2020-21 nebraska

1 hour and 50 minutes

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1. Nebraska Recap

starts at 1:00

We fight over how many minutes to give to Chaundee Brown, and whose.

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

12/25/2020 – Michigan 80, Nebraska 69 – 7-0, 2-0 Big Ten

There are two kinds of games against Nebrasketball. The first is where you stuff Nebrasketball into a trash can. The second is like using Infinite Improbability Drive: disturbing, occasionally appalling, eventually successful at getting you where you wanted to go. This was the latter.

There's nothing like a game at Nebraska to remind you that bad shots do go in sometimes, especially when they come from the hand of a bad shot expert. Teddy Allen is Nebraska's latest 30% usage chucker to transfer in; he spent the first half hurling in increasingly improbable heat checks. For the second consecutive game a Michigan opponent hit a layup that was shot without looking at the rim.

And then it stopped, for long enough. In the second half Michigan stuck Franz Wagner on him to staunch the flow. This largely worked but Allen did pop up to bank in a heavily contested three. That came soon after two Trey McGowan triples that originated as failed attempts to draw fouls and accidentally went in. Those nine points were the only ones Nebraska had from the field for the first seven minutes of the second half.

Hoo boy let me tell you did those shots weigh heavily on my mind when it was a four point game with six minutes left. Here in the land of cool detachment the day after we can concentrate on the overall quality of Michigan shots (very good!) versus the quality of Nebraska shots (man digging for diamonds in a landfill). When you're trying not to have your Christmas sat on by a loss to Nebraska, it's a bit tougher.

But we're here now and can dismiss the vagaries of shot making. What does linger on as a concern is shot volume. Michigan continues to force a vanishingly small number of turnovers and has yet to hit last year's Zavier Simpson-led recovery of its own turnover rate, so Nebraska was +7 in shooting possessions. This comes a game after Penn State was +17.

Outracing those numbers consistently is going to be a difficult proposition.

[After THE JUMP: Certainly not the Jelly Fam]

Four plays stand out in my mind from a hard-fought road win over Nebraska. You may note they all occurred in the second half.

1. With Nebraska bringing a hard double team every time Hunter Dickinson touched the ball, Dickinson flips the floor with a skip pass to Isaiah Livers, whose instant touch pass beats the recovering defender and gets Franz Wagner an open layup.
2. The Huskers went on a 7-0 run to cut Michigan's lead to six with under eight minutes to play, helped in part by a change to zone that initially flustered Eli Brooks into a turnover. Mike Smith calmly worked his way into the heart of the zone and sank a floater to snap the run.
3. When NU followed that with buckets on consecutive trips to slice the lead to four, Isaiah Livers drew the attention of the defense before kicking the ball to Smith, who drilled a corner three.
4. Still lingering within six points late, the Huskers went back to the 2-3 and got aggressive on defense, sending center Yvan Ouedraogo on a hard hedge when Smith took a high screen from Dickinson. Smith drew two defenders out to the midcourt logo, waited for Ouedraogo to turn his back and attempt to get back to the paint, and whipped a pass to an uncovered Wagner under the hoop for another easy two. NU scored one more basket and never got within eight from that point forward.

You may also note the last three critical plays all featured Mike Smith, who paced the team with six assists in addition to scoring ten points on only seven shooting possessions. Smith's second half was the best he's had in a Michigan uniform; his late-game heroics lend hope to the idea he and Brooks can handle the point guard position for an elite team.

That wasn't the feeling in the opening stanza as Nebraska went big with their opening lineup and picked on the M guard unfortunate enough to get stuck on a red-hot Teddy Allen, who had at least a five-inch and 35-pound advantage. Allen dropped 21 points in the first half, seemingly unable to miss whether bullying his way for a layup or stepping out for a 28-footer.

Meanwhile, Wagner was the only Wolverine who consistently had it going on offense as the aggressive doubling kept the ball from staying in Dickinson's hands for long. Michigan went 4/17 on threes in the first half, missing a number of good looks after Dickinson drew an extra defender. While a late-half run gave the Wolverines a 36-34 halftime lead, nobody was really feeling the holiday cheer.

But Michigan adjusted and Allen's performance proved unsustainable. Before the four plays highlighted at the beginning of this post, the Wolverines added to their lead with plays that were encouraging in both the short- and long-term view. Wagner took a Dickinson screen and drove hard for a layup. Livers drained his first three-pointer in five attempts after giving it up and getting a quick return pass from Smith to keep a defender in no-man's land. Dickinson spun away from Nebraska's help and put down a lefty hook.

Wagner scored a team-high 20 points, hitting 7/9 twos to easily make up for a 2/7 mark on threes, and pulled down nine rebounds. Livers tallied 11 of his 17 points in the second half, Dickinson went 5/7 from the field on his way to scoring 13 while dominating the paint with 15 rebounds and two blocks, Chaundee Brown needed only 16 minutes to score 13 points, and Brooks chipped in seven with four assists.

Allen's only second-half field goal came on a banked-in stepback three, which felt appropriate. He missed his other four shots from the field, and while Trey McGowans picked up the mantle of ridiculous shot-maker, it wasn't enough to overcome the rest of the team shooting 7/24 in the second half.

Michigan is now 7-0 overall and tied atop the Big Ten standings at 2-0 with Wisconsin and Northwestern for the moment. Iowa can join them if they come back from a five-point halftime deficit at Minnesota. Otherwise, every team in the conference already holds at least one L in Big Ten play. With Wagner and Smith coming on, the Wolverines should make a hard charge for a top-four seed in the conference tournament and maybe much more.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]