Who Wants To Glitch Mutombo?
2/21/2018 – Michigan 72, Penn State 63 – 23-7, 12-5 Big Ten
temporary demon [Marc-Gregor Campredon]
Everyone just stood around, afterward, wondering what to do. The gobsmacked victim fell over and laid on the ground. A ball newly loosed into the world at large bounced, and bounced. By the time someone decided to acquire it and maybe continue on with the basketball game and the universe writ large, one of the refs had regained his senses sufficiently to bring a halt to proceedings.
For processing. For reflection. For meditation, and a resolve to continue.
The universe is a simulation and one of our minders spilled coffee on the very strange, very red, very unnecessary switch on subpanel 3F-B that reads DUNCAN ROBINSON on one end and DIKEMBE MUTOMBO on the other. Nobody in that universe knew what it did or who those people are. They refused to touch it, for good reason. Once they saw the nonsense that resulted from flipping it they swiftly restored things back to a known good state.
Such was the time in 2018 where Duncan Robinson blocked the soul out of one of his opponents. These were the events, and the proffered explanation. The explanation was clearly insane but since all other attempts were equally insane—if not more so—people let it slide.
We will not mention the part where Robinson calmly glides inside the line and knocks down three critical shots, because that glitch might be sufficiently non-obvious to get away with. It's like Stauskas! That's the ticket! Please leave Duncan Robinson in this known good state instead of some other known not-so-good states. He has always been like this, we promise. That is his line, and it works.
---------------------------------------------------
There was a point in the second half when Penn State tried to post Robinson up, again, and my reaction was relief. In part this is because Penn State's players post up with the elegance of a capsized hippopotamus, sure. But also Duncan Robinson is an average-ish post defender and post offense that doesn't demand a double team usually sucks.
Having these background facts coalesce into an honest-to-God feeling was the season's weirdest revelatory moment. Duncan Robinson is defending, and I feel fine. Duncan Robinson is lining up for a transition three dagger, and I feel better.
The thunderous matrix glitch later was only fitting. Michigan weathered one of their unfortunate-but-now-trademark scoring droughts because their defense gave it to Penn State all game, holding the hottest team in the country to under a point per possession.
At first this was largely Zavier Simpson putting his face in Tony Carr's chest, all but removing him from a half of basketball. Once it became clear that Penn State had made the requisite adjustments to get Carr some shots, Michigan moved to a 2-3 zone that started off goofy but morphed into a contested-jumper machine that protected the Robinson/Poole combination that Michigan needed to score any points. Carr only managed to scrape into the green very late when he banged in a couple of raise-up threes during the semi-competitive free throw shooting section of the contest.
That's a gameplan win, especially since Penn State's bizarre solution to the problem Michigan's defense poses was to have first Mike Watkins—who is a good player but gets 80% of his buckets at the rim thanks to someone tossing him an assist—and then his backups—who are jabronis—repeatedly post up. The only buckets that came off this action were a couple of heavily contested jumpers that looked about as likely to go in as a Zavier Simpson skyhook; like the skyhook they did go in. But not very frequently.
Michigan has a defense that causes pretty decent teams to go off script in odd ways in an attempt to deal with it, and no galactic six-eyed goggle beast appears to be on the verge of flipping Michigan back to their old reality. That gives them a shot against anyone.
BULLETS
if this was in the first five minutes it's worth ten points [Campredon]
First Wagner three theory: confirmed. Michigan's first possession was a Wagner corner three swish, which led to a 10 for 21 performance from deep. For his part Wagner was 4/5. I am not sure if I'm serious about this or not now.
A bit later people got frustrated because Wagner was turning open-ish threes into drives that didn't end well; I sort of shared that frustration but also thought that Penn State had some exceptional help defense blocks on drives that were otherwise easy buckets. They probably took 8 points off the board by coming out of nowhere to swat stuff that was about to be At Rim.
Free throws, our good and true friends. You and everyone else thought "here we go again" when MAAR, Michigan's best FT shooter who ever goes to the line, missed both on Michigan's first trip. Michigan was 16/17 the rest of the way. Matthews and Simpson combining for two FTAs was helpful there.
Michigan's all the way up to... uh... 329th in FT%. Movin' on up!
Shot volume... deficit? Yes. Michigan had 12 TOs to PSU's 10 and lost OREBS by 3. (Largely because PSU had 5 "team" OREBs that are almost always luck; also one of those looked like a horrendous call.) I think that's why the game felt like such a failure slog. At this point in my Michigan basketball observation career anything approximating a TO-heavy game feels like the end of the world.
Charles Matthews is broken. I don't know what else to say. You have to keep playing him because you need him to break out of his funk if at all possible. At this point he should probably get a quick hook if he starts off like he did in this game. When he is in he's got to slow it down. There's no way he should have 28, 25, 28, 24, 25, 27, and 27 usage numbers in his last seven games. It's one thing to have a struggling guy on the floor. It's another when he's your highest usage player. Downshift to sophomore GRIII and try to build back up from there.
In which I risk the wrath of Ace. Jordan Poole had another good game, and a desperately needed one what with the previous bullet point.
But, if I may lodge a slight protest: he's too much of a heat check dude right now. He gambled for a steal in the second half, missing it and opening up Michigan's defense for an easy Carr three; a bit later he and Duncan Robinson had a two on one break where Poole challenged a defender unsuccessfully instead of setting up his teammate for a layup. His decision making seems stuck on THIS WOULD BE AWESOME. This leads in equal parts to awesome things and freshman things.
In which I try to patch things up with Ace. ON THE OTHER HAND
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to #WhyJumpWednesday. @umichbball freshman @JordanPoole_2 snatches a defender's soul on this slam, and it's a #BTNStandout Presented by @Discover: pic.twitter.com/GVB64H6GbU
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) February 22, 2018
I'd rather have a guy with too much swag trying to dial it back a little than a guy you have to swag up. Enswaggen. Fortify with Vitamin Swag. You get the idea.
Another reason to root for Penn State. Michigan gets the four seed and a double bye if they beat Maryland and Penn State wins in Lincoln. That is a good reason to root for Penn State.
Another one: I have been sloppy in my assumption that a top 25 Kenpom team is top 75 in RPI. Penn State is not. They were 76th before yesterday. They currently sit 85th, because RPI is mostly a SOS metric and Penn State's SOS is an abomination. This makes them a quadrant 2 team. A win over Nebraska and maybe a couple in the BTT would likely make them Q1, at least on the road. Nobody else on Michigan's schedule is particularly near the Q1 cliff, FWIW.
I'm going to assume the guy left out the caveat. The over/under on NCAA tournament games that are later vacated is 10, as the agent the FBI nailed was taking notes. Very much notes:
“There are spreadsheets detailing who got paid, how much they got paid and how much more they were planning to pay,” said a source familiar with the investigation. “The feds got everything they wanted and much more. Don’t think it will only be players who ended up signing with ASM that got paid. Those spreadsheets cast a wide net throughout college basketball. If your school produced a first-round pick in the past three years, be worried.”
I'm assuming "and your coach isn't John Beilein" was too obvious to mention.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:30 PM ^
and had the same reaction vis-a-vis Poole. If he really is going to take Matthews minutes, which offensively is in order, he needs to cut down on defensive 'freshman' mistakes. If he fixes those this offseason, hoo boy. He really gets the offense going on another level with his scoring and passing ability. If he had 10-1 odds to win B1G PoTY by the start of next season, I'd think about taking it.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:52 PM ^
he also had two long two point jumpers off the dribble early in the shot clock, those need to go as well.
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:00 PM ^
iirc the offense was struggling a bit at that point. My thought process was something like, "bad shot, but Poole took it so I'm relatively ok with it."
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:41 PM ^
but those are freshman things. He's going to get better (holy crap he's going to get even better!!!) and those mistakes will vanish. Good God thinking of who's coming back and who we have coming in... Next season could be even more fun!!
February 22nd, 2018 at 4:23 PM ^
how much is a bottle of vitamin swag?
asking for a friend...
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:30 PM ^
Beat Maryland, make appearance in the BTT semis and we're talkin' 5-seed!
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:38 PM ^
that scenario I would say we are almost certainly a 4 seed.
February 22nd, 2018 at 4:57 PM ^
beating Maryland moves us up to 5 seed, bordering on 4. Beating Nebraska in the quarters very likley gets us to the 4 line. Even a loss there to MSU wouldn't move us off in all likelihood.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:31 PM ^
time is a flat circle.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:35 PM ^
If Duncan Robinson can turn things around in amazing fashion after a few games - is it too much to think Matthews can as well by the start of March Madness?
If Robinson and Poole keep playing this way, and Matthews can go from bad to decent - wow! Not saying we are a Final Four team - but as stated in this article, with this level of defense, we have the potential to beat anyone.
Might be a few fun weeks ahead...
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:02 PM ^
namely shooting and dribbling.
He compounds that by forcing it too much.
What he needs to do is to add value a la Dennis Rodman. Then he'd derve some minutes. Short of that I'd rather see Brooks and Poole take his minutes.
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:13 PM ^
I'm not too upset about Matthews. Thing is, we should have 8 - 9 solid guys on the roster:
- Matthews
- Poole
- Livers
- Simpson
- Robinson
- Wagner
- Teske
- Abdur-Rahkman
- (Simmons)
It is totally awesome to have that many guys who can play. This gives Matthews the time needed to step back, calm down, etc. What a great thing. Almost everyone needs a break and recalibration sometime. That's completely ok with me. If more time on the bench helps Matthews to work on his shortcomings and overcome them, well, that's a good thing too.
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:44 PM ^
Matthews does add value as a defender and rebounder. That's why he still starts.
February 23rd, 2018 at 1:26 AM ^
It stings a little running that 2-3 zone with the guy best suited to play zone defense on the bench. But you have to play the zone to cover up for his replacement because he isn't scoring. A classic conundrum.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:39 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
So Michigan should be worried?
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:20 PM ^
School |
1st Rd Picks |
Kentucky | 9 |
Duke | 7 |
Arizona | 3 |
UNC | 3 |
Syracuse | 3 |
UCLA | 3 |
Utah | 3 |
Washington | 3 |
FSU | 2 |
Gonzaga | 2 |
Kansas | 2 |
Louisville | 2 |
LSU | 2 |
Michigan | 2 |
Texas | 2 |
Vanderbilt | 2 |
Wisconsin | 2 |
Arkansas | 1 |
Baylor | 1 |
Cal | 1 |
Colorado | 1 |
Creighton | 1 |
Georgia St | 1 |
Indiana | 1 |
Marquette | 1 |
Michigan St | 1 |
Murray St | 1 |
NC State | 1 |
New Mexico St | 1 |
Notre Dame | 1 |
Ohio St | 1 |
Oklahoma | 1 |
Providence | 1 |
Purdue | 1 |
St. Joes | 1 |
UNLV | 1 |
Villanova | 1 |
Virginia | 1 |
Wake Forest | 1 |
Wyoming | 1 |
Foreign | 15 |
Total | 90 |
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:24 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:48 PM ^
And what have they won for all that?
FIRE THE FOREIGN U COACH!
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:43 PM ^
They ain't doing shit to Duke. No way. No how. It sucks, but it's never going to happen. However, Wyoming and New Mexico St better watch the hell out.
February 22nd, 2018 at 6:38 PM ^
School |
1st Rd Picks |
Kentucky | LOL YEP |
Duke | We'll see but could be suspiciously absent. Gun to head, yes |
Arizona | no? |
UNC | yep |
Syracuse | oh yeah and the sad thing is they aren't even that good |
UCLA | yep |
Utah | nah? |
Washington | yep |
FSU | nah |
Gonzaga | nah |
Kansas | oh yeah |
Louisville | LOLOLOL |
LSU | nah but maybe |
Michigan | hahahhahaha no |
Texas | yeah |
Vanderbilt | no |
Wisconsin | no |
Arkansas | nah |
Baylor | nah |
Cal | nah |
Colorado | yes |
Creighton | no |
Georgia St | no |
Indiana | ??? |
Marquette | nah |
Michigan St | yep |
Murray St | 1 |
NC State | 1 |
New Mexico St | 1 |
Notre Dame | nah |
Ohio St | nah |
Oklahoma | yep |
Providence | nah |
Purdue | nah |
St. Joes | 1 |
UNLV | 1 |
Villanova | yep |
Virginia | nah |
Wake Forest | 1 |
Wyoming | 1 |
February 23rd, 2018 at 9:24 AM ^
I like the nah v. no.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:39 PM ^
I read this as "quiff"
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:45 PM ^
in the voice of the Canadian Minister of Health on South Park in the Canadian Puberty PSA...
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:41 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 4:51 PM ^
Also important Jordan-san know when to swag off. [Walks away making hand motions.] Swag on, swag off. Swag on, swag off.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
I'm also assuming your assumption about Beilein to be true. But the last sentence in that quote is unsettling.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
Our only two first round picks in the last 3 years weren't even top 100 recruits. Caris wasn't even top 200.
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:08 PM ^
Thanks! Now I'm more settled... I can pop some popcorn and enjoy the show that much easier.
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:35 PM ^
Poole is the one to watch. You think he was best friends with Brian Bowen and knew nothing about the off court activities?
February 22nd, 2018 at 5:12 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:46 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:53 PM ^
Unfortunately he also seems to be incapable of drawing a foul call on those drives even though it looks like he gets hacked nearly every time
February 22nd, 2018 at 4:03 PM ^
plan on hacking him everytime when he goes up because of his poor free throw shooting. Teams are playing the ol MSU/ Seattle Defensive back game, of not gonna call a foul on everycall.
It's probably not as rampant as I think, but I feel like he is hacked a lot at the rim.
February 22nd, 2018 at 5:02 PM ^
which means they play him super aggressively which does two things:
1) Puts pressure on the refs to call it, which they only do half the time
2) makes him anticipate the contact so he's not focusing on just making his move, he's half thinking about where the contact is coming from and he's all out of his head.
February 22nd, 2018 at 5:29 PM ^
He's pretty good at breaking down the defense but his real value add from there is to keep his head up and pass the ball. Right now he just drives to his right and goes right up.
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:50 PM ^
With every mention of "but John Beilein definitely won't get in trouble", I get slightly more concerned that a UM player did take money behind Beilein's back and we'll get lumped in with everyone else when this whole thing shakes loose.
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:07 PM ^
Isn't the whole FBI scandal more about coaches using middle men to funnel money to players? There might be a player or three on the receiving end of some of those payments, but I thought the huge problem was that the FBI got documentation of communications between coaches and the middle men. IIRC that's what buried Pitino, and the chances of Beilein getting caught up in that are extremely low.
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:47 PM ^
it only requires a vague pretext.
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:08 PM ^
Negged for misspelling RODskies, from Stretchgate story
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:06 PM ^
The only - ONLY - M BB Croot of Beilein Era who'd attract the attention of a bagman is Mitch.
Maybe Poole? I just feel good about coming out of this clean, but do agree that constantly crowing that we will can't possibly lead to anything good.
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:28 PM ^
His latest class has two top 100 players and Simpson was ranked in the 70s I believe, and we swooped in late to grab him from Wisconsin. I don't think we need worry, but if Poole is a maybe, so are these guys.
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:57 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:55 PM ^
One of the highlights for me was in the replay of Bostick (I think?) going up for the monster slam and chucking the ball straight out of bounds. A dude on the PSU bench leaps into the air in anticipation, only to have to dodge the ball as it sails toward him. Anyone by any chance have a gif?
February 22nd, 2018 at 1:56 PM ^
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:06 PM ^
David Dejulius has that "SWAG", too. The future is definitely bright for Michigan Basketball!
February 22nd, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
Simpsons's early season shooting streak definitely proved to be a fluke, unfortunately. 2 for his last 21 and 27.5% overall in conference play.
February 22nd, 2018 at 3:49 PM ^
he has it in him. And Beilein teams seem to get their best playing at tournament time. He could be a force this March...
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