zavier simpson is in your shirt

X's pick-and-roll ability can send opponents into a panic [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

The Defensive Turnaround: Real or Opponent-Driven?

After Brian posted this in the Rutgers game column...

Teske back? Myles Johnson isn't exactly Luka Garza but he is shooting 53% from the floor on decent usage in Big Ten play. Teske shut him off. Johnson was 0/3 and all three of his shots might have been blocked by Teske. Indiana's Trayce Jackson-Davis had as many points (4) in the first three minutes of the Indiana-Minnesota game as he had against Michigan, when he was 2/3 from the floor. IIRC not much of De'ron Davis's game came against Teske.

Tillman did okay personally from two (6/10) but MSU collectively shot 38% from two; OSU shot 44% and Wesson's twos were mostly putbacks or fadeaway jumpers.

Teske's been very rough offensively for the last month but as Michigan's defense surges he seems to be a major part of that. A return game against Trevion Williams up next will be a good measuring stick.

...I took a look at Synergy to see if there were some explanation for Michigan's defensive improvement beyond Teske simply playing better. This led to an entire post's worth of information.

The stats that leap off Michigan's defensive page are their wildly varying abilities against certain sets. They boast a remarkably good pick-and-roll defense but are among the worst power conference programs against isolations and post-ups. Here are the numbers from Synergy for M's defense, with passes included (note: Synergy separates out putbacks from offensive rebounds, so the points per possession figures are lower than you might anticipate):

  % Time Points Per Possession Percentile Rank eFG% TO%
Pick and Rolls 33.5 0.724 95 39.7 12.8
Post-Ups 10.8 0.951 17 48.3 8.1
Isolations 7.1 0.918 13 48.7 9.6

The good news: pick-and-rolls are generally better offense than post-ups and isos, so if you have to choose a play to be killer at defending, that's the right one.

After that, I wanted a good visual of Big Ten offenses and their acumen in pick-and-roll and post-up situations. I'm dire at working with anything related to Excel, so thankfully Seth put together some scatter plots for me. My (rather obvious) operating hypothesis was that Michigan would prefer to avoid good post-up teams. Here are the Big Ten's post offenses charted by frequency and efficiency:

Michigan's worst defensive performances have come against these teams almost without exception—the outlier is the first Michigan State game, when the Wolverines couldn't slow down the Winston/Tillman pick-and-roll. Iowa, led by Luka Garza, broke the original scale—Garza is so obscenely good in the paint that the Hawkeyes are more efficient on post-ups than any Big Ten team is on pick-and-rolls. Purdue will, indeed be a big test.

The Wolverines haven't had many of those lately. Indiana is their worst defensive performance by adjusted efficiency since the Jan. 17th loss at Carver-Hawkeye. Their next-worst game in that span: Illinois. Other than Ohio State, which the defense handled relatively well despite the loss, Michigan's recent stretch of good defense has come against teams that generally don't post up often or particularly well—Rutgers checks both boxes.

I'm worried a decent portion of Michigan's recent defensive turnaround is due to the competition. The stretch run will be a challenge. The next three games all come against post-oriented teams: Purdue, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. Then comes a respite against Nebraska before closing the season against Maryland, a very good team but one that Michigan is well-suited to defense.

[Hit THE JUMP for why that's the case, plus a look at the conference's defenses and a preview of Sunday's M/MSU WBB tilt.]

captain hook [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Previously: (Rather Early) Season Preview Podcast (post-Franz-injury update in last week's Ace Pod), Big Ten Tiers Part One, Big Ten Tiers Part Two

Extremely Short Exhibition Preview 

tfw you've been accused of stealing an NFL team's logo

Michigan vs. Saginaw Valley State, tonight, 7 pm, Crisler Center, BTN+ ($ stream). The Wolverines will win; the intrigue will be in the minutes distribution, what they run, how quickly they run it, and how well they appear to know what they're doing. This has been your exhibition preview.

Position Preview: Point/Combo Guards

The change from John Beilein to Juwan Howard means a change in the position previews. The power forward position is set to closer resemble center than it ever did under Beilein, so those guys are now lumped together.

The composition of this team also dictates the format somewhat. This team has three small guards, a group of lanky wings, a couple power forwards, and some very large dudes. While there's going to be some overlap between groups—a couple of the small guards will get time at the two, but so will the lanky wings, and Colin Castleton will play both the four and the five—their roles should be different. Once Franz Wagner is healthy, Howard can throw out a number of different looks depending on matchups, which players improved the most, how he wants to dictate play, and a number of other factors.

We begin with the three small guards, featuring the heart and soul of the team.

#3 Zavier Simpson

welcome to the terrordome [Campredon]

Year: Senior

Height/Weight: 6'0"/190

Key Counting Stats: 33.9 MPG, 8.8 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 6.7 APG, 1.4 SPG, 50/31/67 (2P%/3P%/FT%)

Key Advanced Stats: 19.3% usage, 36.4 assist rate, 18.8 turnover rate, 19.3 FT Rate

Zavier Simpson, first and foremost, is arguably the best defensive point guard in the country. He grades out in the 82nd percentile on Synergy, and I don't think their possession categories can quite account for the way Simpson does a little bit of everything. This whole cut-up—entitled "Zavier Simpson Hell"—is pure excellence, but the first possession is mind-boggling:

An example of Simpson's doggishness and precision: while generously listed at six-foot-nothing, he forced opponents into 3-for-10 shooting with six turnovers while only committing three fouls on post-ups, which almost always came when he switched onto a player at least a half-foot taller than him. He's a game-changing defensive presence; when combined with Jon Teske inside, Michigan has a rock-solid foundation to build on.

He's also, in a very strange way, a positive presence on offense. Obligatory:

Yes, if you somehow missed this last year, the smallest guy on the court added a full-blown Kareem skyhook and turned it into his most effective way to finish around the hoop:

Simpson is also a masterful pick-and-roll player despite his obvious limitations as a shooter. When you only include possessions that end in a shot, he's merely average—Synergy graded him out in the 49th percentile, as he posted an ugly 49.1 eFG% and 25.2% turnover rate on such possessions. When you add in the possessions in which he passed out of the pick-and-roll, however, he leaps into the 94th percentile. That still includes the possessions in which he shot! While much else will look different, there's going to be a constant from last year: the two-man game with Teske will be the basis of the offense.

[Hit THE JUMP for ways X can expand his game, plus two guys who'll try to be effective combo guards.]

Charles Matthews
You forget someone? [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

THE SPONSOR:

Nick Hopwood, MGoFinancial Planner from Peak Wealth Management is the Beilein of financial management, except Beilein doesn't make nearly as many Star Wars references in his cheesy ad. If you haven't started planning for retirement, uh, do your taxes, and then get on that.

Legal disclosure in wee itty bitty font: Calling Nick our official financial planner is not intended as financial advice; Nick is an advertiser who financially supports MGoBlog. MGoBlog is not responsible for any advice or other communication provided to an investor by any financial advisor, and makes no representations or warranties as to the suitability of any particular financial advisor and/or investment for a specific investor.

------------------------------------------

THE QUESTION:

This is PART II of our annual All-Big Ten Roundtable, because Part I (the All-Big Ten team) went really long. Here's where we do the all-defensive team, all-frosh, etc.

ALL DEFENSE

Ace: Not Josh Reaves!

Seth: I haven't seen the list so I'm going to guess Davison made it.

Ace: Michigan (very) arguably had the best defender in the country at three positions. One made the coaches team. Let’s start here: it’s either Zavier Simpson or Jon Teske for DPOY for me. I could be talked into… Charles Matthews.

Alex: Rank X, Matthews, Teske:

Seth: Simpson had some nights but Teske was every center's nightmare against THIS league of centers.

Brian: X is obvious, Matthews is obvious, I thought Teske had some competition in Fernando and Tillman.

Ace: Teske did have the tougher task than Simpson. Considering my ranking of those guys is splitting hairs, it’s probably a positional thing, and that may actually favor Matthews given the variety of players he defended.

Brian: Tillman annihilated us.

Alex: Is it insane for me to pick X last among those three? Behind Matthews and Teske?

Ace: I don’t think any order is insane, I’ve talked myself into all of them in the last two minutes.

Seth: The knock on X is he had two nights against a Real PG(TM) and had, uh, 20 minutes of lockdown?

Ace: What’s insane is LEAVING TWO OF THE THREE off the list entirely.

image

Reaves?!!? [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

Brian: Non-Michigan folk?

Ace: Nojel Eastern. It’s the only reason he plays unless you really dig offensive rebounds.

Alex: Matt McQuaid?

Brian: I want to put in a shout for Nate Reuvers.

Alex: Fernando is probably the best rim protector but he’s not mobile.

Ace: Happ is super disruptive but the mention of Reuvers (and how he was used) says something about his pick and roll defense. Teske was the most complete defensive center in the league. Tillman maybe could’ve entered the conversation.

Alex: Reuvers and Happ are both quite good. I’m pretty surprised they passed Michigan for the best defense in Big Ten play. But they are a great defensive team.

Brian: Obliterating Iowa was the spur. I did not watch that game and so can't tell you why they had 0.65 PPP. But Reuvers is very mobile, spent most of the year guarding fours, and has a top 50 block rate.

Seth: Reuvers joins Dosunmu on the list of players who are going to be really good next year.

Brian: He's a bit of a flopperson but aren't they all.

Ace: I think my tiebreaker for bigs here is the lasting mental image of Fernando slamming his head into Teske’s torso to no discernible effect. X is the obvious choice among point guards, Matthews gets a wing spot, and then you have two spots for Reaves-Eastern-McQuaid. Or Fernando if you want two bigs, but I like the selection of wings better.

Brian: You could go X, Eastern, Matthews, Reuvers, Teske

Alex: Reaves’s body of work over his career makes me inclined to think he’s one of the five best defenders in the conference.

Brian: Since Reuvers did check 4s and there were a lot of dual posts in the league.

Ace: I think we get into the issue here of putting together a team that fits instead of picking the guys who were the best individual defensive performers. Wisconsin’s use of Reuvers against us stuck out but he was also playing with Happ and they had a great gameplan in that one.

Seth: My argument for Teske is he stays on the floor so much that our major coaching complaint is when he's pulled off it unnecessarily. Also he looks very Sherriff-y.

image

Alex: Reaves is in that Matthews mold of sleeper who could stick for a bit because he has the defensive upside to be a no-offense stopper. He’s been top 15 in the country in steal rate in each of the last three seasons. I’m not saying “he’s better than X” or “he deserved to be the defensive player of the year” but

Brian:

Ace: There are some—I’m guessing people with Synergy access—who’ve said Reaves’ play slipped a bit this year.

Brian: It felt like he'd start gambling for steals a lot.

Ace: I wish I still had a login so I could check McQuaid. That actually may have swung me to X-Eastern-Matthews-Reuvers-Teske though.

Brian: Alright make a pick and let's move on

Ace: It swung me. Along with Wisconsin’s team stats.

[AFTER THE JUMP: All-Breakout Next Year, and other stuff]