THE ESSENTIALS

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan's on another February tear. They are now 5-2, the #1 team in the conference, and #11 team in the country to Torvik since they checked on the groundhog. Michigan is also coming off their biggest win of the season, a 13-grit sandpaper affair at the RAC. As is often the case, freshman progression has been the difference. Dug McDaniel has become a defensive pest instead of a liability, has found his range on jumpers, and has reduced his turnover rate to ~1/game instead of ~3. Tarris Reed is turning into a switchable four; if we had any way to get a Hoop Lens account back I would show the two-bigs lineup has been Michigan's best look all year. Your eyes will have to suffice.

As a result a team left for dead a month ago is now squarely on the bubble, needing two wins in their last three games to enter the Big Ten Tournament with a foot in the NCAA. Two of those games are at #27 Illinois, and at #25 Indiana, who beat Michigan by a point at Crisler on February 11th. Avenging their other February loss on Senior Night would be a much easier path than trying to two-up their performance in Piscataway.

Missing Terrance Williams II, Michigan played terribly in Madison, allowing a Badger team that rarely rebounds its misses an extra 15 possessions off the offensive glass. Jett Howard was responsible for a lot of those breakdowns, but 26 minutes of Will Tschetter did as much to doom them as the atrocious-even-by-Trohl-standards officiating. Michigan beat MSU with an increase in minutes for Tarris Reed, and got back a hobbled Williams last night, but was without Howard, who remains questionable for Sunday.

Wisconsin played just as badly, and are coming off another Trohl job where the visiting Hawkeyes shot 3/28(!!!) from three. The Badgers have just four other wins in 2023: two vs Penn State, one over a nosediving OSU, and a 63-60 homer over Minnesota that's the reason people who follow Gopher fans now know the Badgers since 2016 are 23-8 when they get Larry Scirotto in Big Ten games, and 69-51 when they don't.

Their tournament resume is built on OT victories at Marquette, Iowa, and Penn State, a win over USC, and a 43-42 "victory" versus Dayton. A 1-2 finish versus Michigan, Purdue, and Minnesota, and a first-round BTT exit could conceivably leave the Badgers on the bubble. If you can't summon it for this Michigan team, I ask you, as a basketball fan, what would you give for a Wisconsinless postseason?

THE US

My graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Dug's banana has been changed to a lunch pail; if his ORtg gets over 100 we'll drop the cyan, but there's a lot about his spray chart that might not be sustainable.

THE LINEUP CARD

My graphic [click for big]:

Gilmore now has his brick.

THE THEM

He's added weight since 2021, but Wahl's still guarding guards. [Campredon]

We've seen this team recently so I'll point you at the previous preview. Bullets and updates:

• PF Tyler Wahl scored 6 points on 14 possessions against Michigan, and nevertheless the MVP of the game. Not only did he hold Jett Howard to 9 points on 14 FGAs, but Wahl pulled down five of those offensive rebounds. By mutual accord he leads Wisconsin in usage by a wide margin, since opponents are happy to have an 89 ORtg guy shoot it, Greg Gard doesn't want the heat on anyone else, and Wahl's defense is a big part of what makes opponent forwards just as inefficient. Michigan also held him to zero assists after Wahl produced 8 and 5 versus their two previous opponents, and 6 against their next one. His assist rate is now 21% in conference play. It will be interesting to see what they do with Wahl defensively with Jett out; he may take Baker, or they could try some fancy doubling on Dickinson.
• 7-foot C Steven Crowl was held to only only 5/15 from the floor, but had another three ORebs, six assists, and hit his only three pointer to get to 11 points. He's been Wisconsin's most efficient player on offense and excellent on the defensive glass.
• PG Chucky Hepburn's heater has cooled to just 6/26 in his last four games, but his work all year still has him over 43%. He's also down to 34% inside the arc. Hepburn's length was the reason Dug was unable to get any of his own triples up.
• Icky SF Connor Essegian is a Just-a-Shooter on the road and a Not-Just-a-Shooter at the Trohl Center, where his FTA/FGA almost doubles—he's at 23% on the road and 41% (!!!) at home in Big Ten play. He was the Kenpom MVP of the Michigan game, with 9 of his 23 points coming from his ten free throws.
• SG Max Klesmit, the Wofford transfer, is another JAS but thanks to his year in the SoCon he doesn't know it. He was 1/8 from two and 2/3 from three against Michigan; QED.

Bench:

• Jordan "Not his brother Johnny" Davis is now #1 in the country in turnover rate at 4.4, with an even lower assist rate. His one relative superpower is getting to the rim off screens, which was a problem once in 15 minutes last game.
• Winger Carter Gilmore you remember as the guy who missed the basket so badly the scorer didn't count it as a shot.
• PG Kamari McGee played a total 18 minutes in the five games before Michigan, then 14 minutes in our game; the three runs to the rim versus Dug account for half of his two's this season. They rolled him out for 23 minutes the next game vs Rutgers and he hit 3/6 from three, then he went back in reserve for Iowa.

THE TEMPO FREE

The Michigan explosion raised them from 349th to 345 in ORebs. They're also Essegian in Road Games when it comes to drawing free throws. They are 352nd/363 teams in tempo. I mean…you saw it, right? They'll run off a screen, then another screen, maybe a moving screen, and then if you broke down they get an assisted bucket, and if you don't they give it to Wahl and he throws up a contested something. At that point if you don't have Will Tschetter under the basket they'll run back to their side and set up a sound, lengthy defense. They're excellent at denying post entries and will double from weird spots, and are long enough to get away with that without giving up more than an average number of threes.

The best way to beat this is to get the ball crossing the court. They give up a lot of assisted baskets, and generate a lot of non-steal turnovers by PBU'ing your skip passes.

THE KEYS

FOR THE LOVE OF PETE BEAT A SCREEN. Once Jett figured out where the screens were coming from Wisconsin defaulted to Wahl chucking it up against triple teams.

FOR THE LOVE OF GEORGE BOX OUT. I agree with Sam Webb that the coaches had a bit of a chat with the team after that one since they've been doing a much better job of late.

THE OBVIOUS ONE, AGAIN. Michigan did everything they could to prevent Essegian and Hepburn from launching threes. The result was ten and a half minutes of no scoring.

Find where Will Tschetter has the grandmas hidden. The person who runs MBB's official Twitter account watched the Wisconsin game, watched the MSU game, and watched the first half of the Rutgers game, has apparently watched basketball in their lifetime, and therefore came to obvious conclusion of who would start the 2nd half.

Then Tschetter started the second half, which went how it's been going. Hopefully Williams is full-go but either way #FreeTarris.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 5.