Michigan 82, Minnesota 57
Marcus Carr and Mike Smith meandered towards a wayward pass when a maize flash appeared.
"Meander" isn't in Chaundee Brown's basketball vocabulary. Sprinting down the sideline as if fired from a cannon, Brown beat Carr to the ball, collected it in stride, and finished the play with a powerful two-hand slam in front of the exuberant Michigan bench. Brown's unstoppable hustle gave the Wolverines a 22-point lead, their biggest of the night to that point, and the Gophers were broken.
Michigan led by as many as 37 points, demolishing a Minnesota team that entered the game ranked 21st on KenPom. Twice in the first half, the Wolverines went on runs that put the game on a verge of a blowout, only for the Gophers to reel them back each time, riding an eight-point Marcus Carr outburst to keep within six at halftime.
The two second-half runs weren't as well-answered. First, Hunter Dickinson scored eight points in a 17-6 run to open the half. Little-used third-string center Sam Freeman hit two free throws for the Gophers with 12:46 remaining to briefly stem the tide and keep them within a plausibly coverable 17 points. So Michigan threw another haymaker, scoring 18 straight in under five minutes to blow away any doubt about the game and, for that matter, this team's status as a Big Ten and, yes, national championship contender. Brown's backbreaker occurred during the second run.
big dunkinson [Campredon]
Save for Eli Brooks losing a tooth after taking an elbow, which thankfully caused nothing but dental damage, the game went about as well as one could imagine. In Dickinson's first test against a high-level big man of his size, he dominated seven-footer Liam Robbins, outscoring the Drake transfer 28-5 and doubling his rebound total 8-4 while not committing a single foul in 31 minutes. The freshman center went 12-for-15 from the field and hit all four of his free throws; he's now #5 in the KenPom Player of the Year standings.
The offense posted a scorching 1.21 points per possession even though Juwan Howard emptied the bench for the last four minutes and had freshman Zeb Jackson manning the point for the four minutes prior. Michigan went 29-for-45 on two-pointers, scoring 46 points in the paint, and rebounded ten of their 25 missed shots.
Brandon Johns had two of those offensive boards, converting both for putbacks, and scored seven points with two blocks while looking not only comfortable but impactful as the team's backup center and occasional power forward. Franz Wagner's offense didn't take center stage like is has the past few games, but he still put up an efficient 12 points, pulled down five boards, dished out four assists against zero turnovers, blocked two shots, and got his hands on more passes than I could track.
zesty [Campredon]
Smith had six assists, including a highlight-reel behind-the-head dish to Dickinson, though his ball control issues continued in a six-turnover evening. His defense, however, looked improved. While Brooks and Brown—and hellacious team help defense—did most of the work in slowing Carr to a 5-for-16 shooting performance, Smith took a few turns without appearing out of place. Isaiah Livers had two steals that he took the other way for dunks on his way to 14 points, going 5-for-6 inside the arc to make up for an unusual off-night beyond it.
Carr led the Gophers with 14 points; nobody else on their side finished in double figures. Robbins had a particularly rough go, finishing 2-for-9 from the field with no free throw attempts and one block. Both Gach didn't record a point until well into the second half. An offense with an excellent lead guard, a dangerous scoring center, and some decent surrounding pieces was totally shut down, scoring 0.84 PPP with some help from garbage-time minutes.
Michigan played their best game of the year against the best team they've faced so far. They remain the only undefeated team in the Big Ten. With Saturday's game against Penn State canceled due to COVID-19 positives within the Nittany Lions' program, the Wolverines now have five days to prepare before facing Wisconsin in the biggest Big Ten game of the season thus far on Tuesday. They couldn't have warmed up for it any better.
[Hit THE JUMP for more photos and the box score.]
All photos by Marc-Gregor Campredon. Click here for the full album.
January 6th, 2021 at 11:43 PM ^
They score like crazy, they play suffocating defense, they pass well, they shoot FTs well and they love playing for Juwan. Am I missing anything? It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
January 7th, 2021 at 7:06 AM ^
Yeah that was about as complete a performance as you will see from any basketball team. The only thing I would add is that Hunter Dickinson is LEGIT AF.
January 7th, 2021 at 8:14 AM ^
Didn't we say that same thing Sunday night, after toasting NW's marshmallows? LOL!!! This team is kinda good...
January 7th, 2021 at 7:46 AM ^
They rebound tenaciously...I mean TENACIOULSY!!!
The Michigan coaching staff is rounding into a top five unit-heading toward number 1...in both playing the game and recruiting. We've only just begun.
There will be losses but any shitting on this parade is mindless.
January 7th, 2021 at 11:31 AM ^
So would you say they have..... Tenacious D?
January 7th, 2021 at 8:21 AM ^
Yeah, you can complain about the terrible Kenpom time. The last three weeks they're getting destroyed in KenPom time...this could have been a 40 point win, last week could have been a 30 point win, maryland could have been a 20 pt win. It's probably cost UM a spot or two in the advanced stats. At least Brown understands the importance of finishing out a blowout.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:44 AM ^
Whatever Kenpom stats we're sacrificing, it's worth it to give the reserves some PT - not to mention protect the rotation guys from injury. Some things are more important than fancystats.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:50 AM ^
Yes - keep everyone healthy, esp. Livers, Franz and Dickinson. No sense in having them on the court just to run it up for KP. I imagine Brooks will be back, but I would've loved to see him come back into the game hockey-style last night! But, of course they didn't need him.
January 7th, 2021 at 12:51 PM ^
I was coming on here to say this. Dickinson had the most minutes on the team (31). I'm quibbling but he could have rested more in the last ten minutes. I thought Johns had his best game backing up at the 5 and I'd like to see him getting more PT and more confidence.
January 7th, 2021 at 11:37 AM ^
Also, we have to keep in mind that the end of the conference schedule is going to be very demanding. And it is likely to be even harder because of make-up games like Penn State (and very possibly others). Giving the high minutes guys some rest might pay off then. I'm particularly worried about Dickenson. He's only a freshman and freshmen tend to wear down by the end of the season. Freshman bigs have an even bigger problem.
January 7th, 2021 at 12:03 PM ^
Agree 100%. Avoid injury and keep 'em fresh. Plus, they're playing a pretty high octane style under Coach Howard and I hope that doesn't burn them out. I would like to see T Williams, Johns and even Zeb get some minutes in the next few weeks and Austin Davis coming back (soon, I think?) should also keep some gas in Dickinson's tank. This little gap before Wisconsin should help too.
They have Iowa and Michigan State in the last week of the season and then the B1G tournament. M already has a pretty excellent rotation already but you still have to look out for those key guys.
January 7th, 2021 at 8:15 PM ^
With you a 100%
January 7th, 2021 at 10:39 AM ^
Just from the eye test alone, our defense looks better than #19 in the country where KenPom has us right now
January 7th, 2021 at 11:15 AM ^
Yes, but that's a to date season number, and UM's defense earlier in the year wasn't close to this good(complaints about getting lost, missed switches on defense and giving up way to many good looks from 3). They've cleaned up a lot of their mental mistakes, and stepped it up considerably over the past few weeks, and combined with their excellent offense have really started to dominate teams.
Michigan seems to be playing at such a high level right now, It's gotten so bad that I really start to question how good the opponent can actually be if they're getting beaten so badly. Would be interesting to see how much of an anomaly these opponent performances are compared to the rest of their schedules because M has just been putting a beating on the last 4 opponents(I count Nebraska due to the unusual amount of circus shots they had to make to keep the game close).
January 6th, 2021 at 11:46 PM ^
Awesome win. So fun to watch.
Also: just how many steps did Livers take on that first breakaway dunk? I need someone to do a Shaqtin' a fool step counter on that replay.
January 6th, 2021 at 11:50 PM ^
ok, glad I wasn't the only one to think he took 3-9 steps lol
January 6th, 2021 at 11:53 PM ^
He hadn't picked the ball up yet. You can take as many steps as you want between dribbles
January 7th, 2021 at 12:22 AM ^
Yeah, no. He took a couple dribbles at mid court and just plain stopped.
January 7th, 2021 at 7:31 AM ^
It was not a travel. The shuffle steps were taken before he had gathered the ball in, so he still could have been dribbling. Then he picked it up and took 2 steps. Completely legal.
January 7th, 2021 at 8:16 AM ^
LOL!!! You keep thinking that, guy!! He took about 6 steps after the ball was last on the floor. But it was a fun one-hander!
January 7th, 2021 at 11:55 AM ^
The rule isn't based on how many steps you take after the ball hits the floor
January 7th, 2021 at 8:25 AM ^
When did that rule change? When I was growing up you were allowed 2 steps per dribble (which is almost never an issue, but you could definitely travel while dribbling).
January 7th, 2021 at 10:45 AM ^
Go check out Ant Wright's Twitter page for an explanation (he's done it on numerous different plays). Those shuffle steps after the last dribble but before he picks the ball up don't count. The two steps after he picks the ball up are where it starts to count.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:49 AM ^
After you pick up your dribble, you officially can take 1 1/2 steps . . . but I don't know if there's a rule about how many you can take while dribbling? That doesn't come up too often.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:56 AM ^
I have never heard of that rule before. It seems like hesitation dribbles where guys chop their feet would be illegal then, and they are certainly not
January 7th, 2021 at 10:45 AM ^
I loved this game. I love everything about this team, and they are doing everything right.
As far as this particular play though, I just watched the replay about 6 times to try and convince myself that particular play might not have been a travel. Livers has the ball firmly in his hand from the 3 point line and does some sort of 3 step shuffle before then taking the normal 2 steps before the slam. Sorry, but that was definitely traveling.
January 6th, 2021 at 11:55 PM ^
I was definitely laughing at that. Took like 2 steps, and then like 4 shuffle steps, then 1 more to jump. Gotta love how the official rules of basketball say "on awesome breakaway dunks, there's no such thing as traveling"
January 7th, 2021 at 1:37 AM ^
Indeed. For so many years, players everywhere always seem to take 3-4 steps with the ball for breakaway dunks and never get called for traveling. It's the same in the women's game with breakaway layups. They're always obvious travels but the refs let them be.
Livers took it even more extreme and probably traveled a few times on that one breakaway. But oh well. I laughed, though not as hard as I laughed at Wagner's 3 pointer going in after about 4 bounces on the rim.
January 6th, 2021 at 11:49 PM ^
I thought Eli was spectacular on defense. He destroyed Carr after destroying Buie. Chaundee did work too, but Brooks was awesome.
Also awesome was the adjustment by Juwan. That 8pt run by Carr came when they started running their ball screens higher to put the drop coverage in a bind and creat space. (Robbins got away with a bit of a moving screen too.). Out of halftime? Hard hedges by Dickinson like a veteran Teske and problem solved.
We didn't shoot well from outside and I though MN had a decent defense despite the final score. We still scored 80+ and humiliated them. Damn this is a fun team....
January 6th, 2021 at 11:54 PM ^
Brooks is one of the more underappreciated Michigan players. Remember how he shut down Cassius Winston last year during the rematch? Tremendous perimeter defender
January 7th, 2021 at 4:28 AM ^
Eli Brooks deserves at least an oversized lunchpail icon in the next infographic for the Wisconsin game.
January 7th, 2021 at 5:28 AM ^
Only if the lunchpail has a tooth logo on it.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:57 AM ^
Add a facemask, too (remember last year).
January 7th, 2021 at 9:44 AM ^
I love watching these guys play defense. After the game JH talked about how they had to refocus on defense during their time off and it shows. This is a really tight group that really responds to what JH tells them to do. Part of me wants the team to not get a break when they’re hot right now, but it’s probably better to get a breather heading into Wisconsin.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:41 AM ^
As someone who has historically called Brooks a "decent defender," no, he's a great defender
January 6th, 2021 at 11:51 PM ^
In the last decade we've had great offensive teams (2013, 2014) that were so-so defensively and great defensive teams (2018, 2019) that were so-so offensively. "What if we had a team that could be really good at both ends?" we wondered. Well...
January 6th, 2021 at 11:52 PM ^
I'm still too hyped to sleep.
This was such a delightful hamblasting. And another great team effort.
And Zeb is coming...he looks like the game is slowing down a bit. You'll know he's ready when his shot starts falling. To be able to play 10 guys come tournament time could be just awesome.
January 6th, 2021 at 11:53 PM ^
I'm so pumped about this team. What a game. Shoutout to that guy in the snowflake thread of the Northwestern game who tried to fight me when I said Eli was one of the most valuable players in the Big Ten.
I will bang on this drum until this site is deaf. A senior who shoots in the mid to high 30's from deep, knows the offense like the back of his hand, directs traffic on defense, almost never makes mental mistakes, and happens to also be a top notch defender is one of the most valuable players in the conference. Not best, valuable. There's a difference. In that thread I said his strength was off-ball D, which he is elite at (and often gets ignored with guards). Today, like many other games in the past, shows that he is an incredible defender all around, including guarding on-ball. 14 points on 17 shot equivalents for the best point guard in the conference.
It is completely meaningless to care about, but give the damn guy his "super defender" badge in the previews. It's time.
January 7th, 2021 at 12:10 AM ^
Im with you as well. Quit minimizing our players right? Go post on our football coaching threads. This is all positive vibes here.
January 7th, 2021 at 12:14 AM ^
"he's not good against elite offensive players. the don brown of the basketball team"
January 7th, 2021 at 2:34 AM ^
/rant inbound. People crapping on our players boils my blood.
Since Brian's been posting Matt EM's personal account tweets (The "LA Bound" account you see) I feel like it's more than fair game to acknowledge (due to the behavior clearly continuing if you read his twitter) that he basically got run off of the UMHoops forum after constant flame wars regarding his, we'll call them "disagreements" with how John Beilein ran his program. His tweet against Eli was straight garbage and it's a shame that he has never been able to put aside his anti-Beilein bias and look at the game and Beilein and the 'typical' Beilein recruits like Brooks objectively.
Shoutout to "soft as butter bust" DJ Wilson, Duncan "taking him over Jalen Coleman-Lands is a fireable offense" Robinson, and especially shoutout to Eli Brooks, of whom Matt's tantrum upon him committing is what finally ran him off the forum for good. The dude is just toxic and it's a shame that I've seen it crop back up on Twitter, because I really thought he had turned a new page when he started writing here. His website is a scouting service, right? That's what it seems to be. I wouldn't pay a guy who said Eli can't guard elite players and equated him to Don Brown a penny for his scouting.
edit: the guy tweeted 50+ times tonight, heaping praise on Smith, Dickinson, Johns, Brown, Wagner, Zeb, etc. There was a single tweet about Brooks. Naturally, it is criticizing his defense in a game in which he completely shut down the best point guard in the conference.
https://twitter.com/LAbound2/status/1347005068210483205?s=20
Just embarrassing.
January 7th, 2021 at 7:35 AM ^
oh shit you did it. Come back and post on UMHoops, man. -kturnup
He has a very specific brand of basketball he enjoys, and won't accept others as valid. Funny enough, 3/5 of the lineup are Beilein recruits (counting Franz) and Beilein was also recruiting Hunter Dickinson.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:41 AM ^
Oh, so I definitely did not need to explain that whole saga to you then LOL.
Everyone on that board has a crystal clear memory of the numerous great Michigan players who Matt EM said taking on were indicative of a failed program.
January 7th, 2021 at 11:10 AM ^
He knows a lot more than me about basketball, and I appreciate his front page writeups, but in one of them he said something like "advanced stats show free throw % and 3% correlate, but I don't buy it". And I pointed out in the comments that you're basically disagreeing with a proven correlation that there is tons of data to support. So he negged me and posted a snarky response. He's anti analytics and that's fine, but as ak47 pointed out there's a difference between ignoring crazy stats like PRPG! and looking at 2 correlated things.
January 7th, 2021 at 11:58 AM ^
I think his takes are generally solid and he has a good eye for the game, but he can't help but become extremely condescending and snarky if you disagree with him
January 7th, 2021 at 1:02 PM ^
Do you even need advanced stats to figure out that there is probably a correlation between being good at free throws and threes? That seems like common sense.
January 7th, 2021 at 7:29 AM ^
I've been in this Brooks camp for years. The problem is Brian isnt a fan, and, the poster you encountered was one of many mindless people here who cannot think for themsevles and Brian's opinion is theirs.
January 7th, 2021 at 8:59 AM ^
Yup, there is a reason why Eli is getting big minutes between two coaching staff. They have complete trust in him.
Regardless, Michigan has a bunch of great individual defenders like Franz, Chaundee and Eli that helped mask Mike Smith and Hunter Dickinson deficiencies on defense.
January 7th, 2021 at 9:34 AM ^
I like Brooks a lot too, but I confess to complaining a few times about him in the past not scoring enough. But I'll shut up now and just appreciate all that he does. Plus he gave up one of his teeth last night for Michigan Basketball!
January 7th, 2021 at 10:48 AM ^
the poster you encountered was one of many mindless people here who cannot think for themsevles and Brian's opinion is theirs.
Lol thanks for accusing me of not being able to have independent thought. Sorry that I have a different opinion than you. Brooks is definitely a much better defender than I've been giving his credit for. Offensively, I still hold the same opinion. He's fine, but has missed way too many open shots this year and sometimes commits careless turnovers
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