Hoops Preview: Houston, Round Of 32 Comment Count

Brian

UConn_Houston_Basketball_32304THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT #9 Michigan (29-7) vs
#18 Houston (27-7)
WHERE Peak Wealth Management Arena
Wichita, KS
WHEN 9:50 PM Saturday
LINE Michigan –2 (KenPom)
TV TBS

i have theories about that hair

THE US

I mean… I told you. I told you!

…it looks like [Montana's] defense holds up much better than their offense when the biggish boys roll into town: PSU, Stanford, Georgia State, and Washington all had 1 PPP or worse when they played the Griz. Those were all losses because Montana's offense crawled in a hole and died, averaging about 0.8 PPP. Penn State is the best of those teams on D, finishing 21st. Michigan is about 4 points per 100 possessions better than PSU, and far better than the other teams.

This might be a bit of a meatgrinder.

It was a bit of a meatgrinder in the same way Stalingrad was. And now everyone's freaking out about a 14-point NCAA win. Including me, a little. Take a breath.

THE LINEUP CARD

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..

Pos. # Name Yr. Ht./Wt. %Min %Poss ORtg SIBMIHHAT
G 32 Rob Gray Sr. 6'1, 185 77 30 117 Nah
Huge usage iso guy, rise-up 3PA shooter, 50/35 from floor.
G 5 Corey Davis Jr. 6'1, 190 75 19 124 Not at all
Huge volume Not Just A Shooter shooter hitting 43%. Decent attacking closeouts.
G 25 Galen Robinson Jr. 6'1, 190 61 15 101 Very
D pest has top 100 steal rate, disaster away from rim on O, many A, many TO
F 15 Devin Davis Sr. 6'6, 225 62 21 110 Very
50% 2PA shooter w about half his makes assisted. Good rebounder, good TO rate.
F 13 Nura Zanna Jr. 6'8, 253 53* 13 99 Very
Putbacks and zero else. Massive OREB rate, foul rate. 47% FTs.
G 3 Armoni Brooks So. 6'3, 185 51 18 128 Not at all
Just A Shooter hitting 42%. Does DREB well.
C 24 Breaon Brady So. 6'8", 250 24 21 95 Very
Some post up but mostly another huge OREB guy w huge foul and TO rates.
F 35 Fabian White Fr. 6'7, 210 41 19 109 Very
Another Zanna clone, or close enough.

*[Zanna's got a slight plurality of C minutes in Houston's last five. He's at 37% on the season.

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

THE THEM

920x920 (2)920x920 (3)

theory: Gray sacrificed his hairstyle to a demon in exchange for powers

I probably don't have to do a lot of convincing when I say that Houston begins and ends with man-bun PG Rob Gray after a 39-point, 50% usage outburst that barely got the Cougars past 11-seed San Diego State last night. Gray doesn't shoot alarmingly well (50/35 from the floor) but he has 30% usage and a 2:1 A:TO ratio. He is enough of a threat on his own to draw attention and open up a bunch of good threes for his teammates despite the fact that Houston only has two guys who shoot threes other than Gray. He's also a fairly high-volume FT shooter hitting 80%.

Gray is fond of pull-up threes (only half his makes are assisted) and gets virtually no help from his teammates to get his own. Houston's default offense is "Gray, do something." He did enough stuff to get the Cougars a six seed, and then singlehandedly propelled them to the second round. He's dangerous.

Zavier Simpson can score zero points in this game and still be the major catalyst for a Michigan win if he can turn Gray into just a guy.

Gray's running mates in the backcourt are also 6'1" guys but are diametrically opposed otherwise. Galen Robinson is a wild penetrator with high assist and turnover rates; he gets just over half his shots at the rim where he hits a very solid-for-a-guard 66%. Anything not at the rim is a disaster. Michigan's clear imperative is to stay in front of him by sagging and allow him to shoot anything short of a layup.

On the other hand, Corey Davis is a dangerous sniper. He's hitting 43% on a high volume of threes and is Not Just A Shooter. He's mostly a shooter but does have an assist rate around 15 and shoots decently (49%) from two; combined with his decent-ish FT rate about a third of his attempts come inside the arc.

Still, Davis's 3PAs will be a major swing point in the game. SDSU held him to 0/5, which was the first time since the fourth game of the year he'd put up a goose egg from three. He's gotten 10+ attempts up in 5 of his last 8 games.

With Wes VanBeck apparently out, the only bench option at the guard spots is 6'3" Just A Shooter Armoni Brooks. Brooks is an archetypical JAS with miniscule A, TO, and FT rates who gets 10% of his shots at the rim. He's hitting 42% on 195 threes this year, 99% of which are assisted. He does bring some defensive juice.

Houston Cincinnati Basketball

Davis, #5, is yet another IU transfer that makes the tourney

Houston's forwards are pretty unconventional. For one, they're short. 75% of Houston's minutes at the 4 and 5 come from 6'6" and 6'7" guys, with the remainder going to a 6'8" guy. Over the season the minutes have shifted significantly, with 6'6" LIU-Brooklyn grad transfer Nura Zanna emerging as the (nominal) starting C. Zanna does almost literally nothing on offense except OREB,—he'd be top 50 if he had enough minutes to qualify on Kenpom—put back those OREBs, and turn the ball over. He does not assist because if he has the ball it's because Gray has dumped it to him in the expectation he will dunk it. Zanna commits buckets of fouls since he's expendable. 

Zanna is expendable because Houston has a bunch of dudes like him. Backup Breaon Brady gets about 10 MPG and is a near-clone of Zanna: huge OREB, TO, and fouls called numbers. His usage is significantly higher and he will go to work on the block some, but when you have a 95 ORTG increased usage is a curse, not a blessing. Freshman Fabian White is the same deal. He's a little more refined and Houston's best shotblocker, but his non-TO usage has been close to nil against good teams. 6'10" Chris Harris is a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency guy who gets unearthed for a few minutes a game when the guys in front of him are in foul trouble, as they frequently are.

The lone Houston player taller than 6'3" who's not an unskilled board-and-foul-machine is 6'6" Indiana transfer Devin Davis. Davis is an old-school burlywing who isn't a three threat and has a lot of trouble getting all the way to the rim; he compensates with a quality midrange game (46% on non-rim twos) that's about half assisted. He does OREB some and does foul some, but his TO rate is less than half that of the other guys and his assist rate does not require a microscope to detect.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Screen Shot 2018-03-16 at 1.09.00 PM

Houston's slightly wonky offense is opposite a top 20 defense that is somehow eighth in 2PT defense despite having all those short guys. They're good at grabbing DREBs and middling at TO rate; they put a ton of guys on the line because of those foul-prone bigs.

The latter isn't great for Michigan. Since it doesn't really matter which big is on the court for Houston they can be super aggressive when Matthews or Simpson attacks the basket. On the bright side, Houston looks like a team that might be propping itself up on three-point luck. They allow an exactly average number, don't play zone, and are still top 40 in 3P% D.

On the other side of the ball Houston is 36th. They crash the boards (30th) and excel at draining threes, but only take an average number because they only have the three guys who are capable from behind the arc. That's good for Michigan, which has been strong on the boards and is elite at preventing launches from deep.

THE KEYS

Mothra vs Manbun. It is not a great revelation when I tell you that Zavier Simpson's ability to check Gray one on one is a huge factor in the game. Simpson has the ability to crowd Gray to dissuade those pull-up threes, and cut him off all the same. Gray is going to get some number of points. If his ORTG dips under 100, like virtually all PGs who've faced off with Michigan and Simpson over the last month and a half, Houston's path to victory gets narrow.

No threes. Corey Davis can attack closeouts all he wants as long as he's not rising up for a 43% shot at 3. Ditto Armani Brooks, except Brooks will not be attacking any closeouts. Houston has no particularly efficient players inside the arc. The #1 focus should be winning the three point line.

Prepare for a softer approach on PNR, maybe? Kelvin Sampson was fairly specific about what worried him about Michigan:

Michigan is a difficult prep because of how their five man plays, Wagner. There's always somebody you're trying to compare somebody with, who does he remind you of that you've played against. We haven't played against anybody like him. Like most foreign players, they like to slip out of screens, and that's what makes it difficult. I tell our kids, there's real screens, there's fake screens. He sets a lot of fake screens, and he forces your big to run to the three-point line, and he's got such a good dribble game. He's a difficult matchup. …

You just don't know what Wagner is going to do. You don't know if he's going to stop and set a screen or if he's going to slip out of it, and when they do, there's five people behind the three-point line when he does that. And then when they swing it, here comes the drive. And if you're late with your help, the ball is in the opposite corner, and you've got Livers or Poole or Duncan Robinson, one of those guys, shooting threes.

If this in fact the approach Michigan's going to have to rescreen and attack the other way, like we saw a few times in the Big Ten tournament. If that doesn't work for the Cougars they're set up to try the all-switching defense that's given Michigan problems to date. That could lead to a lot of drives for Simpson and a lot of free thows off those drives. A mixed blessing at best.

Know the system better than they know what to do against it. At Michigan Beilein has overperformed in just about every second-round game he's had.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 2.

Comments

TrueBlue2003

March 16th, 2018 at 5:34 PM ^

Gray is a bit better on higher usage. (McIntosh dipped to a very poor 41/31 this season but his first two were 45/36).  Neither are particularly quick but they use a wide array of floaters and tear drops and up-and-under's and hesitation dribbles into quick rise threes that get guys off balance.

And for as good as Z has been this year, the two games he was lit up were checking players like that: Isaiah Washington on Minnesota and B McIntosh the 2nd meeting.  Z actually played pretty good defense against both, but when you chuck up the kind of stuff these guys do, there's nothing much you can do as a defender if the shots are falling.  They take such unconventional shots that you're not even prepared to get your hand up even if you're on them like glue.

But chucking up stuff like that is risky.  Z crushed McIntosh the first outing.  And Gray was bad in all three of his meetings with Cinci as someone pointed out in another thread.  That's (amazingly), probably the best comparison for a defense like Michigan's.

I would expect this to go well for M, but if Gray comes out like B McIntosh the 2nd, hold onto your pants.  And also look for us to try to get him out of rhythym with some zone looks like we did against Minnesota and PSU when we needed to stop a hot PG.

nperna12

March 17th, 2018 at 10:19 AM ^

That game was more about Michigan’s lack of offense rather than poor d. Maybe he didn’t check him the way he did in the first game but Michigan was off on offense. Things on offense changed after that day and propelled them to where they are now. I expect Michigan to play better on offense today vs how they played Thursday. Rust is off. Let’s get Mo rolling!

TrueBlue2003

March 17th, 2018 at 11:29 AM ^

you're correct that our offense wasn't good and we could have won that game if we could have scored more (which could be said about any loss) but there were 57 possessions and Northwestern scored 1.07 points per.  That's quite a bit more than they'd be expected to score on us (we give up only 0.92 ppp to average offenses which is about what they have) and it was McIntosh that crushed us to the tune of 24 pts on just 13 shot equivalents (!!) with 5 assists and only 1 TO. That's a 164 Ortg on 28% usage!

It was McIntosh's best game of the season, which is not what you expect to happen against Z.  The guy was in the zone.  So that's my point.  Z doesn't automatically shut guys down.  A couple of broken through for good games and I'm just pointing out how the two did it (it's not quickness and it's not light's out 3 pt shooting because Z isn't going to let you do those things, you have to make tough shots over/around him which Gray is capable of).

For comparison, in the first game against Northwestern we held McIntosh to a terrible 64 Ortg and they scored just 0.80 points per possession.  Had we done that in the second game, we would have won again (in fact, we only scored 0.98 points per possession in the first meeting as well so McIntosh's performance in the second game would have likewise been enough for them to win the first game). 

All that said, yes, even if Gray goes off but we keep them to 1.07 ppp, we have a decent shot to win, but they also have a good defense.  We didn't score even close to 1.07 ppp against Montana.  I'd rather not count on doing that against their defense.

nperna12

March 17th, 2018 at 3:09 PM ^

I agree with that and that stats are undeniable. I also remember that we had a rough go against the Minnesota guards. So I do agree in your assessment that it’s not a given that Z is going to be other worldly defensively. I’d love to see us take advantage of our height on offense. I admit I am afraid of MAAR and Matthews covering their small guards (both have been borderline excellent this year in D). I really worry about Jordan Poole’s defense in this game which makes me think he won’t see much game time. Like last game vs the quick small guards.

nperna12

March 17th, 2018 at 3:09 PM ^

I agree with that and that stats are undeniable. I also remember that we had a rough go against the Minnesota guards. So I do agree in your assessment that it’s not a given that Z is going to be other worldly defensively. I’d love to see us take advantage of our height on offense. I admit I am afraid of MAAR and Matthews covering their small guards (both have been borderline excellent this year in D). I really worry about Jordan Poole’s defense in this game which makes me think he won’t see much game time. Like last game vs the quick small guards.

TrueBlue2003

March 17th, 2018 at 4:02 PM ^

and Mattews on defense.  They'll be fine.  And Poole will be his normal self.  Meaning that I expect him to make a mistake or two but I'm no more worried about him than normal in this game.

I'm only worried about two things for our defense: 1) Gray making a bunch of tough shots and 2) their bigs using quickness to get around Wagner and Duncan.

If those two things happen and we have an off night, that's Houston's path to victory.  But they need all those things to happen.  If not, we'll be fine.

johnlewing

March 16th, 2018 at 6:41 PM ^

Honestly, the statistical analysis is spot-on but the only way to counter a bun is with a hot-dog:  give Jordan Poole extra minutes.  If we get to wear our maize uniforms, we got the whole package with, at least something resembling mustard.

I anticipate relishing the victory.

 

Naked Bootlegger

March 16th, 2018 at 7:16 PM ^

I just realized that Wichita's arena changed names between our first and second games.  Hoeg Law to Peak Wealth Management Arena?    Well done subtle product placement.   Well done.

Perkis-Size Me

March 16th, 2018 at 7:43 PM ^

Survive and advance my friends. That’s all there is to it.



Style points don’t mean shit now. Win by 1. Win by 100. Doesn’t matter. Just win baby. Go do your thing Beilein.

nb

March 17th, 2018 at 1:02 AM ^

I am not pessimistic. We will win. I predict that we either win by 3 scores (7-9+) or lose by 1-2. The leading cause of this is a) we are awesome and b) we so bad at free throws. Even MAAR has been less than awesome at the stripe.



We could possibly win by 2 if we come back from a deficit. Our defense is good enough this year to close big leads. I wonder if a team will foul us as we are attempting a come back — so crazy it might work. Probably not, because coaches are risk averse.



I know I know. Not good English. “Stop drinking and go back to bed... “