Michigan 93, Nebraska 57
Michigan already knew their Big Ten Tournament fate heading into their game at Nebraska. The game still had stakes, however.
One more victory and the Wolverines could feel secure about their NCAA Tournament standing. They wrapped that up early in the second half, then turned their focus to history.
Derrick Walton got his name in the Michigan record book with 16 assists, breaking Gary Grant's mark of 14 through masterful orchestration of John Beilein's offense. Walton also led the team with 18 points and five steals. He turned the ball over only twice.
With his 209th win, Beilein tied with Johnny Orr atop the all-time wins list among Michigan coaches. The final buzzer also required an update to my favorite running stat of the season:
Each of these team's biggest losses this year was to Michigan
— Alejandro Zúñiga (@ByAZuniga) March 6, 2017
MSU—By 29
Indiana—By 30
Purdue—By 12
Marquette—By 18
SMU—By 22
Nebraska—By 36
Heading into tonight, Nebraska's worst loss of the season was by 17 points—at Kansas. Michigan doubled that margin and added a bucket for good measure.
They did so in much the same fashion by which they defeated the Huskers at Crisler. Walton played the role of distributor in the first half, working the pick-and-pop with Moe Wagner, who sunk all three of his three-point attempts in the opening stanza. Zak Irvin and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, the other primary beneficiaries of Walton's largesse, joined Wagner as double-digit scorers in the first half.
Unlike the game in Ann Arbor, Nebraska couldn't come close to keeping pace. Tai Webster and Glynn Watson combined for 50 points on 21-for-35 shooting in the first matchup; they had 13 points tonight, going 5-for-17 from the field. The invigorated, pesky Michigan defense forced 16 turnovers and locked down the perimeter, limiting the Huskers to a 2-for-15 performance from beyond the arc.
Walton began hunting his own shot in the second half, especially when Wagner had to sit after picking up two quick fouls. He scored 11 points in the half before Beilein called off the dogs. Michigan pushed the lead as high as 38 on an Ibi Watson fast break layup from Xavier Simpson; Sean Lonergan scored his third and fourth points of conference play on the previous possession.
The final numbers are astonishing. Michigan scored 1.43 points per possession while ceding only 0.88 by the Huskers. They went 20-for-27 on twos, 14-for-27 on threes, and 11-for-14 at the line. Of their 34 field goals, 20 were assisted. With the defense taking away any threat of the outside shot, Nebraska had no means to stay close.
Michigan faces Illinois at noon on Thursday in the 8/9 game of the conference tournament, a fitting start to a postseason run with a much brighter outlook since the Maverick Morgan Revenge Tour began in January. The squad that showed up tonight—and the one that administered to five other teams their worst beating of the season—can play with anybody in the country.
With the blowout, only Purdue ended up better in efficiency margin in the conference. With slightly better luck/performance in close games, this team could be 13-5/14-4 in conference.
We also went 20-11 in the regular season last year, and I remember that all 11 of our losses were by double-digits along with a ton of close wins. This year we had a ton of big wins and lost almost every close game (with the exceptions of PSU and Texas). That's how you get a #25 KenPom rating vs a KenPom in the 50s last year. This team is dangerous going forward.
Also of note: Michigan defensive efficiency is up to #85 in the country, 100 spots above our low point after the first Nebraska game. It's incredible to make that kind of improvement over about a dozen games.
This team should have won the conference. Iowa in OT, Minnesota in OT, OSU at home, NU. It's been a frustrating season, but hopefully they'll be creating some danger in the next few weeks.
To be fair, we nearly lost at home to PSU in the first week of conference play, and Rutgers was a close game. But we definitely lost a lot of close games - don't forget the one in Madison.
was a three point game until we started fouling at the end as well.
No doubt that we were a top 3 team in the conference and should have been a lot closer to a title. I wouldn't say we should have won it, but we should have competed for it into this final week at very least.
Yeah, I think Purdue was pretty clearly the best team overall.
um, didn't we beat them by 12 and hold over a 20 pt lead at some point during the game?
They also went 15-3 and their efficiency margin was 11.6. They crushed the league, even though we managed to beat them fairly easily.
Purdue went 14-4, which is the lowest win total for a conference champ since Indiana also went 14-4 in 2012-13. Their efficiency margin is the lowest for a conference champ since Michigan had a 10.7 EM in 2013-14.
But I will, since it was hard finding anything wrong with the win yesterday.
However, was I the only one that noticed that after the TV timeout when Donnal came into the game, Nebraska immediately got back to back pick and roll plays for dunks sandwiched between a Donnal turnover? I'll give him credit, he wasn't too bad overall offensively, he had a few nice plays.
But damnit, Beilein has to stop yanking Wagner 4 minutes in the game for no reason. You can see the quality of play just vanish from the 5 spot when he's out. When we get to tournament play, Wagner should play until he needs to take himself out. He's just so much better than the next options.
think that he does it for no reason. I think Wagner is prone to really dumb fouls and can go from 0 to 2 fouls in 30 seconds of game action. I think that Beilein sees getting through an early 4 minute stretch without getting a foul as stolen time and he wants to buy as much time as he can (particularly when we are playing well) before Wagner gets in foul trouble. It is like preemptive auto-bench, and with Wagner I kind of get it because most of his fouls are ridiculously bad.
That being said, I don't think you will see that as much going forward. I think Beilein knew exactly how well the team was humming after the first four minutes of that game (and probably even going into the game) and knew that Nebraska had absolutely no chance to win that game. In that regard, I think that he was doing it to give Donnal some extended run before tournament play because chances are we are going to need something from him at some point.
In the game against Northwestern, he had a turnover where he lost the ball out of bounds and was immediately yanked for Donnal. The kid will never learn how to play through frustration and mistakes if he's constantly being pulled right after something happens. And I haven't really seen this type of coaching with other players. If he gets a foul in the first 30 seconds, pull him for a stretch, that's fine I won't argue that.
But he's far too often been pulled for lesser things. But that may speak to my frustration with Beilein and his overall foul management. He along with other coaches have this weird tendency to sit players with 3 fouls in the most crucial parts of the game (middle 2nd half). I've always been in the contention that you'll NEVER KNOW how much useage you'll get out of someone with 3 fouls. They could go the entire game with getting only 1 more, or none at all. And to be honest, I'd rather have Wagner with 4 fouls playing somewhat cautious on defense compared to a 2-foul Donnal/Teske.
the Northwestern game was a little different. I really like Wagner but he was a mess against Northwestern. He was arguing with the refs about the clearest of calls nearly all game and was just out of sorts. I wouldn't call it a meltdown but it was close. I think that he was allowed to play through significant frustration in that game and the results were not particularly great.
I am not saying that I didn't question the substitution at the time last night, but I get the feeling that Wagner is not the easiest personality to manage for a coach and that there might be reasons we aren't always privy to that may result in bench time.
Could be right. I just think Beilein has this weird thing against Wagner for whatever reason. He seems to be getting pulled MUCH quicker compared to other players who get early fouls. And he has a very strong affinity towards Donnal. I'm sure Mark's a wonderful young man, but damnit whenever he's out there shit goes wrong in a hurry.
he had that strong an affinity for Donnal I don't think he would be pointing him toward the door next year (which I suspect is the case even though I guess it could feasibly change). I view his treatment of Wagner differently than you do. I don't think he has a thing against Wagner at all. If anything, I think he sees Wagner as a necessary element for the team to be really good and I think Beilein believes he is protecting him from stupid early plays that could cost him a chance to be effective late in the game. Perhaps not, different perspective though. Interesting.
For sure. I'll leave it at this. As a head coach for many years at the Division 1 level, I know I would have the player work through those mistakes rather than pulling him immediately for counseling (I'm actually up for a HoF bid next year). I want the guy to learn how to play in different situations with 2, 3, even 4 fouls. That's only going to help him at the next levels of basketball in terms of controlling himself.
pulled rank on me.....
As I am definitively not a head coach for many years at the Division 1 level, I think I will defer to your expertise on this one.
division 1 high school level, right? State of Michigan? You can't drop these kinds of bombs on here with a little more info. No way a division 1 college coach up for HoF is hot-taking back and forth with us on this here blog.
That statement appears to be intentionally vague.
I interpreted that to mean he was saying that of Beilein ("if I'd been a coach as long as JB has, I would know to do X, Y and Z"). I can't imagine an actual D-I coach has time to post here regularly.
I wondered that myself at first but then the "I'm actually up for a HoF bid next year" seemed like a really weird way of writing as if he were Beilein. So...I dunno.
My main takeaway from this is that even in a 36 point destruction, uncle leo still needed to find something to gripe at regarding JB.
Yeah, this is bullshit. A Hall of Fame Division I coach is on Mgoblog bitching about sub-strategy with random commenters? Sure, man. Sure. Bo Ryan, Bill Self and Rollie Massimino are up for the Hall of Fame this year, among others. If you're one of them I will eat 50 lemons.
Honestly? You honestly believed that comment?
Holy hell.
apparently believed you. all the rest of us clearly called out that BS because you're a hot take factory that doesn't know much about basketball.
Donnal scored 9 points himself - it's only fair to point that out if we're knocking him for the points he gave up. (And of course we won by 36 points overall...)
For Wagner, it looks like 27-30 minutes is about his sweet spot. More than that and he seems to tire. It's a question of when you give him that rest. Beilein is choosing to give a lot of it early on.
that Donnal was in based on the super easy pick and roll baskets allowed (and the TO in between). I was yelling for Wagner to be put back in, and to Belien's credit, he stuck with Donnal who then hit a three and another bucket underneath and the team managed to hold steady while he was in there.
Also in Donnal's defense, he came in at the same time as Tshimanga who was a lot better than the starter. He beat Wagner a couple times to get him in foul trouble early in the second half. Context matters here a bit (tougher matchup and a big lead so could be more patient with Donnal).
Beautiful.
Great game, more to come.
Who has more fun than us?
Nooooooooobodyl
Speaking of that Maverick Morgan comment, since then we're 9-5, which doesn't sound incredible, but the nine wins are by 144 points while the five losses are by 23. We're pretty unlucky to not have about 22 or 23 wins right now.
Fire Beileine! /s
...but come on, man. Last night's game was great, but let's look at the entire body of work. We finished 8th in the B10, that's the bottom half of a slightly above average league. This is a senior-led, injury-free team. Are people really happy/satisfied with this? If so, then there truly are low expectations for this program.
Michigan finished fifth in the Big Ten, and was a couple of bad breaks away from the top two. Furthermore, this is an entirely different team than it was at the start of Big Ten play.
They're seeded 8th because of tiebreakers, but that's a far cry from finishing eighth, and definitely shouldn't be read as a sign that Michigan is the eighth-best Big Ten team. (e.g., they're the third-best Big Ten team on KenPom).
I am very pleased with this team. Granted, I was ready to throw in the towel on this team with the way they looked earlier this year, but they have really gelled together and are rounding into a nice looking squad. Walton is playing lights out, and the bigs are really coming along. Making the tourney was the goal for me this season and it looks like we are right there. I wasn't as high on this team at the beginning of the season, because I wasn't sure about Irvin's game or Walton's leadership abilities. Walton has stepped it up, Irvin is as expected.
An injury-free, senior-led team (especially one coached by JB) should perform a lot better. I expect better. You don't. Nothing wrong with that.
With that said, they are certainly playing much better these days which is great to see. I hope this can continue into the BTT and NCAA tournaments.
is too early to tell. College basketball is not like college football where you can define something as a "good" or "bad" season without reference to the bowl game. There are numerous variables that have not occured yet. It is impossible to tell right now if the season was a success or not. As the 8 seed in the BIG tourney, we make it to at least Saturday and then get to the Elite 8? Yeah, looking at our roster I think that would be a very good season.
The 2012 team that won (a share) of the BIG lost in the first round to Ohio. Good season? The team that went to the National Title game looked awful down the stretch of BIG play and lost 3 out of 5 I believe to lose what should have been a sure share of the BIG title and then lost to Wisconsin (wearing camo uniforms) in the BTT. But I think we can all agree that was a pretty good season. If your belief is that this team underperformed in the regular season, would the season still be "underperforming" if it made a Final Four run?
I guess the point is, there are many ways to define if a season is good or bad in college basketball, but I think the primary measuring sticks are still are in front of them. So I can't really say if I expect better or if the team should have performed better before those things that define their performance for the season actually happen.
the full "season" but we can evaluate the regular season which is 31 games. That's a lot. We certainly "underacheived" at 20-11 and 10-8 in a down B1G given our talent, experience and health (knock on wood) during the regular season. One could argue some of that was bad luck, and that was the case with some of the close losses down the stretch, but there is no doubt there was a period in which the team was not playing hard or focused to the point where MAAR was openly admitting they're just a bunch of nice guys that can't find the fire. That kind of stretch deserves criticism.
But we're playing to our potential right now and it's a fun thing to see. If we make the final four that obvioulsy changes the full evaluation but there's no reason we can't look at the regular season for what it was.
Btw, yes the 2012 season was a hugely successful season. We overachieved to win a conference title and had a blast doing it. Sports are about championships. And we won a championship that year. That's a lot more important and fun than winning two games to get to the sweet 16. I would argue a conference regular season title is very close in terms of fun and importance to a NCAA tourney regional title.
retort, with one exception.
If you go into the tournament as a #3 seed and lose in the first round, the season was a disappointment, whether you win your conference our not. College basketball is not really all about championships, really. They are nice, but history really judges you based on tournament performance. The novelty of the NCAA tournament turns things on its head.
In my opinion, any team that makes it to a Final Four had a better season than any team that wins its conference and does not. We had a better season than Indiana in 2013. Kentucky (an 8 seed in the tourney) had a better season than we did in 2014 when they went to championship game after beating us in in the Elite 8. This could be subject to some disagreement but I would suspect that the majority would agree with me.
(This is not to suggest that we will go to the Final Four this year, however, I don't think it is just some fantasy based on the way this team has played for stretches this season).
You're right, lots of bball ahead to determine if this season is a success or not.
I guess the results to date are very "meh". Hoping for some magic in the coming weeks.
That he needed to be given a soft "time to go" push after the season. One of those mutual decision things.
Since that time, the team has played BETTER. Not like world-beaters better, but they are better.
However, they are still not even close to competing for a national title. And what has happened since 2014 has been a total bummer. He had a chance to take that momentum and maintain Michigan as a top 10-15 program, and that has not been close to the case.
I never thought in a million years he'd be shown the door because he doesn't do anything wrong ethically and his players are always pretty damn respectful. Michigan would never take a chance on someone like Calipari after being burned by the Fab 5 business. But I expect more from this program and if they don't make some form of strong run this year or next, I would hope he'd have the awareness to move on and let someone take over.
If Wagner comes back and if Simpson can take a big step forward this offseason - two pretty big ifs, to be sure - I think next year's team can be very good.
MAAR, Matthews, Wilson, Wagner - that'd be a nice group of starters at the 2-5 positions, with Robinson as an instant-offense guy off the bench. Simpson is the . . . X factor. (Rimshot.)
Because the program has the resources to be consistently good to great. I'm hoping that the few years of great basketball wasn't just a flash in the pan.
and made threes like there were basic and easy. About as good a game as you can have. Ran Nebraska out of their building...
Nah. Great performance though.
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