bricks

3/28/2019 – Purdue 99, Tennessee 94 (OT) –

what

i mean did you see that game

look at this dude pointing at it

[Campredon]

it was really fun!

oh fine

3/28/2019 – Michigan 44, Texas Tech 63 – 30-7, 15-5 Big Ten, season over

I'm torn. On the one hand, walk-on CJ Baird crotching in a three in the desultory final moments of a 20-point game was somehow fitting. On the other, they showed a stat that it had been 261 games since Michigan had managed to go 40 minutes of basketball without hitting a single three, and that 0-fer in the box score would have been an even more powerful indicator of what happened than 1/19.

A collective mania set in as this was happening as the horrible results overwhelmed anyone's ability to process what happened before them. Four different threes rimmed out in the first half. A fifth was Michigan's first attempt, which was a blindingly wide open shot from Brazdeikis that barely grazed the front of the rim. Brazdeikis entered the game a 41% shooter from three, and did that with an uncontested catch and shoot look.

collective fanbase response to aforementioned shot

Michigan is a limited offensive team full of guys with major holes in their toolsets. Simpson can't shoot. Iggy can't pass. Poole can't stop oscillating wildly. Teske can't create his own shots. Matthews has some variety of all these issues. All these guys have assets that they managed to cobble together a top-25 offense out of, but there was a hard stop. So when they run up against a defense just as good as theirs they have a limited set of responses. When they run up against a team that's comfortable switching everything those responses narrow further.

When you are in this situation and literally do not hit a shot outside of the paint in the first 30 minutes you get run out of the building.

Last year's title game was against a very different team but was the same story. Michigan's offense did reasonably well inside the line, given the context (66% against Villanova, 50% against Texas Tech) and then had horrific, historically bad shooting from three (3/23 and 1/19) on looks that were more or less what you'd expect the opponent to give up. Tech did contest threes well; there were a couple of ugly stepbacks mixed in. But when Isaiah Livers rises up for a barely contested look in the corner where he's ~50% from and it rattles out to continue your 0-fer streak deep into the second half, there's nothing to say except "shit."

In a world where basketball consists of a million copies of every shot and you're awarded the average of your million trials, Texas Tech probably still wins this game. But, hell, hand Michigan 5 of their 18 pre-Baird attempts (28%, worse than Tech's season average allowed) and delete the banked-in prayer from Mooney and Baird isn't on the floor because it's a four-point game. The difference between a hard-fought game against an elite foe that aw-shucks you lost and last night's debacle is just shots going down or not.

Is there a reason that Michigan's last two seasons have ended in a flurry of bricks? To some extent, sure. I would kill and skin an entire herd of caribou for a shooter like Ryan Cline or Davide Moretti. The composition of this team leaves them vulnerable to nights where they can't hit anything. Versions of this column have popped up from time to time through the season. Michigan got in a 2 point game with Minnesota after going 3/22; there was nearly mass seppuku after a 3/19 night against Holy Cross.

nope [Campredon]

But also not really. Maybe there are reasons you go 25% from three. There are no reasons when you go 13% and 0%. Just frustration, and an offseason a little more sudden than hoped for. Michigan's started about five minutes into the second half. And while that sucks, Michigan basketball has never been in a better place. Don't let some bricks get that clouded.

[After THE JUMP: looking to the future]