Michigan 86, Presbyterian 44
In a game that saw Michigan tripling its opponent's point total for most of the first half and doubling them up until the final possessions, the most notable event occurred only seven minutes into the game. Isaiah Livers, Michigan's leading scorer, strained a muscle in what appeared to be his groin area while getting fouled on an awkward-looking dunk attempt.
Although Livers stayed in to make the free throws, he exited to the locker room afterwards and was quickly ruled out of the game. Juwan Howard couldn't provide an update immediately after the game:
Asked Juwan Howard for an update on Isaiah Livers. Says he doesn’t have one; does not know the specific muscle that Livers strained. Also said he hopes it isn’t too serious.
— Orion Sang (@orion_sang) December 21, 2019
Thankfully, the Wolverines don't play again for another eight days, and they don't face a difficult opponent until January 5th when they restart conference play at Michigan State. So long as the Livers injury is minor, it shouldn't have a significant impact on the season.
David DeJulius provided instant offense off the bench again [Rankin]
It certainly didn't have much impact on this game, as Presbyterian spent most of the afternoon struggling to nudge their made field goal total (17, with a late flurry) over their turnover total (13). Michigan, on the other hand, had 11 different players score points, led by Eli Brooks with 16 and Jon Teske with 15. David DeJulius needed only eight shots to score his 12, while Zavier Simpson controlled play with nine points and nine assists.
The loss of Livers, Brandon Johns's absence due to an illness—he was on the bench in street clothes, so it doesn't seem to be too bad—and the overmatched opponent opened up opportunities for some other wings to get more time than usual. Franz Wagner (3 points, 1/3 FG) had a quiet day. Adrien Nunez had five points on 2/4 shooting before fouling out in 13 minutes, while freshman Cole Bajema looked quite comfortable putting in nine points on five shot equivalents.
Michigan will get a nice holiday break before hosting UMass-Lowell on the 29th. Hopefully Livers is good to go by then, or at least close.
[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]
December 21st, 2019 at 2:30 PM ^
I loathe these games. When they’re blowing them out, I can only think “Why do we even schedule these?” When they’re not blowing them out, I can only think “Why aren’t we blowing them out?”
December 21st, 2019 at 5:10 PM ^
For a brief moment I thought that was a riding lawnmower...
December 21st, 2019 at 8:22 PM ^
Same here!
December 21st, 2019 at 2:31 PM ^
Cole Bajema deserves more minutes and I don't think Nunez has much of a future with this team
December 21st, 2019 at 3:31 PM ^
Very solid candidate for The Most Useless Take Ever.
December 21st, 2019 at 4:00 PM ^
Please elaborate since you think your opinions matters so much
December 21st, 2019 at 6:52 PM ^
Solid candidate for the take least consonant with facts on the ground ever.
December 21st, 2019 at 4:32 PM ^
Can someone explain this new term, "shot equalivants" to me? Since when did saying shots, no longer suffice?
December 21st, 2019 at 4:49 PM ^
Free throws are incorporated into this 'statistic' if I'm not mistaken.
December 21st, 2019 at 9:32 PM ^
Shot equivalents = shot attempts, plus one for every sequence of free throw attempts that’s not the result of an and-1. So, if somebody’s driving the lane and gets a shooting foul, the free throws count as a “shot equivalent.”
One point per shot equivalent isn’t particularly efficient. DeJulius’s 1.5 is very efficient: he finished with an ORtg of 167 (five players on the court, all of whom had DeJulius’s stat line from this game, would produce about 167 points in 100 possessions).
In this case, he didn’t have any free throw attempts, so shots = shot equivalents. However, there’s a big difference between 12 points on 4/8 shooting (4/7 from 3) and 12 points on 4/8 shooting (4/7 from 2, 0/1 from 3, and 4/10 from the free throw line).
December 21st, 2019 at 10:14 PM ^
Interesting - I didn't know this, either!
So my question - can you also explain usage? I just understand the numbers when they're talked about. But I really have no idea how its calculated!
December 22nd, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
There's not a simple answer to that one. Generally, usage = % of possessions used divided by the number of possessions a player is on the court. Basically, it the % of possessions where you're the last player on your team to touch the ball via a make, miss, or turnover. Since 5 guys on the court at a time, obviously 20% would be the mean. Around 30% means you're heavily involved in creating offense, think Cassius Winston or Garza or Manny Harris or Trey Burke.
Where it gets messy though is how much credit does Z get for a pick and roll assist where he hits Teske for a dunk? Depends on the source (Dean Oliver, Torvik, Kenpom, BBR, etc) and the formula used as it's not standardized. Also, because misses that lead to an OR (Kobe Assists) don't end a possession those are treated differently under these systems as well. There is no universally accepted formula on this metric.
Usage is extremely important context for judging efficiency because it's vastly harder to be efficient player at 28% than at 16%. So Livers for example is efficient but fairly modest usage because his strength is catch and shoot but his shot creation is somewhat limited. Whereas like a 2013 Trey Burke had 29% usage but a similar level of efficiency which is extremely tough to do. Obviously it's much harder to remain efficient when your usage increases because the % of shots you'll get from ball movement, fast breaks, open 3s etc tends to remain fairly static which means that you have to generate additional high quality shots on your own to maintain efficiency at higher usage.
December 22nd, 2019 at 3:12 PM ^
Yeah, I’m having a hard time reverse-engineering KenPom’s numbers. If I multiply everyone’s minutes times their usage, and add them up, I get about 97%, which actually sounds about right: it’s easily possible that 3% of the possessions in an average game — i.e., 1-2 — have been team turnovers (mostly shot clock violations) or not resulted in an ending (e.g., dribbling out the clock). However, in any individual box score, I can’t make the numbers make sense. Perhaps the season-long values are estimates based upon minutes, but the box score numbers specifically count the possessions when the player is on the court.
Either way, assists don’t appear to be credited at all in KenPom’s system, which isn’t what I expected.
December 21st, 2019 at 10:20 PM ^
If you can't shoot in the game, hitting three's in practice just doesn't matter. Especially when you foul out in 13 minutes. Kid needs to find his groove during the games or he's going to become a scout team player.
December 22nd, 2019 at 7:56 AM ^
His defense is the bigger issue.
December 22nd, 2019 at 12:05 PM ^
The question here is why did Simpson and Brooks play as minutes as they did??? There is no value to the team or the individuals for this being the case.
December 21st, 2019 at 2:57 PM ^
Any info on why Johns wasn’t dressed?
December 21st, 2019 at 3:00 PM ^
^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^
i was hoping to see Brandon Johns get some big minutes in this game. Why didn’t he play?
December 21st, 2019 at 3:04 PM ^
He was sick. It was announced yesterday he wouldn't play. Juwon said he would be back in action after break.
December 21st, 2019 at 3:11 PM ^
Thanks. That’s good news!
December 21st, 2019 at 5:53 PM ^
Rule 1 on posting: Don't post if you haven't read the article. The article may answer your question.
December 22nd, 2019 at 12:37 AM ^
Rule 2 on posting: don't assume the author didn't make an edit after the initial comment was made. (Sorry, should've noted that, had a couple quick edits to this one because the Johns "update" broke right after I posted.)
December 21st, 2019 at 3:15 PM ^
If there was ever a time so have Nunez get more minutes, was this game, and he only got five.. I don't understand this... if he is in the group to first come off the bench, then why did he only get five minutes vs the others? We will need his shooting later and need him to get comfortable.
***EDIT*** I misread it, and he actually got 13 minutes and fouled out.... I DVRed it and fast forwarded it alot and didn't realize it....my bad. ******
I found myself watching Davis the entire time he was in, and I like the way he plays, and wish they played him over Castleton vs Cockburn and Illinois.... Davis is a big dude and can handle the stronger players, and want to see more minutes there.
December 21st, 2019 at 3:26 PM ^
Nunez got 13 minutes and fouled out...
December 22nd, 2019 at 11:50 AM ^
Yeah, aside from the fact he can't defend, he has all of 1 assist and still does not have a single rebound! That's in 97 minutes, so basically 3 games worth of minutes for a starter type player and those are primarily against the worst teams too. Plus he's shooting 27% from 3. Really don't see how you can play him once the B1G starts again, barring injury. Bajema has to get those spot minutes.
December 21st, 2019 at 6:16 PM ^
In reply to ^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^ i was…by James Burrill Angell
December 21st, 2019 at 5:53 PM ^
Rule 1 on posting: Don't post if you haven't read the article. The article may answer your question.
Joined: 09/28/2013
MGoPoints: 4560
1
December 21st, 2019 at 3:19 PM ^
Had a rebounding Rutger (more rebounds than opponent points) going prior to that last bucket from PC.
Bajema looked a lot more confident than Nunez out there. Gotta think he earned some minutes vs. UM-Lowell, possibly an extended look if Livers is out.
December 21st, 2019 at 6:20 PM ^
Bajama is a player. He just needs some time to adjust to D1 ball. He may or may not get there this year, but I think he is going to be huge for us next year.
December 21st, 2019 at 3:59 PM ^
My niece is visiting and I told her that during many Michigan games I get very vocal, but the only loud sound I would emit during this game would be a howl if a Michigan player got injured. Not even five minutes in and she heard the howl. I hope Livers is okay.
December 21st, 2019 at 5:05 PM ^
Nunez has at least the potential to be some instant offense off the bench (though he hasn't shown it so far), but his defense is truly brutal.
December 21st, 2019 at 5:53 PM ^
How do you foul out in 13 minutes vs. The Blue Hose?
December 22nd, 2019 at 7:58 AM ^
Watch the replay of the game.
December 22nd, 2019 at 2:37 PM ^
Or you could have replied "It was a real reach!"
December 21st, 2019 at 6:12 PM ^
We used to complain about these types of games for being a self-imposed RPI anchor. I know they have replaced RPI with something slightly less bad, but is this kind of thing still hurt us on whatever the new metric in a way that playing Dartmouth or Bowling Green or some other 99% win probability team that's 150 spots higher in the rankings would not be?
December 21st, 2019 at 7:26 PM ^
Considering we just got done playing some 8 in a row against Kenpom top 50 teams, I'm cool with this little "break".
December 21st, 2019 at 9:23 PM ^
Not nearly as much, no, because they won by 40+. RPI was 2/3 schedule strength and ignored scores entirely. The new NET rankings are modeled after KenPom — and Michigan actually advanced in KenPom’s rankings after today’s game.
December 22nd, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
Congrats to Eli Brooks for winning the televised shoot around.
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