2018-19 basketball

2 hours and 23 minutes

The Sponsors

This show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan nobody would get our jokes. Our other sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, the University of Michigan Alumni Association, Michigan Law Grad,Human Element, Lantana Hummus, the Phil Klein Insurance Group, and a possible farewell to Peak Wealth Management, who is going to win our bracket thanks to State winning tonight so I'm not talking to him right now (but you still should).

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1. Texas Tech

starts at 1:00

What can we say other than three pointers need to go in? Texas Tech is a great team, Michigan was competitive other than that. In a world where things happen at their percentages, well, it's not the darkest timeline is it?

2. Michigan Basketball 2019-2020

starts at 22:03

Guessing it's just Matthews to replace—Iggy has a lower ceiling, Poole has a higher one but is an obvious "go back and develop in college" guy. Can they rebuild Matthews's lost defense with Livers offense? How do the freshmen grow? Is there another Wagner or two (literally and positionally) on the horizon?

3. Big Ten Basketball 2019-2020

starts at 1:04:50

Rutgers isn't the first, second, third, or fourth-worst team we can think of, and then we go back and add more. Bottom drops out for Northwestern, Year Zero for Big Ten Transfer City in Lincoln, Illinois will go where Dosunyu meeps, Penn State will have a dude but still need a second and a bench, Maryland is failing at one and done but building a program out of top 50 guys, Iowa would look great if they were not so Iowa, Wisconsin and Purdue who knows because they're replacing giant usages, Minnesota probably falls backwards, Ohio State and IU are wait and see on the five-stars they can get, and Michigan and Michigan State are probably the top two again.

4. Spring Football Bits, the Podcast

Starts at 1:52:37

Seth goes off the format right away because we're trying to get excited about this. Onwenu talk and tackles probably means something, quarterback depth means something, really wary of spring hype for the one nose tackle on the roster.

MUSIC

• "Old Yellow Bricks"—Arctic Monkeys
• "Backstreet's Back"—The Backstreet Boys
• "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces"—Ben Folds Five
• “Across 110th Street”

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It's a cartoon off the TV that was supposed to sell toys and they made a really great movie for no reason

THE SPONSOR:

Nick Hopwood, our MGoFinancial Planner from Peak Wealth Management. If you haven't started planning for retirement, uh, do your taxes, and then get on that.

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THE QUESTION:

IT IS TIME TO ALL BIG TEN VARIOUS THINGS

Seth: Are we making a lineup or just five guys and shoehorning them into positions? And does our lineup have to match what the guy's primary role is?

Brian: Lineups should be realistic but not dogmatic.

Seth: So Happ at point guard is...

Brian: Incorrect.

All right, basics first. All Big Ten. Let's just take it as read that everyone has Cassius Winston.

Seth: He's pretty good. It is infuriating that he's not on draft boards.

My pet stat this year is "%PAst" ie percent of a guy's points from the field that came off assists. It's a way to spot the Just a Shooters wracking up points off open looks someone else created for them. Here's a list of the top 15 Big Ten players this year with at least 100 FGAs by %PAst:

Every Michigan State starter except Winston made this list.

Alex: I really like this stat, Seth. Good idea. Who’s at the bottom?

Seth: Geo Baker, Shot Taker.

Seth: X is second to last. All hail Zareem Xabdul-Sabbar.

Brian: Of course Geo is last. The most interesting name on the get your own list is Andres Feliz.

Seth: That is deeply unfair to Isaiah Washington, founder and CEO of Assists & Bricks Dot Com, but I concede your point.

One of the quiet things about this Big Ten season that we haven't said out loud is that Michigan caught several teams at their worst versions of themselves. Not Michigan State--Langford was replaceable and the Ward injury merely prevented Izzo from playing the wrong center in his two biggest games. But we played After Copeland Nebraska, Early December Purdue, got Illinois when they were still playing Kipper Nichols and were just starting to discover Dosunmu, got IU twice during their midseason 1-12 swoon, and faced Brad Davison the game after his douchebaggery made national news. We even got Northwestern without Law, though we also got Northwestern on the road before the collapse.

Ace: I was gonna say Nojel Eastern, who maybe should look for it less.

Alex: Anyways, I feel like the Carsen Edwards discourse has moved too far in the "he's actually not that good" direction. To me, a guy who leads his team to a Big Ten title while leading the conference in scoring average by a comfortable margin is a no-brainer first-team selection. He takes bad shots and wastes possessions, and it can look pretty rough at times, but he's as much of a lock as Ethan Happ.

He's also slightly more efficient than Happ on slightly lower usage.

[After THE JUMP: An all-fives all-conference list?]

For the second Saturday afternoon in a row, Michigan recorded an underwhelming win over an inferior opponent. Western Michigan is worse than South Carolina, but the Broncos played the Wolverines closer throughout the game — they led for much of the first half and Michigan was unable to pull away. Michael Flowers, a sophomore guard, had a career game and scored 31 points, but Michigan made key plays down the stretch to keep Western at bay. With the Wolverine offense struggling, especially in the first half, Charles Matthews stepped up in a featured role for Michigan: he had 25 points and 10 rebounds, and shot 11-16 on free throws.

The game got off to an ugly start, and it stayed ugly through most of the first half. Western opened with a concerted effort to get the ball to Seth Dugan in the post; he scored the first five points for the Broncos but was defended well throughout the game by Jon Teske, Austin Davis, and even Isaiah Livers. Outside of a few early Jordan Poole buckets, Michigan really struggled to score, missing their first seven threes and failing to finish on drives through traffic. The Wolverines were able to get to the free throw line often, mostly thanks to the aggressiveness of Matthews — and they missed seven of their first ten at the charity stripe.

The two teams were tied at seventeen with just over five minutes remaining in the half, and Western had maintained a consistent lead for most of the early going, when Flowers started to get hot. He posted up Zavier Simpson, got two feet in the paint, and scored; he hit a tough step-back three; he made a mid-range jumper; he scored on a really difficult layup after getting grabbed by Simpson; he drew a foul on a free throw line jumper and made both free throws. Within the span of about two minutes, Flowers scored 11 points and Western opened up an eight point lead.

Michigan responded. After Matthews missed two free throws, Flowers took a deep heat check and missed. That miss led to a transition bucket for Matthews, and then Michigan forced four turnovers on consecutive possessions. Western is one of the more turnover-prone teams in all of college basketball, and Michigan’s defense vaulted the Wolverines back into the game. Matthews hit both free throws after Western gave a transition foul; Davis threw a long outlet to Simpson for a layup; Matthews pickpocketed a guard and threw down a two-handed breakaway dunk; Poole jumped a pass and missed a dunk that would have given Michigan its first lead. A strong defensive possession leveraged Flowers into a miss with the clock ticking down on the half, and Matthews went coast-to-coast for a buzzer-beating finger roll to put Michigan up 30-28.

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Mood [Scott]

Western continued to turn the ball over after the break (they finished with 16 turnovers in the game) and Michigan went on an extended 24-4 run to go from down eight to up twelve. Matthews continued to attack the basket for layups and drawn fouls, Simpson knocked down a couple of open threes, and Poole hit a patient step-back three off a screen. The run coincided with Michigan’s best defensive stretch of the game, and the presence of Teske — who sat for most of the first half due to foul trouble — was key.

Within five minutes of the start of the second half, Michigan looked to be on the verge of a rout. After another Western timeout, the Broncos had a bad offensive possession bailed out by a tough and-one bucket for Flowers over Simpson. Sharpshooter Jared Printy got loose for a three, Dugan made a nice move on Davis for a layup, and the deficit was down to five. From there, the margin oscillated between five to ten points, with Michigan unable to ease out to a more comfortable lead and Western unable to make it a one-possession game.

In key spots late in the game, John Beilein called timeout — only to run a high ball-screen for Poole. Both situations led to positive outcomes for Michigan: on the first, Ignas Brazdeikis hit a tough runner off residual action for his first points of the game; on the second, Simpson wound up finding Matthews open in the corner for a dagger three. Western kept threatening, as Kawanise Wilkins scored on some physical moves, and Flowers hit a deep three and drew a few fouls, but Michigan always seemed to have an answer.

Matthews was the star for Michigan: he attacked the basket relentlessly, and even though he missed a few layups, he scored from the free throw line, had some offensive rebounds, and even knocked down a couple threes. Michigan needed that type of performance. Simpson had an uncharacteristic game — he made threes, but turned it over four times and Flowers gave him problems — but he and Poole chipped in with a combined 29 points. It was tough for everyone else. Iggy was held to just four points and had some ugly misses, Teske scored just one basket, and Livers was off from three. Eli Brooks and Davis were solid but not impactful.

On the whole, it was the Wolverines’ worst performance of the season. The early ice cold shooting eventually regressed to the mean, which helped stave off the upset, but Flowers had a fantastic performance and Western looked like a capable opponent and not a team that was ranked outside the Top 200 (per Kenpom, Torvik, and Sagarin). In the end, the Broncos gave away too many possessions to have a chance at the win. Michigan’s first win in this three-game stretch against poor opponents was an uncomfortable one, but they’ll get a chance to get back on track next weekend against Air Force.

[Box score after the JUMP]