What did UCLA do to completely disrupt Michigan's offense?
One thing that annoys me about mgoblog is the writers don't ever seem to analyze the last game of the season when Michigan loses. I like to hear what it was that the opponent did to end Michigan's season. Instead, it's just "it was a great season, time to move on".
In the case of the ugly UCLA loss, I'm curious what you guys think it was that UCLA was doing defensively that caused Michigan's offense to be so ugly. I don't buy into the thought that Michigan completely blew it, because UCLA was able to do the same thing to Alabama. There's something that UCLA does defensively that makes their opponents offense look terrible.
Dunno but it doesn't seem they did anything to make Eli not gather himself on what should have been two easy buckets at the rim or for UM to suddenly become a sub-par FT and 3 point shooting team.
UM just wasn't big enough for the moment, unfortunately.
They gave them a magic potion that made them miss shots at the basket.
They reminded Hunter that he had no right hand.
"They reminded Hunter that he had no right hand."
This is false. I downvoted you for this nonsense.
Hunter Dickinson has scored with his right hand on numerous occasions in various games throughout the season. But fans generally have the memory of a potato so they struggle to remember things that don't conform to their ill-formed notions.
That said, Dickinson definitely prefers using his dominant left since he's a southpaw.
Unfortunately, Dickinson simply missed a number of looks near the basket he normally makes.
It was just a strange game.
- FFS, Wagner missed a pointblank layup on a BOB (Baseline Out of Bounds) play.
- He also inexplicably airballed an open look from 3.
- Mike Smith missed 2 FTs at the end of 1st half.
- Hunter Dickinson (a 75% FT shooter on the season) shot 1-4 (25%) from the line.
Sometimes shit happens. And unfortunately, it happened against us.
My statement can be true and not the only reason we lost man. Franz, Brooks, Wagner shot 5-25. That will not get it done in a game with a final 4 on the line. I'm not even saying Hunter is trash either. We wouldn't have gotten to where we were without him. Really unfortunate not to have Livers out there.
I simply took issue with your statement because it's false; Hunter definitely has taken and made right-handed shots with some semblance of regularity.
But I think we can agree that Hunter decided to not use his right hand in this game or he wasn't comfortable relying on it in a pressure-filled game.
This was a game Michigan should have won. Michigan needed one or two players to play just a little better, make a couple more shots, get another defensive rebound or two, and this would have been a close, but not nail biting, win.
That said, UCLA coaching staff deserves a lot of credit for giving them the best chance to win. Michigan’s biggest offensive weakness is the lack of 1v1 prowess. UCLA switched effectively to negate Michigan’s great ball movement, and UCLA had Michigan’s individual players well scouted. For example, Hunter needs to win pre-catch if you defend his right shoulder. UCLA was all over that (not just their bigs but all players that switched into him). Wagner goes right - they tried to take that away. Etc, etc. that was the game plan they had to execute to have a chance, and they did. Like I said above, Michigan still should have won.
edit - just an add (and this is complete hindsight type stuff here): at times Davis is more effective in the post 1v1 than Hunter. It may have been worthwhile getting him in on a possession or 2 down the stretch to see if he could make a basket. We had fouls to give to get Hunter back in on defense. Again, complete hindsight, but something that might have worked.
The good news is we made it that far without any future NBA players on the roster (save maybe Zay as a role player).
The future is bright.
Dude, Wagner will be a first-round pick this year if he declares.
I wonder about if his stock didn't drop during the dance as he was a ghost a lot of the time. Yeah, he'll get drafted but I don't see him doing a lot as he wilts in the face of athleticism. Not sure another year in college would help much, though.
Franz was fantastic against LSU and FSU. Even against UCLA he played very well defensively. He's absolutely high on NBA radars.
The main reason for him to stay would be to get a better college experience, because he's basically had one semester of that.
Well, I disagree about Franz being fantastic against FSU. I mean, his 3 point shooting was very bad during that game and it continued to be that way against UCLA.
April fools joke? He shot 1/11. BTW, we don't miss 5 FTs, we win.
April fools joke? He shot 1/11. BTW, we don't miss 5 FTs, we win.
No future NBA players on the roster? Either dickish troll or grossly ignorant. You suck regardless.
I'll revise by saying "no impact players" at the NBA level.
I don't see Dickinson's skill set allowing him to be any more than a role player -- it's not 1976.
Love Zay but the last mock draft I saw had him in the bottom half of the second round. He MIGHT carve out a role.
Chaundee? Hmm, he's not on any mocks that I've seen. Having said that, I sure wish they had drawn up a play for him at the end of the UCLA game. He'd benefit from another year at UM.
Franz needs to tighten up his shooting to be any kind of factor. I'll take a three year bet that he doesn't leave much of a mark. My seat of my pants opinion is that he disappears a lot against athletes and the NBA is loaded with them.
Not a dick but do understand the game and remember when UM had sure-fire first round guys. This team doesn't have one.
With JH's recruiting chops that will change.
Wagner is a ‘sure fire first round guy’. He might not be an nba superstar, but he is, and will be, a first round pick.
Zay and Chaundee will both have their shots at rosters as 3&D guys. Wagner is a fringe lottery pick at worst. Dickinson has the potential to develop into an NBA guy. Your take is bad.
Wagner is a lottery pick, Livers will play in the nba, so will Dickinson (after another year or 2).
Give credit to UCLA for playing aggressive defense. They were always in our face well past the 3-point line and definitely made us work for everything. But I don't think that alone caused us any major issues. We still got a lot of clean looks. We uncharacteristically missed a ton of shots at the rim.
Our first half rhythm was also completely knocked off kilter due to turnovers. Many of those turnovers were unforced. Dickinson had a lot of trouble handling the rock in the post - just a lot of fumbling and bumbling that either resulted in turnovers or threw off any semblance of offensive flow.
I haven't watch a game replay and probably won't, but it seemed like offense was also uncharacteristically stagnant for large stretches of the second half. The post game dump-ins worked for a bit, but then languished. I don't recall UCLA employing hard double teams, but my memory is hazy. I'm not sure why the offense wasn't flowing and better facilitated through Dickinson. He's an excellent passer, but that aspect of his game seemed thwarted. I have to say that I was impressed by UCLA's physical presence despite the large size advantage we had with Hunter Dickinson.
Despite all of the perceived issues outlined above, we also just plain missed baskets. We had plenty of chances to win ugly, but didn't. Basketball can be weird.
They packed their defense in tight and dared us to shoot which we didn’t. Kept force feeding the post and taking heavily contested interior shots. Brown was the only player willing to shoot it from outside and we had no interest in getting him the ball.
They switched every screen and lived with the mistmatches. You saw teams do this against Beilen after a while as well. When you have a PG like Walton that can punish that 1-5 switch, you're cooking. Michigan has lacked that for a while. When teams were switching against Baylor they let Teague or Mitchell get downill. Michigan didn't really have someone who could do that when Smith was struggling. One of their best stretches invovled Eli attacking off the dribble. I wish they'd stuck with it more because then you might get more looks off help or a rebound off the reversed 5-1 matchup in the low block.
That said, the game was also played at UCLA's pace. I wish they'd pressed a bit more and really hustled to get into sets. The other way to punish the 1-5 switch is to post up, but HD struggled a bit in this game, and Michigan really missed Livers because you can punish a packed in defense by shooting quickly off the catch.
That's where Smith's lack of size can be an issue. With a big dude switching on him, he may not be able to see the mismatch down low, or get the pass through.
Good take -- I cringed when Eli let a floater go as those are pretty low percentage shots (and he is particularly not good at them) and UCLA didn't have a shot blocker.
They did nothing. We just straight up missed shots that we normally make. Layups, free throws, open 3s. We win that game 7 or 8 times out of 10. They didn't make us shoot 54% from the line. They didn't make us miss 4 routine layups down the stretch. They didn't make us miss open 3s
They were on the floor, Michigan hit a wall.
They played good, active defense for sure, but we just missed a ton of open jumpers and contested layups. So, nothing really - except watching us miss good look after good look.
Coach Ramsey explained this well on WTKA yesterday afternoon. I did not completely understand what he said but he definitely gave UCLA credit for the disruption. This was not the entire reason why Michigan shot so poorly. As we know, our guys missed a lot of open shots as well. Missing the last 4 opportunities with 19.8 to go was on our guys.
My question would have been, what could have Michigan done to overcome that? Could have they run a fast break offense? I didn't understand what Juwan said to the press, after the game ended that they could have and should done a better job in coaching during that game but after hearing Coach Ramsey. Juwan could have meant they didn't have to remedy for the UCLA disruption. Food for thought.
Juwan's philosophy has always been to let his players shoot, even when they're having off nights. In this game, that philosophy backfired badly, especially with respect to Franz Wagner.
They moved around actively and had active hands and made Michigan work for every shot. Add to that Michigan being off for whatever reason and it created a feedback loop. They disrupted Michigan at the start, Michigan got frustrated and started pressing and then it was all over.
What did UCLA do to completely disrupt Michigan's offense?
They stayed at a Holiday Inn last night!
They gave us the gun which Michigan used to shoot itself in the foot over and over again.
We didn't make shots and turned the ball over to many times in a close game, it's as simple at that, don't overthink it.
Nothing
It wasn't UCLA. It was largely self-inflicted.
Michigan helped them - never tried to get out in transition or drive hard to the basket early in the clock (a few times I thought Smith, Brooks, Brown, Franz passed up opportunities to take a sliver of space to take it to the rack. Too complacent - even fixated on - going through the post. Unfortunately, when it went into the post the ball stopped moving and went up in a tough shot. No one else could get involved or get in a rhythm. But, UCLA definitely was disruptive and the normal passing lanes and driving lanes weren't there as they usually are. But at the same time Michigan was not being aggressive or making hard moves to create the space/shots. Dickinson wasn't really the weapon/advantage Michigan thought it would be in this matchup.
The slow pace allowed UCLA to control the game and Michigan did nothing to change that. All year, they buried teams under a single run, but they never put one together in this game. It's a shame because there were so many missed opportunities.
I thought Cody Riley made up for his size disadvantage vs. Hunter with good defensive footwork. He did a good job of staying in front of Hunter and denying him easy angles. He did get into foul terrible, but when he was on the floor, it was clear that he had done his homework on Hunter's game.
UCLA consistently overplayed the ball at the top of the key and the only player to make them pay was Johns -- once.
Murder bear ⟩ murder wolverine
Disrupted ourselves by trying to force the ball to the bigs. The offense worked the entire year because any and everyone could go off, trying to force one facet to carry you threw off the rhythm.
It looked like their overarching strategy was to slow down the tempo of the game and force us to play their style of basketball.
Apart from that, they did a great job on Hunter Dickinson. Not only did they make Hunter work for every basket, they made it difficult just to get him the ball inside the circle. They also knew that he's a good passer, so even when we did manage to get him the ball, they double-teamed him and positioned their guards to prevent the open man from cutting to the basket for an easy bucket.
Of course, their defense had nothing to do with our poor free throw shooting, the open looks we missed, or the unforced turnovers we committed. But it was clear that they had a defensive strategy for Hunter, and they did a good job of executing that strategy.
I saw multiple cases where UM guards turned down open 3pt opportunities they had taken in the past. Only Brown seemed to have the confidence. UM went from everyone other then Dickenson being a 3pt threat at midseason to very limited. With Livers out and Wagner shooting 2-16 for the tournament, UM became a team vulnerable to defenses packing it in.
I was hoping that Wagner might be convinced to come back to work on perimeter game. I know that potential is far more valuable then reality as like a speculative stock once your ceiling is determined you are no longer valuable.
Most of Franz' threes come when he has plenty of time to set himself (and he kinda shoots from the waist area). He would be wise to learn how to shoot off the move. Rise, square the shoulders, and shoot at the height of his jump.
We played like shit. Let's give UCLA 100% the benefit of the doubt and say that their defense caused UM and Alabama to shoot poorly from the field, well below season averages from 3 and on layups, which is being mighty generous.
The missed free throws are totally on UM and can't be attributed to anything other than an off night.
Make just those at our season average and we win. Horrible game, both in terms of the quality of play and the outcome.
We missed five free throws (6-11). If we'd shot our season percentage (sans Livers) we'd have probably made two more. You could technically call that the difference in the game, but you could say the same about any one possession where we didn't score, then.
For a great analysis, you should subscribe to Umhoops.com. I consider it well worth it.
Here's a link to the article: https://umhoops.com/2021/03/31/ncaa-2021-michigan-vs-ucla-recap/
Here is the money quote:
Without Livers, there was a reasonable path to slowing down the Wolverines. Play straight up against Hunter Dickinson in the post, go under Franz Wagner ball screens, help off of Brandon Johns, and switch screens to force Mike Smith and Eli Brooks into one-on-one playmaking situations.
In hindsight, it is a shock that no one executed that plan sooner. Michigan was fortunate enough to run up against teams content to play their style of defense rather than the style that caused Michigan problems.
There actually are several articles and podcasts at umhoops covering your question. Check it out.
The other thing is that Wagner and Smith were the only two reliable shot creators on the team (well, since Livers went down.) They had a bad game, IN THE SAME GAME. Between the two of them, 2 made shots out of 17. I'm not blaming them, but that's some analysis. If there is only one more made 3 between the two of them, we win the game. What can you say?
Just from having watched live, the one thing I would call out is I thought they did well at defending the perimeter from open 3s. But I really think this was more about Michigan not executing than anything UCLA did. Even with all of that if Michigan finishes as they have almost all of the season they win this game, and probably pretty easily.
I don’t agree with saying that they did the same thing to Bama. Bama doesn’t have as good of a defense and that caused some issues for them, and they also shot poorly from 3 (25%) and FTs (44%!!!!). Maybe the 3 thing was UCLA D in both, bit I’m not sure I’d say they shut them down.
Outside observer here, I don't know what UCLA did, but in my opinion I know where the turning point of the game was. Dickinson in the first half got the ball like 3 straight possessions and scored on all 3 back to back to back. Naturally, they kept going to him, but he seemed to start forcing things and missed a couple in a row. It was right then that the scoring stopped. I honestly thought for a minute Dickinson was just going to go for 40 and UCLA couldn't stop him. Not sure if that was the game plan, to just bang it down low or what, but I felt like when he missed on a couple of those after the makes, UCLA scored a couple of buckets, the game shifted completely and they didn't recover.
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They took away our back cuts and late cuts better than any other team all year. We took a lot more contested shots than usual.