Unverified Voracity Identifies Weak Spot Comment Count

Brian

Crimson and Crodcast. I appear on CrimsonCast talking about the game. I'm not very audible early, unfortunately.

FRAN! I ALREADY TOLD YOU THE MORTGAGE RATE WILL ADJUST IN FIVE YEARS HOW HARD IS THIS TO UNDERSTAND

BB_OlS2CQAAGOli[1]

GET OUT OF MY BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK

(Iowa beat Penn State too narrowly for McCaffery's taste.)

Glory grasped. Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl champs, man.

2013-January-31-20-12-4[1]

It doesn't get any better than this you guys.

Statistical indications. Dylan's hookup with Synergy Sports makes me all jealous and stuff, because he can tell you that Indiana's not real good at defending the pick and roll:

The Hoosiers rank in just the16th percentile nationally while defending pick and roll ball handlers. Michigan happens to have one of the best ball screen offenses in the country including the two best ball screen scorers in the league. …

For comparison, Ohio State – who stifled Michigan’s ball screen offense – surrenders just .56 PPP to screen and roll ball handlers (89th percentile) and .82 PPP to roll men (77th percentile).

There's still something that seems strange with those number since it seems impossible that allowing 0.84 points a possession on anything is, like, bad, but the percentiles are the percentiles. When it comes to the pick and roll, Indiana finds themselves squarely between Northwestern and Penn State:

image_thumb3[1]

Not where you want to be. Also note that Michigan's the best team in the league at defending the pick and roll what with their hard hedging.

Anyway, Burke and Stauskas's proficiency with the P&R will hopefully force Indiana to do things they don't want to—like play zone—or lead to lots of that scoring stuff.

Dylan also brings up a salient point from last year: Crean put Christian Watford on Burke, like, a lot. Given the relative success Illinois had at holding Burke's numbers down by switching Nnanna Egwu onto him in the pick and roll we might see something similar, at least until Mitch McGary rebounding against Yogi Ferrell becomes a bit of an issue.

More indications of how this is probably going to go. Barry Alvarez is on record that he would like to see Wisconsin play Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska yearly in the Rhombus of Hate. Add that to the pile of evidence suggesting the Big Ten will tear up the Where Is Wisconsin and Why Is Wisconsin Here divisions for the conference's brief stop at 14 teams.

Speaking of The Big Ten, Too model:

“Based on the last three years I’ve been in this business, you’d be crazy not to think about it," Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said. "But it’s hard to model anything because you don’t know what to model. The minute you get yourself convinced that you’re going to go from 14 to 16, for all you know you’re going to 18, and a lot of people think the ultimate landing place is 20. Who knows?"

I guess it's a better ideal than this bit.

Gene Smith's still pushing for ten conference games, BTW.

Frieder: still mad. Bill Frieder's been making the rounds this week and seems to have a little bit of bitterness left over from his matchups at Assembly Hall back in the day:

"The hostility of that crowd and everything else you have to go against at Indiana (is tough)," he said. "You usually won't get good officiating at Indiana, you usually get a bad call or something bad with the administration along the sideline. There's something to do with the shot clock or the clock not starting on time.

"You'll have everything going against you, so you'll have to play extremely well to win the game. ... When you play Indiana at Indiana and they're a top five team, you're going to be the underdog, no matter where you're ranked."

If the second half goes anything like Illinois's against MSU last night I won't stop twitching for weeks.

Etc.: MSU guard Travis Trice apparently fine after nasty hit to head last night. More on the "catfishing" story, which I stopped caring about a lot faster than everyone else. Everyone's in a tizzy about whether in fact the term was used. Indiana-Michigan previews from Inside the Hall and the Crimson Quarry. Also UMHoops.

Comments

MI Expat NY

February 1st, 2013 at 4:51 PM ^

How do they measure points per possession on a specific pick and roll?  Is each pick and roll a possession?  It seems to me there are three possible outcomes of a pick and roll: offense scores, defensive stop (i.e. turnover or missed shot and defensive rebound), or possession continues.  If ppp on a pick and roll is measuring points per pick and roll I can see how 0.84 can be bad.  Even bad defenses should regularly be able to hold a pick and roll situation to a mere continuation of the possession.  

Logan88

February 1st, 2013 at 4:57 PM ^

Maybe it's just me....but I would have rather won the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl than lost the Outback Bowl. Neither bowl really means much of anything and a win is always better than a loss.

Needs

February 1st, 2013 at 5:17 PM ^

I love the recurring FRAN! feature. How can the same place employ FRAN! and Kirk Ferentz. They're like the opposite poles of the emotive spectrum.

I hope he succeeds at Iowa. Not only will it provide endless angry banker jokes, it also seems like they'll play some attractive basketball and the more teams that the Big 10 has that aren't milking the shot clock to single digits as a matter of holy writ, the better.

Duncan

February 1st, 2013 at 6:05 PM ^

I agree with that second half of Illinois and Michigan St.  How many 2nd half fouls did (or did they?) Illinois commit?  I really don't remember many Mich St possesions where a foul wasn't committed.

A little worrisome after watching last weeks Illinois second half vs Michigan.  The refs were calling a lot of the hard hedges on McGary and Horford (some legit).  Bielfeldt's (if needed ) foot speed vs Zeller is an obvious concern.

mGrowOld

February 1st, 2013 at 6:45 PM ^

Frieder is so, so right.  Why I do not understand is why coach B has not been loudly calling out the officiating bias BEFORE the game to at least put the officials on notice that their horseshit antics are known.  If I was him I'd have spent all week point out that Michigan is 40-36 at home against Indiana but only 12-60 playing there and I'd be asking anybody and everybody why they think that is.

It's like all the B1G coaches are afratid to ruffle the feathers of the officials by pointing out what every single person whose ever watched a game their sees with their own eyes - that the refs are scared shitless of the crowd and will give every call in every situation to Indiana every time.  It's like they hope that this game will be different but they never, ever are.

Everybody is predicting our bigs will get called for fouls but that's not where I think we're going to get hosed.  I see calls going against Trey and Timmy for charges and off the ball moving screens, hand-checks and other calls that never, ever get made anywhere else against this team.  Crippling our backcourt will give the officals the biggest cheers at the same time it gives Indiana the best chance for winning so I'm betting on that happening quick.

Blue boy johnson

February 1st, 2013 at 7:54 PM ^

C'mon now. Do you really expect Beilein to publicly make the referees his main focus instead of the Indiana basketball team?

No exaggeration, every fan base thinks officiating is biased against them.

Active participants make mistakes; teams have to overcome the mistakes made by their players, and they have to overcome mistakes made by the officials.

mGrowOld

February 2nd, 2013 at 9:03 AM ^

Yes.  I truly think that the B1G refs get a free pass from the ALL coaches (not just Michigan's) who are afraid to point out what everyone else can clearly see.  That Indiana gets the overwhelming benefit of "home cooking" in Assembly Hall and it dramaticallly "tilts the floor" in their favor.  Yes I think that by going public Beilein runs the risk of upsetting the B1G officials and the B1G executives who will not like having that dirtly laundry made public but there's a chance that by doing so the officials will be more aware of the situation and will make an effort to not fall into the trap.

The problem (IMO Gordie) is that the officials deny their is a problem so nothing ever changes.  Their pride will not allow them to admidt what every other fan of every other team can so clearly see - than Indiana gets the benefit of 50-50 calls at home like no other team in the league.  I'm not sure how old you are (your name makes me think perhaps close to my age given when Bell played) but if you are you have SEEN with your own eyes what I'm talking about.  And according to the front page so has one of our ex-head coaches.

Do I think it would help?  Who knows.  But i do know that when somebody has a problem (and the B1G officials IMO have a bias problem) ignoring it wont make it go away.  So yes, I would've hoped Beilein would've called attention to the bias prior to the game.  

Lastly - go back and look at my comments through the years I've been posting if you're so inclined.  I don't think this about any other school in any other sport.  Just Inidana.  Just basketball.

M-Wolverine

February 2nd, 2013 at 1:49 PM ^

They don't know, remember, or hate Indians basketball teams. They're too young. And Indiana has been too bad. (Yet we still haven't won there). I have a bad feeling in another 9 hours a lot of people are going to know why you feel that way and a new generation of hate is coming.

blueball97

February 2nd, 2013 at 1:03 PM ^

Coach B isn't that guy, he has never been about screaming at the officials. Given the number of fouls called on UM in a game his philosophy seems to work. I think we match up pretty well with IU, save Zeller, but with emergence of Horford, we have a 3 and if needed 4 headed monster for that. oladipo and Hardaway play to a draw, Zeller and the three headed monster are a draw, and we own every other match up. Go Blue tonight!

TTUwolverine

February 2nd, 2013 at 12:09 AM ^

Seriously... if somebody yelled at me from within 6 inches of my ear like that, I would reflexively punch them in the face.  If this kid had done that, I wouldn't have thought less of him. 

Larry

February 2nd, 2013 at 3:22 AM ^

I can still see it in my mind's eye like it happened yesterday, and I was 9 when it happened. I bring it up because I recall Frieder protesting it to the B1G office, saying that the Assembly Hall clock read :00 before Edwards got the shot off, and that shot resulting in the adoption of tenths of a second on the game clock two seasons later.