2/27/2021 – Michigan 73, Indiana 57 – 18-1, 13-1 Big Ten

John Beilein's first team at Michigan was not one for the ages. Zack and Stu had not arrived. Ron Coleman and Kelvin Grady started. They took a ton of threes despite finishing 314th behind the line. But I had banged the table for Beilein's hire and spent much of that year looking for whatever molecules of hope oozed out of the morass. I doubled down on wanting Michigan's basketball team to be good by investing Professional Reputation in the new head coach, with inevitable results. I had not been and probably will not again be so invested in a team that was so bad.

Being invested in a bad team is waiting for the run. Your team will scrap out of the gate, hang tight against superior opposition (or, uh, Central Michigan), and provide a flicker of promise. This will feel sort of nice. It will also feel like an anvil is suspended over your head. Inevitably there will come a point where your team is possessed by the spirit of the Washington Generals. The basketball game will devolve into a cartoon fight, all limbs and people groaning "oof".

When the dust clears the opposition is up double digits and ain't nobody climbing that staircase. This is what rooting for a 10-22 team is.

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Even good teams eat runs. Basketball is proverbially a game of them. They're so integral to the idea of the sport that the gold standard of numbers about basketball, Kenpom, has a win probability page which calls them out:

The pictured run is Wisconsin separating from Michigan at the end of the first half of Michigan's first game post-COVID layoff. That first half stands out in my memory as a visit from a different basketball team, one far less polished and precise. I spent that first half trying to remain calm, trying to remember the other, beautiful basketball team. Then they became it again and have not stopped.

Michigan does not eat runs. The above is one of just four runs for the opposition called out by Kenpom in 14 Big Ten games. One of those absolutely does not count because it was Wisconsin punching back 12-2 after Michigan spent 15 minutes battering them 43-6. The others came in the Minnesota loss and in Michigan's Big Ten opener against Penn State. Michigan has faced a run of consequence not explained by a 22 day layoff once since December 13th.

Even John Beilein's best teams had holes you could poke a finger through, first on defense and then on offense. This isn't an attempt to dump on Beilein, he said unnecessarily, it is merely a bare fact that when you've got the #35 offense (as the 2017-18 Final Four team did) or the #37 defense (as the 2012-13 Final Four team did) sometimes things are going to get away from you for long stretches. Not often, but often enough that the disorienting feeling that nothing has ever gone right or will again go right is a semi-regular part of your basketball experience.

This does not happen in 2021. Michigan's defense is relentless. Its offense is a machine designed to create buckets of good shots. The sheer number of coinflips weighted in Michigan's favor that it would require for the opposition to have ten more points than Michigan in a short window of time is too daunting for math, except once against Minnesota of all teams.

This is what it's like to root for an 18-1 team. This is what it's like to root for what may be the best team in the country: like everyone you run across has separate buttons for their thighs and calves.

[After THE JUMP: Franz stays in his spot because it's working]

BULLETS

Franz pleads for continuation

If you want a column, Franz, KEEP DOING THIS. This space isn't above a bit of superstition so sure let's ignore the elephant putting up his third Kenpom MVP in the past four games above the fold and stick him right in the first bullet point. Wagner put up 21 points on 13 shooting possessions for the second consecutive game, and while he didn't have four assists like he did in the Iowa game he did return to his stat-sheet filling ways with a block and three assists. Also he could have had another point but was denied a continuation that even neutrals on Twitter thought was ridiculous.

Wagner was perfect inside the line and got 8 FTAs; he's now passed his absurd freshman year two-point shooting numbers (61%) at 63%. He demonstrated the go-and-catch approach Michigan has on a lot of perimeter passes that Hoop Vision detailed and Eric Shapiro turned into a meaty nugget of content:

Perfect example here of the "go & catch" from Franz Wagner, highlighted by @hoopvision68 pic.twitter.com/lRMLiIDR12

— Eric Shapiro (@eric_shap) February 27, 2021

Also this:

This play won't make the highlights or the stat sheet... most probably didn't even notice it.

But in addition to the obvious stuff he does, this shows Franz Wagner's awesome instincts and defensive value: pic.twitter.com/SzGb2p3MoO

— Eric Shapiro (@eric_shap) February 27, 2021

This play reminded me of the point in the Iowa game where Brown got crossmatched on Luka Garza. Wagner was aware of the likely outcome of this issue and when the entry pass came he left his guy to bat it out of bounds. My RAW TAKE on the podcast this week is that Hunter Dickinson is the DPOY in the Big Ten, and while you can make a case for him solely based on what he did to Garza I admit that it's Wagner and it's not particularly close.

Wagner snuck into the tail end of the KPOY rankings after this game, which is remarkable because he has 19% usage. KPOY has a team ingredient that helps him but also he's shooting 63/37 and does all the blocking and stealing stuff. He's probably the best two-way player Michigan's had since… God, I don't even know. Peak Mitch? But that was like ten games.

Also in themes. Trayce Jackson-Davis got crushed by Hunter Dickinson, going 3/12 from the floor and scoring 10 points on 16 shooting possessions. IIRC two of those buckets were against Austin Davis, including an and-one. Livers bodied up on TJD to force a miss early. The rest of it was Dickinson.

So that's back-to-back games against players in the KPOY top ten that Dickinson has obliterated without help. What's more, Luka Garza and Jackson-Davis present significantly different challenges. Garza is massive and crafty on the inside while also being able to step out and shoot; Jackson-Davis is a pogo-stick athlete whose quickness should have posed Dickinson significant issues.

Devolution of zone. I pity the Synergy charter trying to make sense of this game. Michigan had probably two dozen possessions where they were in that 2-3 zone that devolves into man to man as soon as the opposition breaches the perimeter. This resulted in a few weird crossmatches but was generally effective as a delaying tactic to prevent Indiana from getting into any real offense in the first half of the shot clock.

This is new to me. I have not been watching basketball for 50 years but I don't recall anyone else running this hybrid zone-to-man thing in my awareness. I would not be surprised to see this become something of a trend over the next couple years, as it combines a lot of positives about zone with man-to-man's advantages in rebounding. It also just seems like a pain to deal with.

SMARF. YES TWITTER IS GOOD AGAIN

Chaundee Brown reminds me of Smarf in all the best ways. Love him to death

— celticsdraft (@DraftCeltics) February 27, 2021

Yes, Chaundee Brown is a ludicrous cat puppet that spills rainbows from his hands and has incredible wingspan. Yes. Yes I will embed that  yes.

I would like to expand on a point in the non-Smarf tweet. Holy hell, watching the MSU-Maryland game the day after a Michigan game really drove the "they only take good shots" point home. There was a possession right at the start of the game where Indiana did a great job recovering off a double on Dickinson, closing out on three consecutive shooters. Michigan drove again, kicked, and then found Eli Brooks in the corner for a wide open catch and shoot look.

I get a little testy when someone takes an early two-point jumper. I have not fully downloaded what other teams are doing into my mind and how bizarre and horrible their shot selection often is. I attribute it to Michigan's defense. That defense is admittedly excellent, but other teams playing worse defenses are just wandering pell-mell into contested midrange situations and thinking "eh, fine" before launching.

I took a look at Michigan's first eight three attempts; six were wide open. Smith had a semi-contested pull-up and Livers had a contested catch and shoot opportunity. Everything else was "take that." Those are a large majority of Michigan's threes, which are relatively rare—just 249th nationally in 3PA/FGA—but almost without fail excellent opportunities.

Meep meep. Mike Smith had some extra aggression in this one. Twice he sped down the court, drawing free throws as he drove against a defense that was not yet set. Twice he pulled up off of screens when Indiana went under them. The first one should not even count as an off the dribble make since Kristian Lander was so far under the screen that Smith was able to come to a complete stop and check Twitter before launching. The second one had much stricter time demands.

Also this doesn't really count as aggression because it was late clock but it is occasionally useful to have a guy who's used to putting up slop because he's got no other option.

This increased aggression was coupled with a reversion to his earlier turnover-prone ways—he had five—but I don't think the two were correlated. Smith had a couple of entry passes over fronting sail off court and didn't notice Al Durham cheating to the Wagner backscreen on a steal that ended up in an and-one. He also got in no-man's land in a late clock situation once. These aren't turnovers that come from driving the ball into bad situations.

The metaphorical dagger. This did not end the game but it ended the game:

Few things more demoralizing than getting thunderjammed on after giving up two wide open threes that just happened not to fall.

Rough bench outing. Chaundee Brown didn't shoot well—1/7, with 6 attempts from three—and that's one thing. Brown's shots were largely reasonable-to-good opportunities and he turned in his usual brand of Shiva six-arm defense. Brown's still shooting 40% from three on the season and none of his attempts in this game were particularly questionable.

Austin Davis was always going to have some issues against Jackson-Davis and gave up two of  TJD's three buckets, plus an and-one. The issue there is that he didn't respond on the offensive end, missing a couple short shots and going 0/2 on the hook-and-hold call on Glee Extra Whose Name I Could Look Up But Won't.

Brandon Johns probably had the most disappointing outing. He missed bunnies, got beat on a straight-line drive by Race Thompson that led to an and-one for Jackson-Davis that put a foul on Dickinson; he also fouled Thompson twice for FTs. This came immediately on the heels of fronting Luka Garza out of almost anything, so that's a trade you'll take any day. Johns's inconsistency separates him from his current role and so much more. 

Okay but still. It didn't come off because Smith slipped but Michigan again found themselves in a situation where they got a good shot with 45-50 seconds left and successfully got a 2-for-1. (A four second difference between shot and game clock is a two-for-one.) The consistency with which Michigan gets 2-for-1s is a small coaching point but it is a nice one.