You Will Find Me In The Bush Growing Clothes Out Of My Face
3/31/2018 – Michigan 69, Loyola-Chicago 57 – 33-7, national championship game
4/2/2018 – Michigan 62, Villanova 79 – 33-8, season over
[Bryan Fuller]
The thing is in a football stadium so they raise the floor and permit the head coach a little stool he can sit on. From this perch he can yell stuff to his players more efficiently, I guess? It seems unnecessary. Maybe it's for television.
It's probably for television. For all the agency a coach has in selecting and preparing his team, by the time you reach the Final Four and they hand you a stool a great deal rides on a bunch of 30-40% coin flips. When seemingly all of those coin flips come up on the middle finger side, a coach's agony veritably radiates. He is a man alone on Stool Island, barely less helpless than someone who bought a ticket.
Michigan clanged back-to-back-to-back threes against Loyola with about ten minutes left, still in a five point hole. The first induced a Picard-worthy double facepalm from John Beilein.
The second actually caused Beilein to leap from the stool and stomp the floor before shuffling away in a huff.
The third was resignation and despair.
The man on the stool is moving deeper into the Kubler-Ross model every time down the court. If Jordan Poole hadn't swept through the lane for a layup on Michigan's next possession Beilein might have eaten his tie.
Eating your tie is acceptance. I accept that Michigan is never going to hit another three pointer, and I will live out my life in the Alaskan bush, wrangling caribou. No ties in Alaska. I am the man on the stool plotting his escape to Alaska, where I can suffer out of the public eye. At long last my innovation has betrayed me, and… huh. It appears we've ended the game on a 27-10 run. Plans canceled.
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John Beilein probably isn't in a prop plane headed for Nome as we speak but you could hardly blame him if he was. It was there for Michigan to give an incredible Villanova team all it could handle, but for the fifth time in six games they clanged far too many open looks from outside. Their brutal shooting in the final surpassed all prior outings this season and for all but one game in the past five:
Only once in the last 5 years did Michigan shoot worse behind the arc than the 13% they put up today.
— Jeff (BPredict) (@BPredict) April 3, 2018
I have not rewatched the Villanova game and probably won't. If I do I expect to see Beilein age 75 years in two hours as a series of wide open looks fail to go down on one end while a blindfolded Donte DiVincenzo is canning off-the-dribble 30-footers. By the end he has grown a beard that he has fashioned into a hat and moccasins. By the end he is the West Virginia mascot, having whittled a musket from the stool.
This was a 17-point game that never felt close after Michigan's disastrous close to the first half. It was simultaneously the game Michigan needed to play to beat the best team in the country. Michigan shot 66% from two, had four different and-one opportunities rim out, and lost a couple points on a missed goaltend. Michigan's defense closed out magnificently; Villanova didn't care. Half of their ten makes from behind the line were deep pull-ups off the dribble that are—should be, anyway—bad shots. Michigan didn't start launching bad ones until they were already 3/18 and deep in a hole.
Shoot your season average on the reasonable looks and hit one of the dumb ones and you've carved that blowout margin down to 2-5 points. And you're probably not taking the dumb ones because the game is within reach and you have reason to believe an open corner three is a better shot than a wild ninja kick from halfcourt.
The grim section of our Alonzo Mourning gif is Michigan's collapse from behind the line in the tournament. In six away-or-neutral games leading up to the NCAA tournament Michigan hit 48%, 48%, 16%, 48%, 36%, and 35% from three. In the tourney itself: 31%, 27%, 58%, 18%, 25%, 13%.
It defies explanation. Michigan wasn't any more tired during the tournament than they were when they hit their season average against Purdue and MSU despite both of those teams getting the double bye Michigan did not. They seemed to get the same quality of look. They just missed twelve straight in the national title game. And struggled against everyone else not named Texas A&M.
It probably wouldn't have been enough anyway. And nothing from this fun-as-hell basketball season can really disappoint. But that'll linger a bit, that U-turn.
[Fuller]
Basketball is a helpless thing sometimes.
To play basketball in a football stadium.
Greed Greedy Greediest..Obsence.
Until fans stop paying obsence amounts for obsence site lines, the obsenity will continue.
And about a coach sitting alone on a stool. Obsence.
What is "obsence?"
ed: And speak for yourself. The last time they tried to play the Final Four in an arena was in the 90s, and it didn't work out well. This opens the game to the masses, and I think it's great. If Michigan makes the Final Four in Minneapolis, I am going. If it were at the Target Center, I wouldn't have any hope of getting in.
And we didn't have too much trouble shooting in the Georgia Dome in 2013, whereas we did have trouble this year in the Wichita and L.A. arenas, so the building itself doesn't seem to have been the key factor.
which was well above our season average. I wouldn't call that trouble.
Can I say I would pay a great deal of money to watch a lustrously bearded John Beilein whittle a musket out of his stool? Even more if he hands off said musket to Jordan Poole to use as a bench prop.
Ew, whittling a musket out of his stool? That's gross.
It'll always eat me up a little bit that I felt like we played the game we needed to play with Villanova. We just clanged everything and Nova's red head was hitting all of the horrible shots we gave him. A different night sees us keep that game really close. Unfortunately the brick monster still haunted us
Purdue started switching everything on Michigan and other teams started following suit. In the tournament, Michigan could never punish them.
In the home game against Purdue, the one where we got gutted by a terrible replay, Michigan shot 45% from 3 and came up just short. But that was on the back of Simpson going 2-3, Matthews going 3-5, and Livers going 2-2.
Livers. Remember him? 36% shooting 3s for the year. His last made 3 was against MSU in the B1G tournament, and he went 0-6 in the NCAA tournament.
Matthews is the same 31% guy he's been all season, and Simpson sits at 28%.
When Michigan visited Lincoln for a scheduled loss, Nebraska switched on all 5 positions and Michigan shot 4-18.
They've had good games against Purdue since, and they've had rough games (that Iowa game in New York? 4-18 from 3). But I think it's a symptom of a team whose offense is uneven.
I think that the fast closeouts Michigan was facing in the tournament gave them the willies. There wasn't gunslinging confidence in their shots, except by Matthews, who is a 31% three-point shooter. I can't explain it, except to say that this Michigan team is a good offensive team but not a great one and that difference is the difference we saw on the court last night. There is nobody who is a dominant offensive perimeter player to punish the switches, and there is always at least a guy or two on the perimeter that defenses can leave open and close late on who won't murder them from deep.
Oh well. Bring on the shooters next year.
I don't think it was the switching...
I think we were just off.
MAAR is a great example in the first two games. He basically had the yips against Montana and Houston. Wide-open looks badly missed. Even an airball or two. Very uncharacteristic.
Yes, good defense helped some. But we missed a lot of shots we normally make. Bad luck? Yips? Something else?
So they backfit some weird explanation that doesn't even align with the evidence (faster closeouts in the tourney? No.)
I'm pretty sure we shot poorly because John Beilein is an Aquarius but since it's the year of the dog, there's no compatibility there and we were doomed to shoot poorly from deep. Because obviously.
one of my favorite seasons ever. just a great ride, beginning to end.
I was thinking about the deep pull up 3s. I didn't think they were high % shots but I wonder what advanced stats say about a player who is hitting them in a game. Should you change how you guard him? Should you make it easier for him to drive to the rim, or give him that shot in the hopes that he reverts to hitting them at the 25% they are?
Or we did try to get up in their grill and they blew by us for a layup.
Guy played great. Tip your hat. In fact you could say that Donte was on fire (heh).
Try the veal.
But that's what I'm wondering. Do you just give him the bad shot in the hopes that he starts missing 75% or pressure him and increase his chances on drives to the basket?
You give him the bad shot and hope he starts to miss. A season's worth of data is more predictive than a game's worth. There have been countless studies on this, and they all come out the same -- hot and cold streaks happen, but there's nothing you can do to harness or to predict them. Admittedly, most of them are in baseball, but if you accept the concept of good shots vs. bad shots in the first place, the conclusion will hold.
That's what I was thinking. One of those things that upsets fans but is the right play. Just like Beilein wanting his shooters to shoot if they get a good look even if they are 0/5 during the game.
As I said in another post, the shooting was always up and down. Case in point, let's go back another six games: 35%, 36%, 45%, 23%, 25%, 28%. Given the link between free throw shooting and three-point shooting, it's not all that surprising this team never became consistent from deep. In fact, given how terrible the free throw shooting was, you could easily argue that the regular season/BTT average was a bit of a mirage.
Michigan wasn't any more tired during the tournament than they were when they hit their season average against Purdue and MSU despite both of those teams getting the double bye Michigan did not.
I don't know. There is a cumulative effect to playing all these games over the course of a season. (NBA rookies tend to "hit the wall" once they get to about game 35 or so, when a college season would be over.) The Big Ten had a condensed schedule, with a lot of games with short turnarounds, and then there was the BTT where we gutted out four games in four days. Maybe our gas tank just started to run empty around that time and the layoff wasn't enough to compensate. Or maybe it was the layoff itself and however we tried to make up for it in practice. (There were a few whispers that the guys were fatigued before the Montana game, apparently from a tough week of preparation.)
In any event, by the time of the Nova game I was hoping for a good shooting night but was not surprised by how we ended up shooting. Throwing up bricks had become the new normal. Impressive that we made it this far despite it all, anyway.
and more importantly so proud that JB is our coach.
Great team! Great Season! Go Blue!
Is if anyone deserves to win an NCAA championship, it's John Beilein. Class guy that took a bunch of misfits to the championship game. They did it with defense instead of offense, too. We need to find a way to win one for John. Next year's rallying cry?
say more of those threes should have hit. But it's not inexplicable. Let's not discount the perfectly plausible explanation that our players had an acute case of the yips. It's no dishonor, it's just being human, and being up against a superb opponent on the largest of stages.
...With all the woulda coulda shouldas regarding our inability to make good look 3s. The other thing I made a tiny mental note of was the 4 or 5 times we drove to the basket for a layup, got the foul call, but the ball rolled everywhere but through the basket for an "and one" opportunity. It's only a potential few points, but those "and one" threes are often even more frustrating to the opponent than draining a long one.
That plus the few times we drove and got knocked down with no whistle hurt. All that being said, we lost to a better team and had a great ride that was unexpected when we were like 19 - 7 or whatever after the NW game. Banners for Crisler!
I'm sure somebody's mentioned it somewhere but also, holy hell, what happened to our rebounding? I haven't seen something like that all season long. It looked like pure Villanova effort at times, and others seemed to be just ridiculous bounces that precisely found the one white jersey in a sea of blue.
The free throw percentage under out already dismal season average, the 3-point masonry, the blown opportunities at the rim, and the endless amount of second chances allowed. We can deal with one of those, maybe two. Last night, it was everything.
Tack on DiVincenzo going bonkers and (shrug) whaddya gonna do?
Nova's offensive rebounding was, I think, a big reason we couldn't capitalize on their (relatively) poor shooting in the first half. And so much of it seemed like pure luck.
They'd clang a 3 attempt off the rim, and instead of falling into Mo's waiting arms it would carom straight to the lone Wildcat inside the arc, who would either put it away or recycle it out for another try.
On the margins, some poor officiating calls, unlucky missed “and one” opportunities, our bad free throw shooting, and JB’s conservative auto benching philosophy may have cost us another cumulative 10-12 points. But when we lose by that margin, it’s hard to get upset at the marginal stuff. We simply needed one of our A games to have a shot to beat an excellent Villanova squad, and we didn’t bring it.
but I can't help but think back to the preseason predictions. Every game, up until this one, was a joy to watch. The twice defeat of State was beautiful. The knowledge that on the way we had the cleanest coach also voted COTY.... I'm disappointed, but mainly joyful in the journey.
I dunno mang, Dunk has got to shoot more than 3 FGs this game. I'm sure some analysis will show that Nova was trying hard to shut him down, but he's also gotta take some more initiative to get some shots up.
Props need to be given to Nova's D. They played us hard and shut us down pretty good.
We get to do this Final 4 thing again this weekend. I'll be hammered all the same with hopefully a title to celebrate at the end.
Go Blue Forever.
The big problem was that he was called for two fouls right away and had to sit the rest of the first half.
deep 3's for a shooter like Robinson don't seem to be any more difficult. I was begging him to take some 4 feet behind the line.
In the words of George Jung in 'Blow', "Every now and then, I force a smile knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent."
Beilein squeezed every drop of production out of that team and then some. They left everything on the floor. And along the way, they defeated teams that were bigger, faster, stronger, and more loaded with so-called blue chip talent. But this time, they just ran into a team with too much firepower to overcome. If that game was played 25 times, 'Nova would win at least 20 of them.
I'm still proud of this team, and I still think John Beilein is the best basketball coach in the country, period. The past two months have been a joy to watch. GO BLUE.
...shooting. They were capable of games like the A&M game, but the starting five of Z, Rahk, Matthews, Livers, and Mo was not a great shooting bunch overall. This was not the 2013 team or last year's team in that respect. And this makes it all the more remarkable that they did what they did. If you thought a Beilein team would ever make the final while generally shooting poorly in the tournament, you're a much better prognosticator than I am. Shooting finally helped cost them a game, but it took great effort by the players and great coaching by the staff to get them to that game in the first place.
I feel like we played as good as we could have on defense. Some ticky tack fouls aside, the only visible mistakes were not boxing out and giving up 12 OREBs.
I really hoped that we could stop both Brunson and Spellman. Well, they combined for 7-21 shooting, with 17 points, 13 rebs, 2 assists, and 3 TO's. Mission accomplished.
I figured we would struggle defending Bridges; that dude has the NBA written all over him. He was able to get whatever he wanted 1v1. Their sets and high screens with Bridges were a thing of beauty.
And then the wildcard, DiVincenzo. He was way too athletic for Robinson to defend, too tall for Rahk/Z to defend, and we needed Matthews on Bridges, so we were just in a bind. Poole couldn't stick with him; Livers couldn't stick with either Bridges or Divincenzo. They were just a matchup nightmare, even when we could eliminate two of their 4 top players.
And I think this shows the value of combining NBA talent with players that buy into a system for 4 years.
This gives optimism for envisioning Simpson + Teske + Livers combined with possible NBA talent like Poole/Matthews and incoming freshman Brazdeikis, Johns, and DeJulius. We'll have a really good combo of NBA talent and system guys. We could easily become the next Villanova if we continue to get players that buy into and can learn the system.
Go Blue! Excellent season which surpassed all expectations. Can't wait to see what we can do next season!
Those 12 OREBs though really were rough -- I was losing my shit over it. Especially when someone was simply quicker to the ball than our guy.
"Only once in the last 5 years did Michigan shoot worse behind the arc than the 13% they put up today."
I'm not surprised, because that's what it felt like. At least 4-5 ttimes, I could tell the shot wasn't going to fall as soon as it left the shooter's hand, it was so obviously off-target.
Live by the three; die by the three. And man - this was one painful death.
This saying is used all the time, and I don't get it. You could just as easily say "live by the 2, die by the 2". Kansas shot way more 2s than Nova and hit way more of them, and yet were run off the court. Unless you can get uncontested dunks, the most efficient shot for good shooters is a 3, and that's why with few exceptions the best-shooting teams are the ones going deep in tournaments.
Michigan hit fewer shots than Nova, and yet, had they even shot their season-average on 3's they'd have been in the game.
It's more refering to a style of play where teams depend on the 3 ball to succeed. Not just as a means to score 3 points, but also to open up other things on the floor. As opposed to a team with dominate post play or a team that has a lot of slasher who don't depend on teams needing to defend the perimeter to create open looks.
I mean, Michigan's offense runs best with a great slasher. So does Villanova's; Brunson is a fine outside shooter, but he's an even better slasher and distributor. Michigan's offense last year with Walton in the end was terrifying because of it, as was Michigan's when Simpson, Matthews, and MAAR could get to the rim.
My larger point is that it's a trite statement to say that a team wins or losses by the 3. Every offensive system has pluses and minuses, and there's a reason that most successful teams look like Michigan and Beilein and not, say, FSU.
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