Things That Happened Against Virginia

You're dead on with this one:

...Christian, McLimans, Douglass, and Akunne were out there.

Christian was terrible.  Terrible.  And turrible.  McLimans is always a guaranteed minus player.  Akunne?  Why, is Brundidge off the team?  In general, I've found Christian to be a suitable off-the-bench hard working player, but he had a 1-2 minute stretch last night that doomed us.

But based on the box score, the enitre difference was rebounding and UVA's ability to get to the free throw line. Accurate?

If so, those have been the aspects that Beilein teams always struggle with the most. Teams like Wisky and UVA take advantage of this. Not sure how much can really be done about it except continuing to increase the team's talent so that it is more adaptable. 

1. i think the team might not have been at full energy b/c the trip to and from maui takes more out of you than you think, even a few days later.

2. benching hardaway for 15 minutes in the first half infuriated me.  all minutes are created equal.  this guaranteed he'd sit instead of risking it and finding out.  as you note, most coaches do this.  i think there has to be someone out there who has done this analysis a la romer and fourth downs and i'd love to see it.  anyone come across something like that?

Smot looks absolutely sleepy/fuzzy out there, so do Stu and Vogrich for that matter. I see a trend...

I'm going to wait for the Memphis - Michigan UFR Ace promised us all before I determine what the problems are with Michigan at this point.

To Ace: you might now recognize the biggest problem with doing college basketball UFRs. They are only worth reading if we can see them before the next game.

Tired legs plus a Bennet team that makes you defend for 33 seconds, pressures the ball and bumps cutters all over the front court is a bad combo. We played exactly like an NBA on the second night of a back-to-back. (And god, there are going to be some lazy defensive games in the NBA this year given all the back-to-backs they have to schedule). 

It caught up to us in that run just after Smot went out (on a classic tired legs foul). We just ran out of energy to rebound and close out their shooters.

Brian, did you write this before your coffee this morning?  

Seems like a lot of venom for a game in which we lost on the road to a decent opponent who is boring but  very well coached.

I had a different take from the game.

Novak- If he can continue to make the pull up J and take it to the rack a little, Michigan is in grat shape.  I really like what he has done the last 4 games.

Smotrycz- Loving it.  Looks good taking it to the rack and is rebounding much better.  He'll be fine.

Hardaway-Completley agree with not benching guys with fouls.  Other than that he was great in Maui and played poorly yesterday.  It happens.

Stu- Is Stu

Burke-He has shown great flashes,  but he is a freshmen trying to learn a complex system, play 35 minutes a game and find that delicate balance between running the offense and being the "here's the ball 10 seconds on the shot clock go"  guy.   Give the kid some time.

Vogrich- Make Shots!!!!   I've never had more confidence in a stroke since Glen Rice.   He needs to make them to stay on the floor.

Horford/Morgan-  Only part of the team I'm a little worried about going forward.  I knew Morgan's points were a product of Morris last year, but he needs to be more assertive in the paint and on the glass.  Horford still looks uncomfortable out there.  May take a little bit more time for him.

All in all I've seen enough improvement from Novak, Smot and the potential from Burke that we will have a good year.

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How about we settle down and see how the team does for a few more games before going ballistic?  I mean, do we expect that a team just back from Maui on the road for the first time against an ACC reasonably good team with a true freshmen point guard that finished 21-14 to suddenly go 29-6 or something? 

This team needs to develop and learn how to play together without Morris, and we can expect some growing pains like this loss along the way.

First off, there is no doubt in my mind that having one of your key players in the last five minutes of the game is more valuable than having him for five minutes in the first half. Second, Hardaway still got 25 minutes and we did fine without him. So Hardway sitting had pretty much nothing to do with us losing. His poor performance probably did.

All that said, I think you base your decision on sitting a player with two fouls based on how frequently they foul. If Morgan or Smot picks up two in the first half, sit them. If Burke or Hardaway picks up two, I'd probably let them go until they pick up three.

He strikes me as a very good player with serious mental issues on the court. He was quiet all game until his monster dunk. For the next few possessions he had rebounds, created at least one turnover and looked energetic on the offensive side too. Then, he fouled or turned the ball over (I don't remember), and he was MIA for the rest of the game. He needs to realize he is a very athletic big man who is also going to make some mistakes. He needs to let those mistkakes go and keep playing with the same intensity regardless of what has already happened.

I read a book by Mike Kryzyzewski (Leading w/ the Heart I think) where he goes into detail about what to do with players w/ two fouls in the first half. He says that yes, most coaches do it but that it's stupid to automatically bench a player as a result. His philosophy is (if I remember correctly) to actually coach the situation and make a decision based on who the player is, opponent, circumstances of the game, etc. He went on to say that defaulting to automatically benching someone w/ two fouls is lazy, and if he knows another coach does it, he will gameplan the first few minutes to see if he can get certain players out of the game.

But all the optimism I gained from the Maui games got squashed yesterday.  Virginia made us look unathletic and they really took advantage of our lack of size.  Given how well we rebounded in Maui, it was tough to watch us get killed on the glass like that.

On the other hand, the three big men we play are all sophomores, and there's help in the pipeline.  Hopefully in future years we'll have enough bigs to be able to always put two solid-to-better ones out there.

a disheartening loss, especially to a virginia team that may or may not be good (they lost to TCU afterall). 

so far this team has been wildly bi-polar: uninspiring in their first few OOC games, beat up memphis and ucla, fought hard with duke, then came out flat against UVA.  what do we have here? i dont know but im chalking this one up to post-maui hangover...i still think expectations are high for the team.  lets not jump off the cliff yet.

But it happens.  I was disappointed but not as up in arms about this game.  The boys played their skulls out in Maui and probably were a little tired.  Virginia played tough d and had a talented big man.  We shot pretty well, made some poor decisions but caught a bad streak.  All in all, we didn't play our best, but didn't play bad either.  I am not happy about this loss but ok with it.  

With you about Hardaway, wish he played more in the first half.  Seemed not able to get in a groove after the extended sit.  Maybe I am more zen than I should be, but I am still very excited about this team's prospects.  

Still too early to go to the rageahol against this team. It was a disappointing loss, but sometimes that's the nature of college basketball. Even last year's team had a bad loss against UTEP and started the Big Ten season 1-6, yet they managed an 8-seed in the NCAA tournament. Have a little more faith.

...this is far, far less of a "jump off the bridge" game than Brian thinks...we lost, on the road, to a good team that plays really good defense, shortly after a 3-games-in-3-nights trip to MAUI. It happens.

Put another way, why am I talking people off the ledge when etc. etc. I keed.

Road game, foul trouble

Underrated opponent

MUST OVERREACT

After Brian mentioned this...?

"Stuff" happens over the course of a season.  Nobody plays their best game every time out.  The team will improve, and there will be better days.  Even Duke loses big once in awhile. Michigan's job right now is to get the team for the B1G season without sustaining too many losses while doing it.  If they can do that, everything else will fall into place.

...Stu to be able to penetrate when he is the PG, and we have to avoid Novak guarding post-up players.  Burke went to the bench for a rest with 12 minutes left of a 41-41 tie.  When he came back with 9 minutes left, it was 50-41.  In other words, when Burke was in the game, we were dead-even.  When he wasn't, we got schooled.  We had no one to break down the in-your-shorts-all-the-way-to-halfcourt defense to combat the easy throw-ins to Scott down low against Novak, causing collapsing help and open looks from three.

The maddening part of it all? If this were a home game instead of road, M probably wins in similar fashion. Virginia was far from impressive in the first half, and could have been down 10 or more, with any execution at all on M's part,

I think this is an enormous overreaction. Michigan is probably a tad better than UVA on neutral court, so it was always going to be and uphill battle.  They waer probably still jet lagged after Maui and I would bet the lineup you mentioned is a result of that. Now if we lose to ISU on Saturday, I can understand the panic, but ultimately this might be the difference between being a 6 seed or a 7 seed. 

I realize there is a bias in what I'm about to say, but I think the simple fact of that game is that the evidence is mounting that UVA has one of the best defenses in the country, period. Combine that with tired Maui legs and it's basically a game that can be considered an outlier. I think part of the evidence for this is that a lot of what is said in this column would be no news at all to a Virginia fan - that is, it wasn't just a one-game artifact of luck. For example:

Michigan ran a zillion ball screens on which Virginia showed harrrrrrd,

This is not a result of scouting Michigan and finding tendencies that can be exploited; rather, it's, like, an ability to be gained upon leveling up in the pack-line defense.  Grow up your characters in Final Fantasy and you can use new weapons; get a few years under you in the pack-line and you can contest these high ball screens.  UVA has been doing this all year; it's something coaches can plan for given an offseason to care about it, but not a post-Maui week to scout.

In this game Burke had a tough time with Virginia's similarly lightning-quick PG

Much like Burke has already opened eyes with some veteran savvy, Jontel Evans has been a sparkling, top-notch on-ball defender since his freshman year.  Consider it a weapon UVA has rather than a deficiency on Burke.

and the offense was reduced to chucking it around the perimeter a la Amaker.

Precisely what the pack-line tries to make you do, and since UVA is really the only team in the country that runs this defense so well (if not the only one to run it period) it again is more of a weapon that UVA has than a bad sign for Michigan.

is Joe Harris really going to draw a ton of fouls on Hardaway?

He might, actually; Harris's whiteness is deceptive.  He's strong and has a good handle.

Ultimately I wouldn't draw any long-term conclusions from this, other than a possibility Michigan may struggle against zones and that Jared Sullinger will score 20 on us even if you amputate his leg.