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THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

Montana was a friendly kind of 15 seed that had little chance as soon as the teams stepped on the court, and Michigan ran out to an easy victory that was largely lacking in last year's tourney run. Next up: conference foe Florida.

THE LINEUP CARD

Click for big.

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country. Minutes are from the last five games except where starred.

Pos.	#	Name	Yr.	Ht./Wt.	%Min	%Poss	ORtg	SIBMIHHAT
G	2	Andrew Nembhard	Fr.	6'5, 191	95	17	107	Meh
Composite #23 FR has top 50 assist rate but 22 TO rate; iffy shooter (47/34).
G	5	KeVaughn Allen	Sr.	6'2, 193	78	22	103	Kinda
Not Just A Shooter hitting 38% on other twos and 36% on threes. 18 TO rate.
F	3	Jalen Hudson	Sr.	6'6, 195	80	24	99	Yes
Highest usage guy only moved into starting lineup for good in March. 44/28 from floor with 147 threes! Only offensive asset is low TO rate.
F	11	Keyontae Johnson	Fr.	6'5 225	74	21	107	Meh
Slasher creates most of his own twos and crashes the boards impressively for 6'5" guy. 52/36 from floor.
C	13	Kevarrius Hayes	Sr.	6'9, 227	71	18	120	Yes
Burly guy is dunk-on-assists post with top 50 OREB rate, top 30 block rate, giant FT rate.
G	10	Noah Locke	Fr.	6'3, 205	45	17	115	No
Extreme Just A Shooter with 13 shots at rim vs 201 threes. 39% from deep.
C	21	Dontay Bassett	So.	6'9, 237	28	16	103	Yes
Generic Backup C.
G	0	Mike Okauru	So.	6'3, 184	18	14	94	Yes
Shooting 52/25 on with a total of 45 attempts.
C	15	Isaiah Stokes	Fr.	6'8, 270	10	26	87	Yes
Beef machine FR has 26% usage and a 26 TO rate.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

THE THEM

Hello, Florida, our eternal postseason foe. This time around both teams probably care, which is unusual. Florida was the picture of major conference mediocrity this year, going 9-9 in the SEC and beating no NCAA teams in the nonconference portion of the schedule. Two wins over LSU are Florida's best results of the year. But despite a 20-15 record, #25 Florida is a strong ten-seed. As per usual this is because they've lost a lot of close games. The Gators are 318th in Kenpom's luck metric.

This game is going to feel familiar after Michigan trundled through this year's Big Ten: Florida is a slow, defensively-oriented team with an iffy offense. The way Florida gets to its #14 D is very Illinois, if the Illini had an elite defensive C instead of Georgi. They force a ton of turnovers, foul a bit too much, try to block everything, and horrible on their own defensive boards. But that's another section. Keep it in mind as we run down a bunch of offensive stats that aren't particularly threatening.

a lot of this [Barron]

The Gators are an exceptionally balanced team with no major contributor under 17 usage. The only guy who pokes his head significantly above 20% in usage is senior wing Jalen Hudson. Hudson's season has been exceptionally weird. Think sophomore Tim Hardaway. Hudson, a 40% three point shooter on 193 attempts as a junior, is at 28% on the season. And things were much worse until mid-February. Hudson hitting 38% over his last ten. Before that he was barely over 20%.

Hudson began the year as a starter, got yanked, briefly re-emerged midseason, and was suddenly the primary tentpole starting with a game against Vandy on the 27th. Since then he's been a high usage, up-and-down efficiency workhorse. A scouting report from Peach Tree Hoops when he put his name in the draft last year:

Hudson is at his best working off the ball (off of screens or spacing as a shooter on the weak side of the offensive formation) or attacking his defender with dribble penetration. He had more turnovers than assists in each of his three NCAA seasons. As such, it seems he is unlikely to develop into being an efficient and effective secondary creator.

He’s not dynamic in the pick and roll. And, on the occasions when a play developed into him getting a screen from a big man, he preferred to use it as an opportunity to simply get separation from his defender and prepare to attack as a shooter or with the dribble.

Hudson is, however, quick and athletic and his most elite skill is being able to get separation from his defender. He is also effective in transition where he can use his speed to get easy shots at the rim.

He'll draw Matthews and profiles as a guy who will either get wrecked or hit a bunch of tough shots.

[Barron]

Freshman Andrew Nembhard is the point guard and has a very "promising freshman PG" profile: he's barely outside the top 50 in assist rate but has a 22 TO rate and has been iffy from the floor. He gets to the rim a fair bit but only shoots 51% once there; he's been really bad in the midrange, and he's 33% from three. He's 6'5", which means he might be able to shoot over X but probably isn't going to be beating him to the spot if he tries to drive.

Backcourt-mate KeVaughn Allen is a iso chucker. He barely gets to the rim and hits barely 50% there. He's 38% on other twos and 32% from three, where most of his shots come from. Almost all of his twos are unassisted and dang near half his threes. Iso. Chucker.

Power forward-ish freshman Keyontae Johnson is only 6'5" but he's a load at 225 and has been a killer on the boards, with a 10 OREB rate and a 22 DREB rate. He's a grinder who will attempt to drive to the rim on almost every shot he creates himself. He's only a decent finisher at the rim and if you can push his usage to other twos he's grim.

Center Kevarrius Hayes is an efficient scorer who's shooting 63% from the floor in Florida's 17 tier A games. He's top 50 in OREB rate and his 9.5 block rate is 29th; he also chips in a lot of steals for a big and gets to the line a lot, where he shoots 67%.

All that is great. Hayes's deficiencies are two-fold: a 21 TO rate and his reliance on his teammates to get him shots. He's a solid finisher at the rim but he's not going to post up anyone, let alone Teske, unless he gets a post feed that allows him to score without a dribble. He has ~10 makes on the season that aren't assisted or putbacks.

Hayes is switchable, and Nembhard is 6'5" so he's less of a pushover on the block than a lot of PGs. This is going to be a problem.

After Florida rejiggered their lineup to feature Hudson they minimized most of their bench players except freshman SG Noah Locke. Michigan pursued Locke heavily because he was reputed to be the best shooter in the country, and early returns are good in that department. Locke's one of the most extreme Just A Shooters in the country, with a Teske-level TO rate (5), the same assist rate, and 13 attempts at the rim on the season. With a 37/38 split it's imperative to force him inside the line.

Two posts will soak up minutes when Hayes is tired or in foul trouble. Dontay Bassett and Isaiah Stokes are generic backup C types with limited attempts. Stokes is a big round dude who probably isn't mobile enough to dissuade threes from Michigan's C.

Sophomore Mike Okauru has been getting a few minutes a game; O/U on his shots is set at 1.5.

THE TEMPO-FREE

The Florida offense has been pretty grim:

• They shoot a lot of threes but are 225th at making them.
• They're hardly better inside the line.
• They don't get to the FT line much.
• They're all right at offensive rebounds and preventing turnovers but not great.

In conference play these trends were exacerbated. This offense devolves into iso ball and tough contested shots a lot.

On defense, yeehaw:

• Florida forces a ton of TOs (16th) and is very good at making those steals (31st); they have a top 100 block rate.
• The downsides of this aggression are a horrible DREB rate (313th) and too many FTAs allowed (212th).
• Notably they don't really prevent threes but those threes don't go down much. Despite Florida's defensive tempo forcing opponents into late clock shots opponents are actually best from 3 (36%) in the last 5 seconds of the clock. Go figure. That's probably just random.

If Florida's DREB deficiencies are from trying to block everything Teske might have some putback opportunities. Matthews should also be active on the boards, as he was against Montana.

THE KEYS

The switching again. Florida's fine with it. They're built for it, really. It's been Michigan kryptonite all year and will probably remain so. Michigan did flash the ability to exploit it against Minnesota just before MSU gave them the business, so it's possible that Florida's ability to dissuade the dump down may be significantly worse than MSU was.

Tournament Matthews: hello. Matthews can get a lot of work done on the boards against a team that's allergic to box-outs. And once he gets to the rim things seem to go better from the midrange.

X evisceration. Florida relies on a freshman point guard who melted when Nevada pressed in the second half of their opener. Nembhard has a big assist rate… and a big TO rate. If X can shut off his driving there's going to be a lot of inefficient iso chucking from Florida.

Second chance and transition. In a game that projects to be a grind for both teams in the halfcourt, any points on putbacks or run-outs are precious. Florida isn't super fast but the eFG drop from 56 to 48 from transition to halfcourt is significant. On D: 55 vs 47.

Michigan has no defensive transition gap. With UF's late clock efficiency (41% eFG) very bad and Michigan's late clock D (37%) lethal, keeping them in the half court firing up contested iso shots, this is a thing that points to Michigan. But it's going to be hairy.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 7.