THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

Michigan ground out a rough and tumble win against Penn State yesterday that was more or less what the computers expected, except slightly uglier. That propelled their defense up to second nationally again, and their offense back down into the mid-20s range that they've been in for much of the season not immediately after one of their irregular three point outbursts.

Indiana comes to Crisler now in a matchup that will pit two of the league's early leaders. Michigan's defense got back to their lockdown ways against Penn State, but Indiana poses an entirely different challenge: can you either force their stars into inefficiency or devolve their usage to Surrounding Jabronis?

Injuries will impact: starting IU PG Rob Phinisee is out with a concussion and Michigan all-purpose sixth man Isaiah Livers is trying to recover from back spasms that held him out against PSU.

THE LINEUP CARD

We're experimenting with FFFF style lineup pages. Click for big.

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

*Green played 36 and 33 minutes in the two games Phinisee has missed.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

THE THEM

Indiana's a slightly wobbly 12-2 with a solid set of wins (Marquette, Northwestern, PSU, Louisville, and Butler) mostly acquired by the skin of their teeth. Aside from the Marquette blowout all of those games were one-possession affairs. On the other side of the coin they got clonked at Duke and Arkansas pipped them by one in Arkansas. If there's a word for IU's season so far it's "tense."

IU has acquired their wins by riding their stars hard. Both Romeo Langford (63%) and Juwan Morgan (74%!) are killing it on two-pointers, and that's what separates IU from a .500 record. No other IU player is particularly efficient or high-usage.

Let's start with Romeo Langford, who is a high-level NBA prospect and thus comes with a bucket of scouting to copy and paste:

SI's Jeremy Woo:

In spite of a highly inconsistent three-point shot, Langford has been consistently solid scoring the ball and lived up to billing, helping lead a resurgent Hoosiers team. He’s skilled, smooth and has a nice level of scoring craft, confidently using the glass while attacking the basket and converting at an impressive clip inside the arc. While Langford’s shooting mechanics from distance are a concern, the fact that he’s a good pull-up shooter and has been mostly steady from the foul line suggests there is room for improvement. Wings with his athleticism and body type who can consistently create offense are valuable commodities, and if he can simply become a consistent set shooter, it will go a long way.

Langford has been exceptional inside the line this year both at the rim and away from it. 42% of his shots are at the rim; he converts at a 72% clip; 72% of those are unassisted. He's also knocking down 51% of his other twos—an exceptionally high number—and 4 out of 5 of those are unassisted as well.

His three point shot has been a disaster, though: 22%. He's the NBA star guy though so they keep going up; a third of his makes are unassisted.

This will be a massive test for Charles Matthews, who is going to have to be the kind of defender who can make a guy like Langford inefficient if he's going to make the NBA.

Meanwhile, Juwan Morgan was gifted an inch of height by Indiana's roster before his senior year but I don't buy it. He remains the weirdest great center in the country, a 6'7" dude who's a crushingly good post player. Even if you ignore his cupcake-inflated early season stats and go back to last year, he had nearly 70% of his shots at the rim, made nearly 70% of them, and got half of those up without an assist. This year he's at 65% and 82%, FWIW.

On top of that he's a career 33% three point shooter and is 14/31 (45%) this year. Despite his relative lack of size he chips in a 10% OREB rate and a block rate that hovers around 150th nationally. The only thing that's bad is a weird regression in his free throw shooting. He's gone from 80% to 74% to 63% to 60%.

Morgan did have some trouble against PSU in Indiana's narrow win over PSU. Watkins only played 11 minutes but he and John Harrar held Morgan to 10 points on 12 shot equivalents; he had one TO and no assists. Hopefully Teske's size advantage will produce a similar stat line.

No other Hoosier is an efficient offensive player. Compounding matters is that Rob Phinisee has been ruled out of this game with a concussion. That pushes junior Devonte Green into huge minutes, and that's not great for IU. Green's an acceptable three point shooter but when he gets inside the line things get ugly fast. His 26 TO rate is bad for a post, let alone a point guard; he's hitting 41% inside the line after going 39% (on 122 shots!) last year.

Green does fire off a fairly high number of assists and he's a big, rangy defensive pest but he's a 24% usage guy with a 92 ORTG who's going to play 35+ minutes in this game.

Indiana's power forward is Justin Smith, a 6'7" guy with a giant vertical and little game outside of that. He'll get to the rim by himself occasionally but the vast majority of his buckets are assisted bunnies or putbacks. When he tries to generate for himself it doesn't go very well—a 25 TO rate. He's a black hole that Michigan should probably collapse on once he threatens the basket.

The final starter is SG Aljami Durham, a low-usage, high-turnover guy who's effective behind the arc (41%) and decent once he ventures inside save for the whole booting the ball out of bounds thing.

With Green pushed into the starting lineup, Indiana's bench is:

• C De'Ron Davis, a defensive stopper of a C with a huge foul rate who is effective when he gets a shot off.
• Stretch four Evan Fitzner, who's shooting 58/45 this season after 55/40 last year but can't really defend anyone. He grad transferred from St Mary's. Fitzner has just 16 minutes in IU's three most recent non-tomato-can outings after playing almost 20 MPG to start the season.
• Freshman Damezi Anderson, who's a middling Just A Shooter so far.
• Glue gritty grit gritter Zach McRoberts, who has the lowest usage of any player I've seen on Kenpom: 5%.

Minutes for these guys vary by who seems to be playing well.

THE TEMPO-FREE

If you want a test for Michigan's two-point D, here it is:

• Spearheaded by Morgan and Langford, IU is third in the country in 2P%.
• They're decent at threes (98th) but barely take any (325th).
• They get to the line a lot (74th) but are worse once there than Michigan (310th).
• They turn the ball over a ton (244th) and don't get many OREBs.

IU's offense is entirely dependent on getting massive 2PT numbers from their two stars.

On defense things are shockingly good for a team that basically does not have a starting center. IU's 25th overall—their offense is 42nd—and has no obvious flaws to get after. They're not great at anything in particular but they're good at just about everything. They've held everyone save Butler and Duke under a point per possession.

IU plays pretty fast, with 29% of their attempts coming in the first ten seconds of the shot clock. Their shooting 5% worse in transition, though, so okay.

THE KEYS

Help way more? IU's stats are baffling. Morgan is crushing it on the interior but teams seem content to let him go at it despite IU's allergy to threes. IU's going to have a non-shooter (Smith) on the floor a bunch and you can probably help off Green and even Langford without getting hurt too badly.

Michigan doubled Lamar Stevens some in the last game and they'll probably throw some at Morgan. Morgan's got a healthy assist rate so if they do it too much he'll probably find some dudes for dunks but I might double the guy shooting 74%.

Prop up your wonky offense with transition. IU's D is good enough to give Michigan's offense some issues but their O has a 20% TO rate and half of those are steals. Some poking from Simpson and Teske and friends could give them another of those game-deciding spurts like the beginning of the second half against PSU.

Test Morgan's height. If Teske could beat up Morgan on the block or grab a bunch of OREBs thanks to being a half-foot taller than the dude that would offset some of his inevitable makes. Morgan was pretty much the only effective player in last year's 69-55 Michigan win; Teske's suffered some slings and arrows lately so it would be nice if could recover some of his shine by winning his matchup against a very good player.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 8.