Unverified Voracity Got Upholstered

Martelli on the Purdue game. The real one:

"We've done a much better job of tracing the ball and not leaving the big guy on an island," Martelli said. "When we put clips together for this game from the last game (against Purdue), we were like, 'Wow. How did we get to where we are?'" …

"We could have stayed out there another 20 minutes, they just were not going to score enough," Martelli said after Purdue.

Still kind of felt like the big was on an island for much of that game, but the results were excellent.

Shot volume. This John Gasaway piece on shot volume is a little old but feels even more relevant after Michigan scraped out a win against Purdue in which they turned the ball over just three times. Michigan is amongst the national leaders in getting shots up:

Gluttonous               TO%     OR%     SVI
1.  LSU                 16.5    36.2    100.5
2.  Auburn              16.7    35.3     99.8
3.  Illinois            16.3    33.3     99.3
4.  Michigan            14.0    27.0     99.0
5.  Purdue              16.3    32.4     98.9
6.  Arizona             16.0    31.2     98.7
7.  Minnesota           15.7    30.4     98.7
8.  St. John's          14.0    25.8     98.5
9.  Baylor              18.4    36.5     98.3
10. Rutgers             16.2    30.9     98.3

Michigan may have inched up past Illinois after the Purdue game knocked their conference TO rate down to 13.6. (If it sticks there this will be uncanny consistency in the Age of X. Last year Michigan's conference TO rate was 13.5; the year before it was 13.6.)

[After THE JUMP: Kenpom is yelled at for stuff he didn't do]

Incremental improvements. Poking around Kenpom to get those TO rates induced me to compare this year's offensive metrics in conference to last year's. Notable improvements have been bolded:

Michigan lost three guys to the NBA draft and added just Franz Wagner to the rotation. In almost all ways Michigan is running even with or in front of Beilein's final offense. The offensive rebounding has ticked up; so has the free throw rate. Michigan's hitting more twos, getting their shots blocked less, and is matching Beilein's astounding turnover avoidance while pushing more of those turnovers into deadball situations. They're assisting on more baskets. The only place they've slid back is in converting threes, and if I had to guess I'd say Michigan's shot quality on those has held steady or improved.

All of this is in a tougher conference than last year's Big Ten; 50% of it is without Isaiah Livers.

It remains to be seen how much of this is having a senior point guard with the #3 assist rate in the country and how much is Juwan Howard being good at coaching. It's some of both, obviously. The X factor complicates things but even so this is super encouraging. Wile E Coyote years are usually slight to moderate downgrades from the previous unit. Michigan's actually ticked up this year despite some harsh injury luck on a thin roster.

This is peak performance. Michigan State squeaked out a home win over Iowa last night. MSU's gameplan appeared to be hammering Luka Garza until he couldn't walk, and it more or less worked—Garza didn't even jump on several FGAs down the stretch he was so gassed. The officials had the temerity to call some of these fouls, leading to the usual Izzo stuff. I have no idea why officials invite this behavior:

pic.twitter.com/VwvSZAS29J

— Heavens! (@HeavensFX) February 26, 2020

Dan Dakich's report from courtside seven minutes in was illuminating:

Listen to what @dandakich just said during the game pic.twitter.com/YsNBIFSGsO

— Wolverine Corner (@WolverineCorner) February 26, 2020

Izzo then complained that the officials were calling "touch fouls" after 20 minutes of football. How this guy doesn't get kicked out of games I will never understand. Also why does he look like the couch in your grandpa's basement?

You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole. It's The Year Of ACC Coach Ranting At The Wrong People. First Kryserksivkezefski screamed at a bunch of people being nice to Jeff Capel. Now Jim Boeheim brings the hammer down on Kenpom for stats he doesn't publish: 

"I love this ... I don't know where this guy ... he's making a lot of money -- KenPom -- but when you start putting in print they scored 25% against the zone against Buddy [Boeheim] and 25% against this guy, I'm telling you right now: No one in this room, nobody that's doing KenPom knows who's at fault when somebody scores on us," Boeheim said. "No one knows. Not one person."

These stats are from Synergy and were cited in a throwaway links post by Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician. Boeheim is 100% right that Synergy's individual defense numbers are suspect. They're suspect for man to man, and they're even more suspect for Syracuse's zone. Synergy can tell you some good and interesting things about team defense; we put little weight on most of their individual numbers. (Things like post defense may be independent enough from the other players on the court to lend some credence to.)

So Boeheim's right. Why you'd rant in a press conference about some misapplied numbers (that he didn't even bother to understand) is unknown. Maybe Syracuse would be better than 59th in Kenpom if Boeheim didn't spend so much time on the internet.

One time transfer. The ACC has joined the Big Ten in supporting one-time transfer waivers for all sports. Tom VanHaaren has a piece up on the details of the proposal and reactions from a wide swath of affected coaches, administrators, and players. This from OU's AD is probably what happened to Harbaugh last year during the transfer controversy window:

Joe Castiglione, Oklahoma athletic director

"I've had people from other universities -- I won't tell you which ones -- we've had a student-athlete leave to go to that university, which was fine, they left in good standing academically. They wanted to have a chance to play more than perhaps they were getting here, we get that. They transferred to another school but they had to sit out. ... People are calling, saying, 'Well, could you write a letter to say that that student-athlete was prevented from something and that's why they felt they had to leave?' I was speechless. Basically asking for us to lie about the reason they left because it would help in their case to become immediately eligible. I know for a fact it's happened in many cases.

"That one absolutely made me angry. I was just taken aback that somebody would actually ask us to do that."

I am pretty ambivalent about one-time transfers. I get what it looks like from a player standpoint when coaches can leave at the drop of a hat with 5.4 million dollars in it, but I also think it would suck if anyone who had a good season in a mid-major league got poached.

*Points at career record.* James Franklin has a new contract at Penn State. James Franklin has three eleven win seasons in the past four years. James Franklin's pay raise now means he makes exactly the same amount of money as…

Correction: Here at the terms of James Franklin’s new deal at #PSU. pic.twitter.com/VHc6TUi2jT

— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) February 26, 2020

…Mel Tucker. So there's a winner from this whole debacle: Big Ten agents. That conversation was probably a few texts.

FRANKLIN: buh?
AGENT: bro!
AD: bah

/Franklin holds contract aloft, you got the thing plays

Local man invisible to athletic directors wearing green. Meanwhile, Chris Creighton soldiers on at EMU:

Calling Mel Tucker with ever higher figures until his eyes bugged out of his head and then hiring random redditors to fill out the coaching staff…

.@Coach_mtucker has announced William Peagler as the program’s new running backs coach! Welcome to East Lansing @PeaglerWilliam! pic.twitter.com/XFODUsLetP

— Michigan State Football (@MSU_Football) February 25, 2020

…is certainly another option.

Another 2021 NHL draft intro. Michigan has commits from five guys on Scott Wheeler's early list of top 2021 NHL draft prospects at The Athletic. Dylan Duke and Mackie Samoskevich land in a list of HMs that would be late first or early second round picks if Wheeler's right. Luke Hughes, Owen Power, and Kent Johnson are all in a tier of potential top five picks just behind Aatu Raty, the current favorite to go first overall. On Power:

Owen Power, LHD, Chicago Steel, 6-foot-5

There aren’t a lot of 17-year-old 6-foot-5 defenders in recent memory — or ever — who’ve shown Powers’ consistent ability to make plays. He’s got the qualities you’d expect out of a player his size who is in the top-five debate in any draft class: he uses his length well to force players wide off the rush and cover a lot of ice in the defensive zone, plus he’s got a heavy shot. But he’s also got skills that aren’t typical for a player his size; he rarely mishandles the puck (at least relative to his length), he uses his stick more than his physicality to win battles and come out with possession to make a play and he’s mobile for a player who is still growing and already weighs over 200 pounds. How dynamic can he be? Will he be a true PP1 guy at the NHL level? Those are tougher questions to answer but we have a full year ahead to figure it out!

ND (Sasha Pastujov) and Minnesota (Chaz Lucius) also have potential top ten picks in 2021.

In the even more distant future, Seamus Casey(#4), Frank Nazar(#12), and Hunter Brzustewicz(#15) feature in Prospect Pipeline's OHL draft rankings. Adam Fantilli, the brother of recent D commit Luca, is #1. 

Etc.: City is planning a sidewalk outside of AAGO near the Big House. CHN profiles Nick Granowicz. Brandon Johns now has a CPAP machine, so he can sleep. Strauss Man's diet is hard to follow. Jay Smith, director of player personnel, has a long relationship with Juwan. James Wiseman on his brief time at Memphis. Franz comin'.