Bracket Watch: Getting Late Early

Regarding NCAA hopes, Michigan is backed into a corner. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

After taking only one of three winnable games to start Big Ten play, Michigan has put themselves squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble, and it will be difficult to recover from many more slip-ups.

Michigan is one of the last four at-large teams to make the field in the Bracket Matrix, which is updated as of last night. Of the 28 brackets that were updated yesterday, the Wolverines make only 11. As SI's Michael Beller points out in his first edition of Bubble Watch, they've left themselves with little room for error:

Michigan (11–5, 1–2) is in a similar spot [as Northwestern], without the pent-up frustration of never having made the tournament. The Wolverines did their best work to date out of conference, knocking off SMU and Marquette. But they’ve already lost to Iowa and Maryland in league play and are just 2–4 against likely or potential at-large teams. Michigan is not going to be the brand of team that can afford too many losses to teams without at-large hopes, which may end up describing both of their opponents this week, Illinois (11–5, 1–2) and Nebraska (9–7, 3–1). 

That home game against Nebraska is as close to a must-win as you'll get at this point in the year. In addition to tomorrow night's game in Champaign, Michigan gets Illinois at Crisler next Saturday, and a sweep of the Illini would be of significant help; they're the last at-large team in the field on the Bracket Matrix.

Michigan needs to turn it around now because their conference schedule is brutally backloaded. They're favored on KenPom in five of their next eight games and underdogs in five of their last seven; incidentally, five of the next eight are at home and five of the last seven are on the road. Because of the number of coin-flip (or close) games, KenPom currently projects Michigan to finish 9-9 in conference, which would likely put them right on the bubble with a little work to do in the conference tournament. As esteemed Maize Rager and numbers-cruncher Crisler Spidey points out, however, 8-10 is currently more likely than 10-8:

Yikes. 9-9 is now the median at 21%, and 8-10 is more likely than 10-8. Remember what I just said about exceeding expectations? That's because these are the current expectations. The Wolverines have a huge week coming up with a road game against fellow "First Four Out" team Illinois, followed by a home game against conference wild card Nebraska. I really think they need to win both to stay alive. Kenpom claims they have a 38.2% chance of winning both. There have certainly been flashes of greatness from this Michigan team, but they have yet to piece it all together for 40 minutes since the 2k Classic. Now would be an excellent time for the proverbial light to go on.

Yikes, indeed.

[Hit THE JUMP for some less depressing stuff, I promise.]

"You'll Be Escorted to the Compliance Office"

Michigan had an open scholarship slot to utilize this season. John Beilein found a use for it, though the way he awarded it was downright evil:

Today's meeting was full of suspense , surprise & happiness ... especially for @daycheck3

See what @JohnBeilein had up his sleeve: pic.twitter.com/bKSJAlzFG3

— Michigan Basketball (@umichbball) January 10, 2017

I'm sure Andrew Dakich will be deeply grateful as soon as his heart rate drops below 200 again, which should be sometime around June.

Pic 1 Dak thinking he's going to jail Pic 2 Dak realizing he's not going to jail.
Pic 3 Dak celebrating he's not going to jail! LOL pic.twitter.com/Q4W1ecIMRc

— Jon Sanderson (@CampSanderson) January 10, 2017

Evil John Beilein is great. Congrats to Dakich, who put off redshirting in preparation for a transfer to somewhere he'd see the floor twice in two years to benefit the team when injury struck at point guard.

Signs of Life From X

After being near-invisible in his time on the court in non-conference play, Xavier Simpson has been more assertive over the last few games, a welcome development—if not for this year, than at the very least the next, when Simpson is expected to take over for Derrick Walton as the starting point guard.

While Simpson still isn't taking many shots, he did something seemingly no other Michigan player was willing to do on his lone two-point attempt in Big Ten play: get into the paint and shoot over imposing PSU shot-blocker Mike Watkins. Simpson's floater was an unexpected reminder that he was capable of scoring 65 points in a game in high school, and that's precisely the shot he'll need to have in his arsenal to overcome his small stature at this level.

Simpson is also improving as a passer. He has five assists against one turnover in his three Big Ten games after posting 16 assists and 11 turnovers in non-conference play. His growing comfort and confidence showed against Penn State. Shortly after the floater, he picked apart a PSU zone look with a textbook play, getting into the middle of the zone and fooling the defense into thinking he'd kick it out to Walton before zipping a no-look pass to DJ Wilson for two of the easiest points Michigan has come across all season:

He's also been a pest on defense. He plays at full tilt on that end, which puts him in rather stark contrast to much of this team. He looks like he could be Michigan's best on-ball perimeter defender by the end of this season and he already has the best steal rate (in an admittedly small sample) of anyone on the team by a healthy margin.

Avert Your Eyes, It's Three-Point Defense

Good (left) and, uh, not-so-good (right). [Campredon]

Michigan's opponents are making 41.4% of their three-pointers, the seventh-highest mark in the country, and that figure has risen in Big Ten play to an astonishing 54.7%.

While that number will inevitably fall—you have to go back to 2006-07 (Utah, 46.5%) to find a season-long mark worse than 43.1%—it doesn't mean it's entirely a fluke. Dylan did the dirty work for me and put together screenshots of each of Maryland's 11 three-point attempts at the point of release. It's not pretty:

It's not any one player or one problem, either. A couple of Maryland's three-pointers were pull-ups when Michigan guards gave them a little too much space; a couple were the product of miscommunication; a couple came when defenders didn't fight their way through screens. In large part because of M's issues contesting perimeter shots, the defense now has the worst adjusted efficiency of any Beilein team dating back to 2002.

Billy Donlon still has his work cut out for him.