Previously: Part One

After looking at Michigan's stellar pick-and-roll production and how they do it last week, I dove deeper into Synergy's database to try to put this year's team in a historical context. At first I was just looking at other lead ballhandlers, then I was putting tables for every season together, then I realized I needed to add the screeners to the equation and look at how each team varied their P&R attack to do this right.

So what was going to be the second half of this series is now the second of either three or four parts. I'm trying not to make these too long to digest. These posts are going to be heavy on Synergy's stats, so I want to make a few notes before going any further.

While Synergy uses the terminology "points per possession" to describe how they measure production, that's very misleading when you're used to looking at KenPom. I'm switching over to describing Synergy stats as "points per play." The distinction is described in this useful Cleaning The Glass post:

CTG distinguishes between possessions and plays, and this distinction is important when diving into context information. A possession starts when a team gets the ball and ends when they lose it. A play ends when the team attempts a shot, goes to the foul line, or turns the ball over. If a team gets an offensive rebound, that results in a continuation of a possession but a new play. So a possession can have multiple plays.

Play contexts are per-play, not per-possession. For example, a team might come down in transition and miss a shot, get the offensive rebound, kick it out, and run a halfcourt set. Then might miss that shot but get a tip in to score and end the possession. That was all one possession, but three different plays and three different contexts: the first shot was in transition, the second in the halfcourt, and the third was a putback.

Because offensive rebounds start a new "play" within a possession, points per play are inherently going to be lower than points per possession. To help contextualize, I've included each player's national percentile rank for that season along with their stats.

For ballhandlers, "own offense" includes plays that finish with a field goal attempt, shooting foul, or turnover. "Passes" measure the result of shots that come as a direct result of the ballhandler's pass out of the pick-and-roll. "Keep percentage" is a stat I added myself that simply measures the percentage of a time the ballhandler uses his own offense instead of recording a passing play—Michigan has had players arrive at similar efficiency despite sporting very different styles.

an enjoyable pick-and-pop example

For screeners, you mostly just need to know the difference between popping, rolling, and slipping a screen:

• Popping: setting the screen and then stepping out (usually to the three-point line) for what's almost always a spot-up shot. Occasionally a more versatile big man will drive off a pop. Think Moe Wagner.
• Rolling: setting the screen and then going to the basket in the hopes of getting a layup/dunk. Think Jordan Morgan.
• Slipping: faking the screen before running to a predesignated spot—usually the rim, sometimes spotting up if it's a Wagner-type or perimeter player—as a changeup to keep defenses from overplaying the ballhandler.

As a general rule, points per play are going to higher when the screener finishes the play than the ballhander because of the nature of the pick-and-roll. A pass is usually going to be thrown to an open man when the play works; while the ballhandler could take a shot because he got open himself, he also usually has to finish the play if it's well defended.

Consider the degree of difficulty of Zavier Simpson's or Cassius Winston's shots; it's hard to be a really efficient scorer off the pick-and-roll. Morgan, while a great roll man, often just had to catch the ball and finish an uncontested shot at the rim. Most of Wagner's pick-and-pop threes went up without a real shot contest. This makes sense: there's little reason to pass the ball to your big man if he isn't open. Teams also often default to a quick screen in late clock situations, which tends to create more difficult shots the ballhandler has little choice but to take.

The other thing to note in the screener stats: under number of plays in each category, "%" shows the percentage of the time each player popped, rolled, or slipped out of their overall screener plays used. The "%ile" under points points play in each category, however, measures percentile national rank. I realize this is a little confusing but I couldn't come up with a better way than Synergy in this case.

With that out of the way, let's dive in.

[Hit THE JUMP for a year-by-year history of Michigan's pick-and-roll offense and what we can learn from it.]

early Beilein P&Rs usually featured Manny Harris attacking the rim

2008-09: The Dark Ages

Team Stats: 4.6% pick-and-rolls + passes (#285 in country), 0.802 points per play (#180)

The Ballhandlers:

	P&R Plays (Own Offense)	PPP on Own Offense (%ile)	P&R Plays (Passes)	PPP on Passes (%ile)	Total P&R Plays	Overall P&R PPP (%ile)	Keep %
Manny Harris	18	0.889 (71%)	27	0.704 (13%)	45	0.778 (40%)	40.0%
Kelvin Grady	7	0.286 (—)	4	0.000 (—)	11	0.182 (1%)	63.6%
Stu Douglass	4	0.750 (—)	7	0.571 (—)	11	0.636 (20%)	36.4%
Zack Novak	3	1.000 (—)	3	0.667 (—)	6	0.833 (—)	50.0%
David Merritt	4	1.500 (—)	1	0.000 (—)	5	1.200 (—)	80.0%

The Screeners:

	Pop Plays (%)	Pop PPP (%ile)	Roll Plays	Roll PPP (%ile)	Slip Plays (%)	Slip PPP (%ile)	Overall Plays	Overall PPP (%ile)
DeShawn Sims	8 (33.3%)	0.375 (—)	14 (58.3%)	1.286 (58%)	2 (8.3%)	0.000 (—)	24	0.875 (27%)
Zach Gibson	2 (22.2%)	0.000 (—)	7 (77.8%)	0.857 (—)	—	—	9	0.667 (—)

Our starting point is John Beilein's second season at the helm. Also starting points: the likes of Kelvin Grady and David Merritt, who were good enough to break Michigan's tournament drought but weren't going to scare anyone attacking off a high screen. As you'll see throughout this experiment, lead ballhandler play—which tends to be point guard play—is the primary driver of pick-and-roll success. This team was well below average in the P&R.

You'll also note that the pick-and-roll was barely a part of Beilein's offense when he arrived at Michigan. This year's team has 37.7% of their plays categorized as P&Rs; the 2008-09 squad ran it 4.6% of the time. While the overall trend in college basketball has gone towards more P&R plays over time, Beilein still utilized it less than the vast majority of the country. Manny Harris led the team with 45 P&R ballhandler plays in 35 games! That's essentially a weekend tournament for Zavier Simpson.

With this team, the minimal usage made sense. While Harris could create his own offense going downhill, he was a poor passer. DeShawn Sims was the team's only reliable screener. Nobody else was a major threat to score in these situations.

This was still, by and large, Beilein's West Virginia offense. Michigan used nearly three times as many isolation plays as P&R plays and about twice as many plays off cuts and off-ball screens each in '08-09. They were much more reliant on off-ball motion and, if that failed to create an open shot, going one-on-one than Beilein's later teams. It's wild to look at these numbers and realize this team still finished 40th in adjusted offensive efficiency on KenPom and won 21 games. Times were different.

2009-10: Manny Hunts Some Buckets

Team Stats: 9.7% pick-and-rolls + passes (#234 in country), 0.802 points per play (#207)

The Ballhandlers:

	P&R Plays (Own Offense)	PPP on Own Offense (%ile)	P&R Plays (Passes)	PPP on Passes (%ile)	Total P&R Plays	Overall P&R PPP. (%ile)	Keep %
Manny Harris	76	0.724 (47%)	48	0.750 (19%)	124	0.734 (34%)	61.3%
Darius Morris	19	0.895 (73%)	24	0.833 (28%)	43	0.860 (58%)	44.2%
Stu Douglass	12	0.917 (78%)	17	0.824 (26%)	29	0.862 (58%)	41.4%
Laval Lucas-Perry	5	0.800 (—)	7	1.571 (—)	12	1.250 (96%)	41.7%
Zack Novak	5	0.400 (—)	4	1.250 (—)	9	0.778 (—)	55.6%

The Screeners:

	Pop Plays (%)	Pop PPP (%ile)	Roll Plays	Roll PPP (%ile)	Slip Plays (%)	Slip PPP (%ile)	Overall Plays	Overall PPP (%ile)
DeShawn Sims	17 (47.2%)	1.235 (89%)	18 (50.0%)	0.833 (12%)	1 (2.8%)	0.000 (—)	36	1.000 (52%)
Zach Gibson	—	—	7 (100.0%)	1.000 (—)	—	—	7	1.000 (—)

With mostly the same personnel save for a freshman Darius Morris, Michigan's pick-and-roll PPP figure remained exactly the same, though the country got better on average so they fell 27 spots to #207 in the overall rankings. While their usage doubled, they still lingered in the bottom third of the country, though the jump would hint at the major shift around the corner.

Harris mostly drove to score, he was only average when he did so, and his passing remained poor. You can see through the lens of the individual stats how much the overall stats vary between keeping and passing; Harris's 0.724 PPP when he kept ranked in the 47th percentile that year, while his 0.750 PPP on passes—a hair better by that figure—only ranked in the 19th percentile.

Morris flashed promise, though he and the other ballhandlers were limited by poor finishing by Sims, who added a reliable pop jumper but fell off when rolling to the hoop. Again, there wasn't really a secondary screener option, and only two players averaged more than one P&R ballhandler play per game. The sea change would wait another year.

for 3/4 years, Jordan Morgan was a great roll man [Bryan Fuller]

2010-11: The Morris & Morgan Inflection Point

Team Stats: 18.1% pick-and-rolls + passes (#37 in country), 1.016 points per play (#17)

The Ballhandlers:

	P&R Plays (Own Offense)	PPP on Own Offense (%ile)	P&R Plays (Passes)	PPP on Passes (%ile)	Total P&R Plays	Overall P&R PPP. (%ile)	Keep %
Darius Morris	130	0.869 (73%)	120	1.250 (84%)	250	1.052 (87%)	52.0%
Tim Hardaway Jr.	60	0.967 (86%)	27	1.481 (95%)	87	1.126 (93%)	69.0%
Stu Douglass	32	0.875 (74%)	22	0.818 (24%)	54	0.852 (52%)	59.3%
Zack Novak	10	0.700 (43%)	11	1.182 (75%)	21	0.952 (72%)	47.6%
Eso Akunne	3	0.000 (—)	1	0.000 (—)	4	0.000 (—)	75.0%

The Screeners:

	Pop Plays (%)	Pop PPP (%ile)	Roll Plays	Roll PPP (%ile)	Slip Plays (%)	Slip PPP (%ile)	Overall Plays	Overall PPP (%ile)
Jordan Morgan	4 (7.5%)	0.500 (—)	47 (88.7%)	1.298 (68%)	2 (3.8%)	2.000 (—)	53	1.264 (81%)
Evan Smotrycz	16 (76.2%)	1.062 (67%)	5 (23.8%)	0.800 (—)	—	—	21	1.000 (49%)
Jon Horford	1 (7.7%)	0.000 (—)	11 (84.6%)	1.091 (39%)	1 (7.7%)	3.000 (—)	13	1.154 (69%)

Once again, Beilein essentially doubled the team's P&R usage. That got them into the top 40 nationally in usage. More importantly, the team's efficiency skyrocketed to 1.017 PPP, 17th in the country, with Darius Morris finding a steady roll man in redshirt freshman center Jordan Morgan.

not always conventional, but effective

While Morris wasn't a great shooter, his size at the point (6'4", 180) combined with excellent court vision to make him a killer in the pick-and-roll. He could pass over hard hedges (see above) or exploit single coverage by taking it to the rack, where he could go up for a layup, slip a late pass to the rolling big, or whip a kickout pass to an open shooter. He became Beilein's first true go-to P&R ballhandler, grading out in the 87th percentile on 250 plays.

Tim Hardaway Jr. also provided the team's first good high-volume secondary ballhandler, using 87 plays—which would've been first on the team by a wide margin two years prior—and grading out in the 93rd percentile. He presented defenses a different challenge, too. Morris was close to 50/50 between passing and keeping. Hardaway kept it 69% of the time; that tendency plus his ability to hit pull-up outside shots or use his athleticism to attack the rim opened up easier passes than Morris often made. Stu Douglass and Zack Novak gave the team a couple more P&R plays per game between them at above-average efficiency.

We also saw multiple screener options for the first time, not to mention screeners with different styles. Morgan was a pure roll man, heading to the basket nearly every time he got in position to set a pick. Evan Smotrycz, who mostly played backup center but occasionally lined up alongside Morgan at power forward, popped to the perimeter over three-quarters of the time. While Morgan's approach was more effective by the numbers above, Smotrycz added spacing that likely showed up in his teammates's stats. They even had a decent third option in Jon Horford.

The team's approach to P&R's was relatively simple at this stage. The variety would come from setting the screen on one side or the other instead of the middle of the floor, the occasional pop from Smotrycz, or using a ballhandler other than Morris. Players generally had a specialty: Morris the passer, Hardaway the scorer, Morgan the roll man, Smotrycz the pop man, and so on.

Then Morris unexpectedly left early for the NBA Draft and Beilein had to turn to a freshman point guard from Columbus.

2011-12: The Trey Burke Inflection Point

Team Stats: 23.8% pick-and-rolls + passes (#11 in country), 0.975 points per play (#27)

The Ballhandlers:

	P&R Plays (Own Offense)	PPP on Own Offense (%ile)	P&R Plays (Passes)	PPP on Passes (%ile)	Total P&R Plays	Overall P&R PPP. (%ile)	Keep %
Trey Burke	199	0.814 (64%)	162	1.179 (77%)	361	0.978 (78%)	55.1%
Tim Hardaway Jr.	80	0.988 (89%)	34	1.029 (55%)	114	1.000 (82%)	70.2%
Stu Douglass	31	0.710 (43%)	19	1.105 (69%)	50	0.860 (54%)	62.0%
Zack Novak	16	0.875 (75%)	6	0.833 (—)	22	0.864 (54%)	72.7%
Evan Smotrycz	2	1.500 (—)	3	1.000 (—)	5	1.200 (—)	40.0%

The Screeners:

	Pop Plays (%)	Pop PPP (%ile)	Roll Plays	Roll PPP (%ile)	Slip Plays (%)	Slip PPP (%ile)	Overall Plays	Overall PPP (%ile)
Jordan Morgan	2 (4.9%)	0.000 (—)	36 (87.8%)	1.306 (71%)	3 (7.3%)	1.333 (—)	41	1.244 (81%)
Evan Smotrycz	16 (61.5%)	1.000 (65%)	7 (26.9%)	1.429 (—)	3 (11.5%)	1.000 (—)	26	1.115 (68%)
Zack Novak	10 (100%)	0.900 (53%)	—	—	—	—	10	0.900 (38%)

That point guard, of course, was Trey Burke. While not the superstar he'd become as a sophomore, Burke flashed elite ability as a scorer, passer, and general screen manipulator in his first year on campus. He tried a lot of audacious shit. It worked more often than anyone expected.

While the pick-and-roll offense as a whole wasn't quite as efficient as the year prior, they went to it significantly more often—P&R now comprised nearly a quarter of the team's plays as categorized by Synergy, the highest mark of any major-conference team.

Hardaway once again provided excellent secondary ballhandling, while Douglass and Novak remained passable tertiary options. The primary reason for success, however, was the connection forged between Burke and Morgan, who picked up almost exactly where he left off with Morris. Smotrycz added some pop again while threatening the rim more often and effectively. In a new wrinkle, Beilein occasionally used the 6'4" Novak as a screener. While it was predictable—he popped on all ten of his screens—it worked decently well and gave defenses something else to think about.

Beilein also finally had the shooting he'd become accustomed to at West Virginia. Novak was a critical component of the pick-and-roll offense as a spot-up shooter, posting an excellent 1.36 points per play spotting up off pick-and-rolls. Hardaway matched Novak in that regard despite struggling mightily with his outside shot otherwise. Douglass and Smotrycz were above average on spot-ups in P&R situations. Burke was surrounded with good options. Michigan could go four-out, run a high screen, and really put opposing big men in a bind; with Smotrycz at center they could go a full five-out and have Burke be the only player to venture inside the arc.

In three years, Beilein turned his offense from one that used the pick-and-roll less than almost any other program to the one that best combined volume (#11 nationally in usage) and efficiency (#27 in PPP) among high-major teams. The closest comparison? Duke (#42 in usage, #28 in PPP). He did it with a freshman point guard, a redshirt sophomore big man who'd almost gone unrecruited among high-majors, a sophomore swingman fighting off a shooting funk, and four white guys who mostly stuck to the perimeter. Pretty good coach, that guy.

the master at work [Fuller]

2012-13: National Player of the Year

Team Stats: 26.7% pick-and-rolls + passes (#19 in country), 1.032 points per play (#2)

The Ballhandlers:

	P&R Plays (Own Offense)	PPP on Own Offense (%ile)	P&R Plays (Passes)	PPP on Passes (%ile)	Total P&R Plays	Overall P&R PPP. (%ile)	Keep %
Trey Burke	256	0.989 (92%)	231	1.117 (75%)	487	1.045 (91%)	52.6%
Tim Hardaway Jr.	83	0.783 (66%)	43	0.837 (29%)	126	0.802 (46%)	65.9%
Nik Stauskas	56	1.143 (98%)	34	1.235 (89%)	90	1.178 (97%)	62.2%
Spike Albrecht	13	0.692 (47%)	20	1.350 (95%)	33	1.091 (94%)	39.4%
Caris LeVert	9	0.222 (—)	9	1.333 (—)	18	0.778 (40%)	50.0%

The Screeners:

	Pop Plays (%)	Pop PPP (%ile)	Roll Plays	Roll PPP (%ile)	Slip Plays (%)	Slip PPP (%ile)	Overall Plays	Overall PPP (%ile)
Mitch McGary	6 (9.5%)	0.000 (—)	54 (85.7%)	1.204 (57%)	3 (4.8%)	1.333 (—)	63	1.095 (71%)
Jordan Morgan	1 (3.2%)	0.000 (—)	30 (96.8%)	0.933 (23%)	—	—	31	0.903 (43%)
Jon Horford	1 (4.3%)	0.000 (—)	21 (91.3%)	1.143 (48%)	1 (4.3%)	1.000 (—)	23	1.087 (69%)

There's a lot that stands out about the 2012-13 offense. In putting this together, nothing jumped out to more more than this: because of Burke, Michigan boasted by far the most dangerous pick-and-roll offense in the country even though the once-reliable Morgan had a woeful season as a finisher.

Morgan went from scoring ~1.3 points per play on rolls to the basket in each of his first two seasons to a bit above 0.9 as a junior, which ranked in the 23rd percentile. While Mitch McGary eventually replaced Morgan as the starter and played great basketball, he wasn't a refined roll man. Horford was a solid third option again but there wasn't a pick-and-pop threat in the rotation.

unfair

And yet Michigan had the #2 P&R offense by PPP while again upping their usage, albeit not as drastically as previous years—they actually fell a handful of spots in the usage rankings. The only team to record a higher PPP was BYU, which ran the P&R on only 6.1% of their plays; only two other teams in the top 25 by PPP had a usage higher than 25% and both were mid-majors. The Wolverines were at 26.7%.

There were two main reasons for Michigan's astonishing success. The first reason: Burke expanded his repertoire while becoming a smarter player. As a freshman, he "used" the screen (dribbled in the direction of the pick) 87% of the time and when he did "reject" the screen (go the other way) he graded out in the 34th percentile. As a sophomore, he used the screen 68% of the time and graded out in the 84th percentile when he rejected it, which occurred more than twice as often.

He became more adept at "splitting" the defenders—dribbling between the two defenders involved in the ball screen, which tends to wreck a defense. He improved his left hand. The previous year he struggled to produce on screens from the right side of the floor, which usually result in the ballhandler driving left. After scoring 0.625 PPP (bad) on right side screens as a freshman, he hit 0.871 PPP (good) in 2012-13.

learned how to use his butt, too

The second reason: sweet, sweet shooting. Nik Stauskas hit 44% of his threes on the season and feasted off kickouts—just ask Florida. Hardaway regained his freshman form. Burke was a good spot-up shooter when he wasn't handling the ball himself. Even Glenn Robinson III, never considered a sniper, had an eFG% of 60 when spotting up on P&R plays, and he added a spectacular finishing dimension as an elite cutter. Michigan was a tiny bit more lethal as outside shooters than the previous year's team and had far more threatening, even devastating finishers.

It came down to Burke, though, as well as the secondary ballhandlers. While Hardaway had an average year, Stauskas foreshadowed his 2014 dominance by posting an even higher PPP as a ballhandler than Burke on about a fifth of Burke's usage. While overwhelmed as a finisher, little-used backup point guard Spike Albrecht displayed such good passing instincts that he, too, graded out higher than Burke, though sample size is much more of an issue there.

Recent teams have come close to this squad's efficiency but Burke's incredible season combined with depth of quality ballhandlers/shooters and the late-season emergence of McGary set 2012-13 apart. It's almost comical to ponder the possibilities if this hadn't been the lone season Morgan wasn't a high-level finisher.

the george rr martin reference would've been way more niche in 2014 [Fuller]

2013-14: The Song of Rise and Fire

Team Stats: 29.1% pick-and-rolls + passes (#19 in country), 0.987 points per play (#22)

The Ballhandlers:

	P&R Plays (Own Offense)	PPP on Own Offense (%ile)	P&R Plays (Passes)	PPP on Passes (%ile)	Total P&R Plays	Overall P&R PPP. (%ile)	Keep %
Nik Stauskas	164	0.951 (85%)	113	1.319 (94%)	277	1.101 (93%)	59.2%
Caris LeVert	119	0.773 (54%)	87	1.057 (67%)	206	0.893 (59%)	57.8%
Derrick Walton	60	0.933 (83%)	74	1.027 (63%)	134	0.985 (80%)	44.8%
Glenn Robinson III	51	0.882 (75%)	12	1.500 (99%)	63	1.000 (84%)	81.0%
Spike Albrecht	26	0.654 (32%)	37	0.892 (35%)	63	0.794 (36%)	41.3%

The Screeners:

	Pop Plays (%)	Pop PPP (%ile)	Roll Plays	Roll PPP (%ile)	Slip Plays (%)	Slip PPP (%ile)	Overall Plays	Overall PPP (%ile)
Jordan Morgan	4 (8.5%)	1.000 (—)	40 (85.1%)	1.300 (68%)	3 (6.4%)	2.333 (—)	47	1.340 (90%)
Jon Horford	3 (7.9%)	0.667 (—)	28 (73.7%)	1.000 (25%)	7 (18.4%)	1.143 (—)	38	1.000 (53%)
Mitch McGary	—	—	12 (92.3%)	1.167 (49%)	1 (7.7%)	0.000 (—)	13	1.077 (65%)
Glenn Robinson III	10 (83.3%)	1.600 (99%)	1 (8.3%)	2.000 (—)	1 (8.3%)	0.000 (—)	12	1.500 (97%)

With Burke and Hardaway gone to the NBA, Beilein had to put new lead ballhandlers in place for 2013-14. While the style of offense was very different, we saw a return to Beilein's early Michigan teams—the offense's centerpiece wasn't the point guard but a wing.

Nik Stauskas built on his impressive freshman efficiency, taking on a much bigger load while ranking in the top tenth of P&R ballhandlers. He was a little different from Burke in style, taking on more offense on his own and pulling up more often for jumpers. While he came up a little short of Burke in P&R scoring acumen, he was a more efficient passer than Burke in '12-13, though a lot of that had to do with Jordan Morgan becoming an elite P&R finisher again.

wsg mom, her friend, and two great homemade shirts

We began to see a little more variety in how Beilein set up his screens. Burke almost always simply dribbled towards the screen. Here we see a different way to initiate, with Stauskas passing to the screener (Horford in this case), running to him to take a dribble handoff that serves as an initial screen, then doubling back for a rescreen. This gets the defense moving all over the place and Stauskas uses his size to find Horford alone at the rim:

guard this, bug people

Stauskas wasn't alone as a ballhandler, either. Sophomore wing Caris LeVert took on over 200 plays himself at above-average production. Freshman Derrick Walton, the future at point guard, displayed strong finishing while being more willing to pass. GRIII developed into a reliable tertiary ballhandler who mostly looked to score, while he did quite well, and had great success when he passed.

Robinson played a bit part in every aspect of Michigan's attack. In addition to handling the rock more, he was a sniper when used as the screener, averaging 1.5 points per play while mostly popping for a jumper. And, again, his presence in the corner as an off-ball player forced defenses to stay honest or they'd get dunked on:

incoming

Injury prevented McGary from building on his spectacular postseason play as a freshman, opening the door for Morgan to totally redeem himself. Morgan proved better than ever, reaching the 90th percentile in PPP as a screener. In addition to his soft scoring touch, he set hard picks that often rendered defenders dead on arrival; we'd learn to miss that when he left.

While this team didn't reach the P&R efficiency heights of the Final Four squad, they came relatively close while once again upping usage (as did the rest of the country, again). Stauskas put himself in the discussion for the best offensive force under Beilein, an amazing feat given what Burke did the year prior. Beilein again added new ways to make this action more dangerous.

In the next post, I'll finish out the year-by-year breakdown and hopefully get to the final takeaways, though I may break those off into their own post. Get ready for the pick-and-pop to become a much bigger part of the offense.