THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	Jumpman Invitational #45 Michigan (6-5, 1-1 B10) vs #38 Florida (7-3, 0-0 SEC)
WHERE	TicketIQ Center Charlotte, NC
WHEN	7:00 PM
THE LINE	Kenpom: UF-1 Torvik: UF-3
TICKETS	From $117
TELEVISION	ESPN (link)

THE OVERVIEW

Second-year head coach Todd Golden doesn't like to stay put. The son of a guy who played college ball with Dr. J and Rick Pitino, Golden had a solid career as St. Mary's point guard and a few years of playing in Israel. He was on his way to a moderately successful career in advertising before a buddy convinced Todd to come be the numbers nerd for Columbia. The buddy was Kyle Smith, now the head coach at Washington State. Golden quickly moved into an assistant role, then repeated the climb in two years with Bruce Perl at Auburn before rejoining Smith, who'd moved on to San Francisco. When Smith got the job at Wazzu, Golden moved up to head coach, and in three years was running his own SEC squad.

Between his meteoric rise and the fact that he hasn't aged since middle school, Golden makes every list of young up-and-comers.

I would like to address the rumors that I am twelve.

Golden lost nine of his last eleven games in his first year in Gainesville, and somewhere in there also lost Colin Castleton. Golden's main accomplishment last year was taking a Mike White team that usually finished last in the SEC in tempo and teaching them how to play fast. They were ~270th in non-COVID years under white, moved up to 70th last year, and are now 16th. They're also the worst Power 5 team in non-steal turnovers, since those passes up-court don't always connect, and first in offensive rebounding, because they like to keep two bigs on the floor.

They're not the worst matchup for Michigan—that would be Texas Tech—but they're not a good one. Florida is in many ways a bigger version of these Wolverines if you replaced Dug with a headbandy 6-2 Andre Curbelo type and Nimari Burnett with both versions of himself. Like Michigan, UF's defense is worse and their offense better than the sum of its parts. Also like Michigan, contested opponents' threes are going in at a much higher rate than the national average, which in both teams' cases could be bad luck, sampling error, or both.

Their own shooting looks like it could regress to a higher mean. UF was in Charlotte earlier this year for a 73-70 loss to Virginia in which the Gators shot 7/25 from outside. The rest of their relevant non-conference season was beating Pitt in the Brooklyn tournament before falling 95-91 to Baylor, getting hammered on the road at Wake, and doing the same to FSU at home. East Carolina almost pulled off an upset on Thursday, climbing within 2 with 1:06 remaining in yet another night when the shots wouldn't go in.

That's suppressed the shooting metrics, but shooting is indeed UF's weakness; they're scoring under 0.9 points/jumpshot, almost all of their threes are assisted, and they aren't very good at free throws. Get back, shoo them away from the rim, and you should have a good time. But oh do they love going to the rim.

[Hit THE JUMP for big bigs bigs bigs.]

THE US

Me graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Michigan's gone to an 8-man rotation.

THE LINEUP CARD

My graphic [click for big]:

Using the guys they start with but Pullin plays more than Handlogten.

THE THEM

Hunter was a bad matchup for Samuel; Michigan's current bigs aren't Hunter. [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

PF/C Tyrese Samuel is a familiar face, and not just to former Seton Hall frontcourt-mate Tray Jackson. When we last saw Samuel it was in the Gavitt Games two years ago and he was splitting time at the five with 7-2 Ike Obiagu. He didn't get to split that much in our game because Obiagu was the better matchup for Hunter, but Samuel's defensive minutes left an impression. For guard-based offenses, get ready to see Samuel flashing up to the perimeter and herding the ball towards his other shot-blockers. I kinda think Florida would do better to let Samuel play man when he switches on a three—he should be fine against anyone short of Nimari—but they nerf his effectiveness as a defender by having guards flash in to help.

Samuel is also a menace on the glass, excellent at establishing position and muscling anyone in his size range away from the board. The afore mentioned ECU game last Thursday was looking like a prime upset until Samuel collected one of the doinked triples and slammed it home. Those who get their hands on a rebound first still have to be careful; Samuel loves getting his long arms over the back or inside the elbows to undo all that good work. I mention it because Michigan's bigs have been prone to second-chance giveaways this year.

Offensively, Samuel is more of a rebound and putback guy with good touch off the glass. If you've got fouls, use them, since he's a career 57% shooter from the stripe and not getting better in Year 5. He took threes earlier in his career, hitting a third of them, but only put up 14 last year and is 2/9 in 2023. The big difference this year is they're trying to get him to play 30 minutes, which leads to some noticeable lagging at the end of long shifts.

More often than not Florida will play Samuel with a true center, but they rotate through a few of them so I'll cover those guys on the bench. Also I want to get to the two point guard-type objects next, since they're both going to play about 30 minutes, and are hard to miss when on the floor.

Starting PG Walter Clayton is a HEADBAND. He plays one gear higher than he should, wears his headband one inch thicker than seems necessary, and profiles as a guy who hits everything when he slows down, expect when you see him you wonder if he knows what the words mean. If he has a signature move it's pulling up for a three, clanging it short so it ricochets with full momentum back at his face, at which point he collects it and careens towards the rim for a wild shot that might take 12 seconds to rim in. Headbands, man.

Last year he was the quarterback for Rick Pitino's Gaels, hitting 43% of his threes and 95% of his free throws. The steals, eFG% and assist rate have translated, though higher hands have knocked 30 points off his three-point percentage and the turnovers are way up. His resulting 22/22 assist-turnover ratio is spiritually correct despite being wrecked by a zero-assist/five-turnover game against ECU, because the turnovers are emphatic. Also the assists are gorgeous bounce-passes from midair that lead to dunks.

Clayton's shooting is hot or cold; he was 6/8 from the arc in the win over Pitt and 1/6, 1/8, and 1/6 in losses to Virginia, Baylor, and Wake. The difference, of course, is whether you contest; via Synergy his catch-and-shoot jumpers are producing 0.91 points/attempt when guarded (average) and 1.6 PPA (excellent) when unguarded. It's all the same to Clayton's decision-making. He's a just-okay finisher, favoring a not-great floater when he's nervous, so the lesson here is CONTEST. On the other end, Clayton's high gear generates some steals but also plenty of open shots. He's also down to 73% on free throws after finishing 2nd in the country last year.

Pullin will try to burlyguard Dug too. [Florida Athletics]

Combo guard Zyon Pullin gets about 30 minutes, pushing Clayton to the two for 15 of those. The UC Riverside up-transfer was a four-year Big West star before deciding to follow friends to Florida for his COVID year. Somehow Pullin's ability to draw fouls came with him; he's carrying a ludicrous-for-a-guard 62.3 free throw rate and 5.8 fouls per game. He's also dealing the rock; Pullin's 31.3 assist rate against Tier A opponents would be tops in any conference, and all the more impressive because those games have been on the road or at neutral sites, meaning he's not getting the "everything's an assist" help from home scorers that most assist leaders benefit from. Getting the ball to others is also a good idea; Pullin's triple is a Xavier Simpson-esque slow pull. Neither do Pullin's extra 6 inches make him a better finisher than mid-career X. His best move is to careen into a defender, flail about like a Big Ten AD on a Zoom call with Tony Petitti, then clap a few times as the guy with his hands up mutters something about verticality.

Pullin's defense is the reason he's coming off the bench. He helps when he shouldn't, doesn't get much height, and doesn't have the athleticism to recover from mistakes. Synergy has him 23rd percentile as the primary defender, and giving up a lot of dribble jumpers. His integration with the team also may have been hurt by an NCAA suspension he served at the start of the year for participating in a pro showcase before pulling his name from the draft last offseason.

Off-guards Riley Kugel and Will Richard are out there to be athletic spacers but have vastly different profiles. Riley Kugel's shot hasn't been falling, and that's played into his desire to take everything to the rim. The result has been something like a disaster factory, using 23% of possessions when he's on the floor, turning it over on a quarter of them, and missing enough of the rest to have him at a 93 ORtg. Will Richard is a Just-a-Shooter who's learning to stick with threes and D; he's only 12/28 at the rim this year, including 0/4 at tip-in attempts. He's a good natural defender, but like his teammates, Richard is often caught following the ball inside and giving up kickouts. Baylor punished him and Kugel relentlessly.

Starting C Micah Handlogten missed a three-game stretch around Thanksgiving that included the Baylor and Wake Forest losses due to an ankle injury, but has been back in the lineup the last two games. Mostly Handlogten is there to be 7-1. Missing 85 percent of Florida's Tier A minutes has contributed to an insane OReb rate, but it's not nothing. Handlogten was MAC player of the year last year for Marshall, finishing first in the conference in eFG% (72.6) and and 41st and 27th in the country in ORebs and DRebs, respectively. He made a pair of threes in the opener against Loyola but that represents half of his makes on 15 career attempts.

The bench:

• Freshman center Alex Condon took Handlogten's place without missing a beat. He's listed at 6-11 but his wingspan makes him as effective at rim protection as a 7-footer, and he's been excellent on the glass. Condon has good hand-eye coordination to make up for slow feet, which leads to guards thinking they have him beat only for the freshman's hand to come swatting the ball away from behind. He's young yet so his scoring is mostly set up by others, but Condon isn't afraid to put up a jumper and should develop into a very good stretch five in the next few years.
• PF Thomas Haugh is the other freshman getting a lot of minutes. He's more of a wing, with some moves down low that are wild shots and turnovers today, but should become sneaky good buckets as he develops. He wouldn't look out of place playing the four for Michigan State, if you take my meaning.
• W Denzel Aberdeen was part of the rotation when Pullin was out but has only seen real minutes once since November 17th and didn't play at all in their last two games. I keep searching for an injury; if this sentence is still here when you're reading it I couldn't find one. He cannot get a shot to fall this year.

THE TEMPO FREE

Four factors:

Those OReb numbers are inflated from playing some tiny mid-majors, but only somewhat. Florida rebounded 46% of their misses against Baylor (when Handlogten out no less). Wake managed to shut this off by sticking a 7-1 guy on the floor, but don't expect many second opportunities. Other than that, keep them away from the rim, capitalize on turnovers, and get your threes off before they recover.

THE KEYS

Can Jackson guard Samuel? He would know. [Campredon]

Get Samuel away from the rim. Florida is built to make your bigs' lives miserable. Can Reed/Nkamhoua/Tschetter hold up? Can T-Will bully back at all? Can they win back points when Florida's cycling Samuel off the court?

Don't let Clayton get hot. UF's shooters aren't shooting well, but a lot of them have logged 40%+ seasons. An extra inch or six could be a big difference.

Quick triggers on the triples. They want to bring help and recover; Baylor's guards got the ball around the perimeter and toward the basket right quick; any hesitation and their size comes back into play.

Complete the process. Rebound with two hands then cradle.

Ball up. Florida goes for blocks; Michigan's 214th at avoiding them because Reed brings the ball down, Dug is short, Nimari's predictable, T-Will's limited, etc.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Florida by 1.