Basketball X's and O's stuff
I figure people are pretty tired of the basic "this is unacceptable, ______ is playing terrible" stuff. Not that I'm innocent of it, but I feel like it's worth talking about what's actually going on.
So: this topic is for substantive discussion.
Similarly to last year, the Big Ten has come up with a solid way to beat us. Basically, it looks like this: make Stauskas work on every catch, which throws him out of rythm. When he tries to use a pick, blitz him with both guys - you either get a turnover or a reset back to the point. Nik is the only guy who can get Morford involved, but he's struggling to find them when he gets blitzed. And even if he could, catching mid-post isn't ideal for either of them.
This is where we miss Mitch so, so much. He can catch in the mid-post and distribute in a way Morford will never be able to do. Moreover, he's actually a tiny bit of a pick-n-pop threat, which is the best way to beat teams that double on the ballhandler. When you roll every time, like we do, these teams can double with impunity.
When you eliminate this part of our game, it becomes a slog. Walton is so talented, but still uncomfortable with taking the reins. Caris can go solo, but that's not a viable long-term offense, even within a single game. Glenn needs to be fed in good positions, pure and simple, and that doesn't happen without ball movement.
I can't emphasize the number of ways we miss Mitch McGary. You can't switch 1-5 with him on the court like Indiana did with Morford, because throwing it in to him against a point guard is actually a viable strategy. And his high post passing is fantastic: that doesn't even touch on what he does for our rebounding and energy.
What to do moving forward - all I can think of right now is start running pick-n-pop action with two wings. For example, have Stauskas handle with Caris or even Walton/Spike setting the pick, and have them pop out instead of rolling. If you try to double Nik with that action, you're gonna be playing 4 on 3. That can't be an every time thing, obviously, but the threat needs to be there or Nik is never going to get a clean look the rest of the Big Ten season from the halfcourt.
Good news is that the Big Ten has really good coaches and really good defense, and they know us inside and out. We're almost always surprisingly look in March against teams who aren't as ready.
Chime in, folks, I'm curious what people think
February 8th, 2014 at 7:06 PM ^
So you're saying that the loss today didn't count because we have injuries?
-MSU'd
February 8th, 2014 at 7:13 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 7:14 PM ^
You've been listening to too much Dakitch. "When you're sick of losing, you win"
February 8th, 2014 at 7:18 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 7:21 PM ^
For the most part I agree. He called out Glenn for dogging it back on D, which was long overdue. I just find some of his rants about effort level to be overly simplistic.
February 8th, 2014 at 10:17 PM ^
Dakich was ruthless on Iowa at the beginning of the game. My quibble is that it seemed like he was rooting for them to transcend what he saw as their "soft" play. Does that constitute cheering for Iowa? IDK, but I can certainly understand how someone might feel that way.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:18 PM ^
Well ... it kind of is, though. Part of the reason no one looks comfortable is because teams are starting to take us out of what we want to do. The problems on defense are more effort, though there's plenty of positioning and strategy issues there too.
But yeah, to solely attribute this to other guys trying harder isn't fair to our players or the opposing coaches who have drawn up some pretty impressive stuff. Some of this is things Beilein has to fix, but there aren't many easy answers. Losing Mitch was never going to make things easy.
February 8th, 2014 at 11:31 PM ^
February 9th, 2014 at 9:51 AM ^
February 9th, 2014 at 10:25 AM ^
Of course there are specific plays you can call out where the effort wasn't there (loose balls, getting back on d, etc) but the issues on offense have a lot more to do with this teams inability to adjust than effort. That's a coaching issue more than a player one. Beilein's offense is a complicated system that has had a wrench thrown into it with teams taking away Nik as the only consistent playmaker. Of course face guarding isn't revolutionary, but as the OP pointed out, it really works when there isn't a secondary playmaker to keep the offense moving. But I guess that's all bs and Beilein should just yell "try harder" from the bench to fix everything.
February 9th, 2014 at 11:40 AM ^
cannot be "taken away" or he was not a consistent playmaker to begin with. Nik is not being taken away by any specific system or idea, he is being taken away because of a lack of innovation, not a systemic one, but a personal one. That is not a personal attack on him, it is fact. He was all but resigned to the fact that he was not going to put in the effort it takes mentally and emotionally to solve it. He all but shrugged. When Nik is working, when he has taken something personally and has really dedicated himself to beating a defender, a system does not stop him, no adjustment renders him obsolete. It is about an individual adjustment that he needs to make now that he is being keyed on. It is about missing shots and being OK with it, it is about missing 5 in a row and knowing that the sixth one is going it. That is about individual maturaity as a player, it is not about Shooter from Hoosiers running the "picket fence on em."
Basketball is not 99 percent effort when Michigan is playing Coppin State. It is not 99 percent effort when that really talented city team is beating the shit out of Swartz Creek in a JV game. It is 99 percent effort when the talent level on the two teams is all but equal. Nik Stauskus is a star. The next level for him is to will his way to points when the entire defensive gameplan is designed to stop him.
In some ways I thought GR 3 was the only one yesterday that really came out and tried to be assertive. He failed miserably but at least he was willing to. And as far as Beilein, have you ever considered that perhaps he does not want to "solve" the scheme that is working at this point. This is a long season with multiple peaks and valleys. There are certain times to employ solutions, the beginning of February may not be that time.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:13 PM ^
I'd like to see us move Glenn from the corner to the short corner on PnR plays. Have him drift up to the high post as Morford rolls past. It's what we always did in HS and it seems a bit harder to guard than 3 stationary guys on the perimeter, especially with Glenn hitting 25% from 3. Makes the help such an easy decision for GR3's guy. He'd be much more of a threat from the top of the key/high post than the corner.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:20 PM ^
Yeah. It's just brutal trying to play offense with no big guys who can make an incisive pass, hit a jump shot, or play in the post.
We're probably the only top 10 offense in the country trying to compensate for lacking one of those guys.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:24 PM ^
No doubt. All I could think about watching the IU game was how bad Mitch would tear up that gimmicky scheme Crean was using.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:49 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 7:14 PM ^
BUT, the big issue, at least today, was certainly defensive rebounding, getting to the man aggressively on defense(leading to open looks on 3's, and basic defensive hustle.
There is just no way JB doesn't have a message for the team on that. However, right now he doesn't have a deep enough bench to take away a lot of minutes from the top 5-8. However, I'd like to see him at least start Irvin the next game over Glenn
February 8th, 2014 at 9:32 PM ^
Maybe if The Invisible Man came off the bench he'd play better as a 6. Thankfully I didn't watch today but I'd call IM and Irvin a push right now and Irvin is only a freshman.
I'm somewhat patient with Levert because he should be a RS Freshman this year and sometimes he really looks like it. I can't wait to see him put it all together.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:15 PM ^
Maybe let Irvin play a bit more as well and run that pick and pop, because Irvin is certainly not afraid to shoot. And right now Michigan needs some good shooters who aren't afraid to take shots.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:20 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 7:24 PM ^
Even decent offense would have at least beaten Indiana. Our defense is never going to be good this year - I think with Beilein, the best we can hope for on thar end is solid defense in years where we're experienced, like the Novak/Douglass senior team.
Right now, we have to outscore people, so that's what I focused on. There's not much to say on defense besides "stop letting people past you, getting switches wrong and failing to close out."
February 8th, 2014 at 7:28 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 7:32 PM ^
No shit.
Not for us, though. We just have inexperienced, fundamentally poor defensive players. I hate the hard hedge thing and some of the switching, but not even an ideal scheme could compensate for our total inability to prevent penetration.
If you've got something more instructive, pray tell.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:56 PM ^
Huh? So we're just the special team that can't learn detailed defensive instruction? We don't have "fundamentally" bad defensive players on our team, whatever the hell that means. We have guys who don't understand defensive concepts that well yet.
February 8th, 2014 at 9:25 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 11:46 PM ^
February 9th, 2014 at 2:24 AM ^
February 9th, 2014 at 2:01 AM ^
You're totally full of shit.
"We can't talk about this until we fix our defense, which is complicated, but I have no idea about at all, but hey I'll sorta pretend I do."
You have no idea what you're talking about, and you contribute nothing.
February 9th, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^
they have shown our defensive numbers aren't far off last year. We have always made up for the lack of stingy defense with low turnovers, low foul numbers and an efficient offense. Yesterday turnovers, especially at the beginning of the 2nd half, and lack of transition defense was a killer(which we did in Ann Arbor). The defense certainly can be better, but it is not going to limit where we want to go. Yesterday Iowa had a clear victory in the EFFORT department. I am not going to get bent out of shape about a road loss to a good team. It was a stinker; we had one last year at sparty and we move on. That being said I expect another loss Tuesday at OSU before we right the ship.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:24 PM ^
I'd like to see an extension of how we invert the offense. We already run the high post reversal with the 5, so I'd love to see us pull their big man out to the perimeter and then throw the ball down to GR3 in the post. Nobody is going to do a great job and checking him and it would give us a chance to go inside out a little more.
I'd also like to see us stop going to zone in last ditch efforts. This team is clearly, clearly defensively deficient with the sole exception of Jorgan Morgan. So, I understand Beilein throwing the kitchen sink in there. However, we aren't ready to run either the 1-3-1 or the 2-3 with any staying success yet. A lot of this is on individual players being late to close-outs or not quite comfortable yet with when to jump a skip pass, when to sag, when to trap, etc.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:45 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 7:36 PM ^
Well, if we're going to talk about strategy, here are the now current averages in conference play...
| MICHIGAN | OPPONENT | |
| Field Goal % | 50.25% | 45.16% |
| Three Point % | 40.32% | 33.84% |
| Effective FG% | 58.04% | 50.64% |
| Free Throw % | 76.16% | 72.57% |
| Off. Rebound % | 26.15% | 31.73% |
| Def. Rebound % | 68.27% | 73.85% |
| Assist / Turnover Ratio | 1.46 | 1.35 |
| True Shooting % | 62.44% | 54.06% |
| Free Throw Rate | 36.74% | 29.06% |
| Possessions | 60.42 | 61.11 |
| Points / Possession | 1.20 | 1.08 |
| Turnover % | 15.28% | 15.19% |
The one thing that concerns me is that we've essentially lost the advantage in turnover percentage that we enjoyed earlier, as well as our assist / turnover ratio, which is coming to a point where it is on par with our opponents. Ball handling is starting to become something to discuss.
February 8th, 2014 at 9:38 PM ^
Very odd not seeing the advantage in the A:TO rate with a JB team. Walton and Spike both have low TO rates, so it seems to be mostly from the wings initiating offense.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:58 PM ^
I love the idea of having our guards and wings run PnR with each other.
February 8th, 2014 at 7:59 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 8:09 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 11:43 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 8:12 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 11:46 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 8:17 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 9:14 PM ^
iowa must have got 20 pts from offensive rebounds today. fix that, and it goes along way to solving this team's D issues. rebounding is 80% desire. these guys just have to box out and get after it. they were outworked big time today.
February 8th, 2014 at 10:44 PM ^
I would like to offer a snowflake. Until Nik Stauskas figures out a way to combat what defenses are throwing at him, I have a feeling that he is not going to be viewed as a first round draft choice this year.
That means he should be back and that he will have a chance to evolve into an even better player over the summer. The alternative is that he figures it out and leads Michigan to an NCAA Championship. I could handle either.
February 8th, 2014 at 11:28 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 11:48 PM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 11:51 PM ^
February 9th, 2014 at 12:00 AM ^
February 9th, 2014 at 12:01 AM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 10:55 PM ^
is really hampering the offense in my opinion. Teams are realizing that he is not a good outside shooter and this means he cannot effectively stretch the floor. Additionally, he is a very, very weak ball handler, and I do not just mean dribbling. He is not a great dribbler, but he is also not good at protecting the ball as he goes for a shot. He also has a slow first step-- watch how many times his defender is able to recover on drive following a GR3 shot-fake. This really limits his ability to drive.
His game is largely limited to put-backs and catching the ball while already in motion. Nik worked to make his game less point-guard dependent, while GR3 is still guy who has to be fed in position.
Compare him to last year's second option-- THJ. Hardaway was also not, in my opinion, a great ball handler. But he had a much faster first step and was a vastly better outside shooter. He spread the floor effectively and could create his own shot. Irvin gets so lost on the defensive end that I cannot support starting him, but he does atleast offer floor spacing offensively.
LeVert is a better second option than GR3 b/c he can shoot from the outside and create in the lane. But he often dispruts the flow the offense-- think of all the times he dribbles back up to the top of the key, calls for a pick, dribbles about, and then drives, jump stops, and shoots, while everyone else stands around. It's great that he is willing to get into the lane and he can hit some shots, but those aren't quality looks. He can't efficiently score going one on one (few players, mostly big men, can), but he's typically out of options because two of the other players on the court, GR3 and whatever big is in, have to be spoon-fed their looks. Nik has done a good job of helping the bigs, but there's only so much he can do-- he's a SF (NBA SG), not a PG. A great PG like Burke can spoon-fed both the 4 and the 5, but he's in the NBA. Walton will be a great PG, but he's only a freshman.
February 8th, 2014 at 11:23 PM ^
February 9th, 2014 at 12:01 AM ^
February 8th, 2014 at 11:51 PM ^