Hoops Preview: Florida State, Elite Eight
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THE ESSENTIALS
WHAT | #7 Michigan (31-7) vs #26 Florida State (23-11) |
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WHERE | Ann Arbor Elder Law Center Los Angeles, CA |
WHEN | 8:49 PM Saturday |
LINE | Michigan –4 (KenPom) |
TV | TBS |
uhhhhhhhh in the process of finding an ent picture i found an ent related music video
THE US
That'll do.
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 | 3 | Trent Forrest | So. | 6'5, 215 | 78* | 19 | 114 | Yes | |||||||||||
Driver with no jump shot, top ten FT rate. 52% from 2, A:TO ratio close to 1. | |||||||||||||||||||
G | 11 | Braian Angola | Sr. | 6'6, 195 | 76 | 23 | 112 | No | |||||||||||
Versatile SG-ish hits 48/38, creates most of his own twos. TOs an issue. | |||||||||||||||||||
F | 14 | Terance Mann | Jr. | 6'6, 204 | 58 | 21 | 118 | Yes | |||||||||||
Another pure driver, 63% from 2 w 8% OREBs. Transition dependent. | |||||||||||||||||||
F | 0 | Phil Cofer | Sr. | 6'8, 218 | 67 | 19 | 114 | No | |||||||||||
55/38 from floor, no assist, low TO gent. | |||||||||||||||||||
C | 25 | Mfiondu Kabengele | Fr. | 6'8, 245 | 43 | 24 | 110 | Yes | |||||||||||
Rebounding beast with 6% block rate and some range. | |||||||||||||||||||
C | 21 | Christ Koumadje | Jr. | 7'4, 233 | 27 | 17 | 118 | Very | |||||||||||
Enormous man w 10% block rate. Dunks on assists, putbacks. | |||||||||||||||||||
C | 12 | Ike Obiagu | Fr. | 7'0", 240 | 26 | 14 | 88 | Very | |||||||||||
20% block rate! Terrible at everything else. | |||||||||||||||||||
G | 2 | CJ Walker | So. | 6'1, 195 | 33 | 19 | 102 | No | |||||||||||
Former starting PG has more TOs than assists, shooting 47/36. | |||||||||||||||||||
G | 2 | PJ Savoy | Jr. | 6'4, 195 | 51 | 19 | 102 | No | |||||||||||
Just a shooter hitting 38%. Minutes have surged lately. | |||||||||||||||||||
F | 23 | MJ Walker | Fr. | 6'6, 205 | 47 | 19 | 100 | Sort of | |||||||||||
FR is scuffling badly, shooting 42/35 from floor with TOs, but still plays |
*[last five games minutes from Kenpom.]
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
THE THEM
FSU is an unusual Elite Eight opponent in many ways. For one, they're a 9-9 ACC team that got bounced in the first round of the conference tourney by NIT-bound Louisville, and they didn't do much in the nonconference to recommend them other than bombing Florida on the road. Their only other top 100 nonconference game was a loss to Oklahoma State.
For two, Florida State is simultaneously an extremely typical Florida State outfit and one of the weirdest teams I've ever previewed in these parts. The typical Florida State stuff: they're stacked back to front with enormous dudes ranging from African Guy Who May Literally Be An Ent to Future NFL Tight End. The weird stuff: nobody averages 30 minutes a game and there's approximately two guards on the roster, if you're judging by body type.
It's futile to lump guys into traditional 1-5 roles here because of the rotation and general weirdness. FSU sports a couple of no-shoot drivers, some all-around guys who are competent from three, and then Ents.
DRIVERS ONLY
WDE Trent Forrest: good bend around the corner
The no shoot drivers include FSU's point guard (ish), Trent Forrest. Forrest is a 6'5" Darius Morris type. He does his best work attacking off the dribble on the pick and roll. Forrest is FSU's main assist guy and initiator and possesses a top 60 steal rate; that's offset by a 20 TO rate and a 3/14 season from three. Forrest's FT rate is 10th nationally, and he hits 69% once he gets to the line. Almost 70% of his shots are at the rim. Forrest drives, and then drives, and then drives some more. He's an 8th percentile spot-up shooter.
Small forward(?) Terrance Mann is is extremely similar to Forrest. He's a 6'6" slasher who attacks off the PNR and has no jumper. His ORTG near 120 is built off impressive 63% shooting from two; that, in turn, is built on a bunch of transition, OREBs, and cuts to the basket. He's shooting 25% from three on about two attempts a game.
VERSATILE WING SORTS
Three guys fill out the wing shooter role. Nobody is Just A Shooter; everyone has at least 50% of their attempts from inside the arc and a healthy FT rate. 6'6' senior Braian Angola is the most prominent. He's a 48/38 shooter with 22% usage, a deadeye from the FT line, and just gets inside the top 500 on Kenpom in FT rate and assist rate. He creates most of his own shots inside the line, but he's very much a rim-and-3 guy. If you can force him into a 2PJ he scuffles badly.
6'8" stretch four Phil Cofer is fairly efficient thanks to a low TO rate and 55/38 shooting. He's FSU's best spot up shooter and will face up on the block to take two point jumpers he's decent at draining; he's less transition-dependent than most of his teammates. If FSU decides to post anyone it'll probably be Cofer, who's averaging a solid PPP on about one post up a game.
Freshman MJ Walker is another wing; he's been locked in a terrible slump for the last month. He's failed to hit a three in the last seven games and is shooting 41% from two on the season. He doesn't offer much else except turnovers, but FSU has not dropped him from the rotation. He's averaging 15 MPG in the tourney. Unless he breaks out those minutes look like a gift.
GUARDS? I GUESS?
And the guard type persons. CJ Walker is the only guy on the roster under 6'4". He's 6'1". He was the starting PG until seven games ago, when FSU went with Forrest more. Walker is just an okay shooter—36% from deep—and has a TO rate higher than his A rate, so that move isn't a huge surprise. Walker was also extremely poor in transition—Forrest is excellent—and since FSU appears to have gone all-in with a frenetic style, Walker wasn't a great fit. He did get 24 minutes in the Gonzaga game, FWIW.
PJ Savoy* is Just A Shooter, hitting 35/38 with just 23 attempts inside the arc on the season. He missed seven games midseason and is averaging about 20 MPG after his return, and he's been very hot during that stretch. He's 25/51 from 3 since February 10th. Michigan should limit his attempts, as they do to everyone; if they don't Savoy will hurt them.
*[Yes, FSU has a PJ, a CJ, and an MJ.]
ENTS
At center… take a breath. There are actually two African maybe-Ents. Christ Koumadje is a 7'4" dude from Chad; Ike Obiagu is a 7-footer from Nigeria.
Koumadje has started every FSU game since mid-January but struggles to stay on the floor because of his 6.3 fouls per 40 and general rawness—in the tourney he's played 9, 11, and 11 minutes. When he's on the floor he's about what you'd expect: a swat machine (10%, on par with Robert Williams) and rebounder who gets virtually all of his shots via an assist or a putback. He has no back to the basket game. No Seminole does, actually—only 5% of their possessions are classified as post-ups and they're actually worse at them than Michigan is at defending them.
Obiagu, a freshman, only gets about ten minutes a game because his sole discernible basketball skill at this juncture is blocking the ever-living hell out of the ball. He does this on every drive vaguely in his area and is rewarded with a spectacular 20% block rate, which would be by far the #1 rate in the country if Obiagu had clocked 16 MPG. He also cracks into double-digits as an offensive rebounder.
Everything else is a disaster. Obiagu has two assists on the year, a 27 TO rate, is shooting 32% from the line, and has vanishingly small usage. He has 18 post-up possessions on the year. At least his 88 ORTG isn't attached to a 30% usage point guard who plays all the time.
FSU's third center is by far their most skilled. Freshman Mfiondu Kabengele—who is from Ontario—doesn't have the sheer size of his compatriots but can shoot a bit (38% from three, albeit on just 26 attempts) and generates a fair number of his own shots. He gets the bare plurality of C minutes, uses almost 25% of FSU possessions when he's on the court, and maintains a fairly healthy 110 ORTG. Despite the fact that he's just 6'8" he goes toe to toe with the other guys as a rebounder and has an impressive 6% block rate himself.
THE TEMPO-FREE
The first thing that jumps out about FSU is their tempo. FSU ranks 41st, which is higher than any Big Ten team—Iowa is tops at 71st—and amongst the fastest teams in the country who aren't total butt. Only Oklahoma, Auburn, and North Carolina State are faster major conference teams. The top 50 is littered with SWAC and MEAC and Big South teams.
This should play into Michigan's hands, but FSU has a secondary source of transition opportunities: explosive blocks that hit a Seminole in the chest.
The Seminoles's tempo-free statistics are admirably descriptive. Their offense is 33rd on the strength of excellent two point shooting and good-not-great offensive rebounding; they are meh at threes and take an average number. They have a slight turnover issue.
On defense they look every part the team that tries to swat everything and accepts the consequences. This means they're top 20 in block rate and 17th in two point D, but they're surprising bad at DREBs for a team of Ents—because those Ents are swinging wildly at any basketball-shaped object that comes within 15 feet of them. FSU is also pretty bad at defending the three-point line, giving up a dead average number that go in the basket at a slightly worse than normal rate.
THE KEYS
WIN. TRANSITION. Absolutely imperative. FSU is one of the most transition-heavy teams in the country on both ends. The only team that gives up more transition looks than FSU and is not complete trash is West Virginia and their Huggy Bear press. While you can feel the thunderous Tayshawn Prince blocks oozing off the page when you check FSU's 86th percentile transition D, they still give up significantly more PPP on the whopping 20% of opponent shots Synergy classifies as transition.
On the other side of the ball, a similar deal. 21% of FSU possessions are in transition and they lose a significant amount of offensive effectiveness when forced into the half-court. The dropoff is not as severe as it was for A&M, but it's still 0.2 PPP—which is a ton.
Michigan counters with an excellent, if slightly infrequent transition O and the best transition D in the country. I know I've mentioned this again and again but this is another team that wants to run and pound the boards and must be checked, and then punished, for their predilections.
Survive on the defensive boards. FSU is going to crash the glass with everyone from all angles in search of the second chance points they'll need to keep up. Each one of these opportunities is a big swing between a likely FSU bucket and a Michigan transition opportunity.
Drag 'em out. FSU's very traditional bigs can't swat everything and respect the Wagner pick and pop. First Wagner Three in this game might be worth 20 points, not ten. Michigan should try to line up their minutes so that Teske mostly goes up against Kabengele, the least threatening swat machine at C.
Shoot. Michigan doesn't have to shoot like they did against A&M to win. They probably have to do better than they did against Houston. This game is likely to be closer to A&M. Michigan isn't coming off a layoff, isn't playing at 10 PM against Central/Mountain teams, and isn't playing a team that's capable of switching everything.
THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES
Michigan by 4.
that the A&M players were barely walking toward MAAR when he set up an open shot.
You notice this on a number of the 3s where where most of our guys jog back pretty early except maybe one rebounder already underneath or slashing in from the baseline or wing to try to steal an OR
I think there was Beilein interview recently where he basically said that their philosophy is to send guys back early rather than fight for a low-probability rebound since preventing transition oppotunities is way more important. But it's sometimes dependent on where the opposing players are and if there are guys leaking out.
Or... everyone is just so confident it's going in.
State would appear to be a very odd team, defying typical descriptions. I like to be able to categorize opponents, it makes me feel better. "Big, hulking team of guys with no guards who mostly can't shoot but are almost uniformly good at free throws and that run and gun a lot despite not being very good at at" Is that a category?
But I'm pretty sure FSU sucks at free throws, too.
Yes, not as bad as Michigan but in the 270s out of 351
So, an athletic but not especially skilled team that is dependent on transition opportunities? I like our chances.
Slow them down, make them chase shadows, frustrate the hell out of them.
This is the kind of team that the Princetons of the world used to beat, to everyone's bewilderment.
The reactions of the A&M bench players allow me to fully enjoy the splashiness of the 1st half. Yeeessssss...
Instead of leaning like crazy on a below-average PG they rotate like crazy because, well, it doesn't really matter because they don't have a true point guard. At least they realize that. They want to run run run, hence the deep and frequent rotations. Which again means this should be less fretting about Moe and Teske getting into foul trouble and more about putting Z on the ballhandler to shut down any entry passes. The slashers could be a bit of a problem but I don't see anyone here who can run an offense. We may not be able to do anything about lobs to a 7'4" guy but those passes are dangerous if they're not pinpoint.
That said, those seven-footers might not get much run anyway because their ONLY upside -- shot-blocking -- is neutralized by the five-out. Let them have their pound of flesh inside, keep Wagner in the game and make them defend the perimeter with guys 6'6"-7'4".
Michigan can lose this game the way any team can at this juncture, rotten luck and/or ref meddling. Otherwise, if they're a team of Ents, then Michigan is a buzzsaw.
Michigan's patient half-court offense will basically hypnotize the FSU defense and then generate lots of open looks in the last 10 seconds which theoretically should go in lots. This effectively takes the run game away from FSU and we have them right wheere we want them.
Otherwise, if they're a team of Ents, then Michigan is a buzzsaw.
Oh?!....oh that is sweet.
FSU has been one of the luckier teams this tournament in terms of the teams they faced.
First round they face Missouri without leading scorer Kassius Robertson and thus MPJ plays 25 minutes in his second game back and was clearly gassed at the end.
Second round they face Xavier, the weakest 1 seed potentially ever, and barely beat them with Xavier's best player playing his worst game of the year.
Last night they play Gonzaga who doesn't have potential NBA lotto pick Killian Tillie and win by 15.
Credit to them for winning those games, and they can definitely beat us, but as long as we don't have a surprise injury before the game and we don't revert to Montana/Houston shooting, I like our odds.
The point is that without Robertson, Mizzou was not as good as usual, and without Tillie, Gonzaga was also not as good as usual. On paper they may have been 8 and 4 seeds, respectively, but they earned those seeds with those guys in the lineup.
Personally, I'd rather do that - face a team that suddenly has to cope with the loss of its star - than what we did (face underseeded teams). Per KenPom, Montana should have been more like a 12 seed and Houston more like a 4.
March 24th, 2018 at 12:31 AM ^
given our seed, but we were very fortunate that Texas A&M beat UNC. That was a gift from the basketball gods. Granted, we would have beaten any team in the country if we played the way we did against Texas A&M, but still a pretty easy path after our first two games against underseeded teams.
IMO Houston is better than any of the teams FSU has beaten. The way Houston was playing in the last ~10 games leading up to the M game they were a top 10 team in the country. And as mentioned by posters above, FSU got pretty fortunate with Mizzou being w/o their leading scorer & Gonzaga being without a sniper from 3 (clearly a huge player to have considering FSU's length inside the arc). FSU's a good team, but not the best team we've faced. And they're a hell of a lot more similar to A&M than Houston.
Yes, I need all the exclamations!!!!!!!!
Username checks out
You're on the internet. Try searching it.
But I'll save you the time -- Ents are giant tree-people from the Lord of the Rings movies or books or whatever.
I read all of the Chronicals of Narnia as a kid but not Lord of the Rings.
Some of these analytics acronyms also drive me nuts. We don't all know this stuff! Maybe on the useful stuff page we could have definitions of all of these concepts, sorted by sport,including hockey because I have no fucking idea what a corsi is etc. I have the greatest admiration for our Dear Leader Brian and Ace on the podcasts, and I rarely miss one, but sometimes they sound like two 14 year old kids playing Dungeons & Dragons with all the codified language.
Every one of these games scares me, but every day I watch this team and see other teams I thought were better fall, the harder it is to not get excited about maybe playing for a title. It's insane to think that, I know, and FSU could swarm them into oblivion and it ends tomorrow. But like, if you asked me at the end of the December that the only teams between Michigan and a national title game appearance were FSU, Loyola-Chicago, and KSU, I wouldn't have believed you knew anything about sports, like, at all.
I don't think Michigan will beat FSU like they did A&M; you can't predict 60% shooting even against a defense that will give you shots. But right now, Michigan is the best defense left in the tournament save maybe Duke, and quietly has a top-25 KenPom offense. They are better than the SC team that made the final four last year, better than the Oregon team they nearly knocked off, and right about where Gonzaga and UNC wound up last season. This has quietly become one of the best teams in the country, and hell, they might have another gear left.
and i have nagging memories of terrible in bound plays
both of these, plus another great foul-less effort from Mo will be key
does that mean we might only win by 20?
makes me very uncomfortable..FSU has hung and or beaten some verey good teams in the ACC so the level of competition has been stiff...Im noty sure we can coun t on anopther performance like last night...but we need it
Yeah, we could have played 26 points worse, in fact.
by far.
Most of the team already started their respective celebrations before the shot went in. I think they were just loving the fact that he pulled up at the top of key and took that shot. Amazing.
Anyone who didn't watch the Ent Musical via the link at the top is really missing the best part of this whole post.
March 24th, 2018 at 10:18 AM ^
Glad to see Terrance Mann took time out from watching baseball in an Iowa cornfield to lace up his high-tops.
"People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."
So, they look like A&M but faster?
I think FSU, like A&M, is not disciplined enough to manage their own athleticism. What makes Michigan unique is they have nearly top notch, if not quite elite, athleticism while simultaneously being incredibly disciplined and smart on court. That confused the hell out of A&M and I expect the same on Saturday.
I'm not even sure A&M was confused. They just couldn't do anything about what was happening in front of them.
Quote from and A&M player from Ace's recap: "It was kind of hard to see because I was just wondering when they were going to miss."
It's hard to gauge their discipline because they don't have a choice. Texas A&M is a team without a point guard that kept pretending they had one, so Z just erased the guy. FSU is more honest with their limitations so it's run down the court or get run off it. Their personnel are even lumpier than Texas A&M's but I'd argue they're used more effectively. I wouldn't call Michigan's athleticism elite either; our bigs are quick for their size but not lottery pick level, and our guards -- while effective and I wouldn't trade them for anyone -- have very limited NBA upside. That's as much a blessing as a curse, mind you. Last season only went as far as Walton could carry us; this year we won with MAAR and Mo in shooting slumps. This is very much a team that's greater than the sum of its parts, credit to Beilein but to the team as well.
come on and try and get in the lane, mr. tree top....
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