eli brooks is threeli brooks

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!]

I had an entire post written about how Michigan blew up the early narrative of this game, which was LSU's incredible shot-making being too much to overcome for a Wolverines team missing their most reliable bucket-getter. When I went to hit submit, my still-shaking hands hit the wrong button, and I blew up my own post. This feels apropos.

So let's do the short version because my brain is still going AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH after one of the more fun, and therefore partisan nerve-destroying, games of the entire tournament. For most of the first half and a decent chunk of the second, it appeared that Cam Thomas and Javonte Smart would hit pullup jumper after pullup jumper, no matter how difficult, and LSU would do just enough on defense to pull off the upset.

Michigan refused to allow that to happen, grinding away a nine-point first-half deficit at the line after LSU's seventh foul to take an improbable 43-42 halftime lead. After Thomas opened 6/7 from the field, he closed 4/16 as Juwan Howard unleashed Chaundee Brown on him. Brown added a season-high 21 points, 14 after the break, to tie for the team lead with an inspired Eli Brooks, who drained 5/9 three-pointers.

Franz Wagner put the game out of reach at the end, hitting a hook, resetting for a three-pointer, dunking off a Hunter Dickinson outlet pass to break a press, putting back a Dickinson miss in traffic, and smothering a Thomas drive on the final Tigers possession with a sliver of hope. Nine of Wagner's 15 points came after halftime. Hunter Dickinson, who battled foul trouble in a poorly officiated game on both sides, managed an efficient 12-point, 11-board double-double in 31 minutes and did his usual bending of LSU's defense to open up the perimeter.

My narrative didn't survive the publishing process, which is how I refer to misclicks. Thankfully, Michigan's basketball team is much less shaky in the clutch. The Wolverines move on to their fourth Sweet Sixteen in a row and sixth in the last eight NCAA Tournaments. They'll face Florida State, convincing winners over Colorado this evening. Enjoy it as best as your nerves allow and be careful operating machinery.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]

In an unexpectedly spicy Big Ten quarterfinal, Michigan overcame an early double-digit deficit and the second-half ejection of Juwan Howard to finish off a three-game season sweep of a feisty Maryland team.

Despite the unexpected return of Eli Brooks, the Wolverines got off to a painfully slow start, falling into a 15-6 hole. They clawed back only to fall behind once more after Hunter Dickinson picked up two dubious offensive fouls in a little over a minute. Maryland's stretch bigs hit outside shots and attacking guards found less resistance at the rim with Austin Davis at center.

With five minutes to play in the half, Juwan Howard shifted Brandon Johns to center. After Eric Ayala's layup pushed the margin to 12 on the next possessions, he called a timeout. Whatever he said in that huddle was effective. Johns backed down Galin Smith for an and-one baby hook, then Mike Smith went airborne to drop off an assist to Johns, prompting a Mark Turgeon timeout that failed to make the same impact.

Mike Smith had the ball on a string all game [Campredon]

Hellacious defense from Chaundee Brown forced a shot clock violation out of the TO, then Smith made play after play before halftime, scoring or assisting on 11 of Michigan's points in a 16-2 run to go into the tunnel up 40-38. Smith worked his way into the paint before a slick feed to Franz Wagner netted a layup just before the buzzer. Maryland shot 63% from the field, Michigan's top player played six minutes, and the Wolverines still led at the break.

The second half was mostly a continuation of that run, plus beef. Michigan quickly led by nine thanks to dominant play from Dickinson and Smith plus cooled-off shooting from the Terps, who couldn't find the mark from outside with Howard switching the defense to a matchup zone. Whenever Maryland threatened to make it a game again, the Wolverines responded with daggers. Smith hit all three of his three-point attempts; Wagner and Brooks each canned 2/2.

The Terrapins spent much of the half attempting to bully-ball Smith with bigger guards when they weren't firing wayward threes. Smith was up to the task on that end, helping hold the Terps to an 11/30 mark from the field in the final stanza. That's also burying the lede considering his record-setting afternoon on offense: he finished with 18 points on 16 shooting possessions while dishing out 15 assists, which smashed the Big Ten Tournament single-game record of 12 set by Derrick Walton during the Kam Chatman Game in 2016.

...oh [Campredon]

Even that performance may be overshadowed, however, by the brouhaha that occurred during the under-12 media timeout. Viewers were brought back from commercial break to the news that Juwan Howard had been ejected with two technical fouls, and the Maryland bench had also received a technical, following a heated exchange of words that led to Howard being held back by members of the staff. What was said is unclear; the result was Phil Martelli coaching out the duration.

Again, the Terps made a couple short runs only to be rebuffed. A beautiful give-and-go between Wagner and Brooks answered an Ayala layup to get Michigan back up by eight, then Smith and Brooks sank late triples to head off the potential desperation foul-fest.

After looking like the team that was less comfortable in an unfamiliar gym for 15 minutes, Michigan played like this tournament's top seed for the final 25. Brooks and his ankle looked little worse for wear after some ugly first-half jumpers came up short, which is the most important news to come out of the day even with the win. Unless someone leaks whatever Mark Turgeon said, at least.

Michigan will play the winner of four-seed Purdue and five-seed Ohio State (on BTN right now) in tomorrow's first semifinal at 1 pm Eastern on CBS.

[Hit THE JUMP for more photos and the box score.]