Report: Jett Will Play Tonight vs. Illinois
Barstool's Marty Mush is reporting that Jett Howard will play tonight. I have no idea how reliable his source is, but I want Jett to play, so I'll assume it's a great source.
Doesn't this guy do a podcast with Hunter? Could be a pretty good source lol
...or he's from Barstool which makes him a mushmouth.
Well, shit...there goes our offensive rhythm.
People keep saying this. Michigan has gotten wins but the play isn't some significantly higher level. The game against Wisconsin was not good basketball from Michigan. Wisconsin isn't good, we were at home and it took a miracle shot to get overtime after letting them shred us offensively to end the game. Our offensive performance against Rutgers wasn't good either. If we play like we did against Wisconsin we go 0-2 this week.
Jett makes the ceiling of the team higher and the team better. Its not even a question.
The offense may get better, but the already shaky defense will probably see a drop off as well.
Why? Because Joey Baker and Tschetter are playing sound defense? Wisconsin is an atrocious offensive basketball team that absolutely shredded us in the second half. Rutgers is also a very bad offensive team. Jett isn't a dramatic downgrade in defense and is an upgrade on offense
Yeah the narrative that the team is better without Jett is preposterous. If anything, the issue has always been a problem with rotations. Howard, alone is not the problem on defense, either. Wisconsin scotched us in the second half on Sunday.
I don't think Howard alone is the problem, but with his size and athleticism, he should be a major upgrade over Baker playing D, but he's not.
He’s also a true freshman. It would be weird if he was a great defender. I think this time without Howard was good for the rest of the players but we aren’t making the tourney without him.
I would bring him off the bench tonight, though. Frankly I don’t think a “second line” with Reed, Howard, and TWill is a terrible idea, actually.
Yes, he's a true freshman. Which is possibly why he's always out of position on defense. But he's also like a revolving door out there on drives. I think that's more of a lack of effort than being young. When he's on offensively I feel like he's definitely a net positive for the team, but if not, his lack of defense plus high FG usage is a net negative.
EDIT: The offense also bogs down with him in the game. Again, when he's on offensively, that's usually ok because he can get and make most any shot. But when he's off, it seems like the ball gets passed to him and everyone else just stands around waiting. When he's not making those shots, there's no flow at all.
I’m just disappointed with this overall thread.
I think Jett is going ball tonight, and bring home the W.
Whether he *should be* an upgrade over Baker (I agree that he should), he's not a *downgrade* (Wisconsin mercilessly hunted Baker matchups on D) and he is an upgrade on O. So.. net positive.
Its not a narrative. It's a statistical fact. Relatively small sample (but not tiny between the Purdue, Wisconsin, Rutgers and half MSU games) but significantly better in games without him.
Baker is playing better D of late, Cheddar plays none, so your point still stands.
Chedder doesn't play in lieu of Jett though. He plays the four along with Reed and Williams.
Jett's minutes to go Baker and a few to Jace and both are better on defense than Jett.
Illinois offense is a little better than Wisky, but not incredible. Basically, Illinois is the same as us.
@ak47 I think you are 100% wrong. Michigan played a good game against Wisconsin and is on a 3 game winning streak. Your take is at odds with the success of the team. It's hard to argue that Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Rutgers are a lot worse than the teams we've playing all season. There was a difference that caused us to win the last 3 games -- the difference between winning and losing relatively close games.
I think we can be even better with Jett, but part of that will be the team realizing that Kobe is our go to guy at crunch time, not Jett.
I think coach being forced to play Reed and Dug and Kobe's growth is the reason why we have won.
If Jett can stop playing AAU ball (hurry up and score so we can score) then we can take another step forward.
Jace should be deep bench
Cheddar is on the floor for what reason? Growth? Reed is a better defender and rebounder and ends up scoring as much if not more. Twill is an enigma but rebounds and plays d for the most part. If there isnt any foul issues Cheddar and Jace need to sit. All available minutes need to go to Reed.
Michigan covered at Rutgers by nearly 20 points. That's almost 50% more than Rutgers even scored! If that's not a higher level...
They covered against Wisconsin.
Jett was even in 23 minutes on typically bad 3-9 shooting against MSU and then Michigan was 12 points better without him.
They're playing far better without him. Significantly. Statistically. There's no debate about it.
He's shooting under 40% FGs in conference play. That's terrible for a shooter. He's not good on defense and worse on the boards.
He's got a great future if he can improve shot selection a bit, and if he decides to focus on hustle. Maybe he's been humbled. We'll see I guess.
I think Jett hustles. He's a freshman and it generally takes time to find your role on the team. Jett is such a good shooter that it seemed his role was to shoot A LOT. But now I think we know better. His role is to shoot when open and create when the defense lets him. And keep hustling on defense!
He hustles sometimes, not enough. This is reflected in his rebounding rates which are atrocious for a guy his size and athleticism. I mean Baker's DREB rate is almost twice as good at 14.1% to Jett's 8.5%. That's purely focus and hustle if you're not rebounding as well as your replacement on the defensive end (because the roles are identical, box your man out and get the ball).
But yeah, his bigger issue is losing focus and getting lost.
I don't really buy the freshman excuse for a guy that played at IMG and is the coaches son.
Most freshmen haven't been well coached so it takes them a while to catch up. Hard to use the excuse that you haven't been well coached if your dad is Juwan Howard.
But fine, blame it on being a freshmen but his play is what it is, and it's not better than what we get from the alternatives right now.
It's not a perfect metric but Box Plus Minus is about the best you can do without more sophisticated regression techniques and it's an offense and defense stat and Baker is at 2.8 in conference play, Jett is at 2.1.
He has been coached by AAU coaches. Think of a lifetime of all star games where the only question is "how many points did you have?". Juwan was doing his thing during basketball season. Its going to take some time.
We're undefeated without him.
end of story.
We lost to Purdue without him.
Prepare for 8+ Hero Ball shots.
And absolutely atrocious defense
Indeed.
I don't care what position he plays, if he is 6'8" there is no reason why he averages 2.5 rebounds per game. That is pathetic.
I was beginning to doubt my fandom. It's good to see I am not the only one. This isn't NBA Jams and he is NOT on fire.
He's shooting below 40% from the field in conference play, I believe
Love Jett and always root for him, but one isn't crazy to think we might have seen some the Ewing Effect with him gone
We beat Rutgers and scraped by a bubble team at home without Howard. There have been multiple other games where Michigan was only within striking distance in a game because of Howard.
We beat the spread by 20 points against Rutgers. The spread is based upon performance to date. For some reason, we were MUCH better than predicted in that game. Hmmm -- what could that reason be?
In the MSU and Wisconsin games, Michigan did what it hadn't been able to do all year -- win the close ones.
I think we'll be even better with Jett, but we have to build on our recent success, not go back to the way we were playing with Jett in the lineup. He's a great shooter, but not in the same class as Kobe overall, and now we know that definitively.
He didn't shoot well in the month of February. I wonder if he didn't fully recover from his first ankle injury, or if he just hit the freshman wall.
If we can get back the Jett of December/January, he'll be a significant plus.
Prepare for 8+ Hero Ball shots.
As long as he makes 6+ of them.
Hell yeah! Those are the games where we nuke teams! (Or foul on a 3 with 10 seconds left and lose in OT). But yeah, when Jett is on, this offense is great! When Jett is off (far more frequent), it is a tough road...
I'm more worried about our defense and rebounding
He doesn't need to be a savior on offense but if he let's kobe and dug run the show a bit more he'll get some open jumpers and can have much better spacing then when tschetter is out there. I'm not sure what chetter gives the team on offense or defense.
Well fuck, we are trusting some dude named 'Marty Mush' now? This world is crazy.
good night moon!
raise your hand if you ever read that book to your kids.
keep it raised if you've read more than 100 times
keep it raised if you've read it more than 1,000 times (most hands still up)
and finally, raise your hand if you're pretty sure you could recite it from memory even though your child(ren) are gone?
yep. most of the hands are still up.
Of course. Because it's best read by Christopher Walken.
that book and several Dr. Suess offerings, I could recite by heart, watching TV while turning the pages.....
Once, two pages stuck together so I was a page off on my delivery and my then 4 year old son busted me.... LOL great memories.
Marty Mush is some Barstool idiot on Hunter's podcast. While he might know, he's also puts out random tweets like this so he can say he was first to report it
Anyone have injury updates on Epps and the energy drink fiend for Illinois?
Mayer will be full go. No reason to think otherwise.
Epps was just diagnosed with a concussion and was said to be resting at home with his parents yesterday. I can't see any way that he clears protocol in one day.
had to look up the energy drink thing. here is a link:https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/illinois-matthew-mayer-says-he-had-caffeine-poisoning-after-drinking-six-monster-energy-drinks/
does not say if he'll play, but if the dude drank it all on saturday/sunday, and is giving interviews yesterday, i'd say he'll be good to go.
and it's easy to forget sometimes: college kids can do some really dumb stuff.
College kids can also recover a lot faster than ancient warriors like me. He'll be ready to go.
that much caffeine and our hearts would 'splode.
"I had six Monsters the day of the game -- I only had one before, but I had five after -- because I had like a caffeine-induced euphoria to play video games."
He does not sound like a very smart person.
No, I take that back. HE SOUNDS LIKE A COMPLETE FUCKING MORON.
Perhaps Juwan can draw up some plays against him to exploit this situation.
While it is true that taurine was originally isolated from bull semen, it is now produced synthetically. So I don’t see a problem.
Good news. Here's hoping for a quick reacclimation to working with his teammates in games.
Go Blue!