1/19/2021 – Michigan 87, Maryland 63 – 12-1, 7-1 Big Ten 

All right: this one doesn't have a game column, not really. Previous seasons have had actual columns alternating with "this was a basketball game and let's talk about it" posts, because not every basketball game has enough straw to weave an 800-word emotional summary. This year a lack of true cupcakes—plus Oakland's performance in Michigan's only true cupcake game—and a surfeit of storylines have provided plenty of column content.

A 24-point win over Maryland in which Michigan answered the question "what if the previous Maryland game except you reverse the three point shooting?" is the column streak's Waterloo. Hunter Dickinson didn't play in the final 13:11, not because he was playing badly but because Juwan Howard wanted to try some things out. Michigan was plainly superior, just like everyone expected. Big narratives had a nice run.

So let's discuss a basketball game that happened. Maryland, as predicted by anyone with a passing familiarity with either large persons or basketball, doubled the heck out of Hunter Dickinson. This worked if your criteria was "prevent Hunter Dickinson from scoring." It did not work if your criteria was "prevent Michigan from scoring." Dickinson had a 6'8" guy on him and a 6'5" coming to double instead of Minnesota's much longer guys, so he was able to fire out passes to the perimeter without getting them batted and turning the ball over.

What resulted was a Beilein-worthy rain of threes. If the image at the top of the post is "how it started" here's "how it's going":

good [Campredon]

Michigan's regulars hit 12/21 on shots that mostly ranged from uncontested to all but uncontested. Livers and Brown hit a couple over reasonable opposition. Everything else was wide open. Because of the way things work, Dickinson got credited with one assist while his gravity got Michigan a ton of the second-best shots in basketball.

I mean, look at this.

Maryland has two guys on Dickinson and the three other defenders have both feet in the lane. Rarely has the term "gravity" seemed more like a literal force sucking players towards a particular player. Dribble, kick to Mike Smith, thonk, game over, 37 more minutes of basketball.

Maryland blitzes the pick and roll, Maryland tags Dickinson by sagging off Isaiah Livers:

Michigan hit a few more of these than you'd expect but not that many more since 15 of their attempts came from Mike Smith (46% on the season), Isaiah Livers (44%) and Chaundee Brown (39%) and virtually all of them were comfortable standstill catch-and-shoot opportunities. Maryland picked its poison, and then fell over dead.

[After THE JUMP: enraged on Luke Wilson's behalf]

BULLETS

Speaking of hockey assists. How about this Wagner drive and wrap-around to set up a wide open Livers three?

His assists to TOs in Big Ten play: 24:6.

I'm not going to fret about the two point shooting. Maryland hit 53% from two. That's the second consecutive game where the opposition has cracked 50%. Minnesota was slightly concerning; this was just circumstance. Maryland was 7/17 from two in the first half; many of their possessions were desperate attempts to find anything resembling a shot. The Terps had 25 points at halftime and the defense felt exactly that suffocating.

The second half regression is a combination of Kenpom time sapping the will to compete and a heavily rotated lineup featuring just 7 minutes of Dickinson and a lot of Austin Davis trying to check smallball or stretch 5s (which he also did in the first half in a weird guys lineup). Davis's on/off splits from this game are wild:

Both teams shot 80%+ from two while he's on the floor. That'll happen when Davis gets matched up against Donta Scott.

[Campredon]

Johns pops back up. It seems like every third game one of the takeaways is "if Brandon Johns can just do that consistently, look out." When he does a thing it's like wow, man, that's a thing. His skyhook was a thing:

The rest of his points were mostly being in the right place at the right time but he also hit a 3 that Wagner set up for him. He's 5/8 this year and was a 35% guy last year. His block rate has shot up this year as well.

 

The other big shooting 70% from the floor [Campredon]

Meanwhile, Johns vs Davis. I thought Michigan's insistence on using Davis in situations where he was a much worse defensive fit than Johns was a little weird. If Maryland's using a small-ball 5 Johns is a much better choice, and I'd prefer Johns against a guy like Jarius Hamilton as well. Davis is a good option in certain matchups—looking down the road he'd be reasonable against either Purdue big, Bezhanishvili, MSU's bigs, OSU bigs—but it feels like Howard is trying to force him into a different shape against some teams. See the above Hoop Lens chart.

So far there's not much to bring this out of the realms of feelingsball. I poked around Hoop Lens trying to see if there was a defensive gap between Johns and Davis but none pops out. Davis does drive a lot more offense than Johns and makes those weird guys lineups more viable on that end.

Meep meep. Mike Smith has this thing where if he sees a defense that's getting back a little lackadaisically he turns on the jets:

That was his only two-point make of the game; he had a couple of other takes to the basket that ended with wild shots and awkward landings. The adjustment to Big Ten play is a long-term process.

Smith can get caught in some ugly situations [Campredon]

Smith is now shooting 62%(!) from 3 in Big Ten play, BTW. Sample size is just 21 but I think our preseason hypothesis that Smith was a top-end shooter obscured by circumstance is looking good.

Franz has got to take a probability class. There was a replay of this Morsell bucket on which Wagner looked upset that Morsell hit this:

You can see it a bit in the sideline view too. That's great defense! And you're up 17-7 even after he hits it! I feel like Wagner is prone to getting frustrated with himself and then withdrawing from the offense a bit. Feels like he's too hard on himself sometimes. This was an example.

On the other hand he hit two tough fadeaways off of his nascent post-up game, so maybe that didn't matter at all.

Morsell loses it. Another Franz incident of note: Daryll Morsell furiously barking at an official that Wagner had hit him in the face, inducing the odd technical situation where Morsell gets a tech, Turgeon gets a tech, someone on the Michigan bench gets a tech, and free throws are 2-2.

Just like the previous incident, replays of the event don't really show anything:

Morsell had jumped up and down hitting his own arm after getting blocked by Livers earlier in the game and was likely to end up in the penalty box on any further ref questioning. I wonder what happened on the Michigan end to even up the FTs.

Zeb watch. Another eight minutes for Jackson in this game even with Brooks available, and a few of those were in the first half. He managed a nice pick and roll assist to Davis:

He also missed another couple of three-point attempts. He's now 0/9 on the season. He seems like he's got the green light so maybe he's making them at a decent clip in practice?

Pandemic silver lining. Without an empty arena we would not have been able to hear Michigan's bench react to Luke Wilson picking up a questionable foul. The disgusted "ooooooohhhhhhh" is the funniest moment of the year.

Excited to see a headband guy get into the Kenpom Kids.