2019-20 indiana
Things discussed:
- Rutgers is a terrible shooting team. They needed half a dozen ludicrous shots to get to inefficient.
- The Castleton'ing.
- IU: hard to judge because Indiana's coaching was so bad. If there's one school that ought to be firing their coach right away and hiring John Beilein, it's Indiana.
- Craig: Indiana game was their best of the season. IU's backcourt can't play man—whenever they tried something other than the high hedge X was killing them with they were running into each other.
- How far up is Michigan trending: top four?
- Brian sexy reads Jacob Young's stat line after the guy talked crap at X all night.
- Caller: What to do with Beilein? Cleveland/Dan Gilbert have a terrible culture. The Cavs are high schoolers who rejected an adult.
- Andre Drummond, nobody is picking up that player option.
- Beilein walked into moronic management. What did he do at Michigan: he was careful about picking players based on their personality.
- INCREDIBLE GOLLUM IMPERSONATION AT 29:00
- Dantonio versus the Photo.
[Player after THE JUMP]
2/16/2020 – Michigan 89, Indiana 65 – 16-9, 7-7 Big Ten
Sports fans are prone to wild swings in mood, often with little justification. Everything that just happened will keep on happening, and this goes double when things are bad. Back when I ran the Blogpoll voters tended to overrate their own teams a hair when things were going well, but it was a dead certainty that they'd under-rank them significantly after a loss. Every voter, every time.
Lose painfully for a month and your perspective gets jaundiced. When Michigan played at Nebraska a few weeks ago they were down Zavier Simpson and Isaiah Livers. Then Franz Wagner got in foul trouble. Michigan spent a big chunk of the first half with Adrian Nunez and CJ Baird on the court. Our photoshopper-in-residence Abraham wondered on twitter why he was watching a random MAC game, and I laughed sardonically.
At some point in January I said I wanted to sim to the end of the season and get the Howard croots on campus. This season felt like a snakebit write-off: Livers couldn't stay on the court, the trident was haunted, Michigan would get a million good looks they miss while opponents poured in every variety of garbage known to man.
At the same time I tried to argue that Michigan's January was a massive statistical outlier that could not last, because Michigan was not the second-worst team in the country at all things from behind the three-point line. And lo:
| Opponent | M 3P% | Opp 3P% |
|---|---|---|
| Rutgers | 47 | 25 |
| OSU | 32 | 39 |
| MSU | 39 | 26 |
| Northwestern | 35 | 23 |
| Indiana | 53 | 25 |
Those five games are the five they've played in February.
Michigan is starting to look like Michigan again but the key is playing this way through March (and staying healthy) via @ethan_sears https://t.co/U1qQIU8WDS pic.twitter.com/2sqv103WZd
— Dylan Burkhardt (@umhoops) February 17, 2020
The situation is now flipped. Michigan's probably ahead of its skis a little. But you've seen the shots. You've seen Michigan tee up open corner threes over and over again as the opponent issues a contested jack from NBA range. Reality is somewhere between 59 and 1. It's a lot closer to 1.
[After THE JUMP: The Mona Lisa of floor slaps]
1 hour and 35 minutes
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1. Hoops vs Indiana
starts at 1:00
Archie Miller: great basketball coach! All those dunks and layups all come from sticking to this insane strategy of high hedging vs X, even after Michigan had 41 points because of it at halftime. Everyone except the centers had a 128+ and after Franz they're all in 140. IU's three-big lineup leads to Michigan going zone. That Davis guy went 9/9, with more than half of them garbage buckets. Brandon Johns is like a cornerback with closing speed: closing feet!
[The rest of the writeup and the player after The Jump]
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