downtown chaundee brown

Well we can’t have everything. Michigan’s energetic three-and-d bench wing is also going to be a one-year rental, as Chaundee Brown Jr. announced on Twitter that he intends to enter his name in the draft and hire an agent, meaning he’s not coming back.

pic.twitter.com/w8VUNmwdIs

— ⭕️Chaundee️⚠️Brown (@cbrownballin935) April 10, 2021

Like the other seniors, Brown had the opportunity to come back for an extra year because of COVID. However the grad transfer from Wake Forest is already 22, and probably figures he’s gotten enough tape out there for the league to know if they’re interested.

Like fellow grad transfer Mike Smith, Chaundee dramatically changed his role at Michigan. A regular starter and inside-the-arc bucket-getter at Wake, Brown became an off-the-bench ball of energy, and a lethal outside shooter, launching more of those than twos for the first time in his career, and hitting them at a 42% clip

Brown’s signature skill—well okay, his second signature skill—was converting those against closeouts. His 7/12 hot streak in the tournament was a major part of Michigan’s run to the Elite 8, and there were a few times when I thought one more pass his way against UCLA could have extended that run another round or two. While the Big Ten named Illinois’s Andre Curbelo the conference’s 6th man, they also named somebody other than Franz Wagner the defensive player of the year. Anyway Brown got to cut down the nets at the end of the season. We know what's up.

His signature skill, of course, was coming in like this:

I’m weak https://t.co/nsYUZn6msg

— ⭕️Chaundee️⚠️Brown (@cbrownballin935) February 12, 2021

He should catch on with some team, as both of those skills are marketable on the next level.

His old team should also be okay, with starting SG Eli Brooks back to settle the backcourt, some very skilled potential off-guards in Kobe Bufkin and Isaiah Barnes coming in. A good offseason, perhaps imbibing some of Brown’s attitude on defense, could also see Zeb Jackson blossom into a starter.

That doesn’t meant we won’t miss the senior, but that would have been quite a luxury. If Michigan’s not comfortable gambling on the above, they may now look to the portal for a true point guard since that’s not Brooks’s main thing. If there’s another Chaundee Brown, well, you’d take that every year. Hopefully an NBA team thinks so as well.

3/28/2021 – Michigan 76, Florida State 58 – 23-4, 14-3 Big Ten, Elite Eight

Michigan was up 11 at halftime and Twitter was unanimous: they weren't even playing that well. Twitter cannot agree on anything.

there’s always someone on twitter arguing with no one. saying stuff like “but I was told steph curry wasn’t a good shooter”

— Mambo No. Pfizer (@killakow) June 11, 2019

Twitter cannot agree what color a dress is or whether a Vehicle Miles Traveled tax is a regressive monstrosity or a good, urbanist idea. The only things Twitter has ever agreed on are 1) a boat stuck in the Suez Canal is extremely, extremely funny, and 2) the Michigan-Florida State score did not accurately reflect how deeply Juwan Howard and friends had dunked the Seminoles into a trash can.

When Twitter's right, it's right. The boat is amazing, and FSU was deep in a trash can. After surveying all available stats this one seem like the best indicator: Michigan had 34(!) shots at the rim. They had 14 other twos. That is a crazy ratio, and honestly it felt like making 23 of those 34 at the rim was cursed. We've got Austin Davis assisting Chaundee Brown out here.

"How good are they," Bill Raftery exclaimed after that. And yeah, the impression Michigan gave off in this game was a magnificent, implacable They. Scoring was distributed. Aside from the deep bench Michigan scoring went like this: 14-14-13-12-8-6-6. Five different guys had at least two assists. Davis didn't make that roster but he only played eight minutes, so he gets a pass.

Michigan followed up a first half where they shot 33%—they weren't even playing that well—by hitting about 70% of their looks in the second half, and that conversion rate was deserved. Michigan's second half shot chart is incredible:

One bucket outside the paint, and ~2 that aren't at the rim. That is against the tallest team in America, and a team that entered the game 10th in two-point defense. Michigan assisted on 15 of 18 second half baskets. Clinic. That was a clinic.

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There is something tremendously satisfying about winning a game where it's not about hitting shots. Michigan was 6/25 away from the rim, and it did not matter because half of Michigan's possessions ended either at the rim or in free throws.

Maybe LSU was onto something with their "give Michigan all the open threes" approach. Anyone can miss an open three. Michigan just had to hit a couple fewer and it was game on. Here there was no respite. FSU's ball denial and constant switching is on the completely opposite end of the defensive spectrum and all it got the Seminoles was the above parade to the rim.

On the other end, well… FSU got a bucket at the end of the first half. It was a pick and roll that evolved into an elbow jumper off the dribble. If you remember the preview, FSU is abominable—second percentile—at jumpers off the dribble. A bad idea shot that Michigan would give FSU all day which they will hit a quarter of the time. That's a win.

The larger win was encapsulated in the TV crew's reaction. Raftery exclaimed "they ran something! They ran something!" This is not a good spot to be in. When the color commentator is shocked that you did a basketball set more than nineteen minutes into a game, and that basketball set got you a not particularly efficient shot that you're particularly horrible at, you're going to be so far down the trash can that light reaching you from the rest of the universe is noticeably redshifted.

[After THE JUMP: Big Minutes Johns]

3/22/2021 – Michigan 86, LSU 78 – 22-4, 14-3 Big Ten, Sweet 16

With apologies to Chaundee Brown and Eli Brooks, all hail the real MVP: regression to the mean.

Cam Thomas came out in full-on NBA Jam mode, and folks I gotta tell you it felt bad. After Thomas hit a one-footed fadeaway 18-footer around the midway point of the first half it felt like he would never miss anything. It felt like by the second half he would scorpion kick a ball into the basket for his billionth point and then fade into the background like the avatar of a fallen god. "Peace," Thomas would utter mysteriously, "basketball has been solved."

Meanwhile Michigan came out and hit one of six clean looks from three. Visions of Will Wade hunched over a cauldron full of booster cash and other nefarious reagents flooded my vision. This is how LSU gives up three after three and survives. This is occult, man. Why would LSU stop at strong offers or rampant, repeated institutional Title IX dysfunction? Satan! Satan is involved. I feel his presence.

These are the things you think in the first eight minutes of a basketball game when you're happy with almost all the shots both teams take and furious at the results.

None of these feelings show up in the box score. LSU shot 44% from two; Michigan shot 67%. LSU shot 24% from three; Michigan shot 40%. This game was only a single digit affair because LSU turned the ball over all of three times. This sounds weirdly disciplined for a team that frequently didn't bother to even raise a hand in the direction of three-point shooters, but then again only one guy on the team bothers to pass inside the arc. Water finds its level.

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With apologies to regression to the mean, all hail the real MVPs: Eli Brooks and Chaundee Brown.

Both are four-year college players, but other than that they could not be more different. Brooks has been at Michigan almost as long as D'Mitrik Trice has been an undead warlock. Brown is new. Brooks spent much of his career in a state of emotional precarity, one turnover or missed shot from a funk that would last games and games. Brown showed up determined to shoot every last plausible three he could get his hands on, no matter recent results. Brooks is listed at a willowy 6'1" and when he dunks a basketball everyone says "I didn't know he could do that!" even though he just did it a couple games ago. Brown is 6'5" and built like a linebacker. When he dunks I wince in case he does a chin up that destroys the basket.

But here they did the same things, more or less. They checked Cam Thomas, in their varied ways. They buried open threes. They ventured inside the line successfully. They did not stand around with question marks over their head when offensive actions were attempted. They led Michigan to a Sweet 16.

Remarkably, that's their sixth in the last eight tournaments. The two exceptions were years when Caris Levert got injured*. The only team that can match that claim is Gonzaga, which has morphed from a curious team into a dominant program over the last few years. Michigan will seek to match Gonzaga in that, too.

Brooks and Brown feel like the past and future of Michigan basketball. Brooks is a heady overachiever maximizing his talent. Brown is a physical marvel unleashed by newfound structure. This is not to say they are separate. The Venn diagram has some overlap here. As mentioned, Brooks has thrown down some rad dunks, and Brown is the kind of culture guy who might blow up on the sideline at Breslin. Together they spearheaded a second-round tourney win, and point the direction forward. Less a transition than an adaptation.

Right now Michigan needs both of them as they stare down the only chalk left in this bizarre tournament.

*[As is required by law, let us reiterate that LeVert was shooting 53/45 with a big free throw rate, a 33 assist rate, a 13 TO rate, on 26% usage when he was lost for the season. He had one bad game against a high major in there (SMU) but was more or less at that level of production in the other four A-tier games before he was lost.]

[After THE JUMP: heeeeeeeere's Willy!]