MGoPodcast 11.18: Broken J's
1 hour and 40 minutes
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1. Illinois and Bad Luck vs. Michigan
starts at 1:00
I'm not even mad, I'm impressed that they keep missing these threes. Michigan had just 2 turnovers, won the OREBs by five. Debate between the everything is explainable and some things are random people. Eli, Johns are like Mo's three: if the first goes down we have it tonight. Michigan during this skid has been the 350th team in college basketball at threes. X did not attempt one. Two-for-one possessions. Sick of getting just random off-the-dribble mastery by 25% shooters when our 40%ers can't hit a wide open catch and shoot three.
Do you think we have some sort of weird defense that makes an off-balance 30-footer?
2. Penn State and Bad Luck vs. Michigan
starts at 23:32
Michigan was 2/20 on catch-and-shoot threes (the ones you want), in this game. Myles Dread is getting ice cream of the future, weird and-ones, Curtis Jones has the game of his college career, because life is crazy like that. Is there a guy on their roster with peg leg? That guy's going off.
3. Hot Takes and Wide View
starts at 36:44
Dave's ringtone is just a choking sound. Delete the three point line. How mad are we about this season? Not very: this was a fragile team that lost Iggy and Poole and its coach and therefore couldn't afford to lose Livers. Things that tie to coaching point up from preseason expectations. Recruiting better than best-case scenario. Bags? Christopher is a guy who has cachet that Isaiah Todd does not—Todd you're catching in the early part of his development while Christopher is a 5-star because he's an immediate dude in college. Also: Hunter Dickinson, who's Teske. Williams projects as a four-year guy whom the other schools are always like "When is this guy gonna leave?" after he gets a critical offensive rebound again.
4. Ace's Hockey Podcast
starts at 1:12:06
Old Fashioned road three points: 6-0 win and then a penalty-crazy Saturday. Significantly outplayed Penn State in the first game, got that pugilistic second game. They don't have the shooting or luck so their low shooting % was killing them—it's like going against a better goalie than Strauss Mann every game. Get even luck and they're a top of the Big Ten team, and that's what happened against Penn State and Notre Dame. Tying goal by PSU was such bad luck. They're good in Corsi, not giving up bad goals, generating good looks, don't have dangerous scorers and that's a weakness. Too late probably for this year but trending up for when the cavalry arrives. US game: watching Thomas Bordeleaux, who's gonna be a creator, but isn't flashy.
Brian and David go through the 2020 recruits.
MUSIC:
- "I Miss You"—Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes
- "The Big Three Killed My Baby"—The White Stripes
- "There is a Valley"–Bill Fay
- “Across 110th Street”
THE USUAL LINKS:
- Helpful iTunes subscribe link
- General podcast feed link
- Direct download link
- What's with the theme music?
Enjoy Rutgers Basketball this year because they're having our season.
January 27th, 2020 at 10:56 AM ^
Dave's ringtone had me in tears.
January 27th, 2020 at 11:42 AM ^
That made my day.
January 27th, 2020 at 11:37 AM ^
It's Cole Bajema time! This team needs shooting...badly! In a very limited sample size, this kid looks like he can hoop. Defense? Who knows, but where is that getting us now? Defense *first* is a luxury we can no longer afford, not that it is all that great anyway. With the season rapidly reaching the write-off stage it is time to give the kid a chance. If not now, when? With all the studs coming in next year minutes are going to be hard to come by. For the good of the team this year, and maybe in the future, why wait?? Also, who is to say that he is not better than Wagner, who has the big rep, but has not exactly been lighting it up lately...
Also, get DDJ more minutes. Again, this team needs offense. If that means a three-guard or even 4-guard offense (unless/until Livers returns, with the 4th being a very big guard like Bajema or Wagner), so be it.
January 27th, 2020 at 1:12 PM ^
Is it really bad shooting luck or is it just bad shooting at this point? If I play pickup ball, I expect to miss most of my shots because I suck. Maybe these guys just aren't good shooters.
January 27th, 2020 at 1:31 PM ^
Re: "bad shooting", at least one of these needs to be true for the theory to be plausible:
- The players are bad at getting looks and/or shot selection.
- The players were never accurate to begin with.
- The players have picked up bad habits.
All of these are problematic. They're missing open looks so the first one is out. The second was unlikely for Beilein recruits, but FWIW they've all shot better at times this season. They've gone over 100 points twice. Anyone going "they suck at shooting" has the memory of a goldfish. We can make a case that Simpson was never a good 3-shooter but that's a problem that far precedes this recent stretch.
As for picking up bad habits, the one most likely is Wagner since he came off a wrist injury but even he was shooting better of late before the entire team collapsed. Anyway, if they've picked up bad habits then that's something that can be confirmed in game footage, and I haven't heard anyone complain that Howard's broken their shooting form.
Brian is chalking it up to luck only because no other explanation fits the evidence. It's unsatisfying because it's hard to believe a team could get this unlucky for this long, but believe it or not it's currently the best explanation we have.
January 27th, 2020 at 3:38 PM ^
Who on the team has proven to be a reliable shooter at this level outside of Livers? We have 4 guys hitting over 35% right now: Livers, Bajema, Brooks, and DDJ.
- We know Livers is hurt.
- Bajema can't get minutes.
- Brooks got super hot in a weird ballroom in the Bahamas and has been inconsistent, trending mostly bad, since. He was under 30% his first two years on campus and is under 30% in conference play.
- DDJ seems like he can shoot but is third banana in the guard rotation.
January 27th, 2020 at 1:13 PM ^
This is mgoblog's problem: an insanely narrow focus on the statistics."If we only hit that shot and the other shot, we would've won". The randomness with shooting percentages is not the only problem. Is it a factor? Yes. Obviously, if they hit more shots they would win. But, let's not pretend there aren't a lot of problems with the way this team is playing right now. Shooting is the most pressing problem of course but they don't do enough to make up for it.
Defensively, they still let one player every game go OFF on them and never do anything to counter it. And they make little tactical errors in decision-making and game management that hurt them. But despite all this Michigan is still in these games but don't do little things they need to win. I don't know if this means Juwan is a good coach or a bad one. I disagree with Brian that Juwan is 0% to blame for what's going on. The team also displays a complete lack of focus and that is primarily on the coaches and senior leadership. Pissing away home games is unacceptable for a team with this much talent and veteran minutes.
This skid may not hurt recruiting but I imagine it can't help. I hope Brian is right but I think that attitude is a little overconfident. Juwan Howard is still Juwan Howard but its a different Juwan than the one of a few weeks ago. I hope the recruits aren't turned off by watching their future program lose several winnable games in the span of a few weeks.
I believe in Juwan but damn its getting hairy out there now. They started out in a comfortable position but now they've dug a hole for themselves. Let's see how they climb out.
January 27th, 2020 at 8:38 PM ^
This skid may not hurt recruiting but I imagine it can't help
Speaking of an overly narrow focus . . . fans make way too much of this from a recruiting standpoint. Recruits don't live and die with every game like fans. If the team isn't good, they just figure they'll get playing time off the bat. In general, it only becomes an issue if the coach is in danger of getting fired.
January 28th, 2020 at 7:07 AM ^
I'm not sure I would put Moe in the same sentence with Eli and Johns for anything.
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