The ugly finish to Tuesday's Appalachian State game distracted from what had been a near-ideal start for Juwan Howard's Wolverines. One of the most important developments occurred right out of the gate: center Jon Teske scored Michigan's first 11 points and finished with 17, a mark he's surpassed once in his career (he's scored exactly 17 five times). I'll have more on this game and Teske's all-around performance next week, but I wanted to feature how Howard unleashed Teske in the game's opening minutes.

For the third straight half, Howard called for a Teske post-up as the primary option on the opening play. They set up in the same look they showed on the first play in the SVSU exhibition, with both bigs lined up at the elbows and Teske popping out for a quick pass to initiate the set. Against SVSU, Howard ran Teske around picks from both Adrien Nunez and Eli Brooks to get post position on the opposite (far) side of the court. This time, Teske sets a downscreen for Brooks that gets them to switch spots; meanwhile, Simpson steps towards the middle to make it appear he's reversing the ball before swinging it back to Brooks, who makes a (somewhat suspect) entry pass to Teske, who's in great position to eventually finish.

Appalachian State's big man could've done a much better job of staying in touch with Teske; that said, Howard is showing varied ways to get his 7'1" center touches near the basket, and that's going to make it harder for defenders to anticipate where to establish position.

[Hit THE JUMP for the midrange game and TRANSITION TESKE, plus early corrections on pick-and-roll defense]

Michigan figured that worked well enough to try again. This time the interior defender did a far better job of anticipating the action and staying with Teske, forcing him to set up outside the paint. There are two problems, though: he's been so busy shoving Teske out that his hands are down and Teske is four inches taller than him. Teske simply turns and splashes a midrange jumper in his face.

It's good to be 7'1". It's really good to be 7'1" and skilled.

While you wouldn't expect an emphasis on transition offense to be beneficial for an enormous center, Howard's preference for quick-hitting plays early in the clock after turnovers and defensive rebounds paid off early for Teske. From what I've seen so far, Michigan tends to go four-out when they're looking to run early offense, and that can lead to some easy opportunities when Teske is the last man up the floor. A slip of a high screen is enough here for him to get an open three:

Again, ASU's defense is far from textbook, but you're going to catch defenses off-guard early in the clock more than you will once they've settled in. There's a lot they have to account for on the strong side here: Brooks driving, Brooks pulling up for a shot, Teske rolling to the hoop, Teske short-rolling for a midrange shot, Teske popping to the three-point line, Nunez spotting up in the corner, and Nunez cutting to the hoop.

Just a few minutes later, we see the exact same setup. Teske slips the pick again but this time he rolls to the basket, drawing help from Nunez's defender in the corner. That defender is late getting out to Nunez, who does a nice job of pump-faking the three and getting himself an easy, open jumper.

There's a reason the pick-and-roll never goes out of style. Hitting that action quickly can get you looks that are harder to create when options dwindle late in the clock.

Teske also helped set the tone on defense, where he looked comfortable executing drop coverage against pick-and-rolls, Michigan's new default on those plays after years of hard-hedging (quite successfully with Teske, I'll add). I mistakenly pointed out in the 5Q5A part of the preview that Teske misplayed a drop that ended in a layup; it was poor communication among the players around him that screwed up the play. That looked to be cleaned up in the early going against ASU.

On this possession, Simpson chases his man over the screen while Teske drops into the paint—this is "drop" coverage. (If Simpson had forced the ballhandler away from the screen while Teske dropped, that's "ice," and they'll do both.) Isaiah Livers times his help well to force the ballhandler to give up the ball early and under pressure. Teske is dropping to contest any shot the big man can get off, which doesn't happen, because Simpson recognizes that the entry pass is going to make any kickout difficult and comes down for a double-team. The result is a steal:

Drop coverage ideally forces bad shots. ASU let that happen on their next possession. Once again, the ballhandler got chased around the screen by Simpson, and this time he anticipated the help from Livers. With Teske falling into the paint and taking away the pass, the ballhandler chucks an off-the-bounce midrange jumper:

The guard would've been better off resetting the play; he wouldn't have had that option in a late-clock situation, though, and that's often when teams go to a quick high screen.

There'll be mistakes, especially when the core defensive group of Teske-Simpson-Livers aren't the three players involved, but I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far. The scheme is sound and they're correcting errors as they go.

Next week, I'll take a closer look at Teske's passing, how the Teske-Castleton pairing performed, and whatever else comes up as I'm going back through the game.