eli brooks is plague eagle

Marcus Carr and Mike Smith meandered towards a wayward pass when a maize flash appeared.

"Meander" isn't in Chaundee Brown's basketball vocabulary. Sprinting down the sideline as if fired from a cannon, Brown beat Carr to the ball, collected it in stride, and finished the play with a powerful two-hand slam in front of the exuberant Michigan bench. Brown's unstoppable hustle gave the Wolverines a 22-point lead, their biggest of the night to that point, and the Gophers were broken.

Michigan led by as many as 37 points, demolishing a Minnesota team that entered the game ranked 21st on KenPom. Twice in the first half, the Wolverines went on runs that put the game on a verge of a blowout, only for the Gophers to reel them back each time, riding an eight-point Marcus Carr outburst to keep within six at halftime.

The two second-half runs weren't as well-answered. First, Hunter Dickinson scored eight points in a 17-6 run to open the half. Little-used third-string center Sam Freeman hit two free throws for the Gophers with 12:46 remaining to briefly stem the tide and keep them within a plausibly coverable 17 points. So Michigan threw another haymaker, scoring 18 straight in under five minutes to blow away any doubt about the game and, for that matter, this team's status as a Big Ten and, yes, national championship contender. Brown's backbreaker occurred during the second run.

big dunkinson [Campredon]

Save for Eli Brooks losing a tooth after taking an elbow, which thankfully caused nothing but dental damage, the game went about as well as one could imagine. In Dickinson's first test against a high-level big man of his size, he dominated seven-footer Liam Robbins, outscoring the Drake transfer 28-5 and doubling his rebound total 8-4 while not committing a single foul in 31 minutes. The freshman center went 12-for-15 from the field and hit all four of his free throws; he's now #5 in the KenPom Player of the Year standings.

The offense posted a scorching 1.21 points per possession even though Juwan Howard emptied the bench for the last four minutes and had freshman Zeb Jackson manning the point for the four minutes prior. Michigan went 29-for-45 on two-pointers, scoring 46 points in the paint, and rebounded ten of their 25 missed shots.

Brandon Johns had two of those offensive boards, converting both for putbacks, and scored seven points with two blocks while looking not only comfortable but impactful as the team's backup center and occasional power forward. Franz Wagner's offense didn't take center stage like is has the past few games, but he still put up an efficient 12 points, pulled down five boards, dished out four assists against zero turnovers, blocked two shots, and got his hands on more passes than I could track.

zesty [Campredon]

Smith had six assists, including a highlight-reel behind-the-head dish to Dickinson, though his ball control issues continued in a six-turnover evening. His defense, however, looked improved. While Brooks and Brown—and hellacious team help defense—did most of the work in slowing Carr to a 5-for-16 shooting performance, Smith took a few turns without appearing out of place. Isaiah Livers had two steals that he took the other way for dunks on his way to 14 points, going 5-for-6 inside the arc to make up for an unusual off-night beyond it.

Carr led the Gophers with 14 points; nobody else on their side finished in double figures. Robbins had a particularly rough go, finishing 2-for-9 from the field with no free throw attempts and one block. Both Gach didn't record a point until well into the second half. An offense with an excellent lead guard, a dangerous scoring center, and some decent surrounding pieces was totally shut down, scoring 0.84 PPP with some help from garbage-time minutes.

Michigan played their best game of the year against the best team they've faced so far. They remain the only undefeated team in the Big Ten. With Saturday's game against Penn State canceled due to COVID-19 positives within the Nittany Lions' program, the Wolverines now have five days to prepare before facing Wisconsin in the biggest Big Ten game of the season thus far on Tuesday. They couldn't have warmed up for it any better.

[Hit THE JUMP for more photos and the box score.]

3/1/2020 – Michigan 63, Ohio State 77 – 18-11, 9-9 Big Ten

Perhaps no one in college basketball is more dedicated to the idea of giant humans playing center than Matt Painter. Before Dutch windmill Matt Haarms there was Isaac Haas. Haas looked like Ivan Drago scaled up by 30%. Both of these guys were paired with shorter, thicker dudes—Trevion Williams and Caleb Swanigan—who charge into the lane like the Kool-Aid Man and vacuum up rebounds so quickly they eject little bits of basketball at an appreciable fraction of c. Purdue strives to have the longest and widest centers in college basketball, at the same time.

Look at this guy.

"oops" – this guy

7'3"? Ranking implies that most of the time he gets the basketball he crushes it in his giant hands and then sheepishly hands it back to the ref? Guaranteed Purdue commit.

A few years ago, Matt Painter was introduced to Moe Wagner and about lost his mind. Wagner's ability to stretch the floor set Purdue's defensive approach on fire. Purdue started switching Haas—290 pound Isaac Haas—onto point guards. Switching everything has become a popular defensive approach these days, but usually the folks executing it are mobile, smallish centers like Xavier Tillman. Haas switched onto a point guard looked like a man dumped into a fish tank with a piranha.

After these games Painter would sit down with the media and carefully explain how Moe Wagner is Purdue kryptonite. Even though they won some of these games, the overall impression the Painter-vs-Moe era left was Painter running his hands through his hair, rocking back and forth, moaning "not again, you said never again."

Been thinking about that lately.

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Michigan's February run came to a screeching halt over the last two games because Michigan ran into stretch bigs. Wisconsin's Micah Potter and OSU's Kaleb Wesson are shooting 47% and 43% from three, respectively. They combined to go 7/11 against Michigan.

The effects of those threes extended beyond the shots themselves. Against Wisconsin this was a parade to the bucket from Wisconsin's rim-averse guards; against OSU it was Duane Washington shooting over guys who were playing off him because they knew what happened against Wisconsin. Michigan switched a bunch.

It was awkward. Teske got in foul trouble and Michigan put Austin Davis on the court. Davis, who bodied up Williams effectively just a couple of games ago, was ruthlessly exposed by both teams. Wisconsin shot 75% from two when Davis was on the floor.

Michigan's recent defensive run came against teams with no stretch from their fives. They shot down Cassius Winston by ignoring Xavier Tillman at the three point line, which they could do because he's a 27% shooter out there. Nobody else has a guy who shoots an appreciable number of threes.

So here we are, at another nadir during this season of wild reverses. The Torvik slicers have gone home to stew; dreams of Cleveland have been replaced by a hope that Michigan stays off the 8/9 line. A reminder that this is a team of spare parts stepping up, until such time as they're ruthless elites once again.

I don't know what this season is going to end up as; I do know that I don't want to see another five-out offense this year.

[After the JUMP: this graph is good if you want to ski down it but not if you want to win games]