Basketbullets: Izzo Eats Liver, News At 11
3/2/2022 – Michigan 87, Michigan State 70 – 16-12, 10-8 Big Ten
Say what you want about Tom Izzo—please do so loudly and publicly—but you have to give him one thing: he offers satisfaction. You can beat guys like Chris Holtmann and Matt Painter and yeah it's nice to win a basketball game against a good team. They'll talk about what happened and it'll be nice. But at no point will you feel that cosmic justice has been done. You can woof at them and they'll say "he's a good player." They'll probably even mean it.
Not Tom Izzo.
https://t.co/19TJPrlt05 pic.twitter.com/nxsmy3siqq
— Patrick Barron (@BlueBarronPhoto) March 2, 2022
When Hunter Dickinson is dropping 33 and four blocks and woofing like he's going for 70, Tom Izzo will not sit on the sideline in stony silence and then graciously tip his hat in the post-game press conference.
Instead, he will wander onto the court to berate an official because the tall man is being mean. He won't get a technical for this, for reasons, but he will sputter and mewl and yell at his players for betraying him; only then will he descend into the stony silence. When it's clearly time to pout. He will give Dickinson the blow-by in the handshake line he just valorized in the aftermath of the Trohl Center incident. Then in the press conference he will say things like "give them credit, I guess."
Tom Izzo is a delight to beat, because he's a thin-skinned maniac. One time Izzo was getting hammered by Michigan and spent two full minutes of game time pointlessly fouling because he would not give up on the 0.01% chance Michigan would hurl all their free throws into the stands along with their clothes and get called for indecency technicals. This is what I am saying.
To beat Tom Izzo is to watch him rend his clothes and go bug-eyed and threaten to kill an official who will pat him on the head because he's a lovable wee scamp if you're the kind of lunatic who referees college basketball. One day someone will beat him so badly he will lie down and die on a basketball court, out of spite.
BULLETS
Mmm drop coverage. AJ Hoggard only played 11 minutes with leprosy or whatever, but even though MSU's most drop-coverage vulnerable PG wasn't a major factor Michigan still spent the whole game in it and MSU did little against it. Tyson Walker was hesitant to pull up despite having significant off-the-dribble game. In particular, I think he attempted one pull-up three despite Michigan constantly going under screens against him. He is capable:
He just doesn't want to do it much. This was fairly typical:
He has all the room in the world to pull up; he's hitting 55% from three on the year (and was 35% last year on 113 attempts); half of his threes this year are unassisted. It is flat out weird that he's averaging just over 2 3PA per game.
Also:
Instead of an aggressive ball screen coverage "showing" above the level of the screen, tonight Michigan went under almost every ball screen & had Dickinson drop near the paint.
— Eric Shapiro (@eric_shap) March 2, 2022
MSU's PGs were reluctant to shoot off the dribble & the coverage was significantly more effective: pic.twitter.com/9qiFqLywv8
This performance makes the blitzing from game one all the more baffling, but at least that mistake wasn't repeated.
[Campredon]
The dunks will continue until morale improves. Barely a post double from Michigan State all night, and the results were ugly: Dickinson went 13/18 from two, had nine free throws, and MSU bigs racked up ten fouls. That strategy worked okay at Breslin when Marcus Bingham was giving Dickinson trouble with his pterodactyl arms; in this game Bingham had nine minutes. He did get bashed under the basket by Dickinson for a layup but he also blocked a Dickinson shot in there as well.
I don't get it, especially when Julius Marble is doing virtually nothing on the other end. Marble had two buckets in the first three minutes, one of them an uncontested dunk, and then didn't score the rest of the game. Maybe put the pterodactyl guy in? Instead Izzo let a 6'9" guy and Mady "Vaporware" Sissoko try to check Dickinson. By themselves.
Okay. Guess we're exchanging baffling defensive approaches this year, like it's a white elephant party. Dickinson:
On if he took it personally to not be double-teamed:
I kind of liked it, I’m not gonna lie. I appreciated it, if anything.
Same.
[Campredon]
Frankie isn't slowing down, exactly. Two quick fouls on Devante Jones—the second one silly frustration—led to the most extended playing time Frankie Collins has had since the Maryland game in mid-January. I assume everyone was, like me, sure this would be a disaster. It was not. Collins drove into traffic, looked like he was going to careen into the stands, raptor-style, and then had two drop-offs to Dickinson for buckets at the rim.
He had a couple of steals, one of which rescued a turnover of his and turned it into a Brooks layup. He also had a couple of defensive rebounds he skied for.
A+. This is funny:
I'm not sure how Izzo is going to handle the Maize Rage chanting "We Want Steven" at his son, but I have a feeling we might hear about it from him later.
— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) March 2, 2022
"Put your walk-on son in because it's time to empty the bench" is not beyond the pale. Cumong man.
Injustice. Thank you, Donyell Marshall, for being insistent this was excellent D:
I was slightly upset about that call.
Bufkin defensive issues recur. In a short period in the first half Bufkin failed to box out Hoggard and gave up a putback, then fouled a three point shooter. He's improved a great deal from that period where he was a layup line for Sam Sessom; still very much a freshman doing freshman things.
Run off makes count: 2. Most frustrating thing about playing MSU is when your team gives up transition off of a make. By my count this only happened twice in this game, once with Michigan up 18 with 3 minutes left. So consequential transition-off-makes: 1.
Bracket updates. Torvik has Michigan as a nine seed in projection land and and eight in "if the season ended today" land. Humans are not so kind. Jerry Palm has them last four in; Lunardi has Michigan in the last four byes. Bracket Matrix folks universally have them on the 11 or 12 lines.
The big gap here is strictly Michigan's record. They have the sixth-hardest schedule in the country, per Kenpom, and they're 16-12. Replace a road game at #98 UCF with a home game against a tomato can and Michigan probably isn't on the bubble. This is an edge case where scheduling well can bite you because there's a point at which a bleah record starts outstripping your actual accomplishments.
Usually I start poking some projections into Torvik at this point to see what pops out, but since humans have Michigan two or three seed lines worse than Torvik's computer I don't know how useful they are this year. 1-1 to finish plus a first round loss to Maryland in the BTT has them end up a ten seed but with only a 69% chance of selection. Winning out gets them up to a 5 seed(!), though. Heck, just winning the final two regular season games and beating Maryland in the tourney sees them projected as a 6. That feels optimistic to me.
Even Torvik's projections have Michigan missing the field if they lose both remaining regular season games and go 1-1 in the BTT.
Calling my shot: Michigan needs two more wins before Selection Sunday.
Izzo in his postgame presser claiming MSU "was supposed to double in the 2nd half" is hilarious.
Why didn't your genius get implemented Tom? After 20 minutes of play and 7 timeouts?
Gotta blame the kids right?
A Few Good Men….so if they always follow your orders how did a code red lock happen?
For the life of me, considering how much he throws his kids under the bus, do not know why talented kids still go and play for tiny tom izziot!
Mom that man is looking at me.
Izn't keeps forgetting that he takes full responsibility, and somehow keeps pointing at his players' failures instead.
That's probably their fault too. He's TRYING to take responsibility but they keep preventing him by screwing up.
Tom Izzoverated
Brilliant
Somehow this is the first I've seen this dig. I like it though.
We're getting hot at the right time.
So is Tom Izzo.
Tom Izzo is a zit that you want to pop.
Yesterday evening during the game and post-game press conference, Hunter Dickinson was living rent free in Izzo’s head.
if he were alive, Jud Heathcoat would mentor Coach Izzo about that today.
i'm sure there's a "this wouldn't have happened if tom izzo was alive" joke somewhere here, but it's been a long day.
I was so baffled by Walker's refusal to shoot and was just, like, I don't know what you're thinking but THANK YOU. Michigan gave him that shot - it's rare to both go under screens and drop - to protect the paint at all costs and he simply refused to oblige. And that's after he went bonkers in the second half of Illinois and hit the game winner on a step back three against Purdue! I thought his confidence would be sky high.
Obviously, it was smart of Michigan to not give up easy layups and accept that threes would come easy. But for MSU to not even take those threes?!?! I'm still at a loss.
And yeah, I was like why did Bingham only play nine minutes when he had some success defending Hunter at home?
None of this made any sense, but I'll take it! Thanks, Tom.
Re: Torvik projections. I've mentioned this before, There's something wrong with the underlying data that is spitting out his numbers for Michigan, specifically the BID% number I've circled in red:
That rightmost column, or BID%, is how this table is sorted and hence how he does his seeding. But that number has to be less than the IN% number next to it. IN% is the probablity of getting in via conference title OR at large. BID% is the chance of getting in via at large selection (so you can think of the difference essentially as that teams odds of winning their conference tourney).
But this 87.7% number is obviously wrong for Michigan. It should be something likely in the 70s which puts them more as a projected 10ish seed.
The idea that he's a genius doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Casual fans always scream that coaches should have played this or that player, but the truth is that a coach has to step back and watch his guys carry out the game plans they have given them, to trust them--to trust that he has figured out who should be on the floor. Izzo doesn't; he jerks them in and out, not always in a rational manner, then dumps on them later; they don't get a chance to develop confidence, to play through and better. It's a pattern of abuse, of (increasingly) bad coaching. In the current period, when he lacks great players, it's more conspicuous.
In last night's presser, I really thought that Izzo hit a new low. Just. graceless. Narcissistic twaddle. Guy without a filter, any notion that he needs one. His lunch pail teams had a formula, and put their stamp--and clamps--on the whole league. He had some great players, great role players around them. That was some time ago.
It's hard to argue his credentials. I don't think he would have ever been considered a "genius" in terms of a Xs and Os, but his success was built on his teams playing really hard. He got guys buy into the "toughness" shtick and if you recruit pretty well and your players play hard, you'll go a long way.
We have suspected that his motivational tactics may not be resonating with today's youth before. After the MTSU loss and subsequent season in which they were mediocre despite having an insane freshmen class (sound familiar? yeah, freshmen suck even when they're Miles Bridges, Cash Winston, etc), we all wondered if it was the end for him. We said the same things about his narcissism and seemingly outdated style.
Then he rattled off three straight top 10 seasons and a final four with Winston and Tillman.
The last two seasons have been garbage but I don't know that I'd count him out. He tends to find guys that respond to his...tactics, and when the chemistry is there, it obviously works.
Okay, you can't argue his success. He's gonna be 68, though, which looks old on him. He's erratic at this stage, and volatile. And from what I understand he has two roster openings for next year? How much can that team improve? With Illinois, Purdue, Michigan, and Wisconsin all looking like they're in it for the long haul, the B1G is not his to lord over like it might have been once. If a series of recruiting busts leaves him with a multi-year window for significant improvement. . .
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't bet on him at this point. I'm shocked he didn't retire when the Winston/Tillman duo were done, especially given the sexual assault / off campus stuff that was going on.
But there's precedent for him winning with an experienced team when it also seemed like, how does this team get better from the previous version?
His 2011 team was also a bit of a mess and lost arguably their best player in Kalin Lucas so one could have wondered how that team could get better in 2012.
Well, it was addition by subtraction chemistry-wise, Appling and Payne made big freshmen to Sophomore leaps, Branden Dawson came in and was good as freshmen, Brandon Wood transferred from Valpo, Austin Thornton went from 17% three (on a not tiny sample of 5/30) to a 48% (!!!!) shooter....and they ended up winning the league (tied with us, woot!) and getting a 1 seed.
Obviously a lot went right and Draymond Green was anchoring everything, but in the era of the transfer portal, never know.
Malik Hall is a good player that doesn't play enough so maybe clearing out some space will force Izzo to play him more. I think Walker has another year and maybe he'll shoot more. Hoggard is a piece. The freshmen could get better. Add a transfer big and maybe they put it together.
man, that chunk about why it's so great to beat that angry little turd is freaking brilliant. copied for future use.
yes, brilliant. how fun to read. IZZO!
The bench mob is long-overdue for some love. They not only have excellent routines, but for such an uneven team this year they know when they're permitted to do their thing or when they need to sit and chill. Long live the bench mob!
Please. Somebody. Give Devante Jones the love he deserves. Guy has been playing his ass off, and stepping up as a leader. Didn't whine about all the early-season negativity. Just went about his business and played hard, Hits the long ball. Hits his free throws. Has grown significantly as a distributor and coordinator of the O.
That's the Appreciation I'm here for. Love the guy.
Izzo not shaking Dickenson's hand is a joke. The guy is such a hypocrite.
Hey now. It's not uncommon in your older years to develop 'frozen shoulder' (had it myself a few years ago); if you've ever had it then you can well imagine how painful it'd be for a 4'10" person to raise an arm to shake the hand of a 7-footer
He did shake his hand. There's video out there on Twitter. That picture is disingenuous
"pointlessly fouling because he would not give up on the 0.01% chance Michigan would hurl all their free throws into the stands along with their clothes and get called for indecency technicals."
Thank you, its been awhile since I've laughed out loud in the middle of a conference call that I forgot to put on mute.
I've been F5ing in anticipation of a Brian column and it did not disappoint.
One day someone will beat him so badly he will lie down and die on a basketball court, out of spite.
Elizabeth I'm comin to join ya, I'll be the one with a ref whistle shoved down my throat.
Pity poor Lupe.
It's incredible to me there are scenarios (and not even completely ridiculous ones the way M/MSU/OSU are playing) where we manage to get a double bye in the BTT.
He blamed the loss on his juniors and seniors not showing enough leadership. I hope when he watches film with the team he yells "LEADERSHIP!!!" every time Hunter dominates one-on-one coverage by a 6' 9" dude.
Even if they make the tourney we’re looking at either a first or second round exit with the consistency they’ve been playing at.
As in, they very consistently alternate between blowout wins and blowout losses lately.
I'll gladly take an appearance in the round of 32 at this point.
I'll take it. Even a first round exit is better than what I expected a couple a months ago. We may be disappointed with that, but it will make a difference with recruits.
Obviously he sees the team as a reflection of his self-image. He thinks of himself as tough, hard-working, a leader, so if they show that, he can praise them because he's in effect praising himself.
And if they falter, he sees it as a signal that they are NOT like him, not tough, etc.
Lost in the wash is the idea of actually doing his job, developing them and teaching them—except how to put on shoulder pads.
I don't get how bracket matrix has MSU 4 seeds ahead of Michigan.
MSU: 19-10(10-8), Q1 4-7, Q2 7-2, Q3+ 8-1, NET 38, KPI 24, SOR 24, BPI 34, POM 40, SAG 27, SOS 16
Michigan: 16-12(10-8), Q1 4-8, Q2 3-3, Q3+ 9-1, NET 32, KPI 42, SOR 43, BPI 26, POM 29, SAG 23, SOS 10
Head to head is obviously 1-1.
Those resumes are super similar. Same in conference, same Q1 wins. Predictive metrics like Michigan way more. Michigan has better NET. Its just those 3 extra wins, which are all Q2. MSU has the advantage in the worthless KPI and SOR, which is just "dumb NET".
Based on Torvik's resume compare tool MSU would be a 9 and Michigan would be a 10 historically. And I think that makes way more sense.
The resume metrics aren't that similar. 4-7 is better than 4-8 and 7-2 is waaaaay better than 3-3 such that they have an 11-9 Q1+Q2 record to our 7-11. That's a record the committee really focuses on. Especially when MSUs superior resume metrics (KPI and SOR) offset our superior quality metrics.
When there's not much separating 8 seeds from 11 seeds, that could do it.
But more importantly, there is a lag in the bracket matrix. Not all the underlying brackets get updated every day so many of them probably haven't incorporated last nights game.
Frankie Collins is going to be really freaking good if he can work on his finishing and hit his free throws.
I am a little worried about the post-Dickinson era though especially if Diabate doesn't come back. Freshman Tarris Reed is going to have to play a lot of minutes in an offense focused around the center and we will likely need a transfer as well
The only reason the offense is focused around the center currently is that we have Hunter Dickinson and he's awesome.
They'll change the offense to leverage the skills of the best players next year (as they would every year).
That said, yes, next year's offense will likely take a step back. Hopefully Collins and Bufkin can be good enough to make it guard centric. And we'll definitely bring in a center/big transfer if Diabate leaves. So that'd be a wildcard.
There is a possibility that Hunter comes back for one more year if he can add some defensive prowess to his arsenal and make him an even better player. I don’t think he’s on draft boards. Guess he could go international route but at the moment he’s not an NBA threat.
Dickinson probably needs to go. Unfortunately his lack of athleticism is really going to limit his draft position. Adding another year of age is only going to make teams less likely to take a chance on him. He’s got great touch and a good step in the post, but he can’t jump, can’t handle the ball, and his defense lacks effort. He currently dominates vastly inferior talent and size.
"Adding another year of age is only going to make teams less likely to take a chance on him. He’s got great touch and a good step in the post, but he can’t jump, can’t handle the ball, and his defense lacks effort."
Is Dickinson no better this year than he was last year?
He's not any better on defense, and his limitations have been exposed more due the decline in perimeter defense (i.e. guys get burned on the perimeter and his inability to help / protect the rim is being exposed a lot more frequently this year).
He shooting more threes but he's only hitting them at 32% which is probably disappointing to NBA scouts. Remember that there is an assumption that you'll improve some amount at a young age. If you stay and end up behind the curve of improvement that is expected it can hurt. i.e you can improve but if you don't improve as much as expected you've actually hurt your draft stock.
I assume that's what you're getting at, and no, I don't think his draft stock is any better this year than it was last year.
Its the right shot Brian....2 more wins, we are in.
PLEASE DEAR GOD WIN THE NEXT ONE
Agreed on the two wins. That guarantees we get above the four games above .500 which seems to be a marker. Also would get us to that other marker of 18 wins. If we get two more wins regardless of where they come I think that’s probably enough that we avoid the First Four which I think is crucial for this team as playing three games in five days is not ideal although will be something they’ll be somewhat used to. Let’s just win the next two games and see what happens in the BTT.
Two more wins and they are a lock is where my head's at as well. If they only win one more game we will be sweating out selection Sunday and hoping the other bubble teams struggle down the stretch as well.
We can cite the schedule and specifically the game against Central Florida as part of the issue, but if Michigan had just won either home game against Seton Hall or Minnesota we are already in the tournament comfortably. That Minnesota game continues to be a killer because had we won we would be sitting in the number four position in the conference with zero bad losses on our resume and right on the heels of the three power teams in the league.
I think it would have a minor impact on the selection committee, but remember we never made up the game against IPFW either. They are a terrible team and would do little to improve our resume, but they would put another win in the win column and make the record look a little prettier to a casual observer on the selection committee.
True, a win over IPFW would make our NET ranking and SOS worse, but it would be one for the win column.
That press conference.....Izzo is burned OUT big time. When things are going fine, he can hang in, but wow do those wheels come off after adversity.
I just do not understand how young men want to play for him, basically knowing they're going to get shit on when MSU loses.
RE: the bubble. Yeah, one more regular season and one BTT win and we are good. The interesting piece will be if we only get one win. The committee definitely would want M in the tourney if at all feasible.
Last year MSU went 15-13 with 9-11 B1G record. They have worse metric rankings than this season's Michigan team yet they got into NCAA. If MSU can get in at play-in game, then Michigan should be comfortably in. I think one win will get them into NCAA.
Put in a blind resume and Michigan isn't anywhere near close to last 4 in.
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