DJ Versatile, Part One

Illinois couldn't keep DJ Wilson off the glass. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

In Michigan's seven conference games, DJ Wilson is second on the team in scoring, first in rebounding, third in assists, and first in blocks. The efficiency numbers look even better than the counting stats: Wilson leads the Big Ten in O-Rating, ranks third in 2P%, 3P%, and eFG%, has the second-lowest turnover rate, and is top-25 in offensive rebound and block rates. Over the course of the season, he's gone from being most notable for his short shorts to being the most important—and perhaps outright best—player on the Wolverines.

Wilson bounced back from a scoreless foul-out against Wisconsin with a complete, dominant outing against Illinois: 19 points (6/8 2P, 1/2 3P, 4/6 FT), six rebounds (five offensive), five assists, no turnovers, a block, and two fouls in 39 minutes. Illini coach John Groce was duly impressed:

“I thought they beat us up on the glass, and obviously DJ Wilson spearheaded that. I thought he was absolutely terrific today. To be honest with you, he was pretty good in game one, too, when you look at his stat line. Today, he hurt us on the glass. Assuming that none of his five assists contributed to threes, he basically produced 29 points minimum for their team with his assists and his scoring.* That’s right at probably half of their production. That’s his energy level on the backboard, his willingness to make the extra pass, make his team better. I just thought he was absolutely terrific in the game. Thought he was a real, real difference.”

Let's start with Wilson's work on the boards. He grabbed six offensive rebounds for the second time this season (Iowa); excluding those two games, however, he hadn't surpassed two since the second game of the season. After the game, John Beilein mentioned he's been hammering home a specific coaching point with Wilson:

He can really shoot, but he’s got to understand, if we’re going to win, if he wants to play at another level, he’s got to mix it up inside. And he’s very receptive to that coaching, but the habit is to drift out. And getting in there, that’s where he gets stuff.

Wilson played with more aggression against Illinois and reaped the rewards. Incidentally, the threat of his outside shot is part of what makes him such a dangerous offensive rebounder. Take his first-half tip-slam, for example. Wilson is parked in the near-side corner while Zak Irvin and Moe Wagner run a high pick-and-roll. With Irvin a legitimate threat to drive and Wilson a legitimate threat on a catch-and-shoot, Wilson's defender, Leron Black—who's Illinois' best rebounder—ends up stuck in no-man's land. Black keeps his eyes on Irvin while shuffling back towards Wilson, except Wilson recognizes the opportunity and sneaks down the baseline:

That wasn't the only time Illinois had trouble picking up Wilson when he crashed from the perimeter:

If you feel like you've seen this before, Glenn Robinson III's putbacks came in similar fashion. Wilson is much bigger; he's also a better outside shooter. After this performance, he should be the second man hitting the boards much more often.

*Two of Wilson's assists did, in fact, contribute to three-pointers, so you can increment that up to 31 points produced.

[Hit THE JUMP for more DJ, a surprising Zak Irvin stat, and more.]

DJ Versatile, Part Two

Hello:

That is a play that elicits lofty comparisons. Brian, in this week's podcast, let "MJ" slip, and I instantly knew the play in question; MLive's Brendan Quinn likened it to a Dr. J move when we both guested on Mike Spath's WTKA show Tuesday morning. That's not to say Wilson is either of those basketball gods, of course. I'm still quite interested in seeing him work off the dribble more.

DJ Versatile, Part Three

Wilson can up his assist total with more drive-and-kicks. [Campredon]

More Beilein on Wilson:

And to have a kid like that, look at his assist-to-turnover ratio right now as a stretch ‘4’, it’s a really high number for him, so we can do more things through him, play him at both sides of the court, do a lot of things in the future.

Wilson admitted after the game that he was a little fortunate to get five assists; a couple came on dribble handoffs, another on a swing-around-the-arc pass to Walton that I'd file under generous home-court statkeeping. His other two, however, were worth a closer look.

The first shows one of the benefits of having five outside shooting threats on the floor. Michigan essentially goes five out—Wagner is a step inside the arc, in position to set a high screen—and when MAAR slips his man, there's nobody in the paint to prevent a layup:

There's nothing Illinois can do about that play once MAAR's defender is beaten; Walton's man could slide down from the corner to help but then he's giving up a wide open corner three to a deadeye shooter—he's better off conceding the layup and not risking an and-one.

The other assist of note came when Michigan utilized Wilson as a zone-beater. The Wolverines have had trouble cracking zone defenses at times this season, but when Illinois played a 2-3 zone, Wilson did a textbook job of breaking it down. He found the soft spot in the middle, made himself an easy target, and knew exactly where to look—and how quickly to act—when the defense collapsed on him:

Wilson, at his best, is even more of a matchup problem than Wagner. He's showing his best more often these days; I expect to see a lot more of it going forward.

Stat of the Week: Irvin at the Rim

I was looking over Michigan's hoop-math page and damn near keeled over when I noticed this: Zak Irvin has made 39 of his 45 attempts at the rim this season; only nine of those were assisted; only nine (out of 11 attempts) have come in transition. Yes, Zak Irvin—that Zak Irvin—is consistently finishing at the rim in halfcourt sets.

No Michigan non-center has broken 80% at the rim over a full season since GRIII hit 83.3% in 2013-14, and 60.0% of GRIII's makes at the rim that season were assisted. Caris LeVert is the only recent Wolverine to approach that level of efficiency while creating so many of his at-the-rim shots on his own. To say the least, this is a significant development from where Irvin began his career, and even compared to last season:

Irvin's recent three-point struggles have masked some real improvement in his game. At this point, the offense goes through him more than it does Walton. Here's a two-game sample of what he's been able to create in the last two games:

There are some ugly turnovers in there, sure, but those are more excusable when Irvin is taking on so much of the shot creation and late-clock offense. The turnover complaints ring a bit hollow when they regard the highest-usage player on one of the most turnover-averse teams in the country. He's not an above-the-rim player—I don't recall the last time he dunked in a halfcourt set—but he's learned how to use his strength to clear space at the rim, and that pet midrange pull-up of his has become a reliable-enough weapon that opponents are having a tough time preventing it without giving up a lane to the hoop.

A Very Particular Set of Skills

Gunning; lurking. [Campredon]

While Derrick Walton is still shooting a hair below 40% inside the arc, he's playing the most efficient basketball of his career by focusing on his strengths. Walton has more free-throw attempts (68) than two-point attempts (63) this season. His ability to draw contact and his superlative shooting from the charity stripe make up for his iffy finishing at the basket.

With Irvin (and Wagner/Wilson) shouldering a greater shot-creation load, Walton has been able to focus on what he does best: spotting up and firing away. Per UMHoops, he's been the best catch-and-shoot player in the conference with at least 70 attempts:

On the other end of the floor, Walton is proving that his surprisingly high defensive rebounding numbers from the last two years were no fluke. He pulled down 11 boards against Illinois and provided a moment of levity postgame when asked how he was able to grab that many:

“Credit to Coach Sanderson. I think I’ve got a nice little vertical.”

Walton's deadpan game is top-notch. After finishing 14th in the Big Ten in defensive rebound rate last year, he's 12th this season at an even 20.0%. He's not a traditional point guard. With other players helping to fill that role, however, he's found other ways to make a big contribution to the team.

#FreeTeske Update

In the wild. [Campredon]

The blown boxouts against Wisconsin weren't enough to drop Mark Donnal behind Jon Teske; Donnal was the first Wolverine off the bench against Illinois, coming in when Wagner picked up an early foul at the 16:50 mark. Once again, however, he failed to have a positive impact. Donnal's lone shot attempt was the layup provided to him by Wilson. He picked up four fouls in nine minutes. Illini backup big man Mike Thorne went 2-for-2 from the floor with Donnal in the game and 1-for-4 otherwise; one of those makes was a brutal and-one:

I kinda feel bad posting that, to be honest, but it's such a bad play for a senior to make. Donnal bites on the pump fake, commits an obvious foul, and instead of ensuring that Thorne can't get a clean shot off he does everything in his power to avoid contact even though he's already been whistled for the foul. I mean...

...I've never seen anything quite like that. That play was especially galling given what Beilein told the team in his pregame pep talk. I transcribed this from the latest Inside Michigan Basketball episode—it's the opening segment and worth a watch if you've got the time:

“You’ve got to play physically without careless fouling. It’s okay to foul if it’s something that’s not careless. Putting your hand on their back when you’re fronting them is stupid. Reaching in away from the ball when you don’t have a chance at getting it is careless. That’s what I’m talking about. But we’ve got to have boxouts—I don’t care about a boxout foul, if it’s like this [shoving motion] that’s careless, if you knock them down [aggressive boxout motion] that’s a good foul. We’ve got to get that done. We’ve got to be physical without the stupid fouls.”

Beilein practically screamed the "it's okay to foul" bit. Donnal's play was worst-case: he committed an unnecessary foul and compounded the error by not playing physical enough to prevent a made basket anyway. Given the boxout example was almost assuredly a result of Donnal's errors against Wisconsin, one has to wonder how much patience Beilein has left for his backup big man.

Donnal's foul trouble allowed Teske to see the floor for a one-minute cameo. In that one minute, he forced a turnover on Malcolm Hill by being large and in the right place:

Teske still looks a little lost on the offensive end, but with Donnal not providing much on that end of the floor either, it's becoming difficult to justify the current pecking order.

That doesn't mean Beilein hasn't made an adjustment, however: after hanging right around the 50% mark in non-conference play, Wagner is logging 71% of the available minutes against Big Ten teams. He's managed to stay out of serious foul trouble save for the game at Wisconsin—which comes with a "Kohl Center whistle" caveat—and if that continues, he should keep getting the lion's share of the minutes. The question, at this point, is who should spot Wagner when he needs the occasional breather; I think I've pummeled this deceased horse enough for you to know my preference.

Bracket Update: Bouncing Back

As of last night, Michigan was among the first four teams out of the field on the Bracket Matrix, and they've improved their standing from last week. After appearing on only 20 of the 76 brackets in last week's update, the Wolverines were included in 32 as of yesterday evening, including 9/18 that were updated yesterday.

Last night's action—namely, Michigan State losing at home to Purdue and Marquette knocking off #1 Villanova—will help Michigan move up further. CBS's Jerry Palm put Michigan as a nine-seed in today's bracketology update and didn't include MSU, which is currently a nine-seed on the Bracket Matrix. A win against Indiana on Thursday should get M back in most of the projected fields.

Audio #Content

As mentioned above, I joined Mike Spath's Inside The Huddle show on WTKA yesterday for the media roundtable along with MLive's Brendan Quinn. Mike and I talked football for the first segment while awaiting Quinn's arrival; you can hear our thoughts on which players from each side of the ball will be toughest to replace here. That discussion leaks into the second segment, then hoops talk starts at the 3:55 mark; we discuss the recent defensive surge, Beilein's unusual handling of the freshmen in body-bag games, the high workload for the starters, DJ Wilson as the team's best player, and the path to a tourney bid: