Going to be an interesting week.  Let’s keep rolling!

Brian did not watch the Rutgers game because he did not have two children?

#phrasing

Interesting that one of the other names on the bad-at-the-rim list is Tyger Campbell of UCLA.  Campbell is better across the board in that graphic, except for long 2s, which makes me wonder if he might be a reasonable comp for what Dug could be with continued development and more experience.

Of course it would be great if he brought up his at the rim results a bunch too.

ETA:  Guess I should have scrolled down the twitter thread, that's not an original thought.

"Feels like they're a player short of being a top 20 Kenpom team" you say.It's to bad T.Shannon chose Illinois over Michigan....oh  wait.

I known there's still a lot of pessimism around the team making the tournament but if UM does finish the regular season 12-8 in the Big 10 and then goes 2-1 in the tourney I think they're closer to a 10 seed than a low-end 11 seed, and honestly if they go 1-1 in the tourney I think they probably still don't get stuck in Dayton.  Last year a lot was made of A&M not getting into the tourney but they had a NET rating of 51 even with the conference tournament run they had (it started around 65) and were 9-9 in the SEC.  The only reason they were even in the conversation for a bid was because of that run and so while UM has some work to do they'd be in a much better spot come tourney time.  

Also, NET ratings only mean so much, it seems, with the committee - Texas Tech is currently 54th while UM is 55th but they're also 8th in the Big 12 and 5-11.  They're going to be playing @Kansas and then against Okie St., and KenPom seems to think they'll go 1-1 in that stretch.  That puts them at 6-12 in conference, no better than 8th overall and a couple of nice wins in-conference but also a 2-10 stretch and a 1-2 closing stretch at home (and no OOC wins to speak of - their best win is against 189th Eastern Washington).  So yeah, maybe they'd get a sniff but it would be pretty insane for them to get in just because they were playing in a tough conference.

Brooke Lopez is an interesting comp for Dickinson skill-wise in the NBA, and offensively I think they're comparable. It's doubtful, however, that Hunter can provide the same kind of defensive benefits and rim protection that Lopez does. At their respective combines, Lopez's standing reach was 4 inches greater (9'5" vs 9'1") and his vertical was similarly greater (30" vs. 25"). Lopez was very poor in the agility drills though (similar to Hunter who was in the bottom 5% for all the agility measurements when he went to the G-league combine). Lopez's length, size, and vertical ability have allowed him to remain on the floor when teams go small (though the Bucks usually have to play drop coverage with him) but I just don't see Hunter ever being able to stay on the floor in the same way.

Lopez has had a fascinating NBA career. Can't think of any other big that was drafted in the era of the traditional low-post big man who's remained such an impactful player as teams have increasingly gone 5-out. As much as people like talking about Holmgren and Wenbayama as unicorns, Lopez is too.

I think that since the beginning of February they are a top-20 KP team, right? I think they have both the pieces and the (multiple) ways to defend and score, at this stage. I'm worried about re-integrating Jett, though. We need him, but we don't want the offense to sputter when he's in. Hopefully the time on the bench has been instructive for him, in terms of better seeing the game. And I think that the coaches and Dug have found some ways to keep the ball from dying when teams defend us agressively on the perimeter; hopefully, Jett benefits from that, too. 

BEAT ILLINOIS!  BEAT INDIANA!  It's nice for this team to have finally gotten some luck, especially against the hated Wisconsin Badgers. But, also - this team learned how to fight.  It wasn't exactly the most ferocious performance but it really looked like they played with some focus down the stretch, something that has sorely been lacking from this team.  Maybe they'll get a taste for it and take out the Illini and Hoosiers and win some games in the conference tournament. 

Can Essagian go in the portal and transfer to Michigan please? He seemed like the exact type of player Michigan has been missing while Bufkin and Jett develop (and they're probably gone after next year too). 

Jumping off the page to me is Terrance Williams is +38 on the floor for the last two games since returning.  +20 against Wisconsin in 30 minutes. +18 against Rutgers in 22 min.  Tschetter is -12 in combined 28 mins over these games.  

I know this isn't all individual performance and some is just luck of shots falling for either team during this time, but that's a huge discrepancy.  

Williams and Reed need to be eating up 100% of the minutes at the four. Even without Jett available.  Nothing against Tschetter, but he's still a year away before being considered a valuable rotational player and he just doesn't have any business being in the starting lineup going forward. 

Baker adds value with his shooting and has made some good blocks and defensive plays. He's still a liability on D, but he does do some good things. To note, he's +12 over the last two games. Jace is -7.  

That stat doesn't tell all, but it does support those saying Tschetter shouldn't be playing right now.

I'm celebrating Hunter's shot by taking my own shot at Bucky today.

Attack Bucky @ CFB Risk

Get your specific attack/defend order at Michigan Central Command

Rolling my eyes at these "well actually" stats and Brian's pessimism about Dug McDaniel. Dude has been playing out of his mind and greatly improved since the beginning of the year... He's also a true freshman and was forced to run the offense early on this season. If Michigan makes the tournament he will be a huge credit to him.

I think Michigan needs 2 more wins somehow, preferably one this week and one in the BTT.  That won't get us a lock and we will ride the bubble all the way, but I think we'd be in.

Now, we need to discuss taking away Brian's "shield" in a hypothetical Seth-graphic for MGoBlog employees relative to basketball.  Why?  Because he actively lobbied for more Jace minutes.  While I realize Tschetter hasn't been good, anyone lobbying for Jace to play more who isn't a member of the Howard family isn't watching the games closely enough.  Jace is horribly offensively (which Brian further hurt his reputation by citing insanely small sample sizes for his shooting) and very mediocre defensively while being a foul magnet.  At best...MAYBE you could say that we should have a 7.5 man rotation right now and that 0.5 is a handful of minutes for Jace or Tschetter but not both.  

I'm not really worried about Dug's "close twos" when he's shooting a high percentage from "long twos" (which is what teams will give him) and holding his own with threes.  The improvement we need from Dug is really in facilitating for others in the ball screen game.  Otherwise he's been great lately. 

Finally, poll question for the board..... Who does Seth hate more - Junior Colson or Will Tschetter?  He can't get through a podcast without saying at least 3 negative comments about one of them.  LOL

posted in wrong thread

I fully agree that the hit on Nazar needs to be removed from the game, but I strongly disagree that the hit by Fantilli doesn't deserve a five-and-a-game. He drives his elbow directly into Mastrodomenico's face mask with clear intention to harm him. In fact, he does harm him (Mastrodomenico was shown shaken up for many minutes after the hit while they were reviewing it). I love that Fantilli plays with passion, but he's gotta keep his head and stop trying to remove others', otherwise he might end up sitting out more important games than this one.

Was there some kind of audio issue that made Isaiah Todd get brought up out of the blue in the hockey section? It was so out of nowhere I had to laugh and go back and make sure I heard it correctly

Hey, Johnny Sears played in 4 NFL preseason games, wandered the Earth for 6 years, and then got the itch to strap on the pads again north of the border for two seasons.

Cooper and Colby have been 11 and 9 for about 5 years lol

I think they need one of these last 2 and then one in the BTT to barely make it, more than that and they won’t be sweating on selection day. 

TOMMY KANIHA