Hoops Preview: Maryland, Big Ten Tournament Quarters
THE ESSENTIALS
WHAT | #3 Michigan (19-3, 14-3 B1G) vs #29 Maryland (16-12, 9-11) |
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WHERE | Ann Arbor Elder Law Stadium Indianapolis, IN |
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WHEN | 11:30 AM Eastern Friday, March 12th |
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THE LINE | Kenpom: M -7 Torvik: M –6.4 |
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TELEVISION | BTN PBP: Kevin Kugler? Analyst: Probably Stephen Bardo |
THE OVERVIEW
Michigan draws 9-seed Weird Maryland in their first Big Ten tournament game after the Terrapins held Michigan State to seven points over a 17-minute period spanning halftime. Sometimes you eat the midrange, and sometimes the midrange eats you.
Michigan had a season sweep of the Terrapins, winning 84-73 at home—that was the game where Maryland was 11/13 from 3 in the first half—and 87-63 on the road. At that point they were 2-6 in conference play and nowhere near the tourney. Now they're in… for reasons? The Terps have wins over Nebraska (2x), MSU (2x), Minnesota (2x), Purdue, and Rutgers. They've lost to Wisconsin, OSU, PSU (2x), and Northwestern. Just after it seemed like they'd found some footing during a five-game win streak where the closest game was an eight point win over, uh, Nebraska, Maryland closed the regular season with losses to Northwestern and Penn State.
Weird Maryland.
THE US
Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:
Brooks and (to a lesser extent) Wagner are injury question marks. Everything else is as it has been.
THE LINEUP CARD
Seth's graphic [click for big]:
Marial has not played in the last five games and Smart has not had more than one minute in the last seven so this is functionally a seven-man rotation. As Seth notes, designating a starter at C is suboptimal since Scott, Smith, and Hamilton are all splitting minutes about down the middle there.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
THE THEM
[Campredon]
It's been long enough that we'll refresh the personnel section somewhat. Ace has a more complete look in the first preview. Maryland heard about "positionless basketball" and decided to take that as literally as possible. Their five starters range from 6'5" to 6'7". They don't have a point guard. They don't really have a center. They're just… you know, out there. Ballin'. Except against Northwestern.
The results are pretty remarkable statistically. Except for Daryll Morsell—the Big Ten defensive player of the year
It's probably quicker to talk about the differences between these guys than repeatedly say "this guy's a Not Just A Shooter wing." Scott is a natural stretch four who's playing about half his minutes at the five. This has had surprisingly little impact on Maryland's bottom line:
They shoot a little worse and turn the ball over a little less. Scott is the most likely wing type to hold up to post-ups from Wagner and Livers. He is a little easier to get around with quickness.
Morsell is the defensive stopper and the guy you can double/sag off of. He's a 13th percentile spot-up shooter and has those issues from three mentioned before. While he's not the real DPOY in the Big Ten he is rangy and athletic and capable of giving guys like Aaron Henry and Ayo Dosunmu issues.
Wiggins and Ayala are the high usage guys who are functioning as quasi-point guards. This doesn't mean they're dishing out a ton of assists. It does mean they are the primary pick and roll options. Ayala is much better because he goes to the bucket and Wiggins likes to pull up.
Hart… uh… has no distinguishing characteristics. He's the lowest-usage guy in the starting five.
Maryland's bench consists of two backup bigs and almost nothing else:
- Galin Smith is a paint-bound, undersized C who shoots 46% from the floor in Big Ten play and has a TO rate near 30.
- BC transfer Jarius Hamilton is a stretch five shooting 41% from three on ~80 attempts this year. He doesn't do a whole lot else on offense. His rebounding is a major negative. Maryland will play the two backup Cs together from time to time.
- Walk-on G Reese Mona is virtually invisible. He takes 4% of Maryland's shots; he gets seven minutes a game.
Maryland gets rest for their starters 1-4 by bringing in the backup Cs—who actually get two-thirds of Maryland C minutes—and moving Scott to the 4, allowing one of the Morsell/Ayala/Hart/Wiggins quad to sit.
THE TEMPO-FREE
Left offense, right defense, conference numbers:
Obviously the number that jumps out is the dearth of OREBs. The rest is a sea of meh to relatively good. Drill-down stats of note: Maryland launches more threes than anyone else in the league and allows a fair few, probably because they've got to double the post. Their two-point defense is 4th in the league, which is an impressive feat for a team with no shotblockers in the Land Of The Big Ten Giants.
THE KEYS
[Campredon]
Post touches. Maryland attempted to defend Hunter Dickinson in two different ways, each of them spectacularly ineffective. In game one they let Dickinson go to work; he put up 26 points on 14 shooting possessions and grabbed four offensive boards. In game two they relentlessly doubled him; Dickinson had three points and several hockey assists as Michigan shot a relatively deserved 50% from three.
A dollar says they dig down a bunch and try to avoid hard doubles while still attempting to throw a now-scuffling Dickinson off his game. But they lack the size to play it straight up down low and every post touch will result in either a good look from Dickinson or Maryland in recovery mode. Or a turnover, I guess.
Michigan drop coverage. The best thing Maryland does on offense is run pick and roll. They're 84th percentile once you include pass-outs, and they're particularly good when the PNR ballhandler shoots. Those aren't particularly efficient shots, in the greater scheme of things, but Ayala is averaging 1.1 PPP, 95th percentile, on these attempts. This is almost all him taking it to the bucket—jumpers are rare and inefficient. Ayala also draws a fair number of fouls.
This is going to mean a lot of Dickinson switching onto Ayala, Ayala driving it at him, and Dickinson trying to defend a guard without fouling. This has been an issue in previous games. Meanwhile the prospect of Austin Davis trying to defend a really good PNR ballhandler scorer is ominous. (This might be a game to put Brandon Johns out for the backup C minutes, if you can do that in the presumed absence of Brooks.)
Wiggins is less of an issue because he pulls up a lot and is not very good at doing that. Dickinson really should not be closing out guys pulling up from distance. It is absolutely not worth it.
Who's on from distance? Maryland gives up a lot of threes and Michigan has thrived behind the line for most of the everyone doubles Dickinson phase. Meanwhile, Maryland takes a ton of threes, many of them contested, because they struggle to penetrate. That worked out spectacularly well for a half, and then not so much. Maryland's upset hopes likely rely on another barrage from behind the line.
[Campredon]
Working around Eli's absence. My assumption is that Eli Brooks isn't going to play until the NCAA tournament, if then. Brooks was (almost entirely) absent for two of Michigan's three bad performances this year and has those spooky on-off splits that suggest he's worth much more than his box score stats would indicate. Chaundee Brown and Zeb Jackson are suddenly key players—in Brown's case, more key—and since this tournament is largely useless for a team already locked on the one line the most important thing to come from it could be a feeling that not having Brooks is not necessarily fatal.
THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES
Michigan by 7.
You got the scores backwards. The 84-73 game was at Maryland. The 87-63 game was at Crisler.
My gut tells me the Maryland team that shoots hot from 3 will be the one we see tomorrow. So, so, so difficult to beat a team 3 times in one season.
And it’s Jairus, not Jarius. Maryland is weird.
Is it actually true that it's so difficult to beat a team 3x in one season once you've gotten to 2-0?
Over the previous three B1G tournaments (2017-19), there were 12 instances where a team had a shot at a 3rd win. Those teams won 9 of the 12. (Michigan over Purdue in the 2018 final was one of the exceptions.)
Beating a team home and away in one season is what's hard. Once you've pulled that off, it stands to reason that you can get the third.
Maryland's team, all 6'5"-6'7", reminds me of teams I've played on, except 5"-6" shorter and WAY less talent.
That Maryland logo reminded me of Jimmy Dugan's comment to the umpire in "A League of Their Own":
“Did anyone ever tell you you look like a penis with a little hat on?"
Is that supposed to be a leg?
Transitioning to shooting in a football stadium is always a threat to produce interesting results.
Doesn't sound like Brooks will play given comments that he's in a boot and with the training staff rather than practicing as of yesterday (reading into that a bit). So it's time for coaching acumen to take over and find a way to piece together the line up and production without him, plus getting Dickinson back on track. Could actually be not all bad given Maryland's size advantage at the guard positions is muted with Brown out there.
Need big games from Hunter and Franz. Would rather see more Terrance Williams than Zeb Jackson due to Maryland's size. Hopefully we come out well rested and mentally motivated to win this thing
Zeb is going to play at least a few minutes at point. I doubt we put Smith out there for 40.
He'll for sure see minutes, but I'd definitely rather see Williams get minutes at the 2 just for defensive purposes
Respectfully disagree with NJ. Zeb is 6’5” and, though obviously not a big body like Terrance Williams, he can certainly check Morsell, Ayala or Hart for 10 minutes.
Zeb definitely lacks strength and I think Williams is more defensively sound. Maryland has a handful of guys who like to body their way to the basket and I'd definitely feel more comfortable with Williams there
Where is this Franz injury thing coming from? Was anything reported? Mlive asked Juwan and other players about it and all said they weren’t aware of an injury to Franz.
Seems it’s solely from Franz hobbling awkwardly after that last shot as time expired against MSU. But in light of the above comments how can this preview label him an injury “question mark”?
Maryland also has wins at Illinois and at Wisconsin. If msu is supposedly in comfortably, Maryland definitely is with the same record and with multiple road wins better than any of Msu's road wins
I'm nervous for this match up, especially if Brooks doesn't play. Hard to beat a team thrice, and Maryland looked much more adept offensively today than they did when we played them. Not necessarily predicting a loss, but I think Dickinson needs to step it up and we're gonna need an average shooting night to win comfortably. If both those things don't pan out, it might be uncomfortable again
Dickinson seemed to indicate Brooks was not playing Friday and not certain when he would be back in his press conference.
“When we don't have him, it's obviously a lot tougher to win. Like coach always says, it's a next-man-up approach and we're going to miss him a lot.” -Dickinson
I’m starting to hope Eli is back for the NCAA.
For all of the rightfully deserved praise Eli gets for his defense and glue; I think we’ll miss his ball handling skills the most against Maryland’s aggressive guard/wing defense. Livers & Wagner are above average for wingmen, but having a second guy with bonafide handles is key.
The Terrapin in the illustration looks to be rather . . . excited.
That Turtle has one leg, no pants, and a strong desire.
Sometimes the midrange eats you is a good way of putting it.
Home, home on the midrange. . .
Wagner is injured? Since when?
Tweaked something on the last second three shot vs MSU. He was seen a tad gimpy.
there has been a shit ton of speculation that he suffered an injury after the last shot against msu... way more speculation than anything, IMO.
Hopefully Brooks is back for the NCAA tournament. Michigan isn’t getting out of the first weekend without him.
March 11th, 2021 at 11:06 PM ^
I saw Wagner give an interview and his health was never brought up. I think he's OK.
Why are the PRPG!s of Wiggins and Smith so high for Maryland despite meh-to-bad ORtgs? I thought it was a player rating metric - does that mean they are *that* impactful on the defensive end? Also, why no danger man star for Wiggins if that's the case? I must be misinterpreting it.
Follow Up: TLDR - I think the PRPGs are either mixed up with another team or not updated from the beginning of the season. Here's what Torvik's site shows for Maryland vs. all D1.
I was half asleep and on mobile, but could now do some reading to answer my own questions.
I do recall Seth's primer at the beginning of the year explaining these, but forgot the origins behind Torvik's PORPAGATU! - it's just an expansion of Ortg by mainly weighing the effects of usage and competition's defense.
WHERE: Ann Arbor Elder Law Stadium
Indianapolis, IN
Very subtle sponsor inclusion
michigan by 16..... we play pissed after a loss.
March 12th, 2021 at 10:52 AM ^
I think Coach Howard deserves a Star Down in addition to Star Up. Whether we're talking about as a player recruit or a coaching candidate ... he was top 50 in both. Just sayin
March 12th, 2021 at 11:17 AM ^
that 1942 mascot must be really happy to see you
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