NCAA Tournament Preview: Louisville
THE ESSENTIALS
WHAT |
#21 Michigan (25-11, 10-8 B1G) vs #8 Louisville (25-8, 12-6 ACC) |
---|---|
WHERE |
The Nets Are On Fire Fieldhouse Indianapolis, Indiana |
WHEN | 12:10 pm ET, Sunday |
LINE |
Louisville -3 (KenPom) Louisville -2.5 (Vegas) |
TV |
CBS PBP: Jim Nantz Analyst: Bill Raftery & Grant Hill |
Right: If John Beilein is head coach of the Golden State Warriors, Rick Pitino coaches the Monstars. [Bryan Fuller]
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THE US
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]
Feelin' pretty good.
THE LAST TIME
It was clean. Brian wrote notes from a rooftop. I attempted to contextualize. Beilein will apparently bring it up during film study:
John Beilein on whether he'll show Michigan any clips from 2013 national championship game: pic.twitter.com/nLTEVtX9aW
— Orion Sang (@orion_sang) March 18, 2017
Diplomatically put.
THE LINEUP CARD
Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.
Pos. | # | Name | Yr. | Ht./Wt. | %Min | %Poss | ORtg | SIBMIHHAT | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G | 4 | Quentin Snider | Jr. | 6'2, 175 | 64 | 21 | 116 | Not At All | |||||||||||
Good distributor, excellent three-point shooter, iffy finisher inside arc. | |||||||||||||||||||
G | 45 | Donovan Mitchell | So. | 6'3, 195 | 80 | 23 | 114 | No | |||||||||||
Top scoring option has 46/35/92 (2P%/3P%/FT%) shooting splits. Pesky defender. | |||||||||||||||||||
F | 22 | Deng Adel | So. | 6'7, 200 | 72 | 20 | 111 | No | |||||||||||
Lanky wing is primarily a spot-up shooter in halfcourt. Good transition finisher. | |||||||||||||||||||
F | 10 | Jaylen Johnson | Jr. | 6'9, 230 | 51 | 20 | 116 | Yes | |||||||||||
Great offensive rebounder, strong finisher at the rim, iffy foul shooter. | |||||||||||||||||||
C | 12 | Mangok Mathiang | Sr. | 6'10, 220 | 50 | 20 | 112 | Very | |||||||||||
Another great rebounder, rim protector. Lacks touch around rim of other L'ville bigs. | |||||||||||||||||||
F | 13 | Ray Spalding | So. | 6'10, 215 | 48 | 18 | 108 | Very | |||||||||||
Another great rebounder, rim protector. Hits 61% of FGs, 55% of FTs. | |||||||||||||||||||
C | 14 | Anas Mahmoud | Jr. | 7'0, 215 | 42 | 16 | 110 | Very | |||||||||||
Boasts nation's #4 block rate. Good rebounder and finisher, awful FT shooter. | |||||||||||||||||||
F | 0 | VJ King | Fr. | 6'6, 190 | 33 | 20 | 112 | No | |||||||||||
Good outside shooter and finisher, takes too many 2-pt jumpers. |
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
THE THEM
This is very much a Rick Pitino Louisville squad: rotating giants in the frontcourt, crashing the glass with aplomb, and playing a great defense that throws a few different looks out there.
In fact, let's start up front. The Cardinals platoon four players at the four and five, and all are excellent offensive rebounders. The most experienced is 6'10" senior center Mangok Mathiang, who was in his redshirt year during the 2013 title game, making him the only holdover from that contest on either team. Mathiang is a very good shot-blocker and rebounder; he's only a so-so finisher at the rim. Burly 6'9" starting four Jaylen Johnson is a more effective scorer, though free throws are an issue, and posts the best offensive rebounding rate of the bunch—no small feat.
Johnson has ceded time to 6'10 sophomore Ray Spalding, another great rebounder and strong scorer near the basket who adds more shot-blocking on the other end. As if that weren't enough, the backup center is true seven-footer Anas Mahmoud, who has the fourth-best block rate in the country and makes 62% of his shots from the field. Oddly enough, he's the least productive rebounder of the group. The main weakness for all four players is free-throw shooting; they range from 46% (Mahmoud) to 68% (Mathiang) with relatively high free-throw rates. Turnovers can also be a problem. These guys don't create much on their own, but they'll be a huge problem if Michigan can't contain Louisville's perimeter players, and they form an imposing back line on defense.
Those perimeter players aren't quite Jawun Evans-fast, but they'll be tough to keep out of the lane regardless. Point guard Quentin Snider is a solid passer and excellent spot-up shooter, and while he's not much of a finisher around the rim, he creates a lot of buckets for his giant teammates by drawing in the defense and getting shots up. Two-guard Donovan Mitchell also gets to the rim with regularity and gets those shots to go more often than Snider. He takes half his shots from beyond the arc and hits 35% of them. These two will play most of the game; backup guards Tony Hicks and David Levitch only get spot minutes.
Small forward Deng Adel is a longer version of the guards: a decent, not great, outside shooter who can get to the basket and at least create a chance for a putback. He's backed up by freshman VJ King, the only non-big who gets significant time off the bench; King mostly gets what his teammates create for him, and he's a good three-point shooter.
THE RESUME
Louisville tallied a few signature wins in non-conference play, knocking off Purdue on a neutral court before losing to Baylor and beating Wichita State and Kentucky at home. They weren't quite as strong in ACC play, going 2-6 against conference foes currently ranked in the KenPom top 25. The Cardinals made easy work of Jacksonville State in the first round, rebounding nearly half their misses and forcing JSU to try to keep up from the perimeter.
THE TEMPO-FREE
Like Oklahoma State, Louisville makes up for merely decent shooting by getting a ton of offensive rebounds, and they're better at taking care of the rock than the Cowboys. The Cardinals are very much an inside-out offense; they're 278th in 3PA/FGA. They look to get moving downhill off the pick-and-roll.
The defense is an entirely different story. They block a ton of shots and make good looks tough to come by both inside and outside the arc. Their weakness is fouling. If they choose to switch on high ball screens like many opponents have of late, Derrick Walton should be looking to draw contact from their bigs, who are willing to get very aggressive because of their four-man frontcourt rotation.
THE KEYS
Stay in front, don't get overwhelmed. Michigan managed to overcome Oklahoma State rebounding over half their missed shots yesterday, but Louisville's defense isn't nearly so forgiving. While the rebounding onus will fall on the bigs, it all starts with guard play: Derrick Walton and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman have to contain Snider and Mitchell, especially off the high screen, because being forced to rotate will inevitably lead to putback opportunities.
Beat the pressure. Rick Pitino says Louisville won't press as much as usual tomorrow. You can bet, however, that he took note of how Oklahoma State's extended pressure once Michigan crossed halfcourt threw off the offense for an extended stretch early in yesterday's game. Michigan will be in trouble if they're scrambling to get their plays started with 15 seconds left on the shot clock. This is probably one of Beilein's top points of emphasis in practice today; he's proven his offense can give Pitino's defenses trouble once they get going, but he hasn't faced Louisville since the shot clock went down from 35 to 30 seconds—a seemingly minor difference that could play a huge role tomorrow.
Go DJ. The more I look at this matchup, the more I believe Michigan must get one of DJ Wilson's better performances of the season to win. Beilein went with Wilson at center down the stretch yesterday not because of Moe Wagner foul trouble, but because he was doing a much better job of challenging shots at the rim. He'll need to do the same tomorrow while keeping Louisville off the offensive glass as much as he can and using his versatile scoring (and drive-and-dish) ability to give their bigs issues on the other end.
THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES
Louisville by 3.
If I had to bet, I think Louisville's defense throws Michigan off with extended half-court pressure just enough to outscore them. If the Wolverines shoot close to as well as they did against OSU, however, all bets are off.
ELSEWHERE
UMHoops preview. Brendan Quinn catches up with Warde Manuel, who says his faith in Beilein never wavered, and he doesn't expect to say goodbye any time soon:
Beilein's age, Manuel said, is a non-factor in his mind.
"John is the winningest coach in Michigan history," Manuel said. "I'll address that when he addresses it. I don't see that being for awhile."
As OSU found out, 3's are better than 2's.
March 18th, 2017 at 10:47 PM ^
Louisville struggled with Grand Canyon University's guards earlier this year. Walton and friends should be able to disect the Cardinals. Go Blue!
March 19th, 2017 at 12:18 AM ^
watching that play. Kids that don't get paid deserve better from the three people on the floor that do.
March 19th, 2017 at 12:30 AM ^
March 19th, 2017 at 12:35 AM ^
I'm sure he'll give his team a "clap".
March 19th, 2017 at 12:37 AM ^
They lost twice to Virginia. Slow them down and outplay their guards. Hmmm.
guards by keeping them out of the paint, we should be fine on the boards because our bigs will actually be able to rebound. So I would say this analysis holds.
the game!!!
I think we need Walton and MAAR to go to the hoop hard in the first 10 minutes of both halves to pick up fouls. Even if they have trouble converting, the extra fouls should pay off on the back end when we get to the bouus. I feel like are going to need to shoot a bunch of FT to win this game.
This may be a MAAR street-ball special. He has a knack for finishing at bizarre angles in against the trees. Maybe he can go at them early and pick up some extra fouls while he is at it.
like a good idea? They have four (!!!) essentially interchangeable bigs who block a ton of shots without fouling an excessive amount. How about we not challenge the trees too much.
That's not our game anyway. We are not good at driving into the lane and drawing fouls, so why try to do what we aren't good at now? We just shot 16-29 (!!!!!) from three. Let's do more of that. Drive the lane, yes, but do it to collapse the defense and then kick for threes. Don't try to challenge the shot blockers too much.
I love how Beilein gets his teams to turn it up in late February and March. But we really need to start doing it all season so that we are not playing a 2 seed in the second round.
This is a matchup we should be having in a Regional final.
I like our chances. We came out cold against Ok State and still came out on top. Hopefully, we get off to a hot shooting start. If we do, Sweet 16 here we come.
GO BLUE!!
from three in the South Carolina game. I didn't even remember it being that bad, but just went back and looked. That is unfathomable. South Carolina is a good defensive team, but that 3pt percentage defies logic. I can't imagine us approaching that level.
I do think they're going to be able to put a lot of pressure on us on the perimeter, because their guards are good. Where we should have an advantage/mismatch is our bigs playing the perimeter. I don't know that their bigs will come out to guard DJ and Wagner and if they do, they both can drive. They both need to be aware of help coming though on their spin moves.
Also, Derrick Walton is playing on another level right now so he should be able to create open looks for guys.
I taught him at Ypsi. Always told him I would be pulling for him in every game except against michigan... In fact we had an ongoing joke that i would change his B to an A if changed his destination from louisville to Ann Arbor. He was a real good guy, humble, hard working, and I don't think I ever heard him say a bad word about anyone. By far the best athlete I've ever taught (although Corey Allen may give him a run at the college level). I'm excited to see him play against us tomorrow.
Also, I remember at the time being disappointed that Michigan really didn't pursue him, but neither did MSU, so I figured it had something to do with each team's composition at the time.
If we can get some threes from DJ and Wagner pulling their bigs away from the rim Lousiville is in trouble. There are some bad matchups here for Louisville in the front court.
March 19th, 2017 at 10:04 AM ^
Louisville's marching orders from Pitino are going to be pretty clear: "Be disruptive at all costs. If Michigan's offense gets in a rhythm, they are deadly."
We need to be willing to punish that attempted disruption early on to back it off. In the first quarter of the game, we need to pounce on every opening we get.
If we break the perss and there are still 20 seconds on the shot clock, go for the score. Don't worry that we did not run the offensive set. Make them pay for mistakes.
We don't want to get in a run and gun game, but we can't start the game cold. We can't let them dictate the game early on. We need to give them something to think about. If we don't, they and their home crowd will feed on the energy of shutting our offense down and it will spiral.
March 19th, 2017 at 11:09 AM ^
March 19th, 2017 at 11:45 AM ^
March 19th, 2017 at 12:17 PM ^
I hate these punks! Let's bring it to 'em! GO BLUE!
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