luke yaklich

I need Martelli to stay for very good reasons [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Inside a COVID ward. Former Michigan football captain Chris Hutchinson is a doctor, which means he's doing everything he can to deal with COVID-19:

"We saw one COVID patient per shift for a few days," Hutchinson recalled of March 9-10. "Then, there were many each shift. And a few days after that, it was pretty much all we were seeing come in.

"That was when we had drive-through testing set up, and the first day we saw 50. Next day, we saw 100. The next day we saw 200, and then in two or three days we saw 300 people coming through the drive-through."

Hospitals are already hitting limits:

"We had a smaller hospital call and tell us they have a COVID-positive patient but are out of ICU beds," said Hutchinson of intensive care units. "We told them, 'Nobody has ICU beds. We can't take your transfer because we don't have very many beds.' We've had to convert other areas in the hospital into ICUs.

"Everyone has to deal with this, and unfortunately we are right at the front end of it, still on the curve -- a steep, upward curve."

Stay inside, people. Waffle Houses are closing. Binge watch Altered Carbon, because you might have to watch it six times to understand what's going on. Or every strongman competition ever.

[After THE JUMP: the official BCHL team of Hellboy]

the looks have been good, the shots less so [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Believe it or not, the team's shooting issues come up either directly or indirectly a few times. Let's dive in.

Is there a chance that our 3pt shooting going in the toilet is at all related to the coaching change?  Meaning, is is possible that Beilein would have devoted hours to shooting form and mechanics while Juwan is focused more on addressing other things (aka post defense)?

Adam

Chicago, IL

AC1997

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a small impact on shooting because of practice focus—John Beilein is famously maniacal about fundamentals, after all. That doesn't nearly cover the gap in shooting from last year to this year, however. Michigan was in line to have an excellent shooting team this year regardless of the coach; then their top two outside shooters left for the NBA and the third got hurt.

It helps to look at a visual of last year's three-point distribution compared to this year's. Below is a table showing the top shooters by share of the team's total three-point attempts on the season, followed by their three-point percentage.

2018-19 2019-20
Jordan Poole: 24% share/made 37% Eli Brooks: 19%/38%
Iggy Brazdeikis: 17%/39% Franz Wagner: 17%/29%
Isaiah Livers: 15%/43% Isaiah Livers: 12%/50%
Zavier Simpson: 12%/31% David DeJulius: 12%/36%
Charles Matthews: 12%/30% Zavier Simpson: 11%/32%
Jon Teske: 9%/30% Jon Teske: 10%/27%
Eli Brooks: 6%/29% Adrien Nunez: 8%/27%
David DeJulius: 2%/6% Brandon Johns: 5%/29%

While the 2018-19 squad was not a good shooting team by Beilein standards, the top three shooters formed a dangerous trio, and at least two of them were on the court at nearly all times. This year's starting lineup with Isaiah Livers injured features only one reliable shooter. Franz Wagner's struggles have really hurt. The team has pushed more shots to marginal shooters; this year's Brandon Johns attempts are coming in the competitive portion of games, while last year's David DeJulius chucks were not.

When you remove Livers from this year's team, you get into non-shooter territory in a hurry. That hurts everyone's shooting; when teams can all but ignore three players as outside threats, they can clog the paint without giving up open looks to the primary shooters.

Given the personnel, I'm not ready to make a judgment on Juwan Howard's impact on shooting. This team generates plenty of good looks. Other than Simpson, who was equally bad under Beilein, nobody has obvious mechanical issues—Wagner's shots, for example, look like they should go down.

A portion of Michigan's shooting struggles is due to roster makeup. Another portion is due to rotten luck. (The dirty secret about college basketball stats: a full season is still a small sample size.) Compared to those two, any coaching impact is minor.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the mailbag.]

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

We've got another Expected To tweet that hovers between news and not news, but this one is not about a foregone conclusion so here it is:

Brendan Quinn confirms the previous tweet and has Howard's first assistant hire:

Losing Yaklich sucks for a couple different reasons. Michigan was 3rd and 2nd in defensive efficiency during his two seasons in Ann Arbor, and that was all his show. Some of that could be chalked up to Yaklich walking into two of the best defenders Michigan's ever had. But three-fifths of the starting lineup in 2017-18 was Moe Wagner, Duncan Robinson, and Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman. None of those guys were plus defenders individually. Wagner had a 2% block rate!

Also Yaklich was the primary recruiter on Jalen Wilson and getting him back in the fold is a longer shot now.

[After THE JUMP: transfer talk]

love to have a coaching search with like two candidates 

in which Zavier Simpson runs this dusty town in the American West or possibly Mexico

Luke Yaklich well-actually's John Beilein but they're still buds 

Michigan's defense explained in two charts. Also: the Fightin' Musks dunk like Elon

MSU didn't vet Auston Robertson at all. Stadium should have vetted their latest Zach Smith expose better. 

chris evans [eric upchurch]

No true Scotsman wouldn't dynamically schedule. Luke Hughes commits. Ben Carter: notable departure. All this and several additional links!