billy donlon

Exit: Billy Donlon

Courtside seating now available. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Northwestern made the hiring of Michigan assistant coach Billy Donlon official on Tuesday, pulling M's defensive guru away from the program after one season in which his impact became increasingly apparent. While the relatively late timing of Donlon's exit is unfortunate, a product of the domino effect caused by Thad Matta's firing at Ohio State, this all went down on the up-and-up.

MLive's Brendan Quinn reports Northwestern coach Chris Collins contacted John Beilein for permission to speak to Donlon and things progressed quickly from that point. There were simply too many connections for Donlon to turn down the gig. Collins and Donlon have been close since high school; their high school coach, who's now—you guessed it—an assistant at Northwestern, says they're like brothers. Then there's the family aspect:

As for Donlon, back home in Chicago, he plans to share a house with his father. The two lived together in Dayton when Donlon coached at Wright State and Billy Donlon Sr. served as his directory of basketball operations. The two leaned on each other. Billy Donlon's ex-wife and daughter live in North Carolina, while Maryann Donlon -- Billy Sr.'s wife and Billy Jr.'s mother -- died in September 2010 after a nine-year battle with cancer. A father-son relationship, along with basketball, has seen the two through some hard times.

Some things are bigger than basketball, or work, or both. Donlon told Quinn he wouldn't have left for any other program. Under these circumstances, it's easy to see why.

[Hit THE JUMP for replacement candidates and more.]

Number of coaches in this picture still at Michigan: zero. [Bryan Fuller]

Michigan will now have to replace two assistant basketball coaches this offseason. Scout's Brian Snow reports that Billy Donlon, the de facto defensive coordinator, is departing Ann Arbor after one season with the Wolverines to be an assistant at Northwestern, where he has several long-running connections:

According to Scout.com's Brian Snow, assistant Billy Donlon has accepted the position of assistant coach at Big Ten foe Northwestern.

"For me, I think it comes down to, from what I've heard, is that Billy has obviously known Chris Collins for a long time," Snow told The Michigan Insider. "Both grew up in the Chicago area and I don't necessarily know how far back their friendship goes, but they've known each other for a long time. They're very comfortable with each other, [Donlon] is comfortable with Chris, he's comfortable with the area so it's kind of a homecoming for him. He's looking for someone who he has a longstanding relationship with."

Donlon has deep ties to the Chicago area, Wildcats head coach Chris Collins and the Northwestern program. Donlon's father, Billy Donlon Sr., was a longtime assistant for the Wildcats from 1987-94.

Losing Donlon is a serious hit to a team that has some major question marks on defense after DJ Wilson entered the draft early. While Donlon's impact didn't immediately show up in the stats last year, it became apparent as the season wore on and the defense improved dramatically. The most obvious stylistic shift was in Michigan's ability to prevent three-point attempts. They ranked ninth nationally in 3PA/FGA after never finishing higher than 109th under John Beilein, and even that was a bit of an outlier.

We'll see what names emerge as replacement candidates; things have been quiet on that front even after Jeff Meyer took an assistant job under LaVall Jordan at Butler, and now there's another seat to fill. Here's hoping some of Donlon's teaching sticks regardless, as Michigan's best chance of being a decent defensive team next year is to continue creating a three-point gap.

I prefer the shot on the left. So does Beilein. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

After the Nebraska evisceration, I wanted to take a closer look at something we discussed on this week's podcast. Michigan generated 12 more three-point attempts than the Huskers, which added to the growing pile of statistical evidence that the Wolverines have undergone a fundamental shift—not on offense, but on defense. John Beilein gave the money quote on it after the Purdue game:

We’ve made a conscious decision to defend the three-point line, knowing that a tough two is much better to give up than an open three, which we were giving up like crazy in our earlier struggles.

The key number to look at is 3PA/FGA: the percentage of each team's field goal attempts that come from beyond the arc. The offense is shooting threes at the usual Beilein offense rate: 45.3%, 16th nationally. Before this year, Beilein's Michigan defenses haven't been good at preventing opponent three-point looks; his best finish in 3PA/FGA was 108th in 2014, and most of his M teams have been in the 200 range.

This season, Michigan opponents are attempting just 29.0% of their field goals from beyond the arc. That puts the Wolverines tenth in the country.

The shift in defensive philosophy, likely a product of adding Billy Donlon to the staff, has created a massive gap in points generated from the three-point line between Michigan and their opponents. Critically, the Wolverines aren't forcing shots to make it happen. I put together a video of Michigan's three-point attempts (two garbage-time attempts excised) against Nebraska with freeze-frames just before the point of release; there are only a couple questionable shots among the 25:

I did the same for Nebraska's shots. While they had a few wide open looks, Michigan did a much better job of closing out on Husker shooters than vice versa, and that's not even the most telling part of this video—that would be the length of the video itself. What's not in there is the number of times Michigan defenders ran potential shooters off the line, forcing them to take those tough twos instead.

Even if Nebraska had hit their open looks, they had little hope of keeping up with Michigan's offense. Their second three-point attempt of the game came with under five minutes left in the first half; by that point, M had opened up a 20-point lead while shooting 8-for-12 on triples.

As conference champion Purdue found out, it's hard to close the three-point gap on Michigan with two-pointers, even when they're going in at a relatively high rate. It helps, of course, that Beilein's offense also generates great looks inside the arc; Michigan is 12th nationally in two-point percentage. This leaves opponents in a bind. Do they try to match Michigan three-for-three, even though the Wolverines have superior shooters to almost any team they face? Or do they run their normal offense and hope to either hit twos at a remarkable rate or get an off game from Michigan's shooters?

I'm not sure there's a good answer.

[Hit THE JUMP to see the numbers behind the three-point gap.]