Michigan's tourney coverage is sponsored by HomeSure Lending, a local company that does not have Sparty in its ads. UPDATE: Matt is buying the first round tonight at HOMES for anyone who wants to come watch together. Seth will be there too.

THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

Michigan embarks on its third consecutive Sweet 16 with a bear in the crosshairs, but in this year's tourney everyone has a bear of a game. Once more into the breach.

THE LINEUP CARD

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. Minutes are from the last five games except where starred.

Pos.	#	Name	Yr.	Ht./Wt.	%Min	%Poss	ORtg	SIBMIHHAT
G	2	Matt Mooney	Sr.	6'3, 200	83	22	97	No
Combo G has 22 TO rate and 21 A rate, shooting 44/38 with most of his shots from 2.
G	5	Davide Moretti	So.	6'2, 175	77	16	129	No!
Sniper hitting 56/45, 92% at line. Superior midrange game. Still better than giving him a 3.
F	3	Brandone Francis	Sr.	6'5, 215	61	16	97	Meh
Shooting 39/34; minuscule FT rate and takes more than half his twos in midrange, where he's 20%.
F	11	Jarrett Culver	So.	6'6 195	90	31	110	Meh
Alpha headed for lottery. 31% usage, 55/33 split. PG A rate, most of his shots unassisted, good FT rate.
C	13	Tariq Owens	Sr.	6'10, 205	63	17	127	Yes
St John's grad transfer is 11th in block rate nationally. Wiry, switchable. 68% from 2, doesn't create own shots.
C	10	Norense Odiase	Sr.	6'8, 250	48	15	110	Yes
Beefy backup C is starter quality w top 50 OREB rate and top 100 block rate, 58% from 2.
F	21	Deshawn Corprew	So.	6'5, 210	33	18	117	No
Hitting 67/42 from floor with a double digit OREB rate. TO rate too high.
G	0	Kyler Edwards	So.	6'3, 200	27	18	97	No
SG should never venture inside line (38/42 split) but takes most of his shots from 2.
C	15	Malik Ondigo	So.	6'10, 270	0	19	81	Yes
Tech plays 8 guys and only 8 guys, will only get unearthed if the walls cave in.

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

THE THEM

Quien es mas macho? Texas Tech's no middle paint-swarming defense, or Michigan's superior one-on-one no-help approach? We're about to find out. This game features the two best defenses in the country. Per Kenpom, Texas Tech is #1 and Michigan #2. Torvik has it the other way. This one's going to be a grind. Jordan Sperber provides a scouting breakdown of both Ds that is a must-watch primer for tomorrow's game:

How Michigan attacks this is another section. This one's about Texas Tech's players.

On offense the conversation starts with soon-to-be lottery pick Jarrett Culver. Culver's blown up in his sophomore year after fixing his shot, as Sam Vecinie details:

In catch-and-shoot situations, Culver has made 12 of his 23 attempts. But where he has seen the biggest improvement is in his ability as a pull-up shooter. Through 14 games, Culver has already taken more than 15 pull-up shots than he took all of last season, and he’s connecting at a remarkably high rate. He has a 50 effective field goal percentage on pull-up jumpers on 45 attempts. Compare that to last season, where Culver made just seven of his 33 attempts for a 24.2 effective field goal percentage. …

Culver has a great feel for how to get defenders just slightly off-balance, a skill that helps him overcome his lack of elite explosiveness. He’s a smart driver with great feel. Part of it is innate. Culver’s poise gives him the confidence that he has an extra split second to make defenders commit to what he’s doing. But it also comes with the preparation aspect. Culver is an avid watcher of film on both ends of the floor, particularly looking to pick up tendencies for the way defenders tend to play their opposition, as well as the way that offensive players want to attack.

His three point shooting has taken a step back as he's emerged into a 31% usage guy—he's at 33% on about the same number of attempts after hitting 38% last year. But he's doubled the number of twos he takes and is hitting 55%. He's got a 27 assist rate and a 16 TO rate. He's the dude.

Michigan will obviously stick Charles Matthews on him and dare Culver to score 40. Matthews can score 4 points and still be the reason Michigan wins if Culver's throwing up tough shots and not getting any assists to his two super-efficient, but assist-reliant, teammates.

[texastech.com]

Super Efficient But Assist Reliant Teammate #1 is only sort of assist reliant, admittedly. Shooting guard Davide Moretti is one of the best shooters in the country. His 129 ORTG is 15th nationally, because he's got good options at any range. His FT rate is solid and he hits 92% there; he's hitting 51% on other twos, and he's a 45% three point shooter. He's low usage on a team that could use a real second banana so he's not a guy who's going to go off unless you're helping off him, which Michigan generally does not do.

Limiting Moretti will be key for Michigan; Mooney is the nominal PG and would normally draw Simpson so this will probably be Poole. I worry about Poole turning off momentarily and allowing Moretti to launch some quick trigger shots off no action.

FWIW, Moretti is an Italian guy who moved to Lubbock. This has no bearing on anything. I want to see this movie, though.

Super Efficient Assist Reliant Teammate #2 is Tariq Owens. He is the most impactful grad transfer in college basketball outside of maybe Reid Travis at Kentucky, but for my money Owens is still it. He's also one of the most fascinating counterfactuals in recent college basketball history. He bailed from St. John's, which ended up losing in the First Four after having to play a 6'7" guy at center. Things would have been a lot different if they had a 6'10" guy with Gumby arms erasing shots.

And that's what Owens is. His block rate is 11th nationally. He's not a post banger at 205 pounds, so he's not a great defensive rebounder but he is—ugh—switchable. Sperber points out a few different instances where those switches result in easy buckets for the opposition when he does not prevent the guy he switches on from getting to the middle of the floor; it still chills the bones when an opponent has the ability to nerf Michigan's ball screen game so thoroughly.

Owens will drop to the baseline on all those drives Texas Tech provides, and once there he'll challenge shots or try to take gross Wisconsin charges—Sperber's Tourney Bible has an accompanying Tech video with a whole section of those already-leaning-back charges that so infuriate against the Badgers. He, and Texas Tech as a whole, is also expert at getting their hands on the skip passes that are the obvious antidote to a defense that collapses as much as the Red Raiders do.

On offense Owens is an effective finisher and will get some putbacks. He generates almost literally nothing on his own. His points will come on pick and roll breakdown and when Teske is forced to help. This should make it fairly easy for Teske to stay on the floor.

The two other guys are relative weak spots. PG-type substance Matt Mooney is shooting 44/38 but takes twice as many twos as threes; when actions break down and it's time to go get something Mooney is more likely to take that shot than anyone other that Culver. This doesn't go so well. He's shooting 33% on the other twos that are a plurality of his usage, and he's got a 22 TO rate that's actually higher than his assist rate. If Mooney is closed out and forced to drive that's a situation Michigan's defense will be just fine with.

Senior wing Brandone Francis* is in a similar boat. He's more perimeter oriented, with about half his shot equivalents coming from 3. He's a 34% shooter out there, and a horror show inside the line at 39%, because he's mediocre at the rim and a 20% shooter on other twos.

Both these guys create a lot of their own shots, which is a mitigating factor, but mediocre isolation players who are loose with the ball and suck inside the line are the kind of players who Michigan sets on fire. An excellent barometer for how things are going on defense is the ratio of Mooney/Francis usage to Moretti/Owens usage.

Odiase: 6'8", 250, athletic [texastech.com]

Texas Tech's bench is three and only three players, all of them solid. Backup C Norense Odiase is a beef machine in the Wesson/Ward mold, but bouncier. He's a rebound vacuum on both ends and has a top 100 block rate himself. He'll post a little but but not much, and with a 23 TO rate and 53% conversion rate from two in KP Top 100 games his usage is likely to be inefficient. He gets 20 MPG and will play alongside Owens some, but not much. In their last 5 they've gone dual post for about 7 MPG. It gives up more on O than it gets on D:

cupcakes excised

And that's with absurd three point shooting luck.

DeShawn Corprew will crash the boards effectively for a 6'5"guy; with the ball in his hands he's been an effective shooter (67/42) on limited usage. You can collapse on him; his assist rate of 6 is in black hole territory.

Freshman Kyler Edwards is another guy to force inside the line, and another guy with a goofy split. He's at 38/42 with about two thirds of his shot equivalents inside the line. He's a black hole as well.

*[One game after playing the team with the most "Ke" names in the country Michigan gets the team with the most extraneous E usage.]

THE TEMPO-FREE

Tech makes shots but doesn't do much else well on offense:

• They're 49th in eFG% and about there both inside and outside the line.
• All other factors are dead average.
• One outlier on the drill-down: they suffer a lot of steals.
• They don't launch many threes.

On defense, an argument about three point defense being luck. A year after being the #33 3-point D in the country, Tech is 16th. Other details:

• Tech is 2nd in two point D, which adds up to the second-best eFG in the country.
• In addition to this, all the charges and deflected skip passes in a crowded lane sees Tech land 10th in defensive TO rate.
• Tech is mediocre at cleaning its own glass and does commit a bunch of fouls. With two effective Cs this is not a huge problem.
• They do give up a bunch of 3PAs.

It's gonna be a grinder.

THE KEYS

Charles Matthews face. The state of Charles Matthews's face will tell you all you need to know. There are few players in the country better suited to shut down Jarrett Culver, and if you do that then Tech is looking at getting assists from Mooney or jacking up bad iso twos.

If Michigan can successfully go no-help Texas Tech's offense is likely to crumble. The Mathlete put together a chart of Michigan and Texas Tech offensive performances against elite Ds this season that's encouraging:

The giant Texas Tech outlier was a 16/26 shooting performance from three against Kansas, a team that's 282nd in allowing threes. Michigan is third. 

The key to going no-help is Matthews on Culver.

Finding a way to get ball screens to work. Michigan almost always goes left to right on Simpson's screens to get him to his right hand; Tech is likely to ice these ball screens as part of no-middle. There are various ways to attack this coverage and Michigan knows it's coming but they haven't faced that much, if at all, this year.

This might actually play into Michigan's hands. Michigan had their worst outings of the year against Wisconsin, which just dropped the big and dared Simpson to shoot, and MSU, which switched everything. Simpson excels at finding passing angles that will be there against aggressive trapping. Tech is not going to abandon their principles because they come up against Simpson; he may be more effective than other varieties of PG.

Bigger guys shooting skip passes around. Tech invites baseline drives and collapses. Meanwhile Michigan's starters 2-4 have assist rates of 6 (Iggy), 9 (Matthews), and 13 (Poole).  Those guys are bigger than Simpson and more likely to get those skips through at angles flat enough to give Michigan open looks from three. It's just that nobody in that crew except Poole, occasionally, has driven to pass the whole season.

I don't know how much Michigan can change that in a week. But you watch Texas Tech and I don't know what Simpson's going to do on the baseline.

Livers at the 5. Owens is big but doesn't post, so Michigan might look at going 5-out with Livers. In exchange for giving up lob vulnerability Michigan gets an elite pick and pop threat. Texas Tech has not seen much of that this year. They did thunk Oklahoma and their stretch 5 twice. Michigan's offense is a different beast.

Related to the above: take and hit threes. Okay looks are good looks in this game.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 1. Hold on to your butts.