phil martelli yarns

He pieced it together on stage.

"Chillax," the swarthy little beast who described himself as an "intergalactic space badger" and managed to pronounce the air quotes in his name, sat in the front row. He uttered some words of encouragement. These were exactly the same words he'd heard in a similar context a long time ago on a bus trip that seemed to take months. Another life.

A key turned in his mind. The nagging familiarity of everything that had happened to him over the past month fell into place. "Chillax" was the goofy sidekick constantly getting himself and everyone he knew into trouble. By virtue of being British, Idris Elba was the philosopher of the group. Prince, naturally, was the ring leader and emcee. That made Matt LeBlanc the damaged but beautiful love interest?

[After THE JUMP: the reveal!]

3/1/2020 – Michigan 63, Ohio State 77 – 18-11, 9-9 Big Ten

Perhaps no one in college basketball is more dedicated to the idea of giant humans playing center than Matt Painter. Before Dutch windmill Matt Haarms there was Isaac Haas. Haas looked like Ivan Drago scaled up by 30%. Both of these guys were paired with shorter, thicker dudes—Trevion Williams and Caleb Swanigan—who charge into the lane like the Kool-Aid Man and vacuum up rebounds so quickly they eject little bits of basketball at an appreciable fraction of c. Purdue strives to have the longest and widest centers in college basketball, at the same time.

Look at this guy.

"oops" – this guy

7'3"? Ranking implies that most of the time he gets the basketball he crushes it in his giant hands and then sheepishly hands it back to the ref? Guaranteed Purdue commit.

A few years ago, Matt Painter was introduced to Moe Wagner and about lost his mind. Wagner's ability to stretch the floor set Purdue's defensive approach on fire. Purdue started switching Haas—290 pound Isaac Haas—onto point guards. Switching everything has become a popular defensive approach these days, but usually the folks executing it are mobile, smallish centers like Xavier Tillman. Haas switched onto a point guard looked like a man dumped into a fish tank with a piranha.

After these games Painter would sit down with the media and carefully explain how Moe Wagner is Purdue kryptonite. Even though they won some of these games, the overall impression the Painter-vs-Moe era left was Painter running his hands through his hair, rocking back and forth, moaning "not again, you said never again."

Been thinking about that lately.

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Michigan's February run came to a screeching halt over the last two games because Michigan ran into stretch bigs. Wisconsin's Micah Potter and OSU's Kaleb Wesson are shooting 47% and 43% from three, respectively. They combined to go 7/11 against Michigan.

The effects of those threes extended beyond the shots themselves. Against Wisconsin this was a parade to the bucket from Wisconsin's rim-averse guards; against OSU it was Duane Washington shooting over guys who were playing off him because they knew what happened against Wisconsin. Michigan switched a bunch.

It was awkward. Teske got in foul trouble and Michigan put Austin Davis on the court. Davis, who bodied up Williams effectively just a couple of games ago, was ruthlessly exposed by both teams. Wisconsin shot 75% from two when Davis was on the floor.

Michigan's recent defensive run came against teams with no stretch from their fives. They shot down Cassius Winston by ignoring Xavier Tillman at the three point line, which they could do because he's a 27% shooter out there. Nobody else has a guy who shoots an appreciable number of threes.

So here we are, at another nadir during this season of wild reverses. The Torvik slicers have gone home to stew; dreams of Cleveland have been replaced by a hope that Michigan stays off the 8/9 line. A reminder that this is a team of spare parts stepping up, until such time as they're ruthless elites once again.

I don't know what this season is going to end up as; I do know that I don't want to see another five-out offense this year.

[After the JUMP: this graph is good if you want to ski down it but not if you want to win games]

2/22/2020 – Michigan 71, Purdue 63 – 18-9, 9-7 Big Ten

Back in November, Michigan lost a game at Illinois in which they shot 3/18 from three. I surveyed Michigan's available roster, which was a bunch six-foot guards, a beanpole freshman, a guy Juwan Howard describes as a "big guard" playing the four, and Jon Teske, and decided that this was not a team that was going to overcome that kind of brickfest:

3/18 from three, the end

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) December 12, 2019

It is late February and Michigan has won consecutive road games against teams close to the NCAA cutline. They shot 6/23 from three in one, 6/25 in the other. In this one Zavier Simpson was 0/10 from the floor. Michigan shot 24% from three; their star point guard didn't score until Eat Your Liver Time; Michigan led by about 15 points most of the second half. The Aristocrats!

Avid Torvik slicers are all over the internet telling anyone who will listen that Michigan is college basketball's best team in the month of February. It's true.

2-3 Minnesota is in there on the back of a blowout of Northwestern, so grain of salt and all that. But Michigan's vaunted defense has returned after a troubling midseason lull. That rebound allows Michigan to go on the road and clank a bunch of shots and win games.

Hit some damn shots and there's nobody in the country save maybe Kansas and Baylor who's coming out unscathed.

The turnaround in four numbers. Michigan from behind the line in January:

• OFFENSE: 26.8%, #329 nationally
• DEFENSE: 40.2%, #341 nationally

In February:

• OFFENSE: 35.6%, #94 nationally
• DEFENSE: 25.8%, #19 nationally

On the season Michigan is #105 on O and #44 on D. The January numbers were ludicrously unlucky; the February numbers are probably a little kind but are much closer to Michigan's season-long performance levels. Having Livers for big chunks of February helps, and further points towards this being the Real Michigan.

[After THE JUMP: T-Minus some number for Franz liftoff.]