zavier simpson is in ur base

a master in chaos [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Previously: Part One, Part Two. If you're looking for the Rutgers preview it's here.

You're definitely going to want to at least read part two of this series, which explains the stats I'm using below and details the 2009-14 seasons, before moving on to the rest of this post. Ideally, you'll read part one, as well.

Now that you're caught up, let's get to it.

2014-15: Bad Wheels

Team Stats: 27.7% pick-and-rolls + passes (#36 in country), 0.911 points per play (#62)

The Ballhandlers:

  P&R Plays (Own Offense) PPP on Own Offense (%ile) P&R Plays (Passes) PPP on Passes (%ile) Total P&R Plays Overall P&R PPP. (%ile) Keep %
Spike Albrecht 65 0.815 (70%) 98 1.276 (92%) 178 1.092 (93%) 36.5%
Caris LeVert 87 0.644 (35%) 58 0.862 (34%) 145 0.731 (28%) 60.0%
Derrick Walton 52 0.635 (33%) 61 0.967 (54%) 113 0.814 (47%) 46.0%
Zak Irvin 60 0.783 (63%) 43 1.395 (96%) 103 1.039 (90%) 58.3%
MAAR 39 0.872 (79%) 19 1.737 (100%) 58 1.155 (96%) 67.2%

The Screeners:

  Pop Plays (%) Pop PPP (%ile) Roll Plays Roll PPP (%ile) Slip Plays (%) Slip PPP (%ile) Overall Plays Overall PPP (%ile)
Max Bielfeldt 12 (36.4%) 1.167 (88%) 19 (57.6%) 1.000 (30%) 2 (6.1%) 2.000 (—) 33 1.121 (76%)
Ricky Doyle 1 (3.6%) 2.000 (—) 26 (92.9%) 1.308 (74%) 1 (3.6%) 0.000 (—) 28 1.286 (90%)
Zak Irvin 9 (69.2%) 1.222 (—) 4 (30.8%) 2.000 (—) 13 1.462 (96%)
Mark Donnal 1 (10%) 3.000 (—) 9 (90%) 1.556 (—) 10 1.700 (99%)

I almost didn't include this season or the next because of Michigan's injury issues, then decided it was useful to see what happens when a team's two best perimeter players get hurt in the same season.

While neither Caris LeVert nor Derrick Walton were producing particularly well in the pick-and-roll before their respective foot injuries, we saw later that these injuries delayed breakouts into effective players—Walton, in particular, eventually became a great P&R ballhandler.

The players that remained were effective but one-dimensional. Spike Albrecht drove to pass. Zak Irvin and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman hunted shots off of screens. Irvin, defying reputation, struck the best balance between shooting and passing, and he was a very effective passer. Only MAAR was above-average at generating his own offense off of screens, though.

Derrick Walton's foot injury stunted a developing rapport with Ricky Doyle

Michigan was also working with a limited group of finishers. Ricky Doyle was the best roll man but was a roll man only. Max Bielfedlt(!) ended up with the most plays among screeners even though he was a 30th-percentile finisher on the roll; he salvaged decent efficiency with some pick-and-pop jumpers. If Zak Irvin was setting a screen, it was to pop or slip for a jump shot.

This marks the first season since 2008-09 that Michigan's pick-and-roll usage went down; they also slipped 40 spots in the efficiency rankings. This team was going to drop off with the departures of Nik Stauskas, Glenn Robinson III, and Jordan Morgan, then injuries made matters worse. Even if LeVert and Walton weren't high-level P&R ballhandlers at this point, their spot-up shooting could've helped.

Even with all that, Michigan's pick-and-roll offense ranked in the 83rd percentile by points per play. They weren't elite; they were still good. They just couldn't build the offense around it to the extent they had the previous year.

2015-16: Bad Wheels 2

Team Stats: 30.5% pick-and-rolls + passes (#22 in country), 0.923 points per play (#80)

The Ballhandlers:

  P&R Plays (Own Offense) PPP on Own Offense (%ile) P&R Plays (Passes) PPP on Passes (%ile) Total P&R Plays Overall P&R PPP. (%ile) Keep %
Derrick Walton 128 0.711 (44%) 120 1.000 (59%) 248 0.851 (51%) 51.6%
Zak Irvin 149 0.826 (68%) 98 1.306 (93%) 247 1.016 (86%) 60.3%
Caris LeVert 57 0.877 (77%) 62 0.855 (32%) 119 0.866 (54%) 47.9%
MAAR 67 0.910 (82%) 41 0.805 (24%) 108 0.870 (55%) 62.0%
Duncan Robinson 19 0.632 (29%) 17 0.647 (9%) 36 0.639 (14%) 52.8%

The Screeners:

  Pop Plays (%) Pop PPP (%ile) Roll Plays Roll PPP (%ile) Slip Plays (%) Slip PPP (%ile) Overall Plays Overall PPP (%ile)
Mark Donnal 12 (21.8%) 0.500 (12%) 40 (72.7%) 1.250 (60%) 3 (5.5%) 0.667 (—) 55 1.055 (60%)
Ricky Doyle 1 (2.9%) 2.000 (—) 30 (88.2%) 1.200 (54%) 3 (8.8%) 0.333 (—) 34 1.147 (73%)
Moe Wagner 3 (15.8%) 1.667 (—) 16 (84.2%) 1.375 (77%) 19 1.421 (95%)
DJ Wilson 9 (64.3%) 0.556 (—) 4 (28.6%) 1.500 (—) 1 (7.1%) 0.000 (—) 14 0.786 (24%)
Zak Irvin 9 (81.8%) 1.000 (—) 2 (18.2%) 0.000 (—) 11 0.818 (27%)

An unfortunate repeat, as Walton's previous foot injury sapped his ability to finish at the rim and LeVert—who'd improved considerably as a scorer off the high screen—again lost most of the season to a bad wheel.

Beilein increased the volume past where it had been in 2013-14 and the team's PPP slightly increased, though they came out worse compared to the rest of the country. Irvin was easily the team's best P&R ballhandler, continuing to pass at a high level while making enough pull-up jumpers to be relatively effective as a scorer.

some of those jumpers were rather important

MAAR pulled off a tough feat, averaging more PPP using his own offense than when he passed; that's very much a good news/bad news situation.

The roll men remained limited. This was the year Ricky Doyle seemingly lost the ability to catch and finish, so Mark Donnal ended up as the primary screener. Neither graded out particularly well. The center who did: enigmatic freshman Moe Wagner, who scored well as a roll man and flashed the ability to pop out and hit jumpers.

[Hit THE JUMP for Michigan exploring that a bit more.]

a career scoring effort from Zavier Simpson wasn't quite enough [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Juwan Howard learned from his first encounter with Wisconsin, just not quite fast enough for Michigan to pull off a double-digit comeback as the Wolverines fell, 81-74, in their lone regular-season meeting with the Badgers.

Michigan went into the game shorthanded; Eli Brooks sat out with the broken nose suffered in Saturday's win at Purdue, Wisconsin held a ten-point halftime lead as point guard D'Mitrik Trice (13 first-half points on 5/7 FG) and backup center Micah Potter (11, 4/6) exploited Michigan's big men with their pick-and-pop offense. On the other end, the Badgers stuck tight to shooters, limiting M to three attempts from beyond the arc. That forced Zavier Simpson to be the primary scoring threat; he entered the break with 18 points and no assists—no other Wolverine had more than five points. Adrien Nunez played a stint that went as you'd expect.

you can see Howard thinking "never again" [Campredon]

The approach to Wisconsin's swing offense, no-help defense, and lineups all had to change. To Howard's great credit, he made the proper adjustments. Michigan used more off-ball motion, leading to a Jon Teske layup, an Isaiah Livers three-pointer, a Franz Wagner layup, and three quick assists for Simpson. Instead of playing drop pick-and-roll coverage or switching as they did in the first half, Michigan hedged hard against the pick-and-roll. They cut the deficit to two points.

The Badgers countered with a 14-2 run sparked by Potter taking advantage of Austin Davis's limited defensive mobility. Teske returned to the court but picked up his third foul not long thereafter. Instead of going back to Davis, Howard fielded a wings-and-X lineup with Brandon Johns at center and had the team switch on every screen on defense. This slowed the Wisconsin attack while Simpson continued picking apart their defense. The margin dwindled to three.

all six of Simpson's assists came in the second half [Campredon]

It wasn't quite enough. Simpson was masterful, posting a career-high 32 points, shooting 14/22 from the field, pulling down five rebounds, and dishing out six assists to one turnover; unfortunately, he went 3/7 at the free-throw line, missing the front end of a one-and-one and another FT in the game's waning moments. After Brandon Johns rebounded that second miss, he too missed the front end with Michigan still in the single bonus, and his wayward three-pointer with 12 seconds to play effectively ended the game. Grotesquely, Brad Davison got to hit the final free throws and grab the last, meaningless rebound.

Trice also missed a couple critical free throws down the stretch to keep the door ajar, but his ice cold three over Wagner with 2:30 to play gave some needed cushion. Trice finished with 28 points on 19 shooting possessions, while Potter and Aleem Ford added 18 apiece.

While Michigan found a secondary scorer in the second half in Franz Wagner, who poured in 15 of his 17 points after the break, a third option never emerged. Livers scraped to nine points on 11 shooting possessions. Teske had seven on 3/5 shooting but only played 23 minutes because of the success of the smaller lineup. Johns, DeJulius, Nunez, and Davis went a combined 4/14 from the field.

dagger [Campredon]

While the loss won't hurt Michigan's NCAA Tournament standing too much, it comes close to eliminating their chance at a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament. At 9-8, the Wolverines rank seventh in the conference, and they're two games out of the fourth spot with three games to play and two teams ahead of them (Wisconsin and PSU) that hold head-to-head tiebreakers. In what should be a wildly unpredictable tournament, they'll have to hope for a good draw.

The good news is that, should Michigan see Wisconsin again, Howard appears ready to push the requisite buttons to beat them. As a first-year head coach, he continues to impress, even in defeat.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]

the best to do it here? [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

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:

  P&R Possessions (Own Offense) PPP on Own Offense (%ile) P&R Poss. (Passes) PPP on Passes (%ile) Total P&R Poss. Overall P&R PPP. (%ile) Keep %
Zavier Simpson 172 0.709 (45%) 310 1.139 (85%) 482 0.985 (85%) 35.7%
David DeJulius 56 0.875 (78%) 68 1.029 (71%) 124 0.960 (81%) 45.2%
Eli Brooks 47 0.766 (58%) 68 1.029 (71%) 114 0.922 (74%) 41.2%
Franz Wagner 16 1.125 (97%) 14 1.071 (78%) 30 1.100 (95%) 53.3%
Isaiah Livers 18 0.889 (80%) 9 1.000 (66%) 27 0.926 (75%) 66.7%

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.]

x in effect

x gave it to them every which way

a victory despite a legitimately chamberlainian stat line on the other side

espn

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

runnin' and gunnin' and postin' and winnin'

Xavier Simpson recorded a triple-double, and Michigan routed the Buckeyes.

As a sophomore, Zavier Simpson quietly showed flashes of the level of pick-and-roll mastery Michigan will need from him in 2018-19.