Once again, we're here. [Bryan Fuller/MGoBlog]

Michigan beat Delaware State 80-33 on Saturday, and while the game itself didn't contain much of note, the shuffling of M's lineup due both to injury and personnel issues continued. There's enough of interest for a basketbullets post, starting with...

Mea culpa. So, yeah, I mailed in the game recap. My general stance on these games is to take them about as seriously as one should when the foe is a team that barely looks like they're playing the same sport, but despite the upcoming schedule—Northern Kentucky, Youngstown State, Bryant—I'll be shelving the bad poetry recaps. In my defense, Delaware State was so, so bad; they had as many turnovers (17) as combined made FGs and FTs.

Robinson replaces Dawkins. John Beilein made a move in the starting lineup that wasn't dictated by injury, replacing Aubrey Dawkins with Duncan Robinson. Beilein discussed the move in the postgame presser:

“We feel right now our flow defensively and offensively is better as a starter for Duncan. Get him in there and let him go and get more scorers out there. He and Aubrey do a lot of things very similar, there’s just a different flow right now with him. I think it make other guys better, and as we work at some of the things Aubrey’s working at, we can shore some of his weaknesses up, which I think we some of it today.

The justification is simple. While Dawkins has been a solid offensive player this year, he doesn't add as much on that end as Robinson—they're both mostly spot-up gunners and Robinson is outshooting Dawkins 60% to 39% on threes with a higher volume of attempts while dishing out more assists and turning the ball over less. Both have some degree of disastrous on defense all season, and with that continuing to be the case, Michigan might as well have Robinson out there as much as they can.

That said, when Michigan hits the meatier portion of the schedule, I wouldn't mind seeing Robinson move back to a sixth man role if Dawkins can be something other than awful on defense; bringing Robinson off the bench often allows him more time against an inferior matchup (the opponent's bench wing) when he's on the court.

The point guard situation. With Derrick Walton temporarily sidelined—he'll play tomorrow barring a setback—and Spike Albrecht permanently so, Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman got the start and Andrew Dakich burned a planned redshirt (again) to provide backup minutes. With Walton returning, Dakich shouldn't be much of a factor going forward—he had four points, three assists, and two turnovers in 20 minutes—but Rahk's contributions are worth a closer look.

Rahk still isn't a point guard. He has seven assists and six turnovers in 195 minutes this year; his 6.8% assist rate is below every Michigan regular's mark aside from Dawkins and the three centers. He's mostly a drive-and-dish guy without much dish at the moment, but he's showed some signs he could be more on Saturday; after opening the season 3/13 from three, he buried 3/4 attempts against Delaware State. Granted, those shots were great looks, but Rahk looked more confident in his stroke than he has in the past. It'd be critical to M's spacing for him to be more of a three-point threat.

Irvin rounding into form... except in one critical area. Largely unnoticed during the tumultuous start to the season has been Zak Irvin's continued improvement in the Not Just A Shooter™ aspects of his game. He's making 57% of his shots inside the arc and has 31 assists against nine turnovers; he's become a legitimate drive-and-dish guy.

Unfortunately, Irvin's shot appears broken; after going 0/3 from deep on Saturday, he's now 7/38 on the season. Needless to say, he has to figure out what's wrong and correct it if Michigan wants to bounce back from their recent ugly stretch and push for a tournament spot.

Speaking of that recent stretch, it's a little early to write Michigan off considering how well their recent competition has done:

Noteworthy in this week's AP poll ... 1. Michigan St, 6. Maryland, 10. Xavier, 18. SMU, 25. UConn. All 3 of Michigan's losses are ranked.

— Brendan F. Quinn (@BFQuinn) December 14, 2015

It's a similar story on KenPom: Xavier is 9th, SMU is 20th, and UConn is 26th. Michigan doesn't have a true signature win—Texas is 43rd on KP—but unless the very unexpected happens over the course of the next three games, they'll get through non-conference play without anything approaching a bad loss, which is a lot more than most of the Big Ten can say.