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With roughly a third of the regular season over for Michigan, this is a good time for a macro level look in an effort to understand where the Wolverines are and where things might be going as we head into the thick of conference play. 

Real

Perimeter Shotmaking. The Wolverines are connecting on 37.1% of their triples as a team, good for #50 nationally per Torvik. While the raw percentage is certainly indicative of the team's shooting prowess to a certain extent, a deeper dive is necessary to gain a full understanding.

Per Synergy, Michigan is putting up 1.09pps on catch and shoot jumpers, landing in the 77th percentile across the nation. While that number is certainly good, it's not quite elite territory. A closer look reveals the Wolverines may actually be underperforming a bit on these looks. The team is at 1.10pps/51st percentile on 67 unguarded catch and shoot attempts. On the other hand, 1.09pps/82nd percentile on 128 catch and shoot attempts that are guarded. It's easy to see where Michigan might experience some positive regression with respect to the unguarded attempts.

Numbers aside, the distribution is very encouraging in terms of sustainability + projection. The Wolverines have four players shooting volume triples on percentages that you want to see. McDaniel/Burnett/Williams/Nkamhoua are all above 35% from distance while taking at least three triples per game. Throw in a high-efficiency/low-volume shooter like Tschetter and Michigan is very likely to have at least a few guys stretching the floor per game, as we have 4-5 viable options at different positions to ensure there aren't many games where the well is completely dry. 

In addition to the raw percentage and distribution, the variety of shot types also lend credence to legitimate shooting prowess. We're not talking stationary corner triples exclusively here. We have difficult shotmakers in the backcourt and Dug McDaniel is leading the charge.

To quantify, Dug is 83rd percentile in off-the-dribble jumpers at 1.07pps. A sample size of 45 shots isn't necessarily big, but it is large enough to say that he's not a guy you can go under ballscreens against without penalty. 

[AFTER THE JUMP we get a bit more real and not so real]

While Dug's backcourt partner doesn't have quite the same volume, Nimari Burnett checks in at the 87th percentile for off-the-dribble jumpers at a blazing 1.12pps. 

Only 26 such shots on the season, but much like McDaniel, Nimari is a guard that you have to respect as a pull-up threat in ballscreen action. 

The Wolverines have also sprinkled in just enough movement shooting that opposing defenses have to react. It appears Terrance Williams has blossomed into the shooter we all want to see and is now capable of hitting triples off screens as seen below.

The senior forward is scorching the nets at 40% from distance on 5 attempts per game and has been Michigan's most reliable floorspacer this season.

Add in a few reliable release valves in Olivier Nkamhoua + Will Tschetter and the Wolverines have 2-3 guys to knock down jumpers as the baseline, with the potential for 4-5 guys to get hot on any given night. 

 

Ballscreen offense. The staple of the Wolverine offense is humming along at an impressive rate. Including passes, Michigan's PnR sits in the 86th percentile at .984ppp. 

Dug McDaniel is the engine of the ballscreen game. While he doesn't utilize screens very well and his reads aren't always pinpoint, there can be no denying his impact in the pick-and-roll game. The highs for Dug in PnR are incredible:

The Wolverines are generating 1.051ppp with McDaniel as the ballhandler in PnR on 176 possessions including passes. That sample is certainly large enough to say Dug is downright good in ballscreens. 

While Burnett doesn't have the same level of playmaking upside in relation to McDaniel, he's very effective as the secondary option in the ballscreen game. Nimari's effectiveness is based more on making correct reads with good timing as seen in the clip below.

In a 49 possession sample including passes, Michigan is getting 1.049ppp with Nimari orchestrating PnR. That level of consistent efficiency bodes really well for the Wolverines should foul trouble present itself. 

 

Jury Still Out

Three Point Defense. The Wolverines have been nothing short of abysmal defending triples, allowing opponents to convert 37.8% from distance. Per Torvik, that comes in at #332 nationally. 

Michigan has experienced tons of trouble with their rotations and falling asleep off-ball. In my piece from last week, I went in-depth about this precise problem. When the opposition is getting clean looks as we see below, you get what you deserve to a certain extent. 

I'm not going to pretend the Wolverines will somehow rectify this issue overnight and become significantly stingier beyond the arc. But there is definitely an element of shot variance/luck that must be factored when examining three-point defense. Multiple publications have determined three-point defense is functionally random, including this piece from Ken Pomeroy. 

Taking that into account, Michigan is definitely on the wrong side of said shot variance right now. For context, opponents are putting up a blazing 1.15pps on guarded catch + shoot jumpers in 102 attempts. That number is almost unfathomable and speaks to how much shot variance factors into things. To supplement that, Kenpom ranks Michigan #342 in the luck metric. 

But in Michigan's blowout of Iowa, we saw the other side of shot variance that benefitted the Wolverines. Keep in mind that Michigan opponents are shooting 42.4% on triples from the right wing this season on 66 attempts. That number doesn't seem real and is not at all sustainable at the college level independent of how good/bad the defense is. 

Those are wide open looks from the right wing that just happened to miss. 

Long term, Michigan is due for regression to the mean in terms of opponent 3% and it's going to happen. Said regression will help Michigan immensely and may very well be the key to the season moving forward. 

This team isn't going to be a lockdown defense at any point, but they are considerably better than what it feels like right now, at least from a process perspective. Currently sitting at #123 in AdjD per Kenpom, I'd expect the Wolverines to end the season closer to #80 than #123. In short, this is a sub-par defensive team, but not as horrid as it seems right now. 

 

Defensive Rebounding. Admittedly, this requires some wishful thinking on my behalf based on a small sample, but here we are. 

Michigan is atrocious on the defensive glass for the season, checking in at #225 nationally in terms of defensive rebounding rate per Torvik. It becomes more problematic when accounting for the fact that the Wolverines typically deploy two-big lineups. 

All that said, Michigan has made strides since commencing B10 play. The Wolverines came up with a respectable 72.4% of available defensive rebounds before dominating the defensive glass against Iowa by pulling down the defensive board with a 78.8% success rate. I touched on this extensively in my deep-dive on the Iowa blowout. 

In short, recency bias in tandem with roster size and two-big lineups has me drinking the kool-aid. If Michigan can consistently get to the average/above-average tier in this area, it will aid the defense tremendously. Finish possessions, gentleman. 

 

Not Real

Post-centric Offense. I was hopeful Michigan would be a dominant post-up team based on the addition of Olivier Nkamhoua and the freshman flashes from Tarris Reed. But that hasn't come to fruition. 

The problem here is very simple. Turnovers. Many of them.

Tarris Reed is likely the ideal option from a scoring perspective, given his combination of size/ballhandling/footwork/ability to draw fouls. But he doesn't hold seals and lacks reliable hands as a post-entry option as seen below. To exacerbate things, he doesn't handle double teams well at all. 

Including passes, Michigan turns the ball over on 29.6% of Reed post-up possessions per Synergy. While Reed is shooting a blazing 57.1% on his post-ups, the Wolverines only score .704ppp/19th percentile on Tarris post-ups because the TO rate is absurdly high. 

While Reed is the loudest culprit, he's not alone. Olivier Nkamhoua is a fairly good passer for a big, but he's being relied upon a bit too much to carry out guard-centric tasks. He has trouble with entry passes at times as reflected in the clip below.

Olivier has a usage rage of 24.3 this season, the highest of his career. A usage rate that high generally correlates with a player that is approaching star level. For context, Dickinson's usage rate last season was 27.5. While Olivier is a really good supplemental player/secondary option, the burden placed on him to be an offensive hub in Delay/Chin/5-Out sets is probably a tad too much. 

 

Disruptive Defense. The plan with Dickinson moving on was to generally be a more aggressive defense. That translates to a change in philosophy as it relates to ballscreen coverage. Simply put, less drop coverage and more blitz and/or show + recover. 

To date, Michigan has indeed utilized a show + recover approach with much more frequency than last season. But the results aren't there. Michigan's defense only generates TOs on 16.7% of opponent possessions, good for #235 in the nation. 

While this is an improvement from last season's mark of 14.4% (#351), it really isn't a difference maker when placed in context. A show + recover and/or blitz approach necessarily requires multiple rotations + scrambling as the big recovers. We could get into several schematic items here, but I'll spare you the boring stuff. In short, Michigan simply isn't fast enough to really thrive in that sort of scheme to the extent that we wreak havoc on the opposition. Using two big lineups inherently limits this (unless you have a Moussa Diabate level athlete in terms of agility), and then you throw in a guy like Terrance Williams that isn't the fleetest of foot, and it becomes challenging. In short, I'm not sure l like the risk/reward ratio here.

I do wonder if the coaching staff starts shifting a bit toward drop coverage with a bit more frequency. I like to call this the responsible adult approach where we're asking bigs to carry out tasks typically associated with a traditional big rather than emphasis on perimeter defense. Of course this increases the load on the guards in terms of screen navigation defense. So there are tradeoffs.