jordan poole in a sweater being calm

2/28/2019 – Michigan 82, Nebraska 53 – 25-4, 14-4

Even this year, Charles Matthews gets referred to as The Kentucky Transfer from time to time. This is a little off-putting since there are few players that have embodied the Beilein era better than Matthews, personality-wise. On the court, Matthews has a smile that doubles as trash talk.

Off the court, he could say "we had subs, it was crazy" and you wouldn't blink twice. After he hit an improbable game-winner against Minnesota his post-game interview was almost apologetic—yeah the ball fell to me and I got a shot off but it could have been any one of my teammates and I'll take turkey on Italian please. He asked after Ace this  year.

That dichotomy has come to define Michigan basketball, so when you call him the Kentucky transfer that places him outside a program he is in the dead center of.

But it still does make some sense. The Kentucky Transfer does immediately communicate several things about Matthews. He can jump, and long after you, a practiced observer of people jumping, expect that he will start to descend he continues going up. That's the Kentucky part. The transfer part is that his offensive game is a rickety thing. He hovers around 30% from three; he's worked hard to get his FT percentage north of 60; he still does a few things in every game that make you clap in frustration.

Also Kentucky is a program built around having various dinosaur-sized people lock you down defensively until the point in the season where all the freshmen turn into something resembling a team. Matthews entering the program at the same instant Beilein hired a defensive coordinator, and his first game also being Luke Yaklich's first game, are serendipitous events. The program was ready for him.

So the individual transferred to the whole. Michigan, the program, has been The Kentucky Transfer for the last two years. Sometimes it feels like someone entirely different wearing the program as a second skin, but the results are undeniable: a Big Ten Tourney title, a three seed, an appearance in the final, a pending two seed and the possibilities that unfold from there.

There's no better emblem of this mini-era than the kind of guy Michigan never gets coming over as somewhat damaged goods and making it work anyway. Matthews leaves the program better than he found it.

bench functionality projects to be improved [Campredon]

A preview of next year. DDJ and Castleton got a fair amount of run in a game without Charles Matthews in which Livers started and played 33 minutes. With Poole and Iggy currently tracking towards returns, about which more later, the minutes distribution in this game is probably pretty close to what we'll see next year except for the absence of a backup on the wing. Presumably one of Johns/Nunez/Wilson/Bajema will be able to emerge into a 10-15 minute player.

You may have noticed that things went pretty well. Livers was up to the task of checking James Palmer, who finished 3/15 from the floor and was one of the Nebraska starters to get yanked for the first eight minutes of the second half. That's not far off Palmer's usual level of performance this year—he entered the game shooting 34% from two in league play—and should probably not be taken as a sign that Livers is going to be able to match Matthews stop-for-stop on the defensive end.

But he's not bad there, and he was able to collect 12 points on 20% usage here. Ideally Livers is able to add a few more points of usage next year to keep an undue burden from falling on folks around him.

not pictured: the chastened version [Campredon]

A chastened Poole. Jordan Poole's halftime shooting stats: 0/0. He put up four in the second half, but the numbers that pop off the box score: 5 assists, one turnover. Most of those assists were dumping it down against post mismatches after switches, huzzah. So was the turnover, which is fine. At no point did he take a stepback three against a big.

Poole drew Thomas Allen as his primary defensive matchup and held a pretty decent player to 1/5 from the floor. This was a reserved, in control version of Poole. But even then some of the swag pops out:

the initial view and replay didn't *quite* splice together perfectly but think of it like you're watching from my perspective and briefly blacked out from excitement pic.twitter.com/kjxqRpzFmT

— Ace Anbender, fan of basketball, the only sport (@AceAnbender) March 1, 2019

Poole just needs to tamp down the wild swings. He's got it in there.

[After THE JUMP: Castletons of fun]