Michigan a** kicking Indiana snowflakes

Submitted by 615Wolverine on
I don't think anyone expected this result. This is a great win for our guys, good luck heading into East Lansing. Insert Tom Cream memes below.
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lilpenny1316

January 27th, 2017 at 12:20 AM ^

Overall and from 3-point range.  Maybe advanced stats match what looked like a good defensive effort.  We still get beaten too easily off the dribble, but hopefully that can be fixed over the next few weeks.  

Great win.  Let's keep it up on the road against Miles Bridges and the Weird Guys.

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TrueBlue2003

January 27th, 2017 at 1:00 AM ^

The main culprit is Walton and he just is who he is at this point.  Got burned by Johnson and Newkirk several times.  The other key is MAAR playing well because if he's holding his own, which he certainly did tonight against Blackmon, we can keep Robinson as merely a matchup guy off the bench.  He's the other matador on D and he's not gonna get better at that either. Need his minutes to stay under 20.

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J.

January 27th, 2017 at 2:09 AM ^

3-point defense -- statistically -- isn't a thing.. and two of those threes were to that end-of-the-bench guy in the last two minutes.

What a good defense can do is limit your opportunities from 3.  IU only attempted 13 threes out of 44 field goal attempts, or 29.5%.  They average 39.5%, so Michigan held them substantially under their average -- and, again, even more so when the game was in doubt.  I saw many fewer occasions of Michigan players looking completely lost on defense than I'd seen earlier in the Big Ten conference season.  Instead, they switched smartly on screens, played sensible help defense without giving up a ton of open looks, took charges out away from the basket, where it's easier to get the call, and harrassed the ball handler to the point where they forced IU into a calvacade of turnovers.

It wasn't a world-beating defensive performance, but it was a good one.  Indiana's lower offensive efficiencies this year: 0.929 in the inexplicable loss at IPFW; 0.944 in a neutral-court loss to Louisville, and... 1.02 in a 19-point win vs Rutgers (??).  That's not bad company.

Meanwhile, while we agree that IU's defense isn't great, their previous worst performacne was 1.20 ppp in their home loss to Nebraska.  Michigan just dropped 1.54... or, just slightly better than IU's own excellent offense did in its best performance of the year, in December, at home, against the Hornets of Delaware State.

This game was, simply, an evisceration.

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J.

January 27th, 2017 at 1:24 PM ^

http://kenpom.com/blog/3point-defense-should-not-be-defined-by-opponent…

http://kenpom.com/blog/offense-vs-defense-3point-percentage/

To wit: the defense has a very small effect upon the opponents' three-point shooting percentage.  The Wisconsin game is a microcosm: Wisconsin hit a couple of 3-point shots with hands in their face while fading away -- a low-percentage shot, to be sure.  Meanwhile, Mo Wagner, who is a 43% 3-point shooter -- second-best on the team among guys with more than ten attempts -- missed two wide-open 3s in a row.

An analysis based upon three-point percentage allowed would say that Wisconsin guarded the 3 better than Michigan did.  Someone who watched those possessions would say the opposite.

What the studies do show is that you can have an effect on the number of 3s your opponents take -- intuitively, if you leave them wide-open, they'll take more threes -- but you're pretty much at their mercy when it comes to the percentage allowed.  So, when you take a team like Indiana, who nomally takes 39.5% of their field goals from 3-point range, and you hold them to taking only 29.5% instead, you've done well, statistically, in the area you can control.

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J.

January 27th, 2017 at 11:49 PM ^

OK, fine, but the original message in the thread was pointing out that Indiana shot over 50% ffrom 3 for the game, and contending that was a bad result for Michigan.  My reply is that they held IU to far fewer than their average number of 3s, which is a good result for Michigan.

I will admit my guilt on the imprecise wording, but I think hte meaning is clear: While you can defend against the 3, successful defense will show up in terms of the number of shots conceded, not the number of attempts made, nor even the shooting percentage.

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megaswami

January 27th, 2017 at 5:21 AM ^

I don't think you are looking at the "Fire Belein" banter correctly. People just want the team to play up to it's capabilities. When you take into account the momentum this program should've had following the finals appearance....bottom line, expectations at UofM are always gonna be high. I think JB is a GREAT coach, but recruiting and on-court performance falls on his shoulders. You see all these programs at the top, year in and year out, and Michigan's inconsistency is profound.



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Grabelnyc

January 27th, 2017 at 10:40 AM ^

We were a fluke (Kansas) away from making neither final four. The beilein naysayers have been proven right by the man himself. If you don't see the marked difference in his offensive and defensive philosophy since Wisconsin then you frankly don't belong in the argument. Ask beilfelt who was the perfect power forward that had to transfer to a team that would play two bigs. Ask McGrary who used to have to go to the top of the key to get the ball because we never enter the ball to the post. Ask Darius Morris if he recognizes the offense we ran the last few games. Where the ball goes inside instead of spending 28 out of 30 seconds outside the arc. Ask Michigan state who used to play ping pong on the offensive glass because we were undersized. And w/o a capable 4 to double the block. Ask his guys if they appreciate that he's yelling at the refs now about some of the calls, instead of assuming the kids made mistakes. How many good coaches hire a defensive specialist to come in and help? How many coaches are obsessed with fouls so much that they let their guys get abused on the post just to stay out of the bonus? White collar wasn't the first soft comment. Remember Jordan Morgan saying we lift weights too? Beilein has abandoned much of what he's been doing for years, and thank the basketball gods for that. Whoever said you can't teach an old dog new tricks, never met John Beilein. We can all support him now because it appears he no longer sucks.

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mgoblu88

January 27th, 2017 at 7:10 AM ^

Great win against IU.
Enjoy it. Build on it. Repeat it.
Almost half way home to needed 10 wins in B1G play for at-large NCAA bid.
Let's get half way on Sunday in Breslin.
And bury MSU deeper into the NIT.
MGoBlue!



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LSAClassOf2000

January 27th, 2017 at 8:19 AM ^

I still think that the weirdest part of this win is that Indiana managed an effective FG% of 62.5% and lost by thirty even at that. Granted, our percentage on that same stat is 74.49%, but 62.5% would still win you a fair amount of games against many teams - just not Michigan, just not last night. Another reason why sometimes basketball stats are weird but fun all the same.

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