What's the best formula for beating Michigan?
I only started this thread in a semi circle-jerking manner, but we just beat two good, talented teams that are completely different in play style.
OSU was a fast paced, 3 point shooting, out score you team. Louisville is a slower paced, smother you on defense, out rebound/big man you type team. We managed to beat both in 3 days, granted both in close games.
The rest of the way, what type of play stayle do you think Michigan would struggle with the most? One of the two we just played, something in the middle, or an entirely different type of team?
If you guard them out there, two of them can take your big off the dribble. How you going to defend that?
You need to hope you have a hot shooting night and we don't.
We can have lapses at the line. If you've got enough players, get us tired at the line, frustrate us with hacking (since they won't all get called), and hope to beat us with 1 quick PG and 1 monster down low.
Teams need to do what they do best, we can adapt really well on offense and have the size to compete with anyone on defense. Getting the bigs in foul trouble could be damning but we are pretty tough in every aspect. But if a team just does what they do best we can be beat. OSU did it right we just shot too well to be beat by anyone.
The coach is going full mad genius on us. He is ready for anything.
I thought the L'ville game plan to take the risk of a mismatch to prevent the three was damn sound. Then the Uberman took over, and ... not so much. The problem we give other teams is matchups -- unless you have a team made almost the same way we are, you are going to have to pick your poison. Letting us shoot threes appears to be a bad idea (see OK State), but my sense is that might be the best way to go, making sure you d on to give uncontensted looks, and hope for an off night. That, and really beating us up on the glass. L'ville did that in the first half, not so much in teh second.
There were numerous times during the season when the entire team seemed to go cold.
Fortunately for us, the strategy of closing out the lane and giving us shots outside usually plays right into our hands.
Our guys are playing with so much confidence right now, giving us threes could get you blown out.
THE ONLY STRATEGY IS TO WEEP AND REPENT FOR YOUR SINS
A lot of pretty good but not really convincing answers on this thread.
I like that.
I mean, they're pretty white-collar. You just gotta be about toughness and together and pride yourself on defense and work to get better at it.
That should work once, but their future opponents might be pissed at you.
thus forcing Michigan to inbound, which does not go well for us. Ever.
2 of 3 of those late today. Including one bouce out of bounds trying to inbound.
Now that autobench is not always auto....this may be his only development/XOs coaching flaw.
[outside of taking 2/3 of a season to become a TRULY great team]
Rebounding, keeping them off the 3 pt line, and early whistles on Wagner.
We've played 5 different types of teams in a row (all of them in the Top 25), among which we showed elite 3-point shooting (Ok.ST), balanced passing (all of them), killing the turnover margin and creating buckets in transition (Wisky), good on-ball defensive rotation (all of them), matching inside-out teams in points-in-the-paint (Louisville), and even crashing the glass and drawing fouls while being consistent at the FT line (Purdue). This team does everything well, and ARE actually unstoppable when they bring everything together, most notably the B1G championship being an example. The team's biggest weakness, however, is inconsistency in controlling the tempo due to the lack of depth and having to bench players that need to be on the court for too long. The best way to beat Michigan is to play inside-out and be active off-ball with pindowns and baseline cuts, definitively win the rebounding margin, put Mo and/or DJ in foul trouble and make your FT's, limit the shot clock for our low-tempo half-court offense with full-court pressure and on-ball double teams from super athletic forwards, and hope that somebody doesn't get hot from 3 or that Simpson and/or Donnal don't have a good game. If you do all that and do it well, then you might have a shot if you score over 70 points. Louisville hit almost all of these points, except that they were careless with the ball on offense and either took bad shots or committed silly turnovers. So, yeah, we're tough to beat. Go Blue!
Hoping for the Michigan plane to crash is off the list. Good luck, everybody else.
I regret that I have but one upvote to give for this comment.
War Games reference!
We're a top 10 team right now. Every guy on the floor for us can beat you in multiple ways. So you can take away the three like Louisville did, and we'll beat you taking it to the hole. The best you can do to slow our offense is to just hope we miss shots and even then, we're going to get ours. You just have to hope we only score 1.1 ppp instead of 1.3+.
Then you have to be a really good halfcourt offensive team yourself, because you're not going to turn us over a lot. Louisville is not a great halfcourt offensive team, and they rely a lot on turnovers to get out on the break. And they only shot 5/20 from three.
So the handful of teams that have the best shot at beating us are the teams that are really good at both ends of the floor (neither OSU or Lou were such teams). Style is overated when at the end of the day, you have to defend (which OSU didn't do/just a bit unlukcy and got bombed) and you have to make shots (which Lou didn't do). That's really the only way to beat great teams.
Bring a bigger super soaker!
Added bonus: read the write-up to see who scored an unbelievable 26 points...
That is amazing. Who knew he had that kind of talent?
Walton and Wagner are playing at a NBA level on the pick and roll.
The answer since Purdue is to to switch it. So far Walton was Most Valuable Player of the Big Ten Tourney and now Wagner with the easiest 26 points he's ever gotten.
Louisville has it right though. Switch it, have bigs good enough to contain Walton, which wow they are super athletic, and make Wagner beat you. Wagner hasn't shown this consistency down low all season.
It would have worked if Louisvillle had some sense of offense. Their whole offense was jack it up and hope for a rebound.
The medicre coach way is to get Wagner and Wilson in foul trouble.
I don't know if it's so much about Wagner previously being inconsistent as that we weren't always great at identifying the mismatch and feeding him the ball. That may be where Walton's shown the most growth this season; he's gone from seeming like an undersized 2 to a true distributor.
Walton's entire game has grown, but most significant is his court vision and ability to find the right man in the right place.
God, it's great to see such improvement in players.
I shouldn't have put it on Wagner, you are dead correct. Its the inconsistency of getting Wilson and Wagner the ball on the mistmatch.
Wagner's game is matchup dependent. He can take bigs off the dribble too easily, so you can't stop with him Swanigan or Louisville trees. We did a really good job of going to him on smaller guys, which we hadn't been doing. Also, wing types that can defend the perimeter and have length like Vince Edwards or OSU bigs had a lot more success guarding Wagner's dribble drive. Louisville didn't have a good matchup for him. Either slow big guys or guys that were too short.
where can I watch a replay of todays game?????
Well, he said it because he thought he was onto something. The problem is that matchup nightmares like DJ Wilson drove LEFT in post ups and controlled the paint on offense all day while still being a threat to shoot. Forcing a team left requires the defense to either use strength and size to literally force ball-handlers away from the right side in a post up, or to use more than one player to guard the ball. That kind of thing bites you in the ass when that leaves guys like MAAR or DJ open on the baseline and the rest of the offensive players have excellent vision, and also when your own players get confused when they play away from their own matchup trying to double team on a drive to the right and leave Mo open for a three. So, besides maybe Derrick and Duncan, I don't think we have a problem being biased to one side. Defenses have to play us to the baseline to force us away from our off-ball actions, rather than forcing us to one side. Pitino says these were nothing but mental lapses by his own players, but I think we just have too many versatile players.
5 (according to CBS, at least).
Against a pressing, attacking Louisville defense. That is just incredible, and quintessential Beilein basketball.
Almost impossible to beat a team that almost never turns the ball over.
If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we're gonna be winners. ~ Norman Dale, Hickory High
Question.
and Ohio refs.
Yes, I agree OP, but add in Purdue and Wiscy and we have the complete opposite of Louisville and Oklahoma State.
Simple answer: There isn't one. Do you have any hard questions?