george washington III

ALL RIGHT FINE JUST HIRE A GUY OUT OF LEFT FIELD

Michigan's third assistant:

NEWS: Michigan’s Dusty May is hiring Saint Mary’s Associate HC Justin Joyner as an assistant coach, sources tell @247Sports. 

Joyner has helped Saint Mary’s to two conference tournament titles and two regular season championships. 

Reeled in Gaels’ star Aidan Mahaney and other…

— Travis Branham (@TravisBranham_) April 10, 2024

That tweet finishes with "…other Top150 recruits in Jordan Ross, Mikey Lewis and Zion Sensley." Also:

This is a massive move. Justin has been a huge part of Saint Mary’s success, especially on the recruiting trail.

He’ll be a head coach somewhere soon.

Congrats to @JoynerJustin! Well deserved and you will be missed. https://t.co/pBblslv1VE

— Zack Farmer (@postsbyzack) April 10, 2024

Josh Henschke reports that Joyner is indeed taking one of the three off-campus recruiting slots. That's not quite picking off the top assistant at Tennessee but it's not far off. Congrats to Rod Clark on his raise.

Henschke also reports that the two non-recruiting assistant slots are going to go to a couple of his FAU guys, so this seems like the best of both worlds. You have two guys who are well regarded as P5 recruiters, another guy who's from St Mary's and therefore speaks Australian, and two guys who helped build FAU into a top 50 program.

[After THE JUMP: chair filled, more on the way] 

Michigan dropped a buy game to Long Beach State on Friday, despite 86 points with an adjusted offensive rating of 115.7 per Torvik. Needless to say, the defense was a huge letdown after looking much improved through three games. 

With the Wolverines holding an 80-76 lead with 4:28 remaining, much has been made of the late-game errors, particularly an offensive rebound off a missed FT. While I'm not excusing the closing time woes, this game was lost in the middle portions of the contest. From the 12:30 mark in the first half to 10:00 left in the second, Long Beach scored no less than 22 points in transition. That's literally 1 point per minute............in transition exclusively. 

The primary culprit? Turnovers on the offensive end. Long Beach State came into this game as the fastest team in the country per Evan Miya, with a 75.2 True Tempo rank. Let me tell you, Long Beach made the Wolverines pay dearly for those TOs by turning this game into a track meet. 

Lack of Effort

Dug will get credit for the TO here, but this is on Nkamhoua in your author's opinion. He has the seal initially, but fails to hold the seal as the entry pass is coming. That allows the LB defender to get around him far too easily, particularly when he doesn't make an effort to meet the pass. 

To understand transition defense, one must understand that your first two strides changing ends are going to be the most critical. Look at Dug McDaniel and Tray Jackson in the clip above. LB clearly gains possession at the :05 mark, as both guys lack the requisite urgency. Dug fully stops/pauses near the logo to spectate, while Jackson's first two strides leave a lot to be desired. Long Beach has an easy 2-on1 advantage because of it, but somehow fails to execute for an easy layup. No matter, as the LB point guard stays in trail position and becomes the default outlet for an easy attack versus a closeout + dumpoff. 

And here we have the most egregious lack of effort. Michigan running Zoom action to get Dug in space on the right side of the court. He doesn't use the two off-ball stagger screens or the ballscreen properly (will definitely have more on that in the next week) and attempts to snake his way through three defenders before turning the ball over. 

Long Beach has a 3-on-1, but Nimari hauls ass to help Nkamhoua and the Wolverines force a miss at the rim. Tarris Reed and Terrance Williams are jogging back slowly, while Dug McDaniel barely bothers to cross half court. Easy putback for Tsohonis. Absolutely unacceptable. 

[AFTER THE JUMP a few more issues with effort, crossmatches and communication]

With all the new roster additions and lineup configurations, let's take a look at Michigan's go-to set as we head into the Gavitt Games. Two games in, Michigan's most often used action is Double Drag. 

Generally speaking, Double Drag features the PG above-the-break on either sideline, with two players (most often a big/big or wing/big tandem) each setting consecutive ballscreens. Most often we get one big rolling as the other pops, as the PG reads the offense and corresponding options. There are multiple wrinkles/progressions off that standard base alignment, but let's use this as the foundational point.

On that note, let's take a look at the aforementioned standard alignment while walking through the reads + defensive coverages. 

Empty Double Drag

We have Dug on the left sideline with Nkamhoua as the initial ballscreener and Tschetter up next. As noted above, one big rolls (Tschetter) while the other big pops (Nkamhoua). The "empty" terminology comes in since the left side of the court is void of any players/action exclusive of the three-man game in the Double Drag alignment.

So now let's walk through the execution/reads/coverages. McDaniel takes a poor angle using the Nkamhoua screen, as doesn't hug the screen to optimize the advantage, but Evan Johnson gets tripped up on the screening contact and loses phase. UNC-Asheville was blitzing/showing high for the majority of the game and Toyaz Solomon blitzes Dug as Tschetter begins his roll. 

Olivier is wide-open on the pop as Nick McMullen has to tag/switch Tschetter on the roll (:07 mark). But Dug is locked in on the right side of the court and doesn't survey the left side of the court to verify coverage/potential advantages. Instead he passes to Nimari Burnett who is 5 feet away. 

The scheme created an advantage, but the execution is poor on this particular possession. Michigan gets a bucket here as Tschetter is able to score with some nifty footwork, but this is essentially a broken possession where Michigan cashes-in despite some subpar reads.

So now we go to the Youngstown Stage game for the clip below. YSU's defensive approach is more conservative, with the POA defender tasked with fighting through the screen as the other two defenders are a step below screen level. 

McDaniel does a good job setting the POA defender up on this possession, as he crosses-over right to left to get his defender going baseline before quickly crossing back over (:06 mark) to get him slightly off-balance.

Nkamhoua rolls as Williams pops. Oliver temporarily takes two defenders with him on the roll, as Brandon Rush bumps him to prevent the easy entry pass. Dug makes the proper read here, as he delivers the pass to Williams the moment he identifies Olivier carrying two defenders. Terrance gets a semi-open look here, as he's in rhythm and shooting over a smaller defender that is closing out. 

You can argue that Williams would have been better served dumping this into Nkamhoua with deep position, but this isn't a bad look at all. Better process on this possession despite the lack of a score. 

Double Drag Weakside Flare

Here's the same base alignment, but with an additional wrinkle/progression. After Dug gets to the second screen (:06 mark), Williams sets a flare screen for Burnett on the weakside. This is a better version of the standard Double Drag, as it theoretically deters weakside help-defenders from tagging the roll-man. 

Dug once again gets into the double crossover and also does a relatively good job hugging the screen. YSU is once again going with a conservative defensive approach and McDaniel has plenty of time/space to see the floor and make the proper read (:07 mark).

The optimal read here is a pass to Nimari, as he's wide open after the flare screen and would have the opportunity to attack an opposing big (Bates) that has to closeout in space, while we also have TWill now matched up against a small guard. 

Here, it appears as though Dug pre-determined his read and reversed the ball to the left side where the popping Nkamhoua doesn't really have an advantage. Olivier is able to score on a straight-line drive against some really poor defense. But the process/read here isn't ideal. 

Same action/setup below against YSU. This time we have Tschetter and Reed as the ballscreeners with Jackson + Washington on the weakside.

YSU once again in conservative coverage. This time Dug doesn't really have the opportunity to make a real read. Tray Jackson should be setting the flare screen at the precise time that McDaniel/Tarris are commencing the screening action. Instead, Jackson is late and Dug is void of a read that presents a real advantage. This possession goes into a post-iso for Reed that doesn't generate any points.

Early season execution woes.

[Hit THE JUMP for great scheme + working out the kinks]