2019-20 purdue #2

Things discussed:

• Rutgers has an athletic team that can't shoot the ball.
• Trevion Williams is the right guy for Austin Davis to body up. Put him on a brute.
• Eli changes hair to look like X, plays like X
• Can Michigan go to Cleveland?
• Wisconsin: bad matchup for Michigan because they're three-dependent. Micah Potter has been a monster (also ironic people were complaining about King's transfer like two days after Potter became eligible from his Ohio State transfer)
• Ohio State: How do those pieces fit together so well?
• Craig: Michigan got a fair whistle at Purdue—the awful whistle disappeared after the first 8 games (by which point M had played 6) but Michigan still can't get a call at home—Ohio State game was one of the most ridiculous stripe games of the year. Ohio State has some crazy kind officiating (FYI the director of basketball who oversees the officials is a former OSU coach.)
• Dr. Anderson: The guy who fired Dr. A was surprised decades later that the guy still had a job at Michigan. Athletic Dept. doesn't choose their doctors so someone at the university reassigned the guy. Who knew what when?
• Craig: Was told if people knew, it wasn't at the higher levels.
• Josh Christopher/Hunter Dickinson: Dickinson's defense has come around, he can shoot, can he go right? Christopher is uber athletic. Giant Dosunmu, throw out his high school numbers because there's no coaching at Mayfair.

[Player after THE JUMP]

Death By Variety: The Statistical View

I couldn't stay away from this topic, even after taking a look at Michigan's excellent pick-and-roll stats in last week's column. If you missed that, the main takeaway is that Michigan has the best combination of usage and efficiency on pick-and-rolls in the country:

Anyway: holy hell, Michigan's pick-and-roll offense. It's not just that they're the most efficient in the conference by a decent margin, they're also running it way more than the rest. The Wolverines are 12th in the country in efficiency and 11th in usage for pick-and-roll possessions. The only other major conference teams that have a comparable combination of usage and efficiency are Marquette and Seton Hall, and neither quite measure up.

I also touched on Zavier Simpson's remarkable acumen at running the pick-and-roll, something I'll get into more later in this column. Simpson isn't the only player making this work so well, however. After doing more digging into Synergy, it's fair to say Michigan has five legitimately good options as ballhandlers, and they each bring something a little different to the table.

Today I'm going to take a look at how Michigan is making that play work so well this season and how their lead ballhandlers stack up statistically against this year's competition. Tomorrow I'll put this year's pick-and-roll offense into a historical context.

sneaky good [Campredon]

Here's a look at the five players on pick-and-roll plays with passes included. I've separated out when the ballhandler keeps the ball (or turns it over) from when they pass it and added a "keep percentage" stat to what Synergy already had to offer:

Simpson, as you'd expect, mostly looks to pass and is the best on the team when he does; while he's not a huge threat to score, he does just enough to keep defenses honest and open up passing lanes.

While not as extreme as Simpson, Eli Brooks and David DeJulius both look to pass more than shoot, which is always good with point guards—passing out of the pick-and-roll is more efficient on average than keeping it because the latter usually implies sound defense. DeJulius has also been quite effective when he looks to score; he's on track to be the lead guard next season.

Although the sample size is merely 30 possessions, Franz Wagner has flashed an elite ability to score off the screen—he's over 1.1 points per possession when no other Wolverine cracks 0.9. He's passing about half the time with efficiency that approaches Simpson's. What's most impressive about the scoring is it's mostly come on drives; if Wagner adds a pull-up three-pointer he'll be absolutely lethal. Think a longer Nik Stauskas. Try not to drool.

While not in Wagner's territory, Isaiah Livers has been a solid option as a pick-and-roll scorer. He doesn't look to pass as much but he's on this team to get buckets.

[Hit THE JUMP for moving picture pages and how M's ballhandlers stack up against the Big Ten.]

2/22/2020 – Michigan 71, Purdue 63 – 18-9, 9-7 Big Ten

Back in November, Michigan lost a game at Illinois in which they shot 3/18 from three. I surveyed Michigan's available roster, which was a bunch six-foot guards, a beanpole freshman, a guy Juwan Howard describes as a "big guard" playing the four, and Jon Teske, and decided that this was not a team that was going to overcome that kind of brickfest:

3/18 from three, the end

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) December 12, 2019

It is late February and Michigan has won consecutive road games against teams close to the NCAA cutline. They shot 6/23 from three in one, 6/25 in the other. In this one Zavier Simpson was 0/10 from the floor. Michigan shot 24% from three; their star point guard didn't score until Eat Your Liver Time; Michigan led by about 15 points most of the second half. The Aristocrats!

Avid Torvik slicers are all over the internet telling anyone who will listen that Michigan is college basketball's best team in the month of February. It's true.

2-3 Minnesota is in there on the back of a blowout of Northwestern, so grain of salt and all that. But Michigan's vaunted defense has returned after a troubling midseason lull. That rebound allows Michigan to go on the road and clank a bunch of shots and win games.

Hit some damn shots and there's nobody in the country save maybe Kansas and Baylor who's coming out unscathed.

The turnaround in four numbers. Michigan from behind the line in January:

• OFFENSE: 26.8%, #329 nationally
• DEFENSE: 40.2%, #341 nationally

In February:

• OFFENSE: 35.6%, #94 nationally
• DEFENSE: 25.8%, #19 nationally

On the season Michigan is #105 on O and #44 on D. The January numbers were ludicrously unlucky; the February numbers are probably a little kind but are much closer to Michigan's season-long performance levels. Having Livers for big chunks of February helps, and further points towards this being the Real Michigan.

[After THE JUMP: T-Minus some number for Franz liftoff.]