Basketball Snowflakes

Not that I believe in jinxes or anything, but I don't EVER want to hear Sam Webb talk anymore SHIT!

He's been talking shit about the Illini and MSU all week.

Well...don't look now - but, that nightmare scenario is setting up!!!!

I blame the dipshit who started the post “is this the greatest team ever?”.

We can't stand prosperity.

Seriously though, we are a really good basketball team that had a really off night.  It happened against a much lesser opponent in Minnesota a while back.  It is bound to happen a few times even to really good teams during the B1G grind.  Lots of teaching moments.  This is when you get better.  I read a comment that this is why Gonzaga never plays into April.  So true.

This performance/outcome will be the best thing to happen to this team when we look back at the season when March Madness is over.

Wagner is plenty athletic.  He's going to be a first round pick.  Brooks and Smith have always been the weakest links.  Smith can get turn-over prone and is too small to consistently score on his own, though he is a good shooter.  Brooks is a good defender, but people have overrated his on-ball defense.  He's an average shooter and can't create his own offense he can't finish at the rim consistently. 

I mentioned this in the game thread (by the way, can we just ban "The Cube"?), but Michigan's guards can't finish at the basket.  In fact, Michigan hasn't had guards that can finish at the rim in what feels like forever.  Much like the Iggy year, our best attacker (Wagner) is playing forward.  Zeb Jackson seems much more athletic than Brooks or Smith, but I have no idea if he's a finisher or not-- it takes more than just being able to jump.  

I think Michigan's struggles in offense in part came from being totally unable to punish Kofi for dropping way into the lane on the pick and roll.  It seemed like every 5 screen featured him dropping into the lane and Michigan's ball-handlers didn't know what to do, often driving and throwing up dog shit.  To be honest, since the guards can't finish, I'd rather have them drive into contact and try to force some whistles and likely get blocked than what they were doing.   But they need to figure out something to punish this, even if that's having the ball-handler take a mid-range jumper.   I also think they need to be willing to make Wagner the first option instead of Davis when Dickinson sits.  Davis played hard but he's not a feature offensive player.   This is far easier said than done, since the primary offense is post-first so you are getting away from what players are used to when you change that, but the drop-off from Dickinson to Davis is just too big to keep feeding the post. 

 

Snowflakes? I'd call this basketball ashes. Or cinders. Not snowflakes.

Someone correct me but even if we loose the next game we should still be able to win the B1G championship no?

On March 11th in 1989, Michigan lost by 16 to Illinois in on its home floor, the last regular season game of the year (they also round house kicked Iowa 2 games prior...weird).

Less than a month later, the team brought home a national title. Lets keep some perspective here

Seemed like a bad scout/plan.   The offense was over focused on going inside.  And defensively the switches were bad.   Was that due to insisting on not helping inside and not wanting a bad match up?  I don’t know.   But not helping on Cockburn is crazy.   He literally doesn’t pass.   There is no need to not help.  
 

they seemed obsessed with him and it took the team out of rhythm.   
 

moving on.  

Poor game, for whatever reason. The biggest concerns are Livers' health and whether or not the schedule has taken its toll. The team looked tired.

Just beat State once and all is well.

This is probably the worst matchup for Michigan out of any team in the country. Cockburn is the only guy big enough to defend Dickinson without a double team, which completely stonewalled our offense

Well that went well.

Thoughts: 

- This is the only team in the country that has a player who outweighs Dickinson by 30 lbs and has the mobility to stay with him.  They cut off Medusa's head early by being able to man up Hunter.

- Usually, Michigan's offense is able to grow another head.  Against Kofi, this would mean pulling him out and making him defend Mike Smith in PnR.  However, Illinois was ready for this and went under the screens.  Smith HAS to be willing to pull.  He's shooting 47% from 3 on the year but only takes 2.4 per game.  He wasn't uber-efficient at Columbia but still hit 33% on a diet of much more difficult contested pull-ups.  Has to pull if they're going to go under and be able to stick with Hunter in the post.

- OK, fine, but Michigan has wings!  You can screen the help defender to free Hunter and force a hard tag, popping Franz open and with a lane to attack.  Well, Illinois did their homework there too.  Franz can shoot, but he wants to drive on that go-and-catch play.  So instead of flying out on close outs like other teams have, Illinois closed out under control, daring him to shoot.  He didn't and Illinois was able to funnel him to help or out of bounds.  Not only were these difficult finishes, but because of the areas where he was in the court he was unable to make passes from these positions.  So when Franz is popping up as his man tags, he MUST be willing to shoot.  He can and will, but I think he has been biased to driving because against most teams he can get to the paint whenever he wants off that action.  Against good defenses, he needs to be ready to shoot to keep them honest, even if it costs him half a step in the go-and-catch.

If you're sensing a theme, it's that Michigan needs to be more willing to shoot from outside against late but solid closeouts or on pull-ups.  Pull-up jumpers are very difficult, and Michigan rarely takes them (besides Livers) because they can get the ball inside (leading to a layup or a kickout for a much more efficient catch-and-shoot) any time they want.  But as every good NBA team knows, when defense can stop that, pull-up shooting is necessary to open them up.  

If it sounds familiar, this is pretty much exactly what we did to Iowa.  Man up at the rim and neutralize the threat, close out on shooters and force them to beat you one on one.

Against most teams, I'd prefer Michigan keeps pushing the ball inside, dumping it it to Dickinson. Why take pull-up jumpers when you can live in the paint and force defenses to double, or attack the rim with drives and kick out to shooters? But against these elite defenses, Mike Smith in particular will have to be more of a scorer.  He has to pull up and if they switch, he has to attack the big.  There was one discouraging possession in the game where Smith had Kofi switched out on him at the 3-point line, but he threw a cross-court pass that Illinois easily rotated to.  Have to exploit mismatches against aggressive defenses.

Lastly: the game started to unravel when Dickinson and Smith were both on the bench at the end of the first half.  One of them needs to be in the game at all times in a game like this.  Eli can run point for stretches, but he is not really a creator.  He's much better playing off initial actions, and when he scores it's usually on straight-line drives or spotting up.  Likewise, Davis is a highly efficient post scorer, but he rarely passes out of there.  When you run the offense through Brooks and Davis, you can get stagnant as good teams wall off Brooks' penetration and live with Davis posting up.  

Pair Dickinson with Brooks, and Eli can play off of Dickinson's post gravity hitting spot ups, cutting for layups, and finding shooters from the paint against scrambling defenses.  Pair Davis with Smith, and he can eat at the rim as Smith draws doubles in pick and roll, or forces switches which Davis can exploit.  

But right now, no one can consistently create for themselves and others besides those two.  Franz is close, but while he should run more pick and roll he's not a guy you can rely on as a hub.  So one of Dickinson or Smith needs to be in the game at all times, and in Smith's case he needs to be willing to call his number more often.  

All that said, this still could have been a close game.  Curbelo caused problems but we've seen Michigan adjust to dyamic guards.  But on both ends, Michigan was a step slow and their wings were no-shows on the glass (even before Livers' injuries).  Juwan's offense is beautiful and Michigan's talent makes it work, but it also relies on precision and committing hard to your cuts, drives, and screens.  If Michigan is just going through the motions it loses a lot of its luster (like most offenses).  Same thing on defense.  Michigan is able to shut down teams by getting to spots and winning the game of inches in rotations or shows juuuust long enough for a teammate to recover, or to dissuade a drive, or to bait a pass.  Michigan has been remarkably metronomic this year in winning those inches, but tonight they were not.

B1G gauntlet. And 2 losses. Still impressive. The NCAA tournament will be less of a challenge than the B1G. This is a very good team and is truly running a gauntlet at this point. Lost to the #4 team after playing multiple top 5 opponents. Still proud of them. 

I look at it this way: Michigan had 4 50-50 coin tosses to win the conference. They’re down to 3. They’ve got two cracks at MSU and Illinois could shit their pants at OSU. Calm down. 

What the fuck? 

Felt like Illinois was clearly the most athletic team they've played all year, with speed and athleticism at every position 1-5 and that really seemed to stonewall our offense. No one could turn a corner or find separation.

Doesn't bode well if they run up against a Baylor or Illinois again, but the number of teams with that type of athlete at every position is something you can probably count on one hand so they should still have a great opportunity at a Final Four run.

I remember when a Texas Tech Red Raiders team  shut down a Beilein team in he tourney Illinois defense made our guys look like punks

Yeah this is why those “best team ever” and “pay Juwan now!” threads were dumb. Let’s see how Michigan closes the season and does in tournament. Izzo has Michigan right where he wants them. MSU could easily sweep this team. Too often Michigan shits the bed when it really counts. Let’s see if Juwan can get this team to refocus and sweep MSU. 

Yes, worst game of the year.  Brutal. We are 18 & 2, and 13 & 2 in conference. Win Thursday for Big 10 title.

You all would be smart to avoid the "sky is falling" narrative after one performance.  Frankly, I thought you would struggle more coming off of your layoff without practices and conditioning.  Instead the team played really well until last night.  You can write this off as kids that had their flow interrupted, played out of their minds for a couple of weeks, and finally had a let down.  The one game has no affect on what happens at both tournaments in Indy.

Yes, it looked really bad with the matchups but is our team really 20 point plus dogs to Illinois? If our guys were to play them in the B1G tourny, could we beat them or at least play in a very tight last possession game? I would think so.

As of today, three McDonalds All-American 5* players are coming our way for next season.