Hoops Preview: Minnesota 2020-21, Part Two
THE ESSENTIALS
WHAT | #4 Michigan (11-0, 6-0 B1G) vs #34 Minnesota (10-4, 3-4) |
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WHERE | Williams Arena Minneapolis, MN |
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WHEN | 2 PM Eastern Saturday, Jan. 16th |
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THE LINE | Kenpom: M -4 Torvik: M –4.8 |
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TELEVISION | ESPN2 PBP: Jason Benetti Analyst: Dan Dakich |
THE OVERVIEW
Various challenges keep appearing to be dispatched. This one is Michigan's first return game of the season, a matchup against a Minnesota team that suffered a 39-8 run coming out of halftime in the first outing. Michigan gave up 0.74 points per possession until the Kenpom Kids hit the floor; no Gopher starter cracked a 100 ORTG; Hunter Dickinson went 12/15 from the floor.
As a result anything other than a similarly dominant win won't feel particularly good even though Michigan is switching home for road. The passionless computers at Analytics Are Ruining The Game Inc think it'll be close, though, and this will be a test to see if Michigan has some flaws to get after once a team licks its wounds.
THE US
Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:
We added badges to Dickinson and Livers; Austin Davis is no longer an injury question mark.
THE LINEUP CARD
Seth's graphic [click for big]:
We have bowed to reality and given Gabe Kalscheur his brick, giving Minnesota an unprecedented 4 in their rotation. We've also removed Carr's crown as a potential AA or Kenpom POY top-ten sort. He's shooting 33/35 in Big Ten play and has dropped off the KPOY list. He still gets his star.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
THE THEM
previous outing was a dispiriting one for Minnesota [Campredon]
Michigan played the Gophers nine days ago so we'll reference that preview for personnel items. Updates:
- Liam Robbins got clobbered by Hunter Dickinson (28 points on 12/15 shooting) and Luka Garza (33 on 12/18 from two and 1/2 from three). Robbins was largely a non-factor on offense, scoring 5 and 10 (on 13 shot equivalents) in these games. He seems to be a guy who is excellent at defending and scoring against MVC-sized front lines—of which there are more than a few in the Big Ten—but top end bigs have stuffed him in a trash can.
- Marcus Carr also scuffled badly in both games after preview #1. He went 5/15 from two and 5/18 from three across the two games, and only got to the line once. He's also got 6 assists vs four TOs. Very tough for Minnesota to win if that continues.
- Gabe Kalscheur's nightmare shooting year continues. He is now down to 23% on the year after going 2/11 in the last two.
- Jamal Mashburn Jr is now in the running for Disaster Factory POY. He's shooting 35/19 in Big Ten play with qualifying (22%) usage. And many of his shots are the hilarious no-hopers critical to this award's style component.
- On the other hand, Both Gach wore one purple shoe and one pink/yellow shoe against Iowa. There are limited situations where I'm on Stephen Bardo's side of the Old Man Divide. This is one of them.
Some of these offensive numbers against Iowa seem incredibly grim but it should be noted that the Iowa D is on a bit of an upswing. They've moved up to 71st nationally from ~100th and are 7th—top half!—in conference play.
THE TEMPO-FREE
Conference numbers are out of 14. Left is offense, right is defense.
Ah, yup, there's your problem. The Gophers have the worst 2P% offense in the league; they have the worst 3P% offense in the league. They're shooting more threes than anyone else in conference play and are making a hair under 30% of them. Everything else is good or better. They just can't shoot.
On defense they have a major shot volume problem with a league-worst DREB rate and very few turnovers generated. They do a good job of running opponents off the line, FWIW.
THE KEYS
Carr ballscreen defense. Michigan had a brief issue in the first game and fixed it with unpredictable, intermittent hedging from a foul-free Hunter Dickinson in the second half. Minnesota will be more prepared for that and if Dickinson picks up a couple early fouls, hedging is going to be very intermittent or off the table.
Carr's struggles inside the line the last two games have officially elevated his two-point shooting to a Problem, and not a good one from Minnesota's perspective. He's at 33% from two in league play. Michigan can probably start by having Brooks chase over ball screens and adjust from there if that's not enough. Minnesota was clever during that first-half push by screening way out; presumably Michigan can adjust to that.
did this go in? once if it wasn't against Iowa [Campredon]
Can anyone on Minnesota hit a shot? Usually these bullets are about things in Michigan's (at least hypothetical) control but the Festival of Bricks above calls for an exception. The Gophers' supporting cast is absolutely killing them. B10 3P% from guys other than the two high-usage stars: Kalscheur 25%, Gach 27%, Mashburn 19%, Ihnen 6%. The lone exception with more than a handful of attempts is Brandon Johnson (43%), but he hit 8/9 against Iowa and is 1/12 otherwise. Unsurprisingly, Minnesota's best performance of the year was in the game Johnson hit 8/9. That's a Basketball Trend™ right there.
These attempts are mostly good looks as defenses focus a lot of energy on Carr and Robbins. They just do not go down. The Gophers cannot keep pace with the elite teams in the league with two guys who are good but not superstars unless they get reasonably efficient secondary scoring.
The prognosis here is not good. Only Kalscheur has much of a track record as a shooter, and he's now 75 threes deep in what looks like a Sophomore Tim Hardaway Jr season where he inexplicably can't hit anything. But unless someone or a couple someones gets off the mat it's hard to see the Gophers in a game here.
"gaaaarblewhaaaarble" –Robbins, probably [Campredon]
Getting back that mojo. Dickinson had a relatively subdued game against the Badgers—12 points on 11 shot equivalents, 3 OREBs, 0A/0TO, 3 blocks—and now meets an opposing big who's probably spent the last few days in a Rocky montage punching various sandbags, sparring partners, and balloons with pictures of Dickinson's face taped on them.
Robbins may have done that prior to the Luka Garza matchup. It didn't matter because Luka Garza is inevitable. This is an opportunity to establish the inevitability of Hunter Dickinson.
Turnovers (or close enough). This year's Big Ten standings are a bit of a referendum on how heavily you should prioritize turnover generation on defense. The top five Ds in the league so far are all in the bottom half in TO generation; the top three (Michigan, Illinois, and OSU) are 10th or worse. Michigan's TO generation is not a problem.
But! Michigan has also had boosts in the last two games because they were able to force open-court TOs that they converted into fast-break buckets. Wagner had two and Smith one against Wisconsin; Livers had two and Brooks one against Minnesota. They've also converted various blocked shots into transition opportunities. The last two games they've turned over two teams that really take care of the ball more than you'd expect; they're out of the 300s on Torvik if you look at his schedule-adjusted Four Factors.
Keeping their TO rate in the range they have the last few games gets them that extra notch they might need to be considered on par with Baylor and Gonzaga.
On the other side of the ball, Michigan has the second best offense in the league and the second-worst TO rate. This is a much lower-hanging fruit for M since a lot of the turnovers are coming from Mike Smith, a guy who was in the Ivy League a year ago and could get the hang of things a bit better down the stretch.
Michigan has little to improve. Meaningful improvement on either end here would get them that much closer to elite.
THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES
Michigan by 4.
January 15th, 2021 at 11:57 AM ^
Am I missing something with the -4 line? We have been obliterating our opponents, including Minnesota. I realize we are on the road, but the story this year is how home court advantage is a much smaller factor without crowds. Something just seems off with this line.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:02 PM ^
It's for gambling purposes only. My only complaint is Dan Dakich is doing the game. That dude is insufferable.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:36 PM ^
I know lots of people don't like him but I like that he's mostly positive.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:56 PM ^
He tells it how it is. I dont know why he gets such a bad rap.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:12 PM ^
It depends on where you focus with Dakich.
The good: Great play analysis, explanations of sets, great game details
The bad: "TELL ME WE SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING COLLEGE BASKETBALL (as the kids play with zero/limited compensation or recourse, a couple of weeks after the Keyontae Johnson almost died of myocarditis.) Searching his own name on twitter, etc.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:44 PM ^
That a handful of athletes have developed health complications from Covid is unfortunate, and an argument in favor of letting them opt out if they don't feel safe. But it's not a great argument to shut the sport down altogether, not when the vast majority both 1) want to play and 2) haven't experienced complications.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:50 PM ^
Yep, my spouse was so infuriated by the “Tell me we shouldn’t be playing” comment that I had to turn off the game. I generally like Dakich, but I’m going to have to watch games on mute this season for household peace.
January 15th, 2021 at 7:01 PM ^
You are saying that you and your wife are angry that college kids were able to play basketball now?
They aren't being forced to play. They don't lose anything if they don't play. I have no doubt that I would play if I were in their situation. It's their choice. And if I were in their situation and you prevented me from playing, I'd be angry with you. If you and your wife are so outraged at the approved plan, why are you supporting it by watching?
January 15th, 2021 at 2:25 PM ^
i think he's a good analyst, but always with the shouting.
January 15th, 2021 at 3:59 PM ^
Poor man’s Dick Vitale
January 15th, 2021 at 1:34 PM ^
The KenPom line isn't for gambling. It's an actual prediction based on his data for the two teams.
Minnesota has looked like hot garbage on the road but is undefeated at home. I think we can cover but the Barn is not an easy venue.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:12 PM ^
Favored by 4 against a ranked Big 10 team on the road is actually pretty stellar
And home court advantage, curiously, still means a lot this year even without fans
This year, road teams are winning 37% of conference games. Last year they won 33.5% of conference games.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:41 PM ^
This is really interesting. This season is like a control to see what impact fans have on homecourt advantage. People who have studied this have suggested that it mostly comes down to officiating, which in turn seems to be influenced by the crowds. But this year raises new questions.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:47 PM ^
There's a logical case that familiarity with surroundings, both in-arena elements like the shooting background, locker room, etc., and the elements surrounding the game (uncertainties/boredom of travel, hotel accommodations, meals, etc) are a significant part of home court advantage. I guess those are the factors this "control season" highlights.
January 16th, 2021 at 12:02 PM ^
Travel.
That's like 85% of it. Traveling sucks. Probably even more so than now. The advantage of not having to travel 600 miles before a game is huge.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:13 PM ^
Any increase to 37% from 33.5% is actually statistically significant.
It would be interesting to see how the 37% figure compares to the previous five years.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:31 PM ^
if we're talking conference games, over the 40+ B1G games thus far the difference between 33% and 37% is about two games, well within the range of chance.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:54 PM ^
That’s not how statistical significance works. We need to know home/road splits year after year. If 33% is very consistent then 37 is not within the range of chance. If the last five years were 29, 33, 37, 31, 35 (mean = 33, std = 3.2) then yes, 37 (just outside one sigma) would be in line with what is typical.
January 15th, 2021 at 3:34 PM ^
maybe you can tell me how "small sample size" works, then.
never mind. it really doesn't matter.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:19 PM ^
IIRC Minnesota has been quite good at home. Don't know if that factors in
January 15th, 2021 at 12:26 PM ^
Minnesota is undefeated at home (10-0), with wins over OSU, MSU, and Iowa
Being favored at all is a big show of respect
January 15th, 2021 at 12:28 PM ^
KenPom and Torvik lines aren't Vegas/betting lines as much as lines created purely by the analytics numbers for expected outcome. KenPom doesn't care if people bet either way; it's a way to project an outcome based on advanced metrics alone.
I assume that the KenPom and Torvik lines are created by subtracting defensive efficiency from offensive efficiency of one team and then the inverse and finding the difference between them, then somehow accounting for expected pace/number of possessions per game. The efficiency differences alone are 3.9 in favor of Michigan for both which is darn close to the -4 and -4.8 posted.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:32 PM ^
Home court has played HUGE with Minnesota this year.
At home: 10-0 average points: 86 - 71
Away: 0-4 average points: 63-83
They took down Iowa at home and then got blown out by Iowa on the road. I would not overlook Minnesota at home, regardless of how the outcome was against us in AA.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:59 PM ^
As I recall though Minnesota has one of the largest home/road discrepancies in the league.
edit-should have read the comment above before responding.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:34 PM ^
I won't rehash Minny's home record. What I will point out is that Robbins did poorly on the road. In conference play only, Robbins is averaging 9 pts/5 rebounds on the road and 21 pts/9 rebounds at home.
Of course, he's been pretty inconsistent against non-con opponents, all at home, averaging only 12 pts and 7 boards per game.
We'll see, but I don't think he's a consistently strong threat. If he's teammates aren't helping, I think he has another quiet game. Given what we've seen from our D thus far, I think we have a good shot at beating the spread.
January 15th, 2021 at 11:58 AM ^
Elite - I like the sound of that.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:03 PM ^
If it's a 4 point win, does it count as an upset that UMinn stayed so close? I mean, they will have shot the lights out in that case, right?
January 15th, 2021 at 1:52 PM ^
Close only counts in horseshoes.
January 15th, 2021 at 3:54 PM ^
If it's a 4 point win, that means (1) we got a road win against a quality team and (2) hopefully we're about as good as Kenpom currently predicts. Which is the 4th best team in the country.
January 16th, 2021 at 10:45 AM ^
https://theblacksheeponline.com/minnesota/top-10-umn-themed-tattoos-get-inked
From the frontpage link; this was the #1:
January 15th, 2021 at 12:05 PM ^
A win is a win and I think they'll get it here.
To really start prepping them for March, I would like to see them face a little adversity and overcome (of the in-game, non-injury variety of course). This feels like a game in which a number of ridiculous shots fall for Minn and we struggle. An opponent is due.
And I think having it happen in a W, against a team like Minn, keeps them focused for the upcoming stretch.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:02 PM ^
Well, Minnesota is a much better team at home than away. Plus, they've seen us before this season. So, we could get a real test here.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:08 PM ^
No cyan border for Pitino?
January 15th, 2021 at 2:22 PM ^
I wouldn't say he's a bad coach. Just average. He's in his eighth year there and has recorded two NCAA tournament appearances and an NIT title, with a solid chance of making the tourney this season. That sounds about what you'd expect for Minnesota.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:35 PM ^
He's better than Michigan's first two coaches of this century, which is a good thing for Minnesota. That NIT title was their first since the academic scandal in the 90's. So he's their Lloyd Carr.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:43 PM ^
it's funny, when i read that, i thought, no...i'm sure clem haskins or tubby had some better stretches than that. but nope, they didn't. minnesota has never, not once in its history, made three straight ncaa tournaments, and only gone back-to-back three separate times. weird.
and the thing is, they've had some great players - kevin mchale (kevin mchale!) never played in a single ncaa tournament game. neither did mychal thompson. the 1979-80 team had mchale AND trent tucker, plus two other future nba players (randy breuer, who was a zero, and ben coleman, who was a sometime starter for several years) and missed the tournament entirely.
January 15th, 2021 at 3:34 PM ^
Yeah, I was under the impression for awhile that they were clearly underachieving lately, but looking at their program history set me straight about that. John Beilein went to more Sweet 16s at Michigan (five) than Minnesota has all-time. Yikes.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:18 PM ^
What if, we're in the middle of a "Brady Hoke poops gold," season? Only it's not our team that's pooping gold, it's the opponents of our competitors for the league title (and MSU.) Consider these circumstances:
- Boo Buie drops 30 on MSU. He follows that up by scoring 11, 14, 2, 0, 0, and 5 in his next 6 games. (All but one of those games he played at least 25 minutes.)
- Maryland goes on the road and beats Wisconsin and Illinois. They are 0-5 in their other Big 10 games.
- As mentioned in this post, Brandon Johnson goes 8/9 from 3 against Iowa and is 1/12 otherwise.
- MSU is all set to defeat Purdue until the inbounds pass is last touched by a sparty, Izzo explicably* defends Trevion with a small forward masquerading as a center, allowing him an easy basket for the lead.
- Rutgers scoring 54 points in A HALF to hang 91 on Illinois and beat them 91-88. I've seen Rutgers play. They surprise me when they score 54 points in a game.
*Izzo does so many inexplicable things that they have become commonplace, explicable merely by the fact that it is Izzo demonstrating he can't quite grasp the finer points of the game, like playing your best players.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:25 PM ^
2 of Izzo's "best players" couldn't play for any other B1G. Thomas Kithier and Foster Loyer are horrible.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:19 PM ^
Extra Bad take. Everything you mention happens in some way in every single Big Ten basketball season. Players have out of nowhere big games, teams blow big leads, other teams are up and down, last-second comebacks, etc, etc, etc.
January 15th, 2021 at 2:27 PM ^
His point is those big games are happening against our competition for the B1G title, and against MSU.
January 15th, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
I'm not so much worried about a Brady Hoke Poops Gold season. If there's anything that gives me some pause, it's that it could be like Harbaugh's 2016 season. I'm not predicting Coach Howard can't maintain his success from this year, to be clear, but it was hard to look at 2016 and see that the next few years would be downhill.
Brady Hoke pooping gold was, if I remember correctly, coined during the season and not in retrospect. It wasn't just the results around us: Michigan was undeniably extraordinarily lucky: the first several games included the highest fumble recovery rate in the country, which Brian pointed out was almost entirely luck. We had things like trying to call a time out and failing, which resulted in Michigan scoring a touchdown against ND. And the season was capped off by the long snapper catching the ball to convert a disastrous fake field goal. All while trying to fit extremely talented players into a system that didn't fit that well. There was definitely the feeling, even at the time, that luck had a lot to do with our success. A lot of it continued throughout the season and felt like maybe Hoke would keep getting lucky, but it wasn't hard to predict the luck running out.
Harbaugh's second season, to me, felt at the time more like this season feels now. An extremely talented team, playing well, being coached well, under a coach that we believe is extremely talented. And my worry is not so much that this season would end in a similar way--I think if you could play 2016 over again and again and I think Michigan would make the playoffs a decent percentage of the time. My worry is that Harbaugh's success, which seemed so evident in 2016, fell off slowly but surely in the following years, with a distinct sheen wearing off the head coach.
Again, I think that's probably not what this season will look like in retrospect, I see no reason to predict Juwan Howard's coaching or future seasons to drop off. But Harbaugh in 2016 is the comparison that gives me pause, because the unsuccessful future was hard to see at that time. More likely, I think it's akin to Beilein's 2012-13 season, where success is clear and continues in the following seasons.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:27 PM ^
Edit: accidentally replied top-level instead of to a specific comment.
January 15th, 2021 at 12:39 PM ^
For Minny to win this someone is going to have to hit 7 3s for them. That is why I think Iowa is going to be our biggest challenge. Sometimes you just cant beat crazy hot 3 point shooting.
January 15th, 2021 at 9:49 PM ^
Says almost every UM opponents so for this season...
January 15th, 2021 at 12:42 PM ^
Nervous about the 2-point predication against Wisconsin, I appreciated that the team won by a little more than that.
A 4-point prediction also could affect my state of mind, so I'd appreciate a similar performance in this game. (Like either the Minnesota game or the Wisconsin game would be fine: it's the team's choice.)
January 15th, 2021 at 12:55 PM ^
It feels like a hockey series how close these games are together.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:22 PM ^
Especially when there are still numerous other teams we haven’t faced at all.
January 15th, 2021 at 1:14 PM ^
This is one of those away games I'm really happy that there will be no fans. In a normal year, you could already sense a classic ref show/home cooking extravaganza.
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