2017-18 villanova

MGoPodcast 9.26: The Nicest Most Hated Pick and Roll in America

1 hour and 43 minutes

We are at the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, our gracious hosts and yours this fall if you act fast enough.

We Couldn’t Have One Without the Other

We can do this because people support us. You should support them too so they’ll want to do it again next year! The show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan there would be VERY long hiatuses between podcasts.

Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Peak Wealth Management, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad,Human Element, Lantana Hummus and Ecotelligent Homes

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1. The Championship Game: Emotionally Drunk

starts at 1:00

Better to lose to a guy we respect than a criminal sex vampire. Brunson doesn’t bother us—like you can’t be mad about a guy Michigan wanted badly when Michigan gets is pure as the driven snow. Analysis is Donte DiVencenzo made off the dribble jacks four or five feet behind the line. Really could have used the Wagner Three Point Principle. Poor performances previously probably hurt Michigan in fatigue. Gameplan was fine: wide looks from three with their best shooters, 66% from two, lots of possible and-ones rimmed out. DiVencenzo heat checks prevented any getting back into the game, Nova ORebs were lucky and also Spellman, but that’s overstated: they didn’t convert them. Who could have predicted this Big Ten (/points at selves). Beilein as Tyrone Biggums of tape. Remember the bubble watch columns. Good feels.

2. Next Year: The Us

starts at 26:11

Position by position. PG: Indicators are if they want to get better shooting they have to cut into Z’s minutes. What’s a DeJulius who doesn’t have to start and can just come in to heat check? Eli Brooks is a guy Jay Wright wanted! POOLE! And Adrian Nunez? Anyway Skauskas/Levert breakout for Poole. Matthews expected back, think they can make him a shooter. Poole should take some pressure off him. Also Iggy should…be a McDonald’s All-American. The four, Livers?—feels a bit like early D.J. Wilson. Was 1/12 from three in last 14 games. Johns has a physical presence, Iggy gets buckets. Center: Moe has a decision to make. Unleash Teske: between great and game-changing rim defender. Redshirt Castleton if you can and use Davis.

3. Next Year: The Them

starts at 1:06:39

Around the Big Ten: anyone good? Wisconsin? Isaiah Roby? Let’s go with Roby. Penn State is interesting even though they lost their best player. Michigan State will need to lean on their back court. Don’t trust Indiana or a Pitino team despite some intriguing guys. Northwestern fans suddenly care about recruiting. Ohio State will be dangerous but maybe not in 2019.

4. Ace’s Hockey Podcast wsg Anthony Ciatti

starts at 1:22:42

ND is a very interesting matchup given the previous games. Sticking with ND was the turning point in Michigan’s season, sweeping them was the destiny punch. Typical Jeff Jackson team that’s super disciplined, lacking in high end scoring, great goaltending (not Hobie-worthy). Have not scored a lot of even strength goals. ND has the best player—the guy in net—but Marody and Hughes are the best two players on the ice. A moment for Quinn Hughes: he’ll be on the ice a lot!

Ohio State or Duluth? M-D has more variance; Michigan hasn’t played a team like that with a lot of young, well-coached talent except Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is a worse matchup than even “we’re 0-5 versus” Ohio State: don’t count the first two games, the second two M outshot OSU 3-2 since. DON’T TAKE PENALTIES!

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MUSIC

“It’s Not Too Beautiful”—The Beta Band
“Countdown”—Phoenix
“Brother”—The Rural Alberta Advantage
“Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

It does feel nice to not have it be the criminal sex vampire.

155

You Will Find Me In The Bush Growing Clothes Out Of My Face

Brian •

3/31/2018 – Michigan 69, Loyola-Chicago 57 – 33-7, national championship game
4/2/2018 – Michigan 62, Villanova 79 – 33-8, season over

[Bryan Fuller]

The thing is in a football stadium so they raise the floor and permit the head coach a little stool he can sit on. From this perch he can yell stuff to his players more efficiently, I guess? It seems unnecessary. Maybe it's for television.

It's probably for television. For all the agency a coach has in selecting and preparing his team, by the time you reach the Final Four and they hand you a stool a great deal rides on a bunch of 30-40% coin flips. When seemingly all of those coin flips come up on the middle finger side, a coach's agony veritably radiates. He is a man alone on Stool Island, barely less helpless than someone who bought a ticket.

Michigan clanged back-to-back-to-back threes against Loyola with about ten minutes left, still in a five point hole. The first induced a Picard-worthy double facepalm from John Beilein.

The second actually caused Beilein to leap from the stool and stomp the floor before shuffling away in a huff.

The third was resignation and despair.

The man on the stool is moving deeper into the Kubler-Ross model every time down the court. If Jordan Poole hadn't swept through the lane for a layup on Michigan's next possession Beilein might have eaten his tie.

Eating your tie is acceptance. I accept that Michigan is never going to hit another three pointer, and I will live out my life in the Alaskan bush, wrangling caribou. No ties in Alaska. I am the man on the stool plotting his escape to Alaska, where I can suffer out of the public eye. At long last my innovation has betrayed me, and… huh. It appears we've ended the game on a 27-10 run. Plans canceled.

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John Beilein probably isn't in a prop plane headed for Nome as we speak but you could hardly blame him if he was. It was there for Michigan to give an incredible Villanova team all it could handle, but for the fifth time in six games they clanged far too many open looks from outside. Their brutal shooting in the final surpassed all prior outings this season and for all but one game in the past five:

Only once in the last 5 years did Michigan shoot worse behind the arc than the 13% they put up today.
— Jeff (BPredict) (@BPredict) April 3, 2018

I have not rewatched the Villanova game and probably won't. If I do I expect to see Beilein age 75 years in two hours as a series of wide open looks fail to go down on one end while a blindfolded Donte DiVincenzo is canning off-the-dribble 30-footers. By the end he has grown a beard that he has fashioned into a hat and moccasins. By the end he is the West Virginia mascot, having whittled a musket from the stool.

This was a 17-point game that never felt close after Michigan's disastrous close to the first half. It was simultaneously the game Michigan needed to play to beat the best team in the country. Michigan shot 66% from two, had four different and-one opportunities rim out, and lost a couple points on a missed goaltend. Michigan's defense closed out magnificently; Villanova didn't care. Half of their ten makes from behind the line were deep pull-ups off the dribble that are—should be, anyway—bad shots. Michigan didn't start launching bad ones until they were already 3/18 and deep in a hole.

Shoot your season average on the reasonable looks and hit one of the dumb ones and you've carved that blowout margin down to 2-5 points. And you're probably not taking the dumb ones because the game is within reach and you have reason to believe an open corner three is a better shot than a wild ninja kick from halfcourt.

The grim section of our Alonzo Mourning gif is Michigan's collapse from behind the line in the tournament. In six away-or-neutral games leading up to the NCAA tournament Michigan hit 48%, 48%, 16%, 48%, 36%, and 35% from three. In the tourney itself: 31%, 27%, 58%, 18%, 25%, 13%.

It defies explanation. Michigan wasn't any more tired during the tournament than they were when they hit their season average against Purdue and MSU despite both of those teams getting the double bye Michigan did not. They seemed to get the same quality of look. They just missed twelve straight in the national title game. And struggled against everyone else not named Texas A&M.

It probably wouldn't have been enough anyway. And nothing from this fun-as-hell basketball season can really disappoint. But that'll linger a bit, that U-turn.

[Fuller]

Basketball is a helpless thing sometimes.

199

Villanova 79, Michigan 62

Ace •

Turns out rise-up threes are difficult to guard. [Bryan Fuller]

Someone finally solved Michigan's defense.

It took Villanova's historically great offense and Donte DiVincenzo's all-timer of a game. After a slow start, the Wildcats overwhelmed Michigan, going 17-for-30 inside the arc, 10-for-27 from beyond it, and grabbing 12 offensive rebounds. When they missed shots, they followed them. When they pulled up for three, they struck the fear of God into your heart. They were so good they didn't even need double-digit points from Jalen Brunson, the national player of the year, to take home their second national title in three years.

The team that wasn't supposed to be here looked, unfortunately, like they weren't supposed to be here. For the fifth time in six tournament games, Michigan's offense looked out of sorts, and they couldn't afford that against Nova. The Wolverines shot a woeful 3-for-23 from beyond the arc. Moe Wagner scored 11 quick points, then only five the rest of the way, looking increasingly frustrated by his misses and fouls. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman tried to carry the team in his final collegiate game, only for his 23 points to go for naught. No other Michigan player reached double digits until Zavier Simpson's layup with under four minutes to play.

Mood. [Fuller]

Thus capped an unbelievable run for a Michigan team unlike any we've seen since John Beilein's arrival. They came one game short of a most improbable national title with a couple transfers and freshmen added to the leftovers from last year's similarly improbable run to the Sweet Sixteen. Depending on NBA Draft decisions, this team may only lose Abdur-Rahkman and Duncan Robinson, and they bring in arguably the most talented recruiting class Beilein has landed. Even if Wagner (or, less likely, Charles Matthews) goes pro, they will be loaded for another deep postseason run.

Tonight went as many expected, and every missed opportunity at a national championship stings. We got a lot more out of this team than anyone imagined, though. The heads may hang tonight, but this group will stand tall forever, and this may well be the precursor to something even greater.