THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#25 Michigan (9-7, 3-3 Big Ten) vs #65 Northwestern (9-8, 2-6 Big Ten)
WHERE	Crisler Arena Ann Arbor MI
WHEN	6:30 PM
THE LINE	Kenpom: M -7 Torvik: M -9
TELEVISION	BTN

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan's coming off its best win of the year, an 18-point dusting of Indiana at Assembly Hall. Northwestern rolls into town next, and if you're thinking "layup" that's maybe a little harsh but not far off. Northwestern's only top-100 wins this year are against Maryland and, hilariously, at the Breslin Center in the king—nay, emperor—of all ball don't lie games. If you missed it:

Thank you for your service, Wildcats.

When not doing that they've lost. But sort of like Michigan, the record and the underlying numbers disagree a bit. Northwestern has lost two OT games and four more that were five or six point margins. The only blowout they've suffered is their most recent game, which was against Purdue at Mackey—the hardest game in the Big Ten by some distance this year.

This is still the third-easiest game of the year and Michigan really needs it.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Jones's TO rate isn't quite under 20 percent, which was our cutoff for dropping the banana peel, but he's at 12 in six Big Ten games so we've upgraded him to a gritstein.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

The Chris Collins Index is how many images in the first three rows of your GIS are of you on all fours barking like a dog. Chris Collins's Chris Collins Index is 14%. All other D-1 coaches are at 0%.

THE THEM

Northwestern is similar to last year's team. Subtract one Miller Kopp and age everyone and there you go.

I still wish we'd got him he'd be real useful [Campredon]

Senior Pete Nance is the star. He mostly operates as a stretch five with a focus inside the line; he's shooting 54/45/77 and has not lost any efficiency in Big Ten play. That three-point shooting is a major upgrade from last year's 34%, but it's on just 49 attempts. About 75%  of his usage is inside the arc.

Nance is still willowy even as a senior and doesn't make much impact on the offensive glass or as a shotblocker—his numbers this year are inflated by nonconference competition level; in the Big Ten he's putting up an Austin Davis-esque 1.9 block rate. He's a middling post defender who will need help against Dickinson.

Stretch four Robbie Beran is more or less who he was last year: a middling shooter who gets a lot his usage opportunistically. He's efficient in transition and on putbacks and not so hot at everything else. Last year Michigan put Dickinson on Beran and lived with the consequences; those were 14 points on 10 shooting possessions, so there was a cost there. It was one Michigan was happy to play in order to shut Nance off. Beran also fouled out in 20 minutes.

Beran does not usually force the issue and remains a peripheral part of the Northwestern offense at all times; this results in good efficiency because his TO rate is rock bottom but asking him to up his output is a difficult proposition.

Chase Audige is a charter member of the Ministry of Funny Shots [Campredon]

Small forward Chase Audige! Is very exciting to watch! Because he could do anything!

It takes a special kind of player to rack up Chase Audige stats. You do not often see things like "shoots 26% from three" paired with "half his makes are unassisted." This is because it implies you're shooting like 20% off the dribble and you keep doing it and usually people who do that are assassinated by their coaches. The funniest Andy Katz take ever:

My dude put up an 87 ORTG last year. Andy Katz will say anything if you pay him. He's Baghdad Bob for soon-to-be fired college basketball coaches.

Anyway: this year he's shooting 43/27 and almost never gets to the line. He has slashed his turnover rate, which I'll believe when I see it. Maybe not until well after. Audige will hit some audacious shots, largely because he's going to take a ton of them. He's actually averaging more PPP on pull-ups than catch and shoot opportunities, so maybe he's actually doing the right thing when he careens wildly into traffic and then tries the equivalent of a flip throw-in? What a weird player.

Audige is going to go for an efficient 30 points against someone this year, and that team will be able to do nothing to stop it, and you just hope its not you. It's almost definitely not going to be you. But it could be you.

Shooting guard Ty Berry is Just A Shooter hitting 41% this year and 38% for his career. He does venture inside the line for some of his usage but probably should not: he barely gets to the rim and ends up taking a lot of long jumpers, which are not going down at an acceptable rate. His whole Synergy profile is "do not give open look and you're fine."

Point guard Boo Buie has taken a step forward this year, increasing his usage while upping his assists and cutting his turnovers. He's still pretty hideous inside the line, shooting 38% in Big Ten play—the same as last year's number. He's actually a solid mid-range shooter who will bail out the occasional possession, but at the rim he's barely better than he is shooting long twos.

Buie is a pull-up guy who maintains a respectable 35% three-point clip despite hitting a fair number of unassisted ones.

The Northwestern bench:

• Traditional back-to-the basket big Ryan Young gets about 20 MPG. Some of these minutes will see Nance at the four, but not many. Young gets almost all of his usage in the post and environs; he has three spot-up possessions on the season. He's not much to look at but was effective last year, shooting 59% in Big Ten play and racking up a lot of free throws he hits at a 70% clip. This year he's a little off but that's probably just small sample size.
• Senior Ryan Greer is close to invisible in 20 MPG. In Big Ten play he's averaging just over two shots a game. He was one foul away from a 14 trillion(!) against Purdue.
• Freshman Julian Roper is also close to invisible, albeit in about 16 MPG. He's shooting 34/29, so invisible is good.
• Casey Simmons & Elyjah Williams have seen their playing time slashed and may get a few minutes each.

THE TEMPO FREE

If you like teams that get one shot up and never take free throws, Northwestern is your jam:

There's some good news for Michigan in the underlying numbers. Northwestern is 14th in offensive assist rate, and when you get that high that usually implies that you don't have a whole lot of iso-happy athletes on your team. This is the case. The Wildcats are unlikely to exploit Michigan's lateral mobility issues.

Northwestern's defensive profile is weird because they look like a zone defense statistically despite playing almost no zone. They're giving up buckets of threes (297th) and opponents are hitting them (275th); opponent assist rate is off the charts (347th); opponents take a lot of time getting shots up (299th).

Notably, Northwestern is 16th percentile defending spot-ups and has a high ratio of unguarded attempts.

THE KEYS

Big game for Diabate [Campredon]

Moussa as Franz. Last year Michigan blew up Northwestern's five-out Nance-focused offense by sticking Hunter Dickinson on Beran and Franz Wagner on Nance. Wagner's gone but Michigan still has a rangy 6-10 guy who looks like the perfect foil. I'd imagine Michigan goes the same route here, which puts a lot of pressure on Diabate to replicate the should-have-been Big Ten DPOY's performance. Diabate has all the potential in the world but has many moments of freshman that are getting ironed out… slowly.

Meanwhile on the other end he's going to get Nance or Beran, both of whom are poor post defenders. This should be a game where he goes nuts.

Generate open threes. Everyone does this against Northwestern and the combination of Dickinson doubles and Michigan getting smoother in their sets should allow them to join the party. As recently discussed, there's a huge difference between an open Houstan three and a guarded one. Northwestern will likely provide many examples of the former.

Don't  get eviscerated by bad shots. Both Audige and Buie take and make a lot of garbage. Not enough to make Northwestern win games but enough to keep them close, and if there's an outlier performance things could get sticky. Meanwhile, Michigan is getting eaten up by eyeroll shots to an astounding extent. Per Synergy Michigan is:

• 6th percentile defending off-the-dribble jumpers,
• 1st percentile at defending jumpers under 17 feet, and
• 2nd percentile at defending long twos.

Yeah okay some of that is Michigan not having big, athletic guards. But they had Mike Smith and Eli Brooks last year and opponents shot 32% on other twos. This year? 40%. That's probably half garbage luck, right? At least?

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 7.