THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#13 Michigan (5-0) vs #52 Penn State (3-1)	the Nittany Hot Dog
WHERE	Crisler Center Ann Arbor, Michigan
WHEN	2:03 Eastern Sunday, December 13th
THE LINE	KenPom: M -6 Torvik: M -6.5
TELEVISION	BTN PBP: Brandon Gaudin Analyst: Stephen Bardo

THE OVERVIEW

Many, including your author (who is Brian please do not harass Ace for my takes), left Penn State for dead after Lamar Stevens graduated and Pat Chambers was fired just before the season. An internal investigation concluded that he was too mean to be a college basketball coach. [surveys college basketball coaches] JESUS CHRIST WHAT DID HE—

Anyway. Jim Ferry, a Chambers assistant who had a disastrous five-year run at Duquesne from 2013-17, took over. And then things have gone just fine. PSU hammered VMI, beat VCU on a buzzer-beater 3, lost to Seton Hall in OT, and then crushed VT by 20 on the road. They've clambered ten spots upwards in Kenpom and are now projected to finish a hair below .500 in Big Ten play.

Michigan is projected to finish a hair above .500. This is a measuring stick.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

Diagram FAQ. These now have Torvik's PRPG! all-in-one stat in the little boxes.

There's been no update on Austin Davis after a non-contact injury that did not look like a twisted ankle; he did not return against Toledo. We're guessing that Davis is not going to play, especially since there's a 13-day layoff after this one. The uncertainty is enough to move Dickinson into the starting lineup since he's functionally the starting C anyway.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

Yes that's a very large badge on Jamari Wheeler. Zavier Simpson vs PSU last year: 34% usage, 18 points on 23 shot equivalents, 6 assists, 6 turnovers. Put some respect on his name.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

THE THEM

Jones has a Kid n Play vibe [Campredon]

Penn State's solid start is largely because they returned everyone of significance other than Stevens and now have an experienced, reasonably solid core. Junior combo guard Myreon Jones has nosed ahead as PSU's leading player in Steven's absence. He's coming off a 49/40/78 shooting season with good assist(21) and turnover(14) rates. He's scuffling a bit from the floor in the early going and isn't an explosive guy—he doesn't get to the rim much and doesn't finish that well once there; he doesn't go to the line much—but was an effective midrange shooter last year and was extremely good from three.

Sophomore Seth Lundy is a burly 6'6", 220-pound power forward who flashed talent sporadically as a freshman. He didn't play like he looks, with middling presence on the offensive boards and a nearly 2-to-1 preference for threes over twos. Since he hit those as virtually identical rates that made a lot of sense. This year he's got a whopping 58/41/86 shooting line in the early going and has seen his block rate double, but he's been wildly variable. He went from 32 points in the VCU win to zero against VT. Turnovers have been more of a problem as shot creation gets spread out from Stevens.

Slasher Izaiah Brockington transferred in from St Bonaventure last year and had a dubiously efficient first year in the Big Ten with a 49/27/70 shooting line and a slightly elevated turnover rate. He's coming off the best game of his career, a detonation of Virginia Tech in which he put up 24 points on 16 shot equivalents and a couple OREBs.

Unusually, Brockington got a lot more interior-oriented after an up-transfer. He was the only PSU guard to create a significant number of shots at the rim, and he finished excellently (66%) once there. Almost all those shots were created for one Izaiah Brockington—he's not much of a passer—so this will be a straight up test of Michigan's ability to stop straight-line drives. Those have been a problem so far this year, oddly.

The last member of the veteran core is senior Jamari Wheeler, who will be stuck on Michigan's most dangerous short guy and tasked with harassing him into irrelevance. Wheeler is in his third year as a staple for Penn State despite checking in with sub-100 ORTGs on < 14% usage as a sophomore and junior because he is a defensive ace. He made the Big Ten's All-Defense team last year over Simpson; he's checked in with top 100 steal rates the last two years.

Wheeler did develop a bit of a three-pointer last year, hitting 39% on 36 attempts, and he's 6/13 this year. The other major development so far is that he's slashed his TO rate by two-thirds from a horrendous 33 to a Beilein-worthy 11. That almost can't be real, especially since his usage is still in the near-nonexistent department.

Penn State's has good results so far but there are a couple of roster warning signs. One is that they're playing Binghamton transfer Sam Sessoms heavy-usage starter's minutes at point guard. You probably don't remember much about Michigan's game against Binghamton from two years ago except Michigan missing one zillion billion mid-range jumpers, but Sessoms was a freshman at the time. FWIW, he scored 7 points on 12 shot equivalents with five assists and two turnovers.

As a sophomore Sessoms blew up into Binghamton's star player, a 32% usage gentleman shooting 48/32 from the floor with three-point upside after hitting 83% of his FTs. Like a player we're familiar with, he was virtually the only source of shot creation on the team, both for himself and others. He did a lot of heavy lifting on one of the worst teams in the country.

So yes, this is superficially similar to Mike Smith starting for Michigan. Both guys are up-transfers from terrible teams with giant usage and efficiency that just scraped above 100. These guys in fact had a Dubious Efficiency-Off last year. In a 75-63 Columbia win, Smith put up 19 points on 22 shot equivalents with 9 assists and 4 TOs; Sessoms put up 23 on 21 shot equivalents with 3 assists and 3 TOs. Smith is the first defender to show up on this Sessoms highlight reel:

Not great. Going to chalk that up to massive offensive burdens.

But there are a few important differences between Smith at Michigan and Sessoms at Penn State:

• The Ivy League was about 7 points of efficiency margin better than America East. For perspective, that's about the same gap between the Big Ten—first in the nation in EM—and the SEC.
• PSU is relying on Sessoms (25% usage) much more heavily than Michigan is relying on Smith (17%).
• Sessoms is currently overperforming a lot of three-point data while Smith badly underperforms. Given the usage you'd expect those trends to reverse over the course of the season.

Sessoms might hit a wall at some point. Might not be when Smith is checking him. Might be if it's Brooks.

The other roster issue for Penn State is at center, where John Harrar and Trent Buttrick are splitting time. Harrar is a lunch-pail tryhard who is efficient when he shoots, which is rarely. He got up 9% of PSUs shots when he was on the floor last year and is at 12% this year. He does have a smidge of back-to-the-basket game, but his presence puts a lot of pressure on other PSU players to create. Buttrick, meanwhile, is a walk-on getting his first real time as a senior because a JUCO big PSU tried to import didn't make it to campus.

Rim protection is an issue. Harrar and Buttrick have one blocked shot between them this season, and Harrar's 2019-20 season saw him block 1.7% of opponent shots. Austin Davis's 2019-20 block rate: 1.8%.

This wasn't devastating to PSU last year but since 1) they were about average at defending twos and 2) lineups with Harrar were about 3 points of 2P% worse than those with Mike Watkins, they project to be fairly bad defending inside the arc this year. Oddly, Harrar is faring much worse than Buttrick so far. Top-100 opponents are hitting 60%(!) of their twos when Harrar is on the court and 45% when he's not. Small sample sizes (119 possessions for Harrar) and all but this looks appealing for one Hunter Dickinson.

Michigan will have to defend Dread better than Toledo Hair Guy [Campredon]

PSU goes eight deep. Buttrick is the main bench option at the 5. Sessoms was discussed above. He does not start but he gets starter minutes as PSU spreads it out—only Wheeler cracks 30 MPG. Junior Myles Dread is the other bench option; he's a 6'4" Just A Shooter who hit 36% from deep as a freshman and 32% last year. He's started well this year at 40%. Freshman post Abdou Tsimbila has gotten a total of nine minutes and may see a few in this game.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Four Factors explanation

PSU's offensive profile isn't far off the Toledo team Michigan just played. They're getting 45% of their shots from three and hitting them at a 38% clip, both top 50 numbers. They take care of the ball relatively well, don't get to the line, and have an average number of assists. They're Beilein minus a couple notches.

On defense PSU's size issues are already cropping up. You see their defensive boards above; in addition they're in the 200s defending twos and are sending opponents to the line a lot. PSU is 268th in average height, which is incredibly low for a high-major. They are in fact the smallest high-major team in the country, and it should be noted that 50-some teams haven't played. PSU is 268 out of 305.

THE KEYS

PG shot creation is tough sledding against PSU [Campredon]

Calihornication. Yes, this is a second-derivative portmanteau.

/rides off into distance on magnificent horse

uh

Anyway.

Calihornication. Wheeler's existence makes it a very good idea to use folks other than your point guards to create shots. Ace just detailed the various and sundry ways Michigan's used horns sets to abuse the post with Hunter Dickinson and friends. Michigan will have a size advantage at all three frontcourt spots; getting into the post via horns or another method can significantly mitigate Wheeler's whole deal.

Know your switches and don't sag off shooters. Michigan gave up a lot of open threes against Toledo and was fortunate that the Rockets had an off shooting night. Many of these were issues where one player expected a switch and a second did not; this has been a recurring theme early in the season.

PSU's early success from three is probably real enough since they are no longer enduring ~200 attempts from Curtis Jones and Lamar Stevens, who collectively averaged 27%, and have at least three guys with enough track record to believe they'll continue to hit from the perimeter. Brockington and Wheeler are potential exceptions, though they've started well.

Dunk on their faces. No rim protection, get wild in there. Seton Hall is the only team PSU has played that has Dickinson-level size. Sandro Mamukelashvili, Ike Obiagu (who you may remember from the FSU Elite Eight game) and Tyrese Samuel combined to go 15/23 from two and racked up 15 FTAs in about 80 total minutes.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 6.