2019-20 iowa #2
1/17/2020 – Michigan 83, Iowa 90 – 11-6, 2-4 Big Ten
I have seen the bracketology. I have seen the projections. I have seen Reservoir Dogs. But I am here to say that twelve Big Ten teams will not be in the tournament. There will be more than two teams with records worse than .500 in league play. Improbably, I do have to say that. Look at this thing!
This isn't going to happen. The most likely scenario is that a couple of teams sort themselves out naturally; the second is that when push comes to shove the committee passes on a team with an 8-12 conference record to select some other bubble team with a virtually identical resume.
Someone in this conference is going to be last year's Indiana team, which beat Marquette and Louisville, got off to a 12-2 start, and then lost 12 of 13 games. Someone is in the midst of a scene where a dude walks into the lobby of a building with a bunch of nonconference bling and gets riddled with bullets in slow-motion.
It's probably not Michigan, which has a note from the doctor about its performance to date. Torvik's measure of elite schedule strength has Michigan behind only Kansas and well ahead of the rest of the country:
Added Elite SOS (percentage of games an elite team would expect to lose against given schedule) to team charts page. pic.twitter.com/xOKYdhUOV4
— Bart Trvik (@totally_t_bomb) January 19, 2020
An elite team would expect to lose six games with Michigan's schedule. Michigan has lost six games, half of those without its top scorer.
…But it could be Michigan. Probably not. But maybe. Losing the last two games has been painful because both were within reach. Michigan had second-half leads with under ten minutes to go in both. There's no shame in losing either, but when everything's a coin flip and the first few go against you some nerves start popping up.
The schedule's about to ease up a bit, which means that they're getting teams in the back half of the top 50 at home instead of the front half on the road. Nothing is a lock. Even the horrible teams are projected to pick up five more wins between them, each of which will be a cruel bullet indeed.
It's probably not Michigan. It could well be Ohio State, which is in free-fall, having lost five of six with the only win at home against Nebraska. It could be Minnesota, or Illinois, or Indiana—my money is on Indiana again. But it could be Michigan. Collar-pulling time.
[After THE JUMP: there is an officiating section]
This week’s podcast is, as always, brought to you by the law offices of E. Jason Blankenship. Check out his shiny new site here.Segment One: Iowa Thoughts
Yes, the officiating was one-sided even when accounting for playing style. There was still more to this loss, though, particularly outside shooting. While Luka Garza again had a big point total, he wasn’t unstoppable inside the arc, and a lot of this had to do with Juwan Howard being willing to send the occasional double-team. David DeJulius had an excellent game running the point while Zavier Simpson dealt with autobench.
Segment Two: Iowa Q&A
Topics include:
- What’s to blame for the foul disparity: home cooking, style of play, or both?
- What to do about the two-big lineups?
- Who’s going to be the primary backup big going forward?
- Is doubling the post here to stay?
- How will this team look different in March?
- Most villainous Wagner: Moe or Franz?
MUSIC:
- “Coldest Days” — The Rural Alberta Advantage
DOWNLOAD:
Over the course of a career you develop a back and forth relationship with opposing student sections
It’s hard to win on the road in the Big Ten. A career night for Eli Brooks and mini breakout for Franz Wagner couldn’t overcome a scorching night by Iowa’s shooters and a 30-5 free throw advantage for the home team that at one point got to be too much for Juwan Howard, who picked up his second technical foul this season.
The T issued not five minutes into the second half was Michigan’s seventh foul of the frame, and the best of 24 issued to Howard’s normally foul-averse team, as his Wolverines battled back from 58-52 after the ensuing free throws to take a 74-68 lead with 7:46 left in the game. Michigan also benefited from 15 Iowa turnovers, most forced from the long-anticipated debut of a lot of help against Garza in the post.
But they couldn’t hold on. Iowa went back to the two-big combo of Luka Garza, who entered the game at #2 in Kenpom’s Player of the Year standings, and the vastly underrated Ryan Kriener, neither of whom missed a shot in the final 7 minutes. Their biggest moment was a no-look behind the back pass from Connor McCaffery to Kriener, two feet behind the arc, which Kriener buried to give the Hawkeyes a crucial two-possession lead before the final minute.
The game easily could have gotten out of hand many times before that. Kriener erased an early Michigan lead with a nine-point scoring flurry as soon as he hit the court. With him and Garza on the floor Michigan tried to counter with a Teske-Davis lineup that couldn't match up. Davis quickly picked up three fouls—one on a Kriener drive (off a gorgeous feed from Cordell Pemsl) that resulted in and and-one, and two soft bleeps for trying to battle Garza for post position.
With Zavier Simpson, who picked up his second foul before the Under 12 timeout and sat the rest of the half, on the bench, Iowa’s shooters also found the space they didn’t have in Ann Arbor to contribute, as the Hawkeyes built a 47-43 lead at the break. Michigan spent the last four minutes of the frame with a Castleton-Nunez lineup against Iowa’s starters but kept in range thanks to the shooting of Eli Brooks, who missed his first five open three-pointers but made his next two while rediscovering his stroke from two.
Teske also contributed a pair of timely threes to bring Michigan back to within 1 in the last minute of both halves. Iowa answered the first with a long fadeaway three by CJ Frederick, and with fouls to give were able to force Michigan’s last possession to start on the sideline with 3 seconds left. Nunez’s inbound was sloppy, but DDJ corralled it, faked a three, and drove for a floater to go into the break down just four.
Unfortunately that was but a preview of a second half full of greater atrocities. The most galling were two arm-locks by Joe Wieskamp that fooled Terry Wymer into calling holds on Michigan. The first put Franz Wagner on the bench with his fourth foul just when he was getting hot, ending the Wolverines' big second-half run and sparking the Hawkeyes' final push. The second came with under 30 seconds left in the game, Michigan down 7, and Iowa struggling to inbound, when Wieskamp locked up DDJ, got the call, and might have had it reversed into a hook and hold. But most of the whistles--including the string that got Howard so hot at the start of the second half--were garden variety contact when a guy's doubled in the post, and Iowa's posts getting every benefit of any doubt. Garza finished 11/13 on the night at the charity stripe to go with 8/15 on twos and 2/3 on threes. If you're blaming the refs for that you haven't been watching Luka Garza this year.
Brooks nearly kept pace, playing 40 minutes, sinking 5/11 threes en route to a career-high 25 points, and consistently finding open space in the offense. Challenger David DeJulius had just 10 points on 15 shot equivalents, but chipped in four assists while Simpson sat, and played solid defense down the stretch.
Franz Wagner consistently worked open and had one potential-flashing drive under the basket as he and Iowa freshman CJ Frederick mutually embarked on a new p2p rivalry. Frederick won the first round, sinking 3/4 three-pointers while Franz was 2/8 from range, but Wagner’s 18 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists to one turnover represent encouraging new highs of activity in a tough environment.
Michigan’s bench—DDJ excluded—was certainly exposed on a night when the starters’ foul situation demanded it. Other than that, for a game that was, going in, statistically their least likely shot at a victory until March, there are a lot of encouraging signs to take away from this one. Like for one, we don’t have to go back to Iowa.
[Box score after THE JUMP]
23