2021-22 nebraska #1

12/7/2021 – Michigan 102, Nebraska 67 – 6-3, 1-0 Big Ten

You don't want to take too much away from a game against Nebraska, because there are two kinds of games against Nebraska: one in which they hit a bunch of garbage and you have a mildly competitive game, and 35-point blowouts. After Keisei Tominaga hit two tough threes—one a relocation, the other a stepback over a Brooks contest—to give the brief semblance of the former, this one quickly settled into the blowout.

Nebraska's always been a team with huge roster turnover and this year is no different, so you have things like Michigan casually walking the ball upcourt and still getting what's more or less an open transition three for Caleb Houstan:

Jason Benetti is depressed on behalf of all basketball coaches everywhere who had to witness this. At some point even the partisan observer is asking Nebraska to show some sort of organization so that maybe this can be a better measuring stick

But! Nebraska has been reasonably competitive this year and this performance was far better than others against similar (or worse) levels of competition. At this point anything that suggests Michigan is working some things out is more than welcome. Bullets ahoy:

BULLETS

Shot quality: a thing. It's conventional wisdom in the land of the tempo-free stats that three point percentage against is largely random. This game set out to disprove that, with Michigan getting uncontested looks more or less whenever they wanted them and Nebraska throwing up piles of crap—step-backs, 30-footers, transition attempts on which the shooter never comes to a standstill, blindfolded HORSE shots. If you were to re-run this game over and over again there might be a few iterations where the teams came out with similar numbers from behind the arc, but the heart of Michigan's distribution would probably be 40% while Nebraska's was 20%.

The conventional wisdom is likely because most games against similarly matched teams have a similar quality of look from a similar quality of shooter. Over time things tend to even out. This does not mean that there are not individual shots that are good or bad. Usually the quality gap is much, much smaller.

[After THE JUMP: TEBJJ]

Juwan Howard did his Dickie V impersonation while his team did their best impression of a Nik Stauskas outfit, hitting the century mark with enough time left that the (highly enjoyable) announcers started looking for new ridiculous stats. They finally realized Michigan was one three-point shooter away from a record nine players scoring beyond the arc, but couldn’t relay that to Frankie Collins, who didn’t yet have one, as the freshman guard dribbled out the last 20 seconds of a laugher to open Big Ten play.

As a team Michigan made 15 of their 32 three-point attempts, a feat made less remarkable by the fact that Nebraska didn’t contest 30 of them. I know we’re going to get to a box score here but this is the kind of stat line that needs to be near the lede:

It’s good.

Brandon Johns, starting in place of Moussa Diabate (illness), came out with renewed vigor. A Devante’ Jones drive on Michigan's first possession set up Johns at the top of the arc for a buried three, and the mercurial forward added another two tough buckets to get to 7 points before the first commercial break. Johns also played his best defense of the season so far, helping to hold Nebraska’s five-star freshman Bryce McGowens to just four points on the floor, and the frontcourt of Derrick Walker and Lat Mayen to five points total. Johns did his best offensive work around the basket, putting two fouls on Husker center Derrick Walker in the first half while pushing his own scoring to 16 points as the Wolverines went into halftime already up 51-32. By that point they were scoring at a cool 1.4 point per possession clip.

With Nebraska’s Keisei Tominaga canning a few early unlikely/incredible threes, Michigan’s offensive revival was only keeping pace until Hunter Dickinson canned his fourth three-point attempt in a row (going back to his 3/3 night versus SDSU) between two excellent defensive possessions by the big man. That plus a Dickinson backdown against a late double-team staked Michigan to a 21-15 lead by the Under 12 timeout. Michigan continued to push that lead out in the next segment as Nebraska got more serious about doubling Dickinson, and his friends were able to pay off more of his good passing, specifically his oldest pal on the team Terrance Williams II, who nailed a three off a post double pass, then another when his man was sucked into the paint by Hunter’s gravity. Williams finished the night with 22 points, while Johns tied his own career high at 20.

The scoring continued, as did the weirdness of doing it all with Eli Brooks, their best shooter coming into the game, going cold on his first six outside attempts (all wide open). But he would nail three of his last four, including a final contested heat check to cue Kenpom time. Caleb Houstan managed to find his range at a consistent pace all game, Jones got one to rattle in for his only field goal of the night, and then Kobe Bufkin and Zeb Jackson added theirs off the bench.

That bench was unleashed before the first half was over, with Zeb Jackson bursting onto the court late in the frame with a gorgeous drive and dish assist and a buried three. More eye-opening was his improved defense, an issue in spot appearances thus far, as Jackson used his length to provide the first pushback all game to Nebraska PG Alonzo Verge’s frequent trips through the lane. Verge scored 31 on 24 shot equivalents, regularly abusing Devante’ Jones and Frankie Collins. But he had little help; Tominga’s missed eight of his next nine attempts as Nebraska finished 5/35 from outside, 30 of those contested or from so deep they got a gravity assist.

Other than that whole unresolved “tall lanky guards can take ours off the dribble” situation, the only complaint from Michigan’s night was that turnovers came back early; Michigan had six in each half, most of those on sloppy pass receptions until Bufkin and Jackson added a pair each on ill-conceived drives. They made up for it defensively, generating seven steals from a Hoiberg outfit that emphasizes ball security as much as Michigan used to. As Michigan’s runs started to resemble the last Big Ten football game, Huskers marched to the free throw line, with Nebraska in the bonus before five minutes had elapsed in the second half.

If those slowdowns helped Michigan crown the century mark, more’s the better. For a team that started the year frigid from the arc, the shooting was the main transmittable takeaway. I’m already refreshing Kenpom to see if their offensive stats have come back to the realm of reasonably good, because the idea of a bunch of guys who can shoot around Hunter Dickinson remains the shape of our hopes for a deep tourney kind of year. Michigan gets their next Big Ten warmup game at home this Saturday when a bunch of strangers in Minnesota clothing come to Crisler. This squad still has a long way to go to answer a lot of the questions exposed in November, but settled one: they can shoot.

[A box score after THE JUMP]

THE ESSENTIALS

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan is coming off an important win against San Diego State after three losses in their first three games against high-major competition, and now attention turns to the annual December conference play prologue. The schedule makers have done Michigan a favor by breaking them in as gently as possible with games against two of the four teams in the league that look real, real bad. Nebrasketball is up first, and then a Minnesota team with exactly one name you've heard of before… maybe.

But, anyway, Nebraska. The Cornhuskers picked up Arizona State transfer Alonszo Verge, added a five-star freshman wing in Bryce McGowens, and also got a guy from Japan to replace Thorir Thorbjarnsson as their annual "he's from where?!" dude. The Cornhuskers were supposed to be kind of interesting as a result, but they've lost to everyone ranked inside the Kenpom top 200 they've played—although they did take NC State to 4 OTs and currently sit 102nd in those same rankings. They're coming off a 13-point loss to Indiana at Assembly Hall.

One major factor in this lack of interesting-ness: Trey McGowens broke his foot against Creighton and has been out. He was using a scooter to get in the vague area of a scuffle against NC State a week ago; he is not expected to play.

Maybe they'll be interesting next year. I will never give up on Interesting Nebraska.

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

We do not expect Moussa Diabate to play after Juwan Howard said he "pray[s] that he gets healthy" and "there's no rush to get him back."

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

Note that there are four pretty extreme Just A Shooters on this roster: Tominaga, Mayen, Wilcher, and Breidenbach.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]