Timecops 2775
12/4/2018 – Michigan 62, Northwestern 60 – 8-0, 2-0 Big Ten
Q: Really?
A: You should look at it as a compliment.
Q: I'm supposed to use the greatest invention in the history of humanity to go back seven hundred years in time to… I don't even know?
A: You guys have already repaired all of the really bad stuff. Nobody outside of this organization knows anything about World War II, Larry Culpepper, or Michigan Football from 2007-2037. This… this is what's left.
Q: And we have to spend our allocation or…?
A: Exactly. We get less next year.
Q: And this is what you want.
A: I mean… they made GIFs and everything. Look at it:
Think Chris Collins wants this @NUMensBball win? pic.twitter.com/pKNBuVsndD
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) December 5, 2018
Q: This does not reflect well on the species.
A: It does not.
Q: I'm still unclear on the mission. Kill Hitler. Make Pitbull the permanent intergalactic president. Brain-swap Rich Rodriguez and Nick Saban. These are all defined goals. How am I supposed to prevent… that?
A: You could have a stern talk with him about the essential dignity of humanity and the importance of its preservation?
Q: …
A: I see you've been on a college basketball head coach mission before.
Q: Yes, President Pitbull. The Izzident is the darkest day in our organization's history.
A: "First, do no harm."
Q: Violated. The first and only time.
A: Look, just change the refereeing structure of college basketball to be fundamentally less sycophantic to little Hitlers. Any coach venturing onto the court during play gets a tech.
Q: Now that's the kind of timeline revision I can get behind.
A: Make it so. Dale.
[After THE JUMP: the post gets marginally less silly]
BULLETS
Phew. Raise your hand if you were dead certain that prayer three attempt was banking in.
If Northwestern was going to win this game they were going to have to do it the way they did: by throwing up a bunch of garbage and watching it drop through the net. Vic Law hit 4 of 8 threes despite having maybe one good look, and there were maybe three buckets from anyone who spells his name right that weren't contested jumpers. All but one of Northwestern's three-pointers were off the bounce, and most were from NBA range. Scraping up to just under a point per possession was an anomalous event.
Meanwhile Michigan's offensive issues can be tracked back to one main thing: 0/8 from three from the guys who are questionable shooters (Simpson, Teske, Matthews), with five of those coming from Zavier Simpson. Simpson was dared to shoot on three consecutive second-half possessions and took up the challenge, clanking three straight threes. Michigan lifted him for Eli Brooks until the final minute.
Michigan blew out their most recent opponents by 17 and 19 by shooting 50% from three. Here they shot 25%. If they hit the five additional threes they win by… 17. That's obviously not likely to happen when you've got a quarter of those shots coming from Simpson, but there's the difference. Michigan shot 54% from two and had single-digit turnovers.
Not even that weird. People say that any road win in the Big Ten is good. While sometimes that's a way of downplaying a poor performance against a bad team, in this Big Ten they're probably right. Northwestern was 46th in Kenpom, and it was on the road, so the system only projected a 6-point win. Home/road is a boggling swing.
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]
Iggy. Now up to #8 on the Kenpom Player of the Year standings. 26% usage, shooting 58/55 and 79% from the line with a top 250 FT rate. And he has a MAAR-esque TO rate. Came to Michigan's rescue time after time, blunting Northwestern runs with tough takes to the basket and shooting 50% from three. ORTGs of 138, 146, 165, and 123 in Michigan's four games against top-50-quality opponents.
Best player in the Big Ten? The only argument against him is that he's not occupying the absurd amounts of usage that Carsen Edwards and Ethan Happ are.
Pardon the banked-in three. "Dererk" Pardon had A Game, but it was very much a game of two halves. He had 16 points on 7-8 shooting in the first half; in the second half he had two shots. He made both, but he was largely shut off.
In the first half Northwestern ran a bunch of pick and roll on which the primary goal wasn't to get anything on that action but get Pardon established with deep post position, which he did well with. Attempts to post him up against Teske straight up in the second half didn't go well, as Teske was able to body him out of the paint. Pardon just kicked those entry passes back out. When he did get the ball in a somewhat threatening position Michigan was using Brazdeikis to double since his guy was not a shooter.
Can't blame the first half approach since I think pretty much everyone expected a one-on-one matchup between Pardon, who was bleah against Michigan last year, and Teske to go Michigan's way. Also Pardon hit that three and had a couple of lucky rolls when he hit the front of the rim.
Autobench complaints are off. Teske picked up some fouls and necessitated some Austin Davis time, during which Davis looked pretty bad and Northwestern caught up fast. Teske still got 32 minutes, as as a 7-footer in some foul trouble. There's a reasonable case that a Teske with zero fouls gets the same number of minutes.
Benching Matthews for stretches didn't have much impact on the game. Matthews was horrendously inefficient, with three points on 8 shot attempts. The first two were on an open court dunk. The third only came because a lane violation gave him a mulligan on a free throw. Isaiah Livers wasn't doing anything either but he wasn't using possessions to not score, at least.
About that backup C. Davis looked grim. He had zero shots, three fouls, and a turnover in seven minutes and he was indirectly responsible for Brazdeikis's sole TO of the game. Brazdeikis drove and threw up an alley-oop that Teske would have thrown down. Davis had it glance off the top of his hands.
I think Davis is getting more blame for the Northwestern spurt that came when he entered than he deserves. He didn't cause Simpson to turn a transition situation into an open court turnover and a fast break the other way, and one of his fouls was an absurd nothing call when Pardon jumped away from him to catch the ball. Here are Northwestern's makes on their run:
His only contribution to that run was the aforementioned ridiculous call he suffered. And the turnover, but I thought he was fouled on that as well. It was a fake dribble handoff where the guy on the guard ran right into him.
Buuuuut, yeah, the next four games are an opportunity to test-drive Johns and Castleton in case one of them can emerge into a 10 MPG player.
Hook and hold. I mean, I guess. Teske should have gone up with both hands, or at least tried to, to avoid that call. It is insane to me that we're stopping basketball games for minutes at a time to maybe call a foul for grabbing someone's arm. That's the second worst reviewable thing in sports*.
*[#1 is when hockey reviews goals in case they were offsides. Offsides shouldn't even exist in hockey. FACT.]
December 5th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
December 5th, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^
The law of the internet requires this gif be posted anytime JCVD is mentioned:
December 5th, 2018 at 2:46 PM ^
December 7th, 2018 at 5:23 AM ^
Definitely a tank top with slacks man myself. The moooves just happen.
December 9th, 2018 at 9:27 AM ^
“Slacks”???
December 5th, 2018 at 2:52 PM ^
Oh hell yes. Which one was this one from?
December 5th, 2018 at 2:58 PM ^
It's from Kickboxer, a true classic. You can view the whole, glorious dance sequence, here:
December 5th, 2018 at 3:19 PM ^
Love it...
December 6th, 2018 at 7:07 AM ^
I'll see your Kickboxer and raise you a Breakin'...because we all know that slacks are for pansies.
December 5th, 2018 at 7:34 PM ^
"While *they're at it, they could add Eric Roberts as an assistant coach."
Sorry but I always feel the need to point out incorrect uses of there, their, and they're. Those are three of the trickiest words in the English language.
December 6th, 2018 at 11:01 AM ^
December 5th, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
Off season content hope: Brian writes one of his thinkpieces on this:
*[#1 is when hockey reviews goals in case they were offsides. Offsides shouldn't even exist in hockey. FACT.]
Because I want to believe him, but moreover, I want to understand the ins and outs of it.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
Brian advocated for this in his "Ten Ways to Make X Better: Hockey" column a couple of years ago. Not much detail, but it's there. I recall a separate discussion of the concept of offsides in a soccer thread (perhaps the "Ten Ways: Soccer" column) where I got taken for a ride. I'll have to check it out.
December 5th, 2018 at 3:12 PM ^
Meanwhile, I'm an advocate for painting a big blue line on the field in soccer. :)
December 5th, 2018 at 3:13 PM ^
tl/dr version of Brian's take on offsides: He is wrong. Offsides makes the blueline-to-blueline center of the ice matter, and by doing so makes the game much more tactical, and in my opinion watchable.
December 6th, 2018 at 12:52 AM ^
Yeah he's absolutely not considering the downsides and I presume he's being a little facetious. But I guess it could work if you also brought back the two-line pass rule which would be dumber and less accessible to new/casual fans. If you eliminate offsides then the team with the fastest skater/finisher wins, provided they have decent passers to set him up.
Come to think of it maybe I do wish that were the case, since when I played hockey my entire skillset was based on being faster than everyone (otherwise was too skinny/weak and couldn't really shoot at all). I would be a total star in that case...
Also I don't even know what Brian's problem is with offsides. Reviewing for it after goals is dumb but that's a different rule. Having random stoppages can suck for flow of the game but that's how the sport works and it only penalizes the offending team and the short-attention-span fan. Maybe make a rule that you can't have TV timeouts triggered by offsides.
December 5th, 2018 at 4:22 PM ^
bring back the 2 line pass rule. make hockey more physical like back in the day.
December 6th, 2018 at 11:45 AM ^
Eliminating the off sides rule in hockey would NOT be a good idea.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:09 PM ^
Not saying Simpson needs to go full Ben Simmons and completely avoid the 3 but unless he's gonna be somewhat serviceable behind the arc, there's no reason why he should be jacking up 5 a game and certainly not multiple in a stretch where we're scoreless and just need to change the momentum.
Unless I'm missing something? Do we see a path to people honoring his three and actually defending him out there?
December 5th, 2018 at 2:50 PM ^
I tend to agree, but it's unlikely that Beilein will tell a guard to stop shooting. Really, you can live with X hitting 25-30% on low volume. That isn't beyond the realm of possibility.
December 5th, 2018 at 3:50 PM ^
yeah but when he jacks them matters too. He chose poorly.gif
December 5th, 2018 at 3:55 PM ^
There is a world of difference between shooting 30% and 22%. My take is that Zavier gets two chances to make one and gets shut off if one doesn't go. Can't light possessions on fire.
December 5th, 2018 at 3:57 PM ^
Perhaps you heard this too, but JB addressed this in the post game presser. He liked the shot choices and even the shots (thought they looked good) until X/Z clanged one off the front of the rim (then took him out mentioning fatigue). Says they really don't wanna live with a PG who can't shoot it, but will if X keeps missing. Good to see Brooks make his.
December 6th, 2018 at 2:09 AM ^
He was so open those were like shootaround warmup threes, even Z should make those.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:09 PM ^
Hilarious! Especially the FACT at the end.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
Life to backboards.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:27 PM ^
I'm not willing to go that far yet, but am certainly willing to start negotiating a less painful death to backboards.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:14 PM ^
“... Michigan football from 2007-2037.”
*laughs to avoid crying*
December 5th, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
I know it's 2018. I know that Brian doesn't really have access to a time machine. But knowing these things did not stop me from looking at my calendar for today's date and estimating that we are only about 35% of the way through that time period.
I'm still so very fragile.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:15 PM ^
During the whole first half, I couldn't help but think that Izzo will try to employ the 1st half screen and post-up strategy with Ward. Teske is a good defender but Ward may be even a bit stronger than Pardon. Doubling Ward is always an option, but MSU is better from 3 than NW. Teske is just going to have to hold his ground without fouling. Easier said than done.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:50 PM ^
Izzo is too busy screaming "toughness!!" at his team and making them practice in football pads to do any game planning
December 5th, 2018 at 2:57 PM ^
Teske might as well walk into the opening tip with 3 fouls in EL. Ward is gonna be able to fling him around the court without consequence.
December 5th, 2018 at 8:00 PM ^
This is why Teske should start the game in East Lansing on the bench. After the first two BS ticky-tack fouls are awarded to Davis in the first 3 minutes, sub in Teske.
/kidding...sort of
December 5th, 2018 at 3:59 PM ^
If Teske gets in trouble, Livers should play 5. He can at least pose some problems for Ward in terms of making him guard the whole floor and is only 10 lbs lighter and 1" shorter than Ward.
December 5th, 2018 at 7:39 PM ^
Livers should be the backup 5 and play it like Wagner. He's not at that level, obviously, but he's been shooting well enough to pull the opposing 5 outside and open up driving lanes.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^
I'm always confused as to why some coaches are allowed to run all over the court.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:28 PM ^
how about crawl, is it ok when they crawl, slapping the floor? that shit was funny.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
Collins.......yeesh. Pretty sad when a coach's antics make Izzo look rational.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:37 PM ^
Pardon was so close to having Brian eating a lemon.
December 5th, 2018 at 3:20 PM ^
I wonder if Brian crossed lemons off his grocery list, then put on some lipstick and leaned back a la steve buscemi in Billy Madison.
December 5th, 2018 at 2:50 PM ^
Change my mind:
Pardon and Law are a better duo than Ward and Langford
December 5th, 2018 at 4:31 PM ^
Speaking of State, the only difference between the two squads is that State has a PG. NW would be so much better with a true point guard.
December 5th, 2018 at 5:51 PM ^
I'm not sure one way or the other about basketball but Pardon and Law is a way better name for a TV show than Ward and Langford.
December 5th, 2018 at 6:54 PM ^
This week on Law.& Pardon: Special Victims Unit -- Law investigates the Johnie Vassar situation while Pardon takes a trip to a local elementary school when he finds out that a young student is being bullied due to the unusual spelling of his name.
Ward & Langford sounds like a 450-year old British haberdashery.
December 5th, 2018 at 3:01 PM ^
To be fair, Beilein was also on the court for a bit at the end to help adjust our guys into position. He wasn't on all fours like a dog, but was about 3 steps in the court for at least 5 seconds. I remember thinking that we might get a foul because if it. Luckily we did not.
December 5th, 2018 at 3:36 PM ^
To be fair, Beilein spends 70%-80% of his time on the bench - like actually SITTING on a chair. These clowns (i.e. Collins, Izzo, et al) spend 80% of their time actually ON THE COURT. It is not equivalent when Beilein does it for 15 seconds in one game out of 50. And if he does - T him up for it for all I care, as long as you do it for everyone. No freaking reason for it.
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