Michigan 79, Penn State 72
Paul Sherman/MGoBlog
When the threes aren't falling for Michigan, they're usually in deep trouble.
Today, however, that was not the case. The Wolverines hit six triples on 20 attempts, tying a season-low set way back in the opener against Northern Michigan, and yet they controlled the proceedings against Penn State while posting an impressive 1.20 points per possession.
The progression made across the board in Caris LeVert's absence was apparent. Michigan went 19/35 on two-pointers and 23/31 from the line, successfully going at the interior of Penn State's defense time and again. Nobody did it better than Zak Irvin, who attacked from the jump, scoring a team-high 20 points—whenever PSU switched a high screen, Irvin drove to the bucket and got results. As a bonus, he drilled a corner three to beat the first-half buzzer.
Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman also had a lot of success off the dribble, working his way to the point for 15 points. Derrick Walton played the role of distributor with Irvin focused on scoring; he put up a 13-10-7 stat line, and when PSU threatened to make it a game late, he had six points and a gorgeous assist to Rahkman in the final four minutes and change to put it away. Mark Donnal added ten points on 2/4 FG and 6/8 FT with four offensive boards.
Foul trouble limited Duncan Robinson to 27 minutes and after an early triple he couldn't find the mark from deep again, finishing 1/5 from beyond the arc. That would normally spell doom for Michigan in another game without Caris LeVert, but Aubrey Dawkins provided a spark off the bench again with seven points, two steals, and an assist.
A month ago, under these circumstances, Michigan probably loses this game. The emergence of an effective ball-screen game keyed by Irvin and Donnal has changed the complexion of the offense, however, and that's allowed Michigan to be productive even in games when one or two of their main scorers aren't hitting their outside shots—today, Robinson and Walton combined to go 2/9 from three, yet the offense still hummed along.
Michigan will still need more of those shots to fall in marquee games against Michigan State and Indiana this week. For today, though, they managed just fine as a team working from the inside out. Remarkably, even though LeVert hasn't played a minute in 2016, the Wolverines are momentarily just a half-game out of first place in the Big Ten.
January 30th, 2016 at 4:38 PM ^
when others were jumping ship, who is a known Coach B diehard on any board I've ever posted on, you've got me all wrong.
This was a fun chance to see the team in person, and to see where certain things are at. There are things they really need to improve on. For example, it was ludicrous that we kept allowing them to get that corner 3 in the last minutes when they needed to shoot 3's to comeback. We got fooled by the same little play on like three successive possessions.
I'm thrilled with where we're at, record-wise.
We have some real work to do. We will need to play way better than this next week.
January 30th, 2016 at 5:33 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 4:01 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 4:33 PM ^
he must have put in crazy work because he looked like a different human when he stepped on the court for the first time.
He also was just at a different level than Dakich is. Not every guy like that is Spike. Spike was a marvel and actually turned out to be a very solid D1 guy.
Spike was *much* sturdier than Dakich, btw. Not even close, the comparison.
January 30th, 2016 at 8:57 PM ^
Who cares about Dakich. Nice guy, bad ball player. Once Caris is back he won't see time. And even if he does, his sole purpose is to give Walton and RAHK a break. He really has no other job to do and he does that one fine. Someone has to give them a break and now that Spike is out, it is going to be Dakich and continue to be. But why are we even worrying about this? He plays three minutes a game.
January 30th, 2016 at 3:46 PM ^
get it. The more games they play the better they play together I am probably being redundit right now but I can't help saying that they really are getting it. We will see if their defense is going to help or hinder the offense in this second half of the season because they don't want to get in a shoot out with the top teams in the league or the country.
January 30th, 2016 at 3:52 PM ^
Man I cannot get over how much I hate those shorts.
January 30th, 2016 at 5:49 PM ^
January 30th, 2016 at 4:11 PM ^
How do I reply to someone's post on the HD app? For some reason, I figure it out. Perhaps I'm missing something.
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January 30th, 2016 at 4:56 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 5:03 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 5:04 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 4:33 PM ^
January 30th, 2016 at 8:15 PM ^
That said, IU always gives us fits and surely will again.
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January 30th, 2016 at 4:45 PM ^
When the threes aren't falling for Michigan, they're usually in deep trouble.
Lazy writing is lazy.
At what point do we do these three things:
1. Acknowledge that shooting 20+ threes a game is not some weird gimmicky strategy.
2. Kill the meme that we can only win if we shoot an obscene %?
3. Acknowledge that a team shooting 42% from 3 on the season should shoot a lot of threes because 3-points are worth 1 more point than 2-pointers.
It's 2016. The 3-point shot is not some low-quality shot. Players are better shooters than ever. An open 3 is a much better shot than anything but an uncontested layup.
When the threes aren't falling for ANY TEAM IN THE COUNTRY they are in deep trouble. But, for Michigan, 30% is terrible whereas for most teams, 30% is simply a slightly off night.
January 30th, 2016 at 5:03 PM ^
...from one line is rather remarkable.
At no point did I say this team shouldn't shoot a high number of threes—I've maintained quite the opposite all season (and all of Beilein's tenure), in fact. It's hard to dispute, however, that when Michigan doesn't make many threes, they tend to find themselves in trouble—they got crushed in similar performances against UConn and SMU. The whole theme of the post is that they've now reached the point where they're able to generate consistent offense even when the outside shots aren't falling—which is, I believe, your second point above.
If you're going to criticize for lazy writing, you might want to be more careful in your reading.
January 30th, 2016 at 5:17 PM ^
January 30th, 2016 at 5:44 PM ^
is that weird?
I guess I thought they both had some good points.
January 30th, 2016 at 7:07 PM ^
however, Michigan get crushed in all of their losses because of their inability to make buckets inside the arc. They've made threes all year long. Michigan is obviously at their best when they are efficient inside the arc which opens up the spacing at 3 point line.
January 31st, 2016 at 5:57 PM ^
It was a lazy opening line. Sorry, but come on. I made my points in my first post, but that line, aside from beign a tired meme, belies what modern basketball is.
The three point shot - specifically for this team, but really all teams - is not some gimmick. It's part of the game. You cannot win without being somewhat decent from behind the arc. Therefore, that first line is akin to writing "Michigan stuggles to win when they don't score points." That's why I thought it was a lazy and tired way to talk about the game.
Some very basic stats:
There are 16 teams that shoot more 3's per game than Michigan and nine that shoot as many, rounded to the nearest whole number. There are six teams that shoot a higher percentage. Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana, Arkansas, North Florida (18-6, first in ASun) and St. Mary's (18-2, first in WAC) shooter better. Arkansas is the weird average/below average team in there. Everyone else will make the tourney, likely.
More to the point, if you look at the Big10 conference standings it practically mirrors 3pt%.
Finally, Michigan is second in B10 play in 2pt%.
So, asserting the Michigan struggles when "the threes aren't falling" has many problems, aside from correlation != causation.
Just because Michigan doesn't have some back-to-the-basket giant doesn't mean they can only score from behind the arc. Just because their percentage is lower in a particluar game (and low for Michigan is literally average for many teams) doesn't mean that their ability to hit those shots doesn't have a positive factor even when they don't fall. There's also no talk of transition or defense which have direct effects on offensive efficiency. Instead, Beilein threes meme.
And yes, I know this entire article was describing how MIchigan got it done is all these other ways and the article basically supports what I'm saying. The thing I'm tired of being perpetuated is that Michigan, specifically, can't win without hitting a ton of threes. This season, the games they haven't won have pretty much been to teams much, much better and their 3pt% in those games should probably not be considered as highly as you suggested with that first line.
January 30th, 2016 at 5:29 PM ^
Other teams don't rely on the 3 ball nearly as much as we do. So to say that every team is in trouble when the 3's aren't falling is false. Ace is right in that when we've had similar performances this year we've been obliterated. Thankfully most of our off nights in conference play have come against horrendous teams like Minnesota, Rutgers, and Penn State. But Michigan can't rely on defense or a strong inside game usually to win when they're not making 3's.
January 31st, 2016 at 5:52 PM ^
Michigan is in the tenth percentile for 3PA per game, true. But, if you consider a difference of three 3PA per game negligible for the sake of comparing how much teams "rely on" the three, Michigan is basically in the top third of college basketball. Yes, they are high. No, not significantly higher than a majority of the nation.
January 30th, 2016 at 5:47 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 5:57 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 6:24 PM ^
I don't think I've ever seen him publish his formula for point projection (he does publish the formula for win likelihood). However, it's basically two components: he projects the number of points per possession each team will score based upon each team's adjusted offense, the opponent's adjusted defense, and the game location. He projects the number of possessions based upon each team's adjusted pace, and then he multiplies the two to get a projected score.
The impact of the game location -- home court advantage -- can be seen when comparing projections for the same two opponents at home and away. Michigan doesn't have any home-and-homes left, but here's an example from Oklahoma: he's got them projected to beat Texas 79-67 at home and 75-71 on the road. Both games are projected to be 68 possessions, so we can infer that the pace is essentially location-invariant. In this case, home court advantage appears to be worth 4 points -- in this matchup, each team is projected to score 4 more points at home than they are on the road. That spread won't necessarily be constant for any pair of teams, but it illustrates the basic idea.
January 30th, 2016 at 6:44 PM ^
Props to Derrick. He is making some Isiah passes out there.
January 30th, 2016 at 7:31 PM ^
January 30th, 2016 at 9:01 PM ^
January 31st, 2016 at 12:50 PM ^
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January 30th, 2016 at 9:28 PM ^
Right on the money again.
January 30th, 2016 at 10:40 PM ^
BEAT INDIANA.
January 30th, 2016 at 10:51 PM ^
I'm really psyched with where this team is right now: nipping at the heels of the top of the league, with a win over a top 5 team and only 5 losses all to good teams. And they're doing it after their best player has been out for weeks and after losing a key veteran senior for his career.
I thought some of today was pretty sloppy, but they still played hard and well enough to put away a scrappy B1G team. I don't think any one wants to play Michigan.
And the best part - this is a Beilein coached team and Beilein teams always play better at the end of the year. Can't wait to see how well they're playing in a few weeks...
January 30th, 2016 at 11:56 PM ^
I know it was Penn St. and I know the bball team doesn't get the love of football...and also that this particular incarnation is capable of getting blown out and can be frustrating beyond comprehension for stretches, but they're also incredibly fun to watch. The growth since early on in the year is apparent, and if LeVert can mesh, this team is dangerous. I'm looking forward to seeing them reach their potential not only this year, but further down the road as players continue to grow.
January 31st, 2016 at 2:06 AM ^
This game tell us we can beat Penn St with one hand tied behind our backs.
Penn St will not be good anytime soon
January 31st, 2016 at 6:58 AM ^
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January 31st, 2016 at 11:53 AM ^
Teams like them always rank high, even on kenpom and then just lose in the second or third round of the tourney, kind of like Oregon football. I even have a difficult time assessing anyone in the Big East for that matter. Xavier does seem like a solid team and so does Providence and Nova but they have odd schedules and seem to always lose in the early days of the tourney...maybe I'm wrong, someone correct me. ACC and Big Ten teams always do well in the tourney.
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