11/15/2014 – Michigan 92, Hillsdale 68, 1-0

AHHHHHHHHHHHH basketball exists [Dustin Johnston/UMHoops]

No drama just bullets:

Big three. Big three. Big three. Chances a basketball podcast uses "The Big Three Killed My Baby"—the White Stripes' screechy intro to the world off their self-titled debut—are 99.9%. Outside of the uber-recruit laden one-and-done factories There are few in the country who can match Michigan 1 to 3. The backcourt troika all went over 20 points efficiently, and there is more where that came from.

Yes, just a D-II team, but even so Walton/Irvin/LeVert all cracked 20 points on 13-ish shot equivalents. None of these guys got their points via volume. As a result, they picked up where they left off last year at 1.33 points per possession. Single-game ORTGs for the big three: 170, 166, and 144. That's nuts.

Usage was also in the same range it was last year: the six guys who cracked ten minutes all had their usage fall between 16 (Chatman) and 25 (Albrecht!) percent. Last year's Michigan team was efficient in part because no individual player had a particularly heavy load. Even without Stauskas they look ready to repeat that feat.

Individually:

• LeVert looks ready to take over the late-shot-clock mantle capably handled by Burke and Stauskas the last couple years. He's a long 6'7" with an excellent ability to get to his spot and get off a clean jumper, and that's a fine option when you have to get a shot off, any shot. Also he had nine assists. And eight rebounds.
• Walton, meanwhile, is also verging on being able to get what he wants when he wants it. He got the the line ten times, had four assist and just one TO. I don't want to talk about a Trey leap yet… but hey man Beilein point guards have gotten really really good in year two. Hell, you could even throw Stauskas in there if you want.
• Irvin didn't fill up the box score like he did against Wayne State; he did show off a couple of drives off of closeouts that were absent from his game last year. He was actually 5/6 from inside the line… which is about a month's worth of games from last year.

In re: Irvin twos: About half of those were THJ-style pull-up jumpers just inside the line. You know me and my hatred of long twos, but even I have to admit those looked like they might go down often enough to be a decent option.

[After THE JUMP: the five spot, defensive issues, calmer than you are.]

The five spot. I was surprised that Donnal got 26 minutes—thought they'd split it something like 16-16-8 between Donnal, Doyle, and Wilson. Instead Doyle got just 9 minutes. He was productive in those minutes with seven points, at least.

Donnal did flash some of that shooting ability he had in high school, hitting a pick and pop fifteen footer, and was a capable defender against a lower-level opponent. I still think that as Doyle gets more comfortable in the system they're going to want to use him more against big mean guys.

Here is a nice thing: Donnal and Doyle combined to go 6/7 from the line.

Defensive issues: youth. I'm not trying to pile on a guy in his first official game but to my eyes a lot—like a lot a lot—of Michigan's defensive problems fell in Kam Chatman's lap.

An early free dunk for Hillsdale (gif by Ace) was a good example of what went wrong: Chatman ended up switching onto a perimeter player, but nothing came of it. Hillsdale reset; Walton picked up the guard again and Chatman switched to his original man. Chatman didn't actually get between him and the basket, though, and he wasn't fronting either—not that you can do that 15 feet from the basket anyway. That was a gift.

That kind of awareness deficit was consistent throughout the night. Multiple easy buckets in the second half featured Chatman running after a cutter. This was in fact why Michigan played this team: they wanted to get their freshmen burned in a real game in front of people. Hillsdale is a D-II version of Wisconsin—everyone can shoot and they run the swing. They got burned in a 92-68 win and hopefully won't be similarly burned tonight—Bucknell is also a swing team—and will be better prepared to slay the Big Ten's dragon of the year when it's time to do that.

Anyway, back to Chatman: it didn't help that Hillsdale's best player was a skilled 4 who hit a Kobe-like 37% usage rate. When Chatman was in position to guard he did a very good job; it was off-ball stuff that was the main issue. Chatman's got great size and uses that size to be a pest—he had four steals—but he looked far less ready to execute his assignments than anyone else who got double-digit minutes. 

Wilson minutes were sparse [Bryan Fuller]

Given that, where's the alternative options? With Chatman scuffling on both ends—he finished 1 for 7—I was surprised that Michigan didn't take a look at DJ Wilson at the 4. Wilson got the last couple minutes there, but only nine overall; all of his time was at the 5. Aubrey Dawkins was a GRIII-ish undersized 4 when Chatman left during the first 35 minutes.

Rotation. Spike had 16 minutes, Dawkins and MAAR scrapped over 11, and Wilson and Doyle rotated in at the two frontcourt spots. That's going to be your pattern. In Brooklyn I wouldn't bet against a small lineup of Spike/Walton/LeVert/Irvin/Post down the stretch. What it gives up in size it makes up for with experience and ball security.

I think we're all pretty calm but let's get even calmer man. Last year's opener featured what was essentially a D-II team—UMass Lowell was in their first year of D-I. Michigan was tied with them at halftime.

Meanwhile, ten games deep into the season I remember muttering about how Michigan was going to have to get something, anything from the freshmen if they were going to survive in the Big Ten. Michigan's system is complicated and Beilein's getting publicly frustrated at how long it's taking; it'll be a slow burn for most of these guys. If history is any guide, a couple of them will emerge into solid bench guys midseason and one will come from nowhere to be a high level NBA prospect.

Hooray for the old charge rule. Early yet but those calls feel a lot more intuitive than they did a year ago. Were you square to the shooter? Did you get plowed in the chest? If so, charge.

I know we want to see more offense but futzing with the charge rule was not the way to go about doing that. Handchecking, bumping screens… that's the kind of stuff to focus on.