2018-19 minnesota #2

Things discussed:

• Ed isn't allowed to forget he took McQuaid over Matthews
• The State game: Tip of cap to Winston. State got Michigan into the usage pattern (e.g. X threes) they desired. Michigan lost their minds.
• Jordan Morgan was a little salty and Brian agrees.
• Managing the guys
• Beilein wasn't going to throw his guys under the bus, but there were things they worked on in practice that the guys just didn't execute
• Craig runs down the breakdowns from the 4 minutes when M was up six with the ball.
• The Poole talk: hopefully this was a wakeup call.
• Was Charles hurt? (Yes) because they haven't had the big lineup. Why not try Iggy at the 2?
• Castleton advocacy
• Is Penn State good?
• Nebraska: the difference with/without Copeland is huge.
• The Zion Cam: worse than the draft bar in the middle of a Michigan basketball game?
• Rather watch Bill Walton than Dick Vitale—at least there's some affableness to him being high all the time.
• Michigan at their best > MSU at their best.

You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream on Podbean.

Segment two is here. Segment three is here.

THE USUAL LINKS

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link (right-click/save as)
• What's with the theme music?

I want to find that guy and wherever he's at—I don't know homeless hopefully—and tell him he's the worst person in the world.

1 hour and 25 minutes

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1. Michigan State

(starts at 1:00)

Don’t take a jacked up stepback three. Tips for walrus wrestling. The switches: when you’ve got Teske on a guard don’t take a jacked up stepback three. Poole had his worst game as a Wolverine: don’t take a jacked up stepback three. Also Jordan Morgan says so. Charles Matthews got the worst autobench yet (one foul!) and also rolled his ankle. What’s up with the rotation? Why wasn’t the Matthews-Iggy-Livers lineup wasn’t tried? Good game until Michigan’s shooting died in the middle third of the second half.

2. Minnesota

(starts at 30:56)

Teske got fed down low. Teske taking threes leads to the back-to-back Go to Sleep Dagger. The Jordan Murphy is shooting to get yourself your own offensive rebound. Maybe Michigan offered Scooby Johnson to build themselves a Mr. Burlesworth. Imagine if Poole could be Zak Irvin? Long discussion of Castleton and DeJulius, who is on the court so seldom that Seth still calls him DeHulius.

3. Hockey

(starts at 50:06)

Michigan gets three points out of a weekend with Ohio State. Brian has checked out on the season. Disappointing that we’re not getting more out of Hughes but there aren’t that many other dudes on this team and that puts all the guys a line ahead of where they should be. Losing Norris was the death knell, except they’re not dead…in fact they could still finish second in the conference. The power play is still bad—argument over whether that’s lack of talent or they can’t coach special teams.

4. David’s Vegetable Segment

(starts at 1:13:38)

Brian and David discuss which vegetables David eats while Seth attempts to turn the conversation to literally anything else. Brian hates the Beatles.

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MUSIC

• "Candela"—Buena Vista Social Club
• "Kirby"—Aesop Rock
• "Elevator Operator"—Courtney Barnett
• “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link (right-click/save-as)
• What's with the theme music?

That’s what we do here in the Big Ten, Brian. We call fouls in the beginning of the second half and wrestle walruses.

2/21/2019 – Michigan 69, Minnesota 60 – 24-3, 13-3 Big Ten

If you could go back in time six months and give your past self a stupefying Michigan sports update, your #2 option would be "Michigan basketball is 24-3 and it's tough to decide whether Zavier Simpson or Jon Teske is our best player." We will not discuss #1.

The needle swung to Simpson after the Maryland game, when he had 12 points on seven shot equivalents, 8 assists, one turnover, and more or less shut off Anthony Cowan for a half. The pendulum swung back to Teske in this one: 17 points on 11 shot equivalents, two assists, five blocks. Even more stunning: 36 minutes.

Teske sometimes seems to take his foot off the gas a little bit in the post, whether that's marshalling his strength or trying to avoid foul trouble. But every game he does enough to hold whoever he's directly checking to meh numbers (Oturu had 18 points on 18 shot equivalents and a TO) while hedging everyone's ball-screen game into oblivion and coming in for help defense on the regular. There's a point in every game where Teske gets a closeup and my reaction is "my goodness that person is red," but dude just keeps going. Michigan would be dead in the water if he could only play 20 MPG like a lot of guys his size. He is Camp Sanderson's magnum opus.

Anyway:

That's Minnesota for you. It took Minnesota 28 minutes to make a basket outside of the paint. The Gophers had 18 points at halftime. Eight of these were on initial attempts. They were able to claw ten more out off of putbacks, which is a little frustrating since the Gophers haven't been that good at OREBs in league play and Michigan has maintained their DREBs much better than they usually do.

The margins are are pretty thin. Given the number of rebounding opportunities Minnesota had (47!) Michigan would expect to give up 12.5 OREBs; instead they gave up 15. This places it into a category where we're mildly frustrated about bounces.

In part because of the above this was a game in which the Gopher had a huge shot volume edge. They had 7 more OREBs than TOs. Michigan was –4. To hold a team with a shot volume index over one to 0.9 PPP means you are crushing them everywhere except the offensive boards.

wall up! [Ludeman]

Verticality. Part of the trouble the Gophers had was their tendency to run pell-mell at the rim and try to chunk something up. That style is why they lead the league in free throw rate. In this one it mostly led to very tough attempts after taking contact. This was most notable on two missed dunks where Teske walled up vertically and contested.

Doink pic.twitter.com/Y7uILIYeWu

— Noah Neidlinger (@candor_for_sale) February 22, 2019

Amir Coffey's bounced spectacularly outside the three point line; Teske was called for a foul on a near-identical Jordan Murphy play. (Murphy missed both FTs, ball don't lie.)

With the exception of that foul, though, the officials allowed Michigan to contest.

When verticality is called correctly it's such an excellent rule change, rewarding defenses for being in good position without flopping and placing a priority on open shots for the offense all the way to the rim. The best example in this game was not either Teske contest but Amir Coffey getting downhill only for Simpson to show. Simpson was outside the restricted arc (I think) but instead of trying to flop he went up to contest; Coffey bumped him, missed the ensuing tough shot, and Michigan rebounded. That is infinitely superior to a guy standing on the ground and falling over in the hopes of stopping the game with a foul call.

[After THE JUMP: attacking switches, finally]