11/28/2018 – Michigan 84, North Carolina 67 – 7-0

Last year's game against North Carolina was a familiar script for Michigan fans. When one of college basketball's blue bloods deigns to play Michigan, it's the old college try for a while. Then the fact that the large men can jump over your head wins out, as it tends to in basketball games.

Sometimes Michigan stayed in contact until the very end, like they did in the Elite Eight against Kentucky. Sometimes they won the damn game, like they did in the Sweet Sixteen versus Kansas. Other times not so much. But even when the positive version of these events were transpiring every lead the opposition got felt like a million points; every Michigan basket was trying to empty the ocean bucket by bucket. Last year it was 20-20 in a flash because Michigan was hitting everything, but even then I was waiting for the bottom to drop out. North Carolina was taking a bunch of good shots. Michigan was taking… shots. They weren't all bad. They weren't all good. They were just shots.

When the lull inevitably came the deficit piled up quickly. Michigan never managed to eat into it. And that was the least unusual thing in the world.

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pre-hat-and-pistols phase[Campredon]

Last night Roy Williams got madder and madder and madder until he was Yosemite Sam in a suit. He was so furious about a four-point first-half deficit that he kept his team in the locker room for the full duration of halftime; when the second half started his team was so sped up that they were taking literally any shot they could get up without devolving into half-court offense. These were universally bricks.

Michigan responded with slick pick-and-roll baskets and open threes. Williams became beet-red at the neck, with the redness inching ever-higher. Jon Teske—honest friar Jon Teske—leveled the basket on an alley-oop dunk that I still do not believe happened; the red flew up Roy's forehead. The meter filled up shortly after. Williams pulled the ultimate high school move: all five starters on the bench, looking forlorn as their backups booted balls into the stands and threw up the kind of shots that are hard to rebound because they come off the backboard so fast they feel like bullets. By the time the starters returned the lead was well and truly insurmountable.

Afterwards:

"It was because they stunk it up," Williams said when asked about the lineup change. "Every one of them stunk it up, and so did I." …

"I've got no positive things," Williams said. "If you want positive things, you'd better go out and find someone on the street. I've got no positive for me, no positives for my team."

This was unusual. Michigan has exasperated coaches before. They've rained death from above against half the country. They've never comprehensively whooped one of college basketball's upper crust on both ends. If Michigan could hit a dang free throw they would have cracked 1.3 points per possession. UNC was held under one on the other end.

This wasn't Michigan scrapping out a victory with pluck and an improbable three pointer launched nearly from halfcourt. From the 12 minute mark in the first half on it was a +27 beatdown in which Michigan felt like the better team in everything except getting shots up (but not down) fast. This year it was UNC hitting just shots for a while, and then the bottom dropped out on them. Their vaunted transition game was more curse than gift. Once in the halfcourt they looked around for one on one opportunities and executed far too few of them.

This is a new world.

When a Yaklich defense shoots like a Beilein offense, forget it

— John Gasaway (@JohnGasaway) November 29, 2018

John Beilein's Michigan teams are known for scuffling through early rough patches as the complicated offense comes together with new folks in new roles. Then they hit the warp speed button. Sometimes in January, sometimes in February, but usually around halfway through the year.

What happens when a Beilein team that has ripped Villanova and North Carolina hits the go button? Is there even a button left to push? Where can they even go from here? What's the hole to patch? Okay, other than free throws? I have no idea what the answer to these questions are. I project finding out is going to be fun.

[After THE JUMP: old man game and a deer on fire]

BULLETS

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​old man game [Campredon]

Iggy, the initiator. Probably not a coincidence that Michigan's worst stretch of the game came when Brazdeikis went to the bench after an early foul. It wasn't so much the defense—as mentioned, UNC was hitting contested shots early—but the offense fell into a funk. Iggy immediate relieved it upon his return with a drive to the basket on which he got an and one; the defender was late but even if he'd gotten there in time Brazdeikis anticipated and jumped back to the center of the court; contact would have been a glancing no-call*.

Brazdeikis's craftiness around the rim is almost without parallel in recent Michigan history, and any contenders for the crown are guys like Simpson and Spike Albrecht who have to come up with absurd shot patterns to prevent their shots from being blocked into the front row. Brazdeikis has the game of a 5'10" guard in a 6'7" frame.

It's early days yet on his three-point shooting but early returns match his high school production. He's not good off the dribble but on a spot-up he's a 40%+ guy. His free throw percentage agrees.

The only downside: uh, Michigan might want to start shopping around with the extra scholarship they're probably going to have.

*[Probably. Brazdeikis got hit with a blocking foul that even Dick Vitale said was a charge.]

#3 player in the country driving on Teske: no sir [Campredon]

Teske, the disruptor. Five blocks from Teske, and it felt like more. He got switched onto Nassir Little on the perimeter and calmly mirrored his drive and forced Little to throw up a brick. In a word: what. Luke Maye spent large portions of this game at the 4 so his statline is a team thing, but kudos to all: 11 points on 14 shot equivalents, one assist, one turnover, 90 ORTG.

Teske's block rate is a hair away from triple digits and 53rd in the country; his active hands give him an exceptional-for-a-big steal rate; he's averaging just 3.5 fouls per 40. His rebounding numbers aren't exceptional but that's in large part because of Michigan's philosophy, which prioritizes boxing out above all else and allows the point guard to go get anything that doesn't bounce directly to someone else. Zavier Simpson's DREB rate (17.2) is higher than Teske's (16.9). I will admit I was hoping for something closer to last year's 14 OREB rate than this year's 8.

But everything else is as projected. Last year I kept saying that I didn't think Michigan was going to lose much overall despite the departure of Moe Wagner because Teske was the kind of elite-without-the-ball player Mitch McGary was. Turns out that's true. And if you're a 6'8" guy trying to beat him up in the post, forget it.

Bambi on fire. I have to admit that I spend much of this game wincing at Charles Matthews ball-dominant possessions, and I mostly stand by that in-the-moment feeling. Matthews had 3 TOs to one assist and while he made a couple of those fallaway jumpers early his efficiency on offense came from open looks from three and one tip dunk. The team operated much more smoothly when Brazdeikis and Simpson were initiating offense and Matthews was either the direct beneficiary of an open look or able to go after a defense in recovery mode.

That said: 21 points, 5/8 from the line, one statement block, and one deflated balloon that used to be Cameron Johnson left in his wake. Johnson hadn't put up an ORTG worse than 109 this year. Against Matthews and Michigan: 64, with his five points coming only when the game had long been decided.

Abandon ship. Michigan's extreme focus on preventing UNC transition opportunities resulted in what might be a program low in offensive rebounds: two, both by Matthews. John Gasaway has been banging on about how extreme offensive rebound avoidance is probably counterproductive* for years, and I mostly agree with him. In this situation the exception seemed reasonable: Michigan has a lethal half-court defense and UNC is the most Leeroy Jenkins team in the country.

One thing that Michigan's ability to get back did is help neutralize UNC's offensive rebounding. Michigan ended up giving up 13 (31% of UNC's misses), but four of those were from deep bench players in Kenpom time and three others were "team" rebounds that happen when the ball goes out of bounds off a Michigan player. I don't think UNC got a putback all night. UNC had just one OREB in the first half.

*[Michigan has always been at the bottom end of the OREB rankings but usually around 250th, not in the deep 300s that some coaches choose, and is thus not quite in the red zone.]

Creeping back up towards normal Beilein levels. Michigan hit 50% from three on a series of excellent looks and has crept back up above average (average is 34%) on the season. They're at 35% and trends are positive. Jordan Poole's up over 40% and has hit 12 of his last 22; Brazdeikis his 5 for his last 9; Teske will either start making some or stop shooting them.

The natural shooting level on this team is enough to keep them up in the 35-38% range for the season. It won't be a collection of ludicrous snipers like the Levert/Stauskas/Walton team that hit 40% on the season but it'll be plenty good enough given what they've got on the other end of the floor. Early concerns that Michigan would never hit a three again were overblown.

 

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[Campredon]

Obligatory free throws mention. 11 of 23. The period towards the end of the first half where they missed four in a row, including two front ends of one-and-ones, felt like a giant disaster. The good news is that Matthews has been hitting 69% since an 0/5 start and even if you include that he's up about five percentage points.

Conference check. Rats to a bad no-call on Carsen Edwards late in Purdue's game against Florida State, which eventually led to a winning FSU basket and a 7-7 tie in the Big Ten/ACC challenge. Even so, thanks to [checks notes] big nonconference wins by Penn State, Northwestern, and [checks notes again] uh it says Rutgers here you could reasonably assert that literally every Big Ten team is meeting or exceeding expectations. A few notables:

• Wisconsin has wins over Xavier, Oklahoma, and NC State and looks to be mostly back.
• Iowa beat Oregon, UConn, and Pitt and has their defense up to 70th on Kenpom.
• OSU beat Cincinnati and Creighton.
• Nebraska beat Seton Hall and Clemson.
• Minnesota beat Texas A&M and Washington.
• Rutgers. Rutgers beat Miami. On the road. This a real thing that happened.
• Penn State has losses to Bradley and DePaul but hey that win over VT is nice.

Indiana, MSU, and Purdue are about tracking expectation, I guess—Purdue doesn't have a great win this year but was very close against FSU and VT, both top-20 Kenpom teams. Indiana might be a bit of a letdown, as they offset a win against Marquette with a loss to Arkansas and hammering at the hands of Duke.

Upticks in Big Ten nonconference scheduling and the addition of two conference games, plus the conference's excellent performance this far should make this a 7 or 8 bid league depending on how the next month of the season goes. Even historically awful schedulers like Penn State and Northwestern have put some real opponents on the slate. Outside of mandated Challenge games, PSU has NC State and Alabama; Northwestern has DePaul and Oklahoma. And the league has cut way down on boat anchor scheduling.

The exception: Maryland, which has four different sub-300 Kenpom opponents and just Seton Hall (and Loyola Chicago, I guess) outside of their challenge game.