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It's difficult to win in basketball when you don't hit shots. It's also difficult to win in basketball when you play poor defense both in the halfcourt and in transition. MSU shot 55.4% from the field. Michigan shot 37.1%. MSU shot 50% from three. Michigan shot 15.8%. That's mostly all you need to know as to why Michigan lost to their in-state rival by a score of 83-67 today in the Breslin Center. 

In the first half, Michigan did some things well to give them a shot to win. They forced turnovers on defense and they attacked the offensive glass, allowing them to take significantly more shots than Michigan State. The Wolverines also isolated a favorable matchup of Hunted Dickinson against several MSU bigs (primarily Marcus Bingham) to great effect. Unfortunately, they didn't hit enough of the non-post up shots, and when they weren't forcing turnovers on defense, they were struggling with ball screens, allowing easy layups at the rim. It also didn't help that MSU knocked down their threes at a higher clip. In total, despite what felt like a strong first half, the Wolverines went to the break down four. 

As it turned out, the gas needed for Michigan to hang with the #10-ranked Spartans for twenty minutes was most of the gas they had in the tank. The Spartans started the second half on a 10-2 run to push their lead into the double digits and from that point forward, the game was not terribly competitive. Michigan continued to get their buckets inside from Dickinson, but both he and Diabate appeared more tired than in the first half and while the Maize & Blue perimeter shots continued to clang off the iron, MSU's started to go down at an even higher clip. By the time Joey Hauser was pump faking Dickinson and knocking down a long two, and Gabe Brown was canning a thirty foot three pointer sending Breslin into a frenzy, the game was long gone for the visitors. MSU coasted for most of the second stanza and won by sixteen. 

Moussa Diabate was a rare bright spot today [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Overall, this was a thorough rout, no matter the areas where Michigan did play well. The Wolverines got to the line more than the Spartans and did attack the offensive glass with tenacity, but they also had more opportunities to do so because they didn't make nearly enough shots. Juwan Howard was smart to repeatedly feed Dickinson and his performance was certainly admirable- 25 points- but he and Diabate were Michigan's only two reliable offensive contributors. There were times that the freshman from France looked like the best player on the court, but he stalled out in the second half, and combined, Dickinson and Diabate encountered for nearly 54% of Michigan's points. 

The rest of Michigan's roster didn't produce merely enough offense. Caleb Houstan wasn't able to follow up his recent hot streak, scoring just 11 points and only attempting 3 three pointers. DeVante' Jones also reverted to early season form, only scoring 6 points and struggling to defend the ballhandler and prevent penetration, getting thoroughly outplayed by AJ Hoggard, who posted 11 points and a whopping 10 assists. Eli Brooks was 1/4 from outside, and Michigan got a mere 6 bench points total. While MSU freshman Max Christie lit up the scoreboard and knocked down several huge shots (3/4 from three), Michigan's heralded freshman class besides Diabate was more or less missing in action. Michigan couldn't find a single player to hit shots from the perimeter with the efficiency that all of Christie, Malik Hall, and Joey Hauser were for MSU. 

Caleb Houstan wasn't able to get much going [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

The inability to hit shots from outside muddled a decent offensive gameplan, though. On the flip side, the defensive approach was confusing at best and terrible at worst. Michigan was set on blitzing the ball screens and got torched repeatedly, in the process sapping the energy of their big men who they desperately needed to make anything happen offensively. MSU's ability to routinely get easy layups at the rack out of the ball screen game once again made us wonder why Juwan Howard and Phil Martelli are not playing more drop coverage in that phase of the game. Despite strong efforts against Maryland and Indiana, it doesn't appear that Michigan's defense is close to being fixed yet. Not when you give up 80+ points and let your opponent fire at that high of a clip from the field. 

In the end, this was a missed opportunity for Michigan to gain the much-needed signature resume-building win, but by no means was this a game they were expected to win. Nor was this the last chance Michigan will have to add such a marquee win. There are still two dates with Purdue on the schedule, and a home game against Illinois, with a second game against MSU still a possibility. But next up is a matchup with a much easier foe in Nebraska. That game is on Tuesday night at 9:00 pm. There is no content after the jump. 

2021-22 B1G Basketball Season Preview... previously: Season preview podcast, Power Rankings Lower Half

Yesterday we covered the lower half of the B1G and ranked teams 14-8. Today we will be doing the same but for the upper half of the conference, talking less about despair and more about hope and pivotal questions that could define the seasons. Our first entrant in this article is also a new face in the conference: 

7. Indiana

Projected starting lineup:

• G, Xavier Johnson
• G, Parker Stewart
• F, Miller Kopp
• F, Race Thompson
• F, Trayce Jackson-Davis

Mike Woodson takes over in Bloomington and if he wants to begin his era off on the right foot, making the NCAA Tournament is a good way to begin. Luckily for him, the Hoosiers have a high floor by returning Trayce Jackson-Davis, who is a B1G Player of the Year candidate. TJD is an elite rebounder who gets to the stripe at an incredibly high rate, in addition to soaking up a ginormous volume of possessions. Indiana leans on him heavily, but whether the Hoosiers wind up in March Madness probably depends on whether or not they find impact players besides TJD.

Race Thompson returns as well, a slightly smaller and far less used version of TJD. He rebounds, blocks, and gets to the line just like the IU star, but his usage is indicative of a role player and not a star. Thompson should be in line for a bigger job this season, but if he is, then you have a situation where both of IU’s two biggest pieces can’t shoot from outside, which raises relevant questions about floor spacing and the ability of this team to pack the perimeter punch. Rob Phinisee returns as a guard off the bench, but he certainly won’t add that three-point shooting (career 29.8%).

The rest of the roster consists of new players that Woodson has imported to Indiana. Xavier Johnson is a high usage PG from Pitt who will be expected to run the offense but he, too, has struggled from three in his career and could best be described up to this point as a “turnover machine”. Perhaps a reduced role akin to Mike Smith last year could reign some of the wildness in and make him take better shots. Parker Stewart sat out last season after transferring from UT-Martin and is supposed to be the sharp-shooter that this roster lacks. Miller Kopp could bring some perimeter shooting from the wing position if he’s more 2019-20 (39.6%) than 2021-21 (32.0%), after arriving from Northwestern. Tamar Bates also should play a role as a top 50 recruit off the bench. 

To me, Indiana starts out as a bubble team. They won’t be terrible, because of TJD and to a lesser extent, Thompson. But outside shooting is the crucial factor as to whether IU is another Archie-style bellyflop or a genuinely encouraging 8-9 seed type team, which is mostly a function of how well all the offseason shopping this program did in the transfer portal really went. Though Woodson has no recruits of his own on this roster, we’ll get a decent temperature of how he is as a B1G coach in year #1 based on how well he can integrate the fresh faces.

6. Michigan State

Projected lineup:

• G, Tyson Walker
• G, Max Christie
• F, Gabe Brown
• F, Joey Hauser
• F, Marcus Bingham

Michigan State missed Cassius Winston like a baby misses its pacifier last season, cycling through a number of PG options and never really landing on one until their season ran out in the NCAA Tournament’s play-in game against UCLA (haha, losers, what kind of team loses to UCLA?). Tom Izzo thinks he may have solved that problem by reeling in PG transfer Tyson Walker from Northeastern. Walker was a magnificent player in the Colonial Athletic Association, winning that conference’s POY award after posting 19 a game with 5 assists, shooting 35% from deep on humongous usage. Walker is a little undersized and of course there will be transition costs, but he could be a big addition (for the record, the CAA is roughly ranked akin to the Sun Belt and Ivy League in KP’s conference rankings).

The other big addition is five-star SG Max Christie, a 6’6” prospect who profiles as a knock down shooter with skill and poise, not unlike Michigan’s addition of Caleb Houstan. Considering that MSU couldn’t buy a three last season, adding impact shooting perimeter shooting is big. The big question for the Spartans is who whether Walker and Christie are ready to gobble up a high volume of possessions, because losing Aaron Henry, Rocket Watts, and Josh Langford means that three of MSU’s top four usage guys from last season are out the door, including their top two.

The question increases in importance when you remember that the other pieces, though familiar, have refused to take charge offensively. Lanky stretch forward Gabe Brown has been a useful option, but he’s allergic to playing an active role in the offense, and the same can be said for big men Malik Hall and Marcus Bingham. Which is why MSU’s season hinges on Joey Hauser. The Marquette transfer was not the big splash addition that Spartan fans had hoped for last season, shooting just 34% from three and 61% at the line for a 103.8 ORTG. That represented a big turn from the promising player that Hauser had seemed to be in 2019 for the Golden Eagles.

If Hauser can re-find his Marquette form, then a good campaign from Christie and Walker may be enough to boost MSU into the top four of the league. But, those are all sizable question marks considering you’re talking about one player transferring in from mid-major basketball, another who’s never played a collegiate game, and a third who struggled mightily in his first B1G season. For now, we keep State in the middle of the B1G.

[AFTER THE JUMP: More transfers!]

While Michigan's 2021-22 roster is mostly set, the same can't be said for much of the Big Ten—or, really, most programs in the country between a packed transfer portal, the pandemic year option for seniors to return without counting against the scholarship cap, and up-in-the-air NBA Draft decisions.

There's been a lot of movement over the last few days, including this morning's announcement that Northwestern shooter Miller Kopp is transferring within the conference to Indiana. This week, I'll be going over where each Big Ten program's roster stands in alphabetical order, and I'll rank each team's current outlook at the end. Here are some important dates to keep in mind as players make decisions about their future:

• May 30: Last day to apply for NBA Draft as an early entry
• June 21-27: NBA Draft Combine
• July 19: Last day for early entry to withdraw from NBA Draft

I made sure to note which players intend to sign with an agent, making them ineligible to withdraw, and which have left the door open to come back to school. I've also noted which players are in the transfer portal—which, as Indiana has displayed, doesn't prevent a return—and which have chosen another school. Returning seniors able to use the COVID waiver for an extra year are referred to as "super seniors."

Illinois

Key departures: G Ayo Dosunmu (draft w/ agent), F Giorgi Bezhanishvili (draft or overseas), W Adam Miller (transfer)
Key additions/super seniors: G Trent Frazier (super senior), C Omar Payne (Florida transfer), G Alfonso Plummer (Utah transfer)
Up in the air: C Kofi Cockburn (draft w/o agent), W Da'Monte Williams (possible super senior)

The Illini are going to look very different next season. Ayo Dosunmu is hiring an agent for the draft and won't be back. Kofi Cockburn also isn't expected to return after declaring over the weekend—it's rare for a player to return when they test the draft waters a second time, which is the case with Cockburn. Giorgi Bezhanishvili is going to the professional ranks too, though his role diminished in conjunction with Cockburn's emergence.

In a surprise move, former top-50 recruit Adam Miller entered the transfer portal despite starting all 31 games as a freshman. He hasn't said much since entering the portal and has been connected with Arizona, DePaul, Kentucky, and Michigan, though that seems largely based on his recruitment out of high school. He showed promise as a spot-up shooter and defender.

Brad Underwood added another former top-50 recruit in Florida transfer Omar Payne, who's mostly come off the bench in his first two seasons and was passed by Michigan transfer Colin Castleton in 2020-21. Payne blocks a lot of shots but is still quite raw; not that this is a fair comparison, but he won't come close to replicating Cockburn's production. (He may, however, try to take someone's head off.) Illinois needs big leaps from sophomores Coleman Hawkins and Jacob Grandison to have an above-average frontcourt as things stand; they're a strong candidate to hit the transfer portal for another big.

Getting Trent Frazier back for a fifth year helped shore up a backcourt that'll dearly miss Dosunmu, as did this weekend's addition of Utah grad transfer Alfonso Plummer, a 6'1 guard who's a career 40% three-point shooter on high volume and a teammate of Illini guard Andre Curbelo on the Puerto Rico national team. That helps offset the loss of Miller on offense and then some, though the undersized Plummer is unlikely to match him as a defender—his defensive metrics from Utah aren't good.

The Illini don't have much in the way of instant-impact freshmen unless someone plays above their ranking. The three-player 2021 class is headlined by a pair of 6'7 small forwards who both slipped just inside the top 100 on the 247 Composite, though recent three-star SG signee Brandon Podziemski has significantly differing opinions on his talent after posting huge numbers against underwhelming Wisconsin high school competition.

It's hard not to see this team taking a significant step back in 2022. There isn't another Dosunmu or Cockburn coming in, or even an Adam Miller. The next couple years of Underwood's tenure may make or break his time in Champaign.

[Hit THE JUMP for Indiana's wild offseason, Iowa's rough one, MSU's impact transfer, and more.]