2018-19 northwestern #2

1 hour and 20 minutes

This show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan nobody would get our jokes. Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Peak Wealth Management, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad,Human Element, and Lantana Hummus

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1. The X and Sleep Show

starts at 1:00

Nobody had ever given X the full Tum Tum before. He of course took it as a personal affront. Teske has a TO rate that's so low it's changing Brian's mind about 10-foot jumps. Matthews has not been hitting it, but in this game he make a concerted effort to get it to the rim instead of going for the fadeaway.

2. Illinois

starts at 22:57

Still pretty good. Michigan's balance shows in its consistency. Valuable Livers. Illinois makes you turn the ball over, Michigan played their game and got choppy in the first half, but got it together in the 2nd half. Simpson weirdly reminded Brian of Darius Morris. Matthews 0/5 from mid-range. M goes 18/22 from the line! It's impossible to fully appreciate Charles Matthews's shutdown defense. Brian already regrets his preseason 2019-20 take. David's sad fouls hour. Murderotter.

3. Coaching Changes

starts at 48:38

They got themselves a spread guy who hashtags spread terms to go with their hashtag spread players. BC guy is a good recruiter with mad Rutger brother. Probably can't get Jerry Montgomery back on DL. OSU defections.

4. Gymnastics

starts at 1:06:30

She was hirable and defendable, except the way Michigan did it. Time to discuss Warde.

MUSIC

• "Opposite Day"--Andrew Bird
• "Best of Things"--Xhibit
• "Sleeping Lessons"--The Shins
• “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link (right-click/save-as)
• What's with the theme music?

The closest Michigan will ever get to the Craig Ross ideal is this team

1/13/2019 – Michigan 80, Northwestern 60 – 17-0, 6-0 Big Ten

The inevitable question came in the post-game press conference: what was the difference between Zavier Simpson's shots tonight and the ones that got him lifted for crunch time in Welsh-Ryan? Beilein went for the laugh line first: "the ball went in." The assembled press duly laughed. Same question to Chris Collins, same answer.

One question, to both head coaches, and the exact same answer.

"The ball went in."@coach_collins & @JohnBeilein discuss @Xaviersimpson3's big night. pic.twitter.com/CQESTkNnOz

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) January 14, 2019

But because John Beilein is John Beilein, he realized that was flip and dismissive. So he quickly followed that up with "that's a great question" and noted two things. The first: Northwestern was the first and to-date-only team to leave him open like that. The implication was that despite the shots being open Simpson was maybe not mentally prepared to take them.

The second: Simpson took the Northwestern sag as "a personal affront." Northwestern made Zavier Simpson mad. This is inadvisable.

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So anyway there was a heat check at the end of that. It followed on from the first step-back 18-footer of Simpson's career and five makes from three in nine attempts. Heat checks are generally annoying since they are by definition bad shots.

This one had to be taken. Zavier Simpson had to continue shooting ever more improbably until he missed. If he hit the heavily contested off the dribble three that clanged, the next time down was going to be a flip throw.

This is not 'Nam. There are rules. Flip throw.

Perhaps lost in the second-half delirium was the first-half delirium when Jon Teske did more or less the same thing, flinging in three first-half three pointers and subsequently breaking the brains of his opposition. Dererk Pardon went from nine career three point attempts to thirteen without banking another one in. Pardon's backup, Barrett Benson, flung one so wide of the backboard it might have been a poorly-disguised assassination attempt against a photographer.

Northwestern's centers were convinced that this was magical opposite day. They thought they might live out their Steph Curry fantasies, and who could blame them? I counted my limbs last night and was unsure whether to be relieved or disappointed when there were still four of them. Surely in such circumstances a tall man will be permitted to hit career three pointer #3, in Crisler Arena where the walls between dimensions are thin.

It was not to be so for Pardon and Benson, who don't have the reserves of sheer cussedness that Simpson does. They cannot refine their anger to a fine white-hot line and use it for revenge and mincing garlic.

Simpson can. His career has been one long exercise in proving the skeptics wrong. And there were many skeptics, including yours truly. I may have wondered in the MGoSlack chat what Beilein saw in a 5'10" point guard who couldn't shoot. I still wonder what Beilein thought he was getting when he got tired of waiting for Cassius Winston. Beilein's as close as anyone can be to a genius when it comes to doing the basketball, but I struggle to believe even he saw a world in which a player who is the very opposite of everything he's done in 40 years of coaching became the beating heart of a 17-0 team.

But then nobody envisioned a Zavier Simpson heat check in a pulsating arena, either. Expectations are just another way to piss off the last man in the world you want to motivate.

[After THE JUMP: Fun With Torvik, Teske edition.]

With a home win over a struggling Northwestern team—one without Vic Law, perhaps its best player—Michigan set the record for the best start in program history at 17-0. The Wolverines scored over 1.4 points per possession in an outstanding first half, and were on cruise control for the rest of the game. Zavier Simpson was the headliner tonight for Michigan, scoring a career-high 24 points in response to Northwestern’s intentional indifference.

For the second straight game, Michigan got off to a fast start. The Wolverines opened with a 10-0 run: Ignas Brazdeikis put back a miss, Jon Teske hit two mid-range shots, a nice baseline play got Iggy another bucket, and Zavier Simpson banked in a contested sky hook. Northwestern got back into the game, as Ryan Taylor got a four point play and the Wildcat offense woke up a little bit. Northwestern eventually closed the gap to 2 with about 11 minutes in the half, but were unable to ever take a lead in this game, as Michigan kept up the scoring pace.

Michigan led 21-18 when Iggy found Isaiah Livers for a three; on the next possession, an awkward two-man game between Poole and Livers ended with Poole hitting an isolation three, and the lead was back up to 9. Dererk Pardon and Ryan Taylor each scored in double figures in the first half for Northwestern and kept within striking distance for a while, but those threes were the beginning of what was an extended 29-10 Michigan run to close the half — and effectively end the game.

Teske was phenomenal in the first half, scoring a few early baskets and playing aggressive defense on the other end of the floor. It was Teske who turned the game into a rout: within the span of about two and a half minutes towards the end of the half, Michigan’s center scored 11 points. He hit a three in response to an off-balance Taylor triple; sealed Barret Benson for good post position and a layup, then hit back-to-back open pick-and-pop threes set up by Eli Brooks. Charles Matthews and Simpson each scored easily after steals, and Michigan was up 22 at the break.

[Fuller]

Michigan’s offense—which was unstoppable in the first half, as the Wolverines shot 14-17 on twos—went cold to start the second. Iggy scored on the opening possession after Teske sealed the help on a layup attempt, but Michigan only managed to score four points over eight minutes. For a while, Matthews was Michigan’s only source of offense — he made a euro-step layup, scored off an offensive rebound, and rejected a side ball-screen to dunk over Miller Kopp for an and-one. Everyone else was quiet though, and Northwestern trimmed Michigan’s lead to 13.

Simpson helped slam the door shut. Northwestern elected to defend him with Pete Nance, a bench big who was thrust into a starting role with the absence of Law, and had Nance play in the paint while Simpson was spotting up on the perimeter and sink under Simpson ball screens — clearly daring him to shoot. Simpson scored 12 points and made two threes in the first half, but Northwestern didn’t change its defense. Late in the game, Simpson made four straight jumpers: a three after getting the ball back following a steal, a late-clock mid-range step back, an open corner three, and an audacious step-back three off a screen. He took a heat check and missed, but he’d earned it.

Michigan scored 1.25 points per possession over the entire game, and they held Northwestern to under a point per possession — despite a standout performance from Pardon, who scored an efficient 20 points. The absence of the top wing on a Northwestern team that was already without a point guard led to predictably disjointed offense. With how well Michigan's offense was playing (Simpson and Teske in particular), the Wildcats didn't have a chance.

The Wolverines have the week off before traveling to Wisconsin for a big matchup with the Badgers on Saturday. Michigan’s still one of two undefeated teams in the country, and Michigan and Michigan State have already jumped out to an early lead in the conference race (with Maryland lurking).

[Box score after the JUMP]