1/19/2019 – Michigan 54, Wisconsin 64 – 17-1, 6-1 Big Ten

I've already written the column about how playing games at the Trohl Center is an experience that makes you think you're the last human in the land of the bug people, and hoo boy was this a shining example of the genre. The ends of each half, taken together, are kind of amazing. The end of the first half: Wisconsin has multiple fouls to give at the end of the first half and is trying to use them, but the a guy intentionally grabbing a Michigan player doesn't get called for two or three seconds. Michigan's left with under two seconds on the clock and does not convert.

The end of the second: Ethan Happ briefly touches the ball with Michigan down three and gets rid of it; immediately afterward Brazdeikis grabs him, in the way of late game basketball. This too is ignored. When Iggy goes back to foul Happ again, this time completely away from the ball, he's called for a flagrant 1. That essentially ends the game.

I don't really know what you're supposed to do when the referees can't even get the fouls both teams are trying to commit right. When you've got an apoplectic John Beilein at midcourt being held back by his assistants you've screwed up. You made First Episode Walter White mad! He drives a minivan and loves his children! GAH!

It would be nice if Michigan's basketball team was so good it could power through batshit road garbage at the Trohliest of all Centers, but if it was it would have so much power that it could not be permitted off a military base. It's a harsh reality check for a team that had played just one game that went down to the final couple minutes.

GRIM. This kind of offensive performance is a once-every-few-years occurrence:

Wisconsin holds Michigan to 0.82 points per possession, Wolverines’ worst game on offense since November 23, 2016.

— John Gasaway (@JohnGasaway) January 19, 2019

That was the let's-drink-some-bleach South Carolina game, when Michigan was 8/26 from two and 2/26 from three. Michigan finished that season with the #4 offense in the country after Derrick Walton blew up midseason.

That was on another level in terms of offensive futility. Michigan shot 47%/28%, which is real bad but not the abomination that the South Carolina game was. Michigan's main problem was  giant turnover rate—almost one in every four Michigan possessions ended in a turnover. That was spread almost equally throughout the roster.

[After THE JUMP: Teske though?]

no this was not a blocking foul if you're wondering [Barron]

Goose egg. Iggy had zero points. This is Not Good. Wisconsin started the game by playing Happ against Iggy, leaving Reuvers on Teske. This seemed completely baffling to me but Michigan's response was even more baffling: they did not clear out one side of the court to let Iggy drive on a center who happens to be Wisconsin's most valuable player.

This is a common way to screw up Michigan's offense: do something weird that seems structurally unsound and get away with it as Michigan continues running their regular sets. The early switch-everything Purdue games and Aaron Craft super-icing screens jump out as other examples of the genre. Michigan was able to adapt to those approaches and overcome them, but the ability to adjust in that first game was limited.

The difference here is that the other two approaches were team-defense approaches to shutting down Michigan's pick and roll sets. This was Wisconsin daring Michigan to play iso-ball and Michigan turning them down.

Teske though. Happ had a good offensive game thanks to seven assists vs one turnover—a stat that seems baffling after watching that game. Michigan did help some but Wisconsin only had 14 makes that did not come from Happ. He assisted on half of them? It didn't feel like it.

Happ had 26 points on 24 shot equivalents, but he had a couple of easy buckets off switches or when Davis was in the game. When Teske matched up one on one that felt like a matchup he was winning, with four blocks. He was also Michigan's only efficient offensive player with 15 points on 13 shot equivalents and just the one turnover. That turnover was pretty frustrating, coming during a sequence late in the first half when Michigan was trying to push the ball and ended up throwing it OOB a few times, but it was not in the half-court.

Teske has the best hands of any seven-foot guy I've seen at Michigan. He catches all kinds of things that many others would boot into the stands, including another transition opportunity that he was able to catch and get up for a layup despite moving at a full sprint and seemingly destined to go under the backboard.

The other Wisconsin defensive approach that was seemingly unsound but unpunished was one more familiar: switching guards onto Teske at certain times on the pick and roll. Simpson got a three blocked by Reuvers when Teske had a six-foot guy on him. Michigan never ever posts up, and while that's usually good policy they leave themselves exposed to this kind of thing when they don't even look at the mismatch.

 

full metal jacket-ass haircut [Barron]

Flops suck. Refereeing has improved a lot over the last decade but by god they're WWE-level incompetent when it comes to off arms. You can get away with a ton of off-arm pushing if the guy getting pushed is trying to play legitimate defense and merely gets knocked a little off balance so you can have your space. But if you go into it planning to explode into a thousand pieces at any contact you do get calls. So D'Mitrik Trice gets rewarded for playing like he's a delicate wall of frosted gypsum.

The refs did manage to see through Brad Davison's fish antics, but it's not good enough to watch a guy like Davison flop to the floor against Matthews without a call. There's not enough downside to playing basketball like a little [REDACTED]. Flops should be fouls.

Hell, off-arm pushes so powerful that someone gets knocked over shouldn't be fouls. If you knock a whole human over with just one of your arms they should stop the game to give you a novelty t-shirt with a giant bulging bicep on it, and then give the guy you knocked over a bib and a container of apple sauce.

Only off-arm pushes that clear space but do not knock a guy over should be fouls.

The downside of Michigan's vast egalitarianism. So Michigan's in a huge funk offensively most of this game, and unlike Wisconsin they don't have a default option that's decently efficient even when it's not going that well. Jordan Poole was able to be that in the first half with a series of iso two-point jumpers that went down at an acceptable rate, but that goes away and then there's no alpha dog to Walton/Stauskas/Burke at you when you really need a bucket—and then when they react to that other things open up.

It would be nice if someone would emerge as the clear #1 option on offense over the next month.