Basketbullets: Florida, Round Of 32
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3/23/2019 – Michigan 64, Florida 49 – 30-6, Sweet 16
I got a half-season ticket for Beilein's first year. This was the immediate aftermath of Amaker and the roster was… uh… thin. Ron Coleman and Kelvin Grady were starters; a freshman Manny Harris was a 30% usage guy with a 95 ORTG because what else was Michigan going to do.
There was some talent there. Michigan wasn't appalling. They were very bad, though, and it felt like almost every game there was a brief period of unrecoverable buffoonery. I particularly remember a game against Boston College during which I was pleasantly surprised Michigan was giving it the old college try until a cursed 4 minutes after which they were down 10, and then it was over. Boston College was also bad!
Most games that year followed that script. Every outing Michigan tried and failed to get out of the quicksand.
Now they are the quicksand. This year's team has implemented the exact opposite pattern for much of the year. At some point they're going to get it together on offense for a brief burst, and then they're up ten, and good luck sledding uphill against that unless you've got Xavier Tillman. During the game they showed a weird but telling stat: Michigan's been up 10 or more for 42% of their minutes this year, which was close to tops in the country. Once you fall in, moving only makes it worse.
And so when Michigan came out of the locker room with an 11-0 run to go up 15, good night. All over but the shouting after Zavier Simpson and Isaiah Livers star in a shot for shot remake of Spike and GRIII against VCU:
The jersey wasn't ripped in this one, admittedly. The slightly frustrating context is that this outlandish basketball occurrence was immediately preceded and followed by similar exclamation-point takes to the bucket that had the temerity to rim out. Michigan was very close to ending the game with a nuclear series of exclamation points that would have left Des Moines a flat, glassy plain. Instead a 15-point win over Kenpom's #25 team. It'll do.
The two games. Florida was able to wriggle free from Michigan's three point D early. They hit some questionable shots and all of their good ones, but the sheer number of threes they took and the quality of those threes was unusual.
This abruptly stopped. After starting out 6/11 from deep Florida finished 3/15.
That still averages out to 35% on high volume and is thus fairly efficient, but once Michigan was able to track Florida's actions from deep and force them inside the line it was emphatically over. The last ten minutes featured countless Florida drives into Mount Doom. For the game the Gators shot 35% from two and drew a grand total of two free throws.
There was the bit where Florida scorched the nets from three and the bit where they averaged 0.6 PPP. The first bit was not long enough to put the Gators in position to win.
The stretch. To be more specific: UF got a bucket to pull within 7 at around the 13 minute mark and then scored 5 points over the next 11 minutes.
[After THE JUMP: chalk]
Teske drawing guys out of the paint [Barron]
The next level. Michigan hasn't gotten much offense out of 5-out this year since Teske has been late establishing his bonafides as a three-point shooter and isn't exactly Moe in that department. We saw some hints of what's next in this game.
Matthews gets stripped there and recover but he also had a couple of easier takes to the bucket on which Teske's ability to stretch the defense was relevant. He's never going to up-fake and take it to the basket like Moe, but he can quickly shift the ball to a driver who has a wide open lane.
iso stepback goes down [Barron]
The Poole fight. We got a lot of bad results-based takes in this game as Dan Bonner and Reggie Miller continually decried the fact that Michigan wasn't taking it inside against zone looks and instead "settled" for good looks from three. These didn't go down, and thus the bad old-school takes.
I don't expect much else from a couple of guys who have proven their inability to understand independent trials over the course of many years. But given how we've talked about Poole over the past couple months I know that extends to Michigan fans, particularly about Jordan Poole. I include myself in this department. I've had some visceral reactions to Poole shots that don't stand up on examination. I actually liked this one before it went in but it's a good example anyway:
Is that a Bad Shot that Brings Jordan Poole's Shot Selection Into Question? Well, no, because it went in. But also no because it's actually a good shot. It's not a conventionally open good shot on which Michigan moves a bunch of guys around and gets someone a wide open look, but this is the moment of truth…
…and that is not an effective closeout on a catch and shoot.
Compare that to Hudson's make later in the first half, which went backboard and in after Poole's excellent contest.
There are contests and fake contests—of which Poole had a couple during the Florida hot streak. If Poole has a hair trigger catch and shoot that's a different thing than an iso stepback.
Poole did take an iso stepback but even that was immediately after he'd torched his guy and gotten an and-one at the rim. He made it, possibly because his defender was thinking about the previous play and was too far off for a contest.
In related news. Both Simpson and Teske have a pattern where some of their threes are obviously good shots and the rest are just as obviously doomed. This has everything to do with the contest and how much time they have to get a comfortable shot off. Simpson's make in the first half was in the former category, because the guy who got switched on him was playing way too far off:
Simpson is hitting a reasonable-to-good number of no-contest threes and is close to 0-fer on the season when he gets a little heat and has to hurry it up. (I do think he hit one.)
ankle breaker! [Barron]
Tournament Eli? Brooks was the only bench player other than Livers to get a meaningful minute and he was able to create a couple of buckets himself. Since the weird guys game against MSU he's 6/12 from two and 4/10 from three with 4 assists and 2 turnovers. That's a functional bench player, against all odds.
Obligatory discussion of attacking switches. Michigan made the effort in this game with a lot of long looping passes to Teske. A couple of these came off. A couple others were too long and either forced Teske into tough shots where he couldn't even use the backboard; IIRC he was also charged with a turnover after one of those passes put him in a tough spot. End result: meh.
Good to see that there's a plan of attack now; hopefully they can continue refining it.
Nembhard baffled, amongst others. Florida's PG got Teske switched onto him a few times and tried to drive him. This resulted in bad shots, whether Nembhard was taking them or someone else was after Nembhard set the shot clock on fire by trying to get by Teske in four different ways. It wasn't until two minutes left that Teske finally cracked.
Various other Florida possessions saw their bigs try to post Teske; these inevitably resulted in a frustrated guy picking up his dribble and kicking it out with 7 on the clock.
Every shot a hook. I don't wish to dissuade the inevitable fanboy reaction from the announcers whenever Simpson hits a hook too much. But not everything is a hook. Especially underhand shots. Those are in fact the polar opposite of a hook.
CHALK. This year's Sweet 16: #1-14 on Kenpom, #18, and #29.
The tournament is somehow even chalky than the seed lines would suggest. We were one Wisconsin bed-defecation away from having literally the highest KenPom-ranked Sweet 16 possible. pic.twitter.com/iinOFcQ5fI
— Bryan Mac (@Bry_Mac) March 25, 2019
#29 is Oregon, the only seed lower than 5 to make it. They're on a Beilein-esque late-season tear: a 10-game win streak over which the Ducks are the #3 team in the country per Torvik. (Michigan is #1, FWIW.) This surge has a reasonable mechanism attached to it:
After a Feb. 23 loss to UCLA, Oregon was 15-12 overall and 6-8 in the Pac-12, and the NCAA Tournament wasn’t in the cards. On that day, Altman tried a new starting lineup, inserting 6-foot-9 freshman center Francis Okoro for 6-5 freshman guard Will Richardson. That lineup had not logged one possession together all season, and it was outscored 16-15 by the Bruins in a 90-83 loss. But points for opponents have not come easy since.
During its current nine-game winning streak, Oregon has been the best defensive team in the country, allowing just 82.6 points per 100 possessions.
That metric is un-adjusted, it appears. The accompanying table has Stanford and no other major-conference teams. The Ducks are 3rd in adjusted D on Torvik in the same span—very good, not #1 with a bullet.
Your author was fairly confident that Ethan Happ would give it to Wooten because Happ is crafty and Wooten tries to block everything, but Dana Altman made Wooten a help defender on Happ and obliterated him. Altman has long been in the internet's crosshairs; after that I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while.
All the chalk has made for a first weekend largely devoid of the Farokhmanesh the tournament is known and loved for, but hot damn the remainder of the tournament sets up as a series of heavyweight bouts.
Yep, rather good. The Big Ten in the tourney:
- Purdue, Michigan, and Michigan State were seeded as S16 teams and are still alive. None have played a game decided by single digits.
- Maryland scraped by Belmont and lost on a buzzer-beater to 3-seed [Vacated].
- Iowa sprung a 7-10 upset in a virtual road game and then took 2-seed Tennessee to OT after trailing by 25.
- Minnesota sprung another 7-10 upset before getting immolated by MSU.
- Ohio State beat the B12 champion Iowa State in a 6-11 upset before getting run by Houston.
- Wisconsin… welp. As discussed above, Oregon is not your typical 12 seed.
Record against non-Big 10 teams: 9-3.
Also Indiana made MSG in the NIT without Romeo Langford.
A metric of sadness. Pomeroy's "unsweet 16":
The "unsweet 16" (16 highest-ranked preseason teams that didn’t make the sweet 16): Kansas, Villanova, Nevada, Syracuse, West Virginia, Kansas St., Clemson, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida, Miami, Mississippi St., Iowa St., Indiana, Maryland, Marquette.
— Ken Pomeroy (@kenpomeroy) March 25, 2019
There are levels here. A number of those teams made the second round and fell short. Only five of the above teams actually missed the tourney: Indiana, Clemson, West Virginia, Texas and Miami. The bar-none most disappointing team of the year is WVU, which started #11 and finished 4-14 in the Big 12.
March 25th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
The stat about the team leading by 10+ in 42% of their minutes is amazing, and also jibes with my impressions of the season. If I'm not relaxed and enjoying an easy win by 5-6 minutes into the second half I get antsy because it's an odd feeling for this team.
March 25th, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
If I'm not relaxed and enjoying an easy win by 5-6 minutes into the second half I get antsy
Probably overemphasized by the MSU games all following the same pattern (Wisconsin too), but a sinking feeling of "the drought is coming" makes me uneasy unless there's the 10 point lead in the 2nd half. Against good defenses (and offenses that aren't getting throttled), the inevitable 5+ minutes where nothing goes in means anything less than a 10 point advantage will eventually whittle down to a 1 possession game. They usually push it back out and win comfortably, but just knowing it might happen is discomforting.
Totally agree about needing to be ahead by 10+ for me to feel comfortable against good teams. The inverse is also true against good teams. If we are down 10 in the 2nd half against a good team, I feel like our offense isn't robust enough to play from very far behind.
Our slow pace is part of that too--it can be either glorius or terrifying.
This game against Florida was glorius. It was the BB equivalent of our football team being up by 10 in the 4th quarter, and then grinding out an 8 minute drive to nail a FG to go up by 13. Like a python suffocating it's prey by just crushing its lungs. OTOH, if we're ever down by several scores, I'm concerned that--like our football squad--our BB team doesn't have the "hurry up" chops to quickly cut a 10-12 point deficit with only single digit minutes left in the game.
March 26th, 2019 at 10:02 AM ^
Even some of the wins, Minnesota at home comes to mind, followed the same pattern, but with the good guys holding on at the end.
March 25th, 2019 at 12:18 PM ^
Is that a Bad Shot that Brings Jordan Poole's Shot Selection Into Question? Well, no, because it went in. But also no because it's actually a good shot.
Timing also plays into it. Against MSU he took some bombs when MSU was storming back that didn't help the situation any (no one else was doing much better). Against Florida, similar shots were when the game was still in Michigan's favor/Florida was shooting at an unsustainable rate where a "bad shot" didn't send the team into a further hole/give us that pit in our stomach.
Could argue a good shot is always a good shot regardless of the timing of it, but when you're in a 7 minute drought with a top 5 team storming back, it would seem a step back 3 is only a "good shot" if it goes it.
It was also a much higher quality shot because of its nature. Poole jumped into the catch and shot position while Zavier was throwing the pass. This accomplished two very important things:
1) This quickened his release, as half of the require jump shot (loading momentum in legs) was taken care of before he even received the ball. The defender was not expecting this and did not have enough time to recover. So we generated an open three without a screen.
2) Moving before the pass arrived allowed Poole to get a catch and shoot in rhythm as opposed to standing still or having to create one.
Poole has been criticized a fair amount, but this shows that he is capable of high-IQ plays. Generating looks like these could be a cure for Michigan's seeming tendency to stagnate on offense when they are fatigued at the end of games. This is a quick play that generates a good look without having to worry about running a dedicated set.
O sure, catch and shoot is always "better" than off the bounce. Pretty much everyone is better at catch and shoot than pull ups.
Getting Poole good catch and shoot looks (and Iggy and Livers) goes a long way in keeping the wheels turning on offense because it gets him confidence and rhythm. When the offense becomes stagnant and too heavily P&R centric, the catch and shoot opportunities dry up and force Michigan into late clock pull ups. Given the situation those are fine shots because that's the only option, but staying out of those situations and not relying on screen, rescreen, someone throw something up, would go a long way in quelling the elongated droughts.
While I suspect that some on here will disagree with your view, as a bball coach, I can tell you that this is a very good take. When your team is in a drought, and the other team is on a run, the best way to stop it is to get a bucket. I always try to stress to my teams that when the other team is on a run, only take high-percentage shots. Conversely, when you are the team on the run, a 3 can be a dagger that just breaks the game open.
Offense should be played independent of what the other team is doing. Offense should be generating the best PPP every time. It’s very hard to coach that because it requires removing emotion in a certain sense, but it’s the best way to win.
Offense can be situation dependent though, which takes into account what the other team is doing as an input. And since it's impossible to take emotion out of it, taking it into consideration is better than trying to ignore it.
Getting the most PPP possible (PPPP?) is always the highest priority, but attacking a defender in foul trouble, bleeding clock to shorten the game late, and those types of things come into play. It shouldn't be THE driving factor, but it is part of the overall equation.
Agreed, it's generally best to try to generate the best PPP. But it's not necessarily based on past aggregate statistics. Sometimes in-game situations alter what the best PPP approach might be in the narrow moment.
As "Watching From Afar" notes, other factors come into play. One additional factor he didn't mention is just feeding the ball to a hot player or attacking a weakness that becomes apparent against an opposing defender while the defending team is reeling & before their coaching staff has time to make adjustments. Iggy's auto-benching in the MSU game at Breslin comes to mind.
And yes, ideally it's great to remove emotion from this stuff, but we're talking about coaching really young guys here. You can train the muscle memory & maybe have a veteran squad that is not shaken easily. But as a coach, if you know you've got a team that CAN or WILL play emotionally, then that too should be an in-game consideration. Which is part of the reason,we see coaches calling time outs to stop opposing team runs, coaches going for confidence-building play sets while clawing back from a deficit (versus going for the "best" PPP statistically but risking a team gets the yips because their shots aren't going down, thus triggering a team-wide meltdown).
Absolutely. "Momentum" isn't something that can be measured all that well (if at all) but when the ball starts to roll downhill, it's hard to stop. The inevitable drought that comes against good defenses (and teams with offenses capable of scoring a bit) is made worse not solely because of Poole's shot selection. It's a collective issue where they're late to get into sets, the "set" is usually a P&R with re-screens if it doesn't work, the shooters start to stand around the 3 point line, and eventually the ball finds its way to Iggy/Matthews/Poole with like 7 seconds to go and they have to get something up because a bad shot is almost always better than a shot clock violation.
Staving off a run by taking time off the clock and getting a good shot (easier said than done) is almost always preferable to a quick jack from the outside. If it's an open look from a good shooter, sure, take that more often than not because you might not get it again. If it's off the bounce or heavily contested, maybe reset and run something to get a better look. The 2nd MSU game @Breslin especially, it wasn't just that Michigan couldn't buy a bucket, they were generally taking bad shots that were either bricks or blocked that gave MSU more momentum. A missed layup sucks. A blocked floater gets the crowd into it and turns into transition buckets.
Novice here, but the Jordan Poole shots during the MSU late game droughts were frustrating to me for the following reasons, which are probably wrong or only half right;
1. Shots did not seem like they were part of the offense. No catch and release or drive and kick or pick and roll and kick. Bounce on outside with shot
2. They came early in the shot clock, so not only did they appear like a bad shot, they also appeared to increase the possessions for a team we needed to have fewer possessions to make a comeback
Again, these are a novice description, but those Poole shots felt like they should have been late clock shots that were a result of nothing better coming in the shot clock. I'd have felt much better with them if I had seen at least some more probing with the offense, and then the shot coming at 5 seconds left.
I also think it was amplified, because he had some turnovers on MSU turnovers, where I felt he was careless with the basketball. Its tough group to be compared with, but Simpson, Walton, RAAK and even Wagner, were much better at handling these transitions and knowing when to push and when to pull up to reset and get the extra possession. MSU games have just been a frustrating group of games to watch in general.
A lot of good discussion on this sub thread.
Here’s the thing: timing affects the quality of shots, but generally only with regard to the shot clock or the end of the game.
The reason Poole taking a step-back 3 is a bad shot is because Poole isn’t good at taking them. The reason the catch-and-shoot 3 Brian highlighted was a good shot is because it was open and is a shot he is good at making.
If Poole hit 40% of his step back 3s we’d be delighted with them. If he hit 28-footers at 40% nobody would complain about them. James Harden and Steph Curry take those shots, and because they are so good at making them, no one complains.
But Poole does not shoot remotely that well. He is much better on the line taking somewhat open catch-and-shoots. The other shots are bad unless (and this happened at least once) it’s late in the clock and there are no other options.
If Poole hits 20% of his step-backs, they are bad shots. The one shot out of five that goes in is still a bad shot.
Agreed. Step back 3s when you're (probably) sub 30% on them is rarely a good shot. When that is the only option because the offense stalled and there's 3 seconds on the shot clock, it becomes less of a bad shot that I could ever blame him for, but I'd still prefer to see Poole especially drive to the lane and see what he can do.
We know his ceiling for this season (offseason development could make him Stauskas, who knows?) does not have huge upside in that step back department. He does have a pretty solid midrange pull up and is 6'5" with some bounce so getting into the lane for some contested 2s might help on the whole. Even if he only makes 2/5 on those, that's 0.8PPP instead of the 1/4 from 3 for 0.75PPP. The threat of a blocked shot is there, but the long rebounds that lead to transitions and general disappointment he exudes when those 3s don't go down also go away a bit. Plus, if you drive on some guys they start to back off a bit which could give him enough room to take more comfortable 3s.
March 25th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
Indiana hasn't made it to MSG yet, they still need one more win.
March 25th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
Gee! Ron Coleman...had to knock the dust off my memory to recall his name.
M was soo gawd awful then if not for Manny & Pedi...
March 25th, 2019 at 12:50 PM ^
In Soviet Russia, quicksand falls into you
March 25th, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
I thought Indiana was too historic to play in the NIT and that Assembly Hall was far too sacred to host an NIT game? But not too sacred to avoid losses at home to Nebraska and Indiana State, apparently...
That is some excellent IU hateration
Seems like something has finally clicked with Eli. He finally appears to have some confidence on offense after having none for most of the season. Add to that, he is playing good defense and making a lot of the effort plays to provide a bit of a spark off the bench.
That is huge since everything isn't immediately falling apart when Simpson needs a quick breather now.
I think Simpson played all 40min this game (and 1st rd?). But point taken.
I was just coming on to give Brooks his kudos. Guy has bailed us out on more than a few possessions lately where a turnover or an empty offensive trip could have really turned the momentum.
Definitely a big positive change from even just a few weeks ago. Contributed some very nice minutes to spell Z and keep the offense rolling. Good for him.
He was in a long slump like a baseball player on a long hitless streak.
He did not hit a three pointer in January or February (was 0-8 in that time and didn't have the confidence to shoot it).
He just needed to see some go in and once he did, he's been good for the past 6 games.
I would say Altman falling into the Internet's crosshairs is also partially related to off-the-court issues of some of his players.
Also, Dan Bonner is the most milquetoast analyst I have ever heard. His contributions could not be any more useless or devoid of insight. Reggie Miller isn't much better regarding level of insight but at least he says some off-the-wall stuff that makes you chuckle. Bonner is, to paraphrase Louise from Bob's Burgers: "And finally, [Dan]. Bland, boring [Dan]. If [he] was a spice, [he'd] be flour. If [he] were a book, [he'd] be two books."
I admit I'm not a stat head, but one thing about droughts in scoring that the advanced stat guys seem to either miss or don't focus on is the percentage of possessions that result in zero points.
While it makes logical sense that in the longer run, you want to maximize your points per possession or points per 100 possessions, it also makes sense that if you have a lead of significance (say 3 possessions or more?) towards the end of the game what kills you is having a string of possessions that net zero points.
I can't propose the stat that would capture this - but if you have one team that can shoot 50% from 2 and another that shoots 33% from 3, their expected points per possession would be nearly identical.
However, your chances of missing 4 consecutive 50% shots are 1 in 16 (6%) vs 27/81 (33%) for 3 point shots.
An error in your calculations - you're correct about the 50% shots, but if you shoot 33%, your chances of missing four in a row are about 19.7%.
Sorry for the error. I was multiplying by 2 instead of 3.
The overall point still stands. You are way worse off jacking consecutive 3's if your goal is not to pile up scoreless possessions.
It should be 2/3 ^ 4, which is around 19.7%. You're right about 2*2*2.... etc. but 2*2*2*2 (2^4) is 16, not 27.
nvm, I see you edited. Anyway, the overall point is probably right, but really I think what the math says is to follow the age-old wisdom of: run your offense, stop wasting time and worrying about the clock, look for open shots as usual, until you get to a point in the game where that actually starts to help you. If you're up 3 possessions, and you figure there are six possessions left in the game, take the best shot, the same way you would in the first half.
I just wish the analytics guys would explain if they took some of these things into account.
I'm more a baseball stat guy than anything else - but in baseball is another one. Teams don't bunt because the stats say that if you bunt, you end up with less runs per inning than if you don't.
That's fine and perfectly reasonable, but usually if I bunt, I don't care if I give up the chance to score 5 in an inning. I just want to increase my chances of scoring 1 THIS INNING.
The stat guys never seem to touch on that sort of thing in their analysis.
However, I know the field is somewhat new, and maybe they will come around on some of these things as time goes on.
The analogy to your example would be at the end of a basketball game if your team is tied or down by one and there's less than a minute and you're likely to only have (or need) one more possession.
In that case, you'd potentially be better off going for a two which in theory gives you a higher chance of scoring some points.
But like baseball, there are a ton of other factors to consider: who is shooting/bunting, what the defense is giving you/how you're being pitched, etc. It still might be better to take a three if they leave you wide open and put all their guys in the paint to defend the two pointer that they're waiting for you to take. It's all very circumstantial.
And like baseball, you want to try to maximize your points per possession or runs per game for most of the game. It's only advisable to sacrifice expected points to reduce variance at the very end when you know you know you just need precisely one or two points (or runs) to win.
The "analytics" guys and really any coach with common sense does take this into account when advising teams about what to do late in games.
You're over simplifying this though. Every possession and every shot represents a tradeoff. If you pass on an open three, you are by no means guaranteed to have the opportunity to get a 50% two point shot later in the possession. In general, you simply want to take good shots when they're presented to you. Certainly late in games with a lead you should pass up open threes to kill more clock but that's just about that only time you'd consider passing up a good shot, whether it be a two or a three.
Thinking out loud: Post ups.
Generally they're measured and seen as inefficient on the whole so you shouldn't use them. But, when you have a switch on Teske, even though it's not efficient, to get a basket it should probably be seen as a preferable option to a late clock step back or drive into traffic from Iggy.
What you're talking about is variance. Perimeter possessions are higher variance than possessions at the rim. There are times when the maximum win probability is to be found by taking the lower variance shot -- I agree with that. If you're up 3 with 45 seconds left, and you have the option between a 50% two and a 33% three, there's a solid argument to be made for the two.
However, I think you're applying your argument way too broadly. Prior to extreme late-game situations, there are simply too many possessions remaining to be concerned about variance. If you shoot 50/33, it doesn't matter, but if you shoot 50/38, you're decreasing your win probability by favoring the twos.
There's nothing magical about runs; they happen, generally for both sides, because you're playing a game where the most successful teams succeed about half the time on offense. They seem important, because announcers love "momentum," but the sequencing really only matters for a few possessions a game.
I just can't express how happy/surprised I am in regards to Eli Brooks' play as of late. I'll fully own that sometime in January, I completely gave up that kid and was ready to wish him well but he's really turned it on over the last month or so. If we can continue to get 10-15 productive minutes from him, I think this is a completely different, better team. I'm excited to see if he makes a jump this offseason and just continues to improve!
Kudos to you, Eli!
Brooks reminds me of former Michigan guard Dave 'Superfro' Baxter (if you don't know who he is, ask your dads). Bax had a sweet lefty handle and was an excellent ball handler as well as a fine defender.
I may have missed the "Skywalker" Livers bit...
I love Florida coaches reaction after Simpson hits that 3 in the 1st half.
The chalkiness of this tournament is the most I can remember in a long time, if ever. That should make the next two rounds awfully interesting.
Apparently 2009 was exactly the same, seed-wise.
Yeah, everybody's griping about a boring tourney so far, but it's set up to be a beast of a Sweet 16. All of the quality making it through means nothing but heavyweight slugfests from here on out.
I will openly admit to being seemingly wrong about Brooks; after what felt like a month of not taking a shot to save his life, he's come alive recently and been a nice addition to the team. He's been a consistently above-average offensive performer for some time now, and he allows Michigan to re-jigger it's lineup more than they had in the past. I'm still a bit apprehensive that it'll continue against TT, but if so he's re-emergence will go a long way toward helping this team make a run.
Am glad to see Brooks getting recognition....he is ALOT better than people realize here.
We need the coaches to work with These on his 3 point shot, and fast...it'll be needed going forward and seems to still be in a funk...
I especially like Brooks as an alternative to Poole (how he was used this weekend)- Brooks is better defensively and with him, X, CM, and Teske on the floor that is their best D and probably the best D lineup in the NCAA. No issues with him as the back up 2 - especially if he can his "just a shooter" 3s and/or if Poole is off his game.
Where Brooks is an issue is when X is off the floor and he has to run the system - he's not a creator/distributor just yet. it's espcisally brutal offensively when Johns, Brooks are on the floor together (which never happens unless foul trouble is serious).
Johns is out of the rotation entirely at the five at this point. That was a short-lived experiment that did not work well. Quickly passed by Castleton. Davis should even be ahead of him as a third big body if necessary.
He played some minutes as the third four against MSU because both Iggy and Livers were in foul trouble and Matthews was out. That was a Weird Guys situation that probably won't happen again unless one of the wings gets hurt (please no). I could see Matthews play the four in a small lineup before I'd expect to see Johns in a game at this point.
So you shouldn't have to worry about that.
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