2020-21 iowa

If you listen to one podcast this morning, turn on the Ace pod before this one.

Things discussed:

• Iowa: What did Wagner do: drove the basket, and Michigan completely disrupted Iowa’s offense: FOUR(!) assists.
• MSU: they’re going to throw four centers at Dickinson and dare the refs to foul out the whole team. Credit to Tom Izzo for knowing his team can’t win if they play basketball.
• State’s gotten some thruck from its opponents as well.
• The Rocket Watts talk.
• Did Illinois expose something? Seth: if you can single Hunter Dickinson and deny the middle Michigan can’t get into their offense, but who else can single Hunter and out-athlete Michigan outside?
• Keep MSU out of the tournament!
• Hockey: snakebit. Hit ALL the posts.
• Football: the Quarterback Situation, been watching film on Allen Bowman and Seth likey, Sam notes he’s been injured. Allen likes to release the dragon, going to be interesting when he sees Michigan’s fast receivers get a step because he loves to chuck it downfield at the least prevarication. Comp: Alex “ol’ Tight Windows” Hornibrook.

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]

[NOTE: Some people who downloaded it last night got a bad version of the file. If you're having trouble, delete your download and download it again.]

1 hour and 13 minutes. Don’t forget: Next Saturday is our Roast of John U Bacon

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. They're also behind our Ann Arbor Institutions t-shirt program. They have awesome custom tees and hoodies and low, affordable prices. They also have tons of great Michigan apparel that you can wear proudly to support the maize and blue! Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com.

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1. A Tribute to Louis Nix, and Indiana

starts at 1:00

We pay tribute to the life of one of our favorite players from a rival. Used the same gameplan as Iowa because why not. Hunter Dickinson: one of the best offensive big men but also one of the best defensive big men? Player of the Year? Franz also playing out of his mind. IU made some weird decisions. Was the first half clunky?

[The rest of the writeup and the player after The Jump]

2/25/2021 – Michigan 79, Iowa 57 – 17-1, 12-1 Big Ten

Video games that have made questionable design choices will often have certain levels that, once achieved, massively spike the player's power. Sometimes this is because you've been holding some whiz-bang item in your inventory for six hours that is suddenly wieldable because you hit level 36. You can be an invincible god slaughtering millions of undead and also if you try to wield that purple warhammer you're going to get the worst cramp. I find this to be an annoying mechanic, most of the time.

The other time is when Hunter Dickinson pulls out his heretofore unknown Peacock Slayer and it glints in the sun once, twice, three times.

The next possession resulted in a heavily contested reverse layup that came up short, and the world realigned a little more. The story of this game was not the story everyone expected. I didn't know Michigan could do that.

The story of this season is "I didn't know Michigan could do that" over and over again. When the ability unlocked is holding the probable Naismith winner to 5/17 from two, look out. Michigan held Garza to his second-worst ORTG since midway through his sophomore year. The only team to top this performance was Michigan State, which lost by 30 because it was triple-teaming the post.

Michigan didn't double once except for an apparent moment of confusion, and did more than survive. They dominated the post.

Dickinson singling up Garza allowed Michigan to crush Iowa's three-point shooting. First off, just 19 of Iowa's 69 attempts from the field were threes. That's 28%; Iowa usually has 40% of their shots  from deep. Second, Iowa only hit six and four of those were heavily contested, off-the-dribble jacks. There were only four or five looks that were actually good.

Even more remarkably, Iowa had four (four!) assists. Iowa entered this game with the fourth-highest A/FGM nationally. Attempts at the rim were rare: 16 vs 24 midrange attempts, and guys not named Garza go to the rim just eight times. If you can single up Garza Iowa's offense doesn't know what to do because it doesn't have a Plan B guy who can get to the basket or pull Franz stuff on pick and roll.

Synergy play splits tell a tale here:

• Iowa's worst efficiency comes when the PNR ball handler shoots. Iowa had 24 PNR possessions. 3 of them got to the roll man. 21 stuck with the ball handler.
• Iowa had just 13 spot up opportunities. (Michigan had 18.)
• Iowa got forced into 7 isolation situations. (Michigan had 1.)

Synergy doesn't really encapsulate Iowa's proficiency at not-quite-transition post ups based on Garza beating his man down the floor, but IIRC there were zero of those.

This was a master class against the best offense in the country. It started with Dickinson, but everyone played their part from Juwan Howard on down. You do not get that level of lockdown without everyone buying in all the way.

----------------------------------------------------

If you wander over to the seedy side of opponent message boards you'll get a consistent message: Juwan Howard is a figurehead and Phil Martelli is really running things. (Also: Michigan's All-American recruits aren't coming and Howard will take an NBA job in the next few years.)

This has been obviously untrue from the drop. Howard is as involved as John Beilein is on the sideline, shouting out instructions and coaching guys up as they come off, as Martelli sits, watches, and offers the occasional recommendation.

This is Phil Martelli and approve and wholeheartedly agree with your assessment!! @JuwanHoward is the STAR of @umichbball !! #ProudToBe Haiti him https://t.co/RsO797vrEs

— Phil Martelli (@PhilMartelli) February 26, 2021

Hoop Vision's latest post notes that Michigan is running a set Jordan Sperber describes as "the most NBA":

So why “the most NBA play” label?

Admittedly, I don’t watch much (or really any) NBA until the playoffs. But last playoffs, the veer and the baseline exit were the two NBA concepts that jumped out to me the most as lacking representation in the typical NCAA offense.

And Michigan just turned a massively prolific post player into a pumpkin despite playing Austin Davis and Brandon Johns about a third of the time. Davis, a nobody recruit people openly questioned John Beilein for taking, outplayed Luka Garza during their time on the court together. A below-the-rim center with Bill Laimbeer's jumping ability is shooting 70% from the floor. Tell me Juwan Howard didn't do that.

I didn't know Austin Davis could do that. I didn't know Brandon Johns could do that. I didn't know that a basketball team could just keep pulling swords out of its backpack until it finds the one with the right combination of filigree and runes to banish whatever ogre is threatening the village this time around.

[After THE JUMP: Franz gets his due]