Scouting the opposing team's bench
I'd like to talk a bit of strategy here. I know most of us are inclined to chalk up this loss to Villanova just being dominant, Michigan going cold from 3, etc. but I think there are a few lessons Beilein should build on from here.
I need to first apologize for my dad, who declared in a group text that this DiVincenzo guy was Luke Hancock 2.0... at a time when Michigan was still winning and DiVincenzo had just made his first 3 and had a total of 5 points. This was deja vu in the worst way possible: guy comes off the bench to light it up from 3 and Michigan has no answer. Meanwhile, we hold the Naismith winner to 9 points on 13 shot equivalents with 2 turnovers. What?
Did Michigan's defensive strategy simply not account for DiVincenzo's ability? I really hate the notion that sometimes players just get hot and there's nothing you can do. Clearly, there was something Michigan was doing defensively that was allowing DiVincenzo to get too many clean looks. Mathews was on him most of the game and did an abysmal job anticipating picks, Michigan tried to switch and DiVincenzo was able to either a) step back for a 3 if the switching defender played off, or b) drive to the hoop if the swiching defender played tight.
All in all, I think this actually was a very winnable game if Michigan had scouted DiVincenzo properly and primed Mathews to guard much tighter and evade the pick. Can't let this type of bullshit ever happen again, as it's now cost us 2 national championships in 5 years. Also would be nice if we could get one of these absurd 6th man performances in a national championship some day.
Donte looks like ginger Skeletor. He's hard to stop.
I thought MOST of his shots were pretty well contested. Sometimes they just hit em anyways. Offense was stagnant was the biggest issue to me and inability of our shooters to hit from the outside
UM hits it seasonal averages on it's 2pt & 3pt (46.8%&35.7%) attempts last night they're in that game. They didn't even need to play like they did against TAMU (61.9%&58.3%) to win it. But there was no way they were going to win shooting 43.6%&13%.
Donte DiVincenzo is not Luke Hancock. He can actually out-athlete you too as we saw with Charles Matthews getting blocked on a 2 handed jam.
Villanova always has had that white guy ever since Nardi almost a decade ago.
But yeah a part of me was hoping for a Duncan Robinson 2nd half performance of the ages, but it never came.
Michigan shut down the Naismith winner and yet we can't shut down a freshman off the bench? What? I get that the guy is good but he was not utilized this highly in any previous tournament games. He was averaging less than 25 minutes and played 37 today. I get that everyone is in defeatest mode and just wants to say Michigan did the best they could (and they overachieved massively this season), but I just don't believe there was no way to stop this guy.
that the dude was just improvising. That Michigan had taken Villanova completely out of their offense and DiVincenzo was just feeling it. Guy was playing with unreal confidence, hitting NBA distance threes. Honestly, I think he saved their ass. Michigan looked like the better team early, but he was the x-factor that exploded the entire plan. He opened things up for everyone else.
1) He's a RS Sophomore, not a Freshman
2) He's a bench player in name only. The guy average just under 30 minutes a game for the season.
3) The dude had a 30 point game earlier this season.
In a sport where the nature of the bench can make little Spike Albrecht credibly tweet at a supermodel... This stuff happens.
I mean, good lord, that block he had on Matthews. Guy went straight up and got all ball.
It was almost as clean as Trey against Lousivlle.
Poor defense on Michigan's part as Duncan is not squared up and Simpson is playing back. This is *exactly* what I am talking about when I say Michigan failed to play DiVincenzo tight enough. Simpson is switching on the pick and Duncan is slow to square up and DiVincenzo has a completely wide open look.
for the whole game. In fact, I think Matthews was the only guy we had out there with the athleticism and height to hope to stay with him. And yet Matthews picked up four foulls, so I'm not sure how much more coverage we could have gotten out of him.
Dude was just on fire. Some of those were from NBA range with 2 hands in his face. Didn't matter.
Seriously, the logic of this argument is just horrible. Just stop.
You think Nick Saban just tipped his hat to Dabo and Watson? No, he figured out how to kick their ass the next year. DiVincenzo is not Steph Curry or Russel Westbrook. The dude is good but he's not *that* good. Letting him score 30+ on us was a massive defensive failure. When was the last time a Michigan player scored 30+ in a big game let alone a bench player?
It is incredibly hard to make the title game. Can't let an opportunity like this slip away due to "bad luck" and a hot hand. Especially when it happens to you twice, which suggests it is more than just chance.
Maybe you're thinking because he's a redhead, he's not athletic. Wrong. The dude was the most athletic guy on the whole court tonight, and he was on fire. That's an extremely tough cover assignment.
And I think he got most of his points off of defenders other than Matthews. Matthews was the only one with the athleticism to stay with him. Others were worried about Divencizo blowing by them, and then he'd just rise up from five feet behind the 3 point line and nail it. Matthews was the only one out there with the quickness and length to contest that.
And as to other strategies, did you see what doubling on a player did for Kansas?
We all said it though. The team needed to shoot well to keep up with them. They didn't and that was the game. End of story. If Michigan had played up their potential, they simply and undoubtedly would've been right there and easily had a chance for the win.
Classic "you're wrong but I can't explain why" argument. Guh.
If it's so easy to explain why I am wrong then go ahead and do it.
This team needs to get it out of their heads that if one guy is missing then eveyone is off. It's too much a mental part of their game. You'll see a game like A&M when they all were nailing outside bombs. Beilen needs to drill that into them somehow that just because one guy is missing from outside that this doesn't have to be an off night for the whole fucking team. Can you imagine how silly and stupid Kobe would've looked throughout his career if he had given into the situations around him? No...he kept shooting and drilling shots. This team lost tonight because the refs cut them down early and they couldn't mentally get their heads back in the game. There you have it. This Nova team was beatable and weren't shit.
something different. That's not true. That was our night and we got lucky against Houston too. Shit happens. If you're lucky it lands on someone else.
More effective switches on the perimeter being the primary thing, which is literally what every other team since then has done to us (to great effect, I might add).
And Shaq would have been a better player if he shot threes like Steven Curry.
I'm not blaming Beilein any more than you could blame the other 349 coaches whose teams were worse than Nova. You have to pick your battles and the better bet was to shut down Brunson. The point is that it's always possible to shut a hot shooter down with a better defensive strategy. The guy isn't Steph Curry (who, by the way, has been shut down many times).