

What happens when Brooks isn't on the court?

A pivotal year for Jackson [Campredon]

Unless something weird happens Brooks is going to be out there for 30+ minutes, which leaves limited opportunities for two high-upside underclassmen. Both Zeb Jackson and Kobe Bufkin are tall enough to explore some three-guard lineups, maybe, but taking minutes away from Houstan probably isn't happening. If you assume that all of the PG minutes will be covered by Jones and Frankie Collins you've got 20 minutes to split between Isaiah Barnes, Jackson, and Bufkin backing up Brooks and Houstan.

Since two of those guys are freshmen and the third may as well be trying to predict an outcome here is difficult. I'd imagine that the backup 2/3's role will be to shoot threes and try not to screw up on defense too much, which makes me lean towards Barnes and Bufkin since Jackson was 2/13 from three last year with some ugly misses and doesn't have a track record as a shooter. Barnes was discussed in the previous post. Meanwhile Bufkin in particular is well-suited to a breaking-in period as a gunner. Matt D:

Kobe is outstanding as a traditional catch-and-shoot SG. With one-motion mechanics, a high release point and good size/length, he is able to get his shot off against closeouts with ease. His range already extends out to 28 feet in what is very fluid shot that doesn’t appear to stress him regardless of distance. There is real potential for Bufkin to be a potent shooter for the Wolverines.

On the other hand, Bufkin may not be an ideal fit as a backup 2 defensively:

Defensively, I don’t necessarily think he moves well enough to defend quicker guards in the B10. I’ll reiterate that for me position designation is determined by the defensive assignment you are most likely to draw. In my opinion, Bufkin is best suited to defend the SF position. A few of the coaching staff members among his final 5 are of that belief as well.

That evaluation is from a year ago, when he committed, and it's possible that's something that's changed over the last year—Bufkin has gradually climbed the rankings from where he was back then.

A bigger issue for Bufkin may be his size, which tends towards early Caris LeVert. He's not high school Caris—he does not look like a UNICEF ad—but neither is he Chaundee Brown:

If he's knocking down shots at a much higher clip than Jackson it's not going to matter; that's something that might give Jackson an edge.

Meanwhile Jackson will enter his second year at Michigan in a sink or swim situation. The competition isn't going to let up going forward, so if he can't chisel out a role this year his long-term prognosis gets dim. Mentions of Jackson on this blog last year were generally of this variety:

Jackson made a couple bad decisions and looks like a guy who's going to need a year to get situated but you can see the athletic potential every time he attacks the basket.

Depth is a problem. … . [Jackson] went 0/3 from three and had a turnover. Michigan was seemingly fighting its way back into the game when Chaundee Brown asked for a blow, and Jackson was close to personally responsible for a 7-0 Minnesota run.

He did flash an ability to get to the basket and do something productive.

He is 6'5" and can get places on a basketball court. That's something to work with.

"Work" is the operative word, though. We're trying not to read too much into low-usage stats from freshmen after Cole Bajema put up a 92% eFG last year and then was nearly invisible for a terrible Washington team this year, but Jackson shooting 5/26 on the season does give you some pause.

My money here is on Bufkin, FWIW.