2/12/2020 – Michigan 79, Northwestern 54 – 15-9, 6-7 Big Ten

I remember Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I remember a packed arena losing its mind for Dererk Pardon on that thing he did, you know, that one. I remember worse Northwestern teams that didn't sniff the tournament but were still close enough to turn Chris Collins into a dog.

Playing Northwestern anywhere other than Crisler has been a brutally frustrating experience for Michigan of late. Michigan won 62-60 in Northwestern's building just last year. The year before the Wildcats won; the year before that was the Pardon thing. There was no game at Welsh-Ryan in 2016; instead Michigan scraped out an OT win in the Big Ten Tournament.

A distinct air of "here we go again" descended over the Michigan fandom during a nearly six minute stretch without points immediately after tipoff. Then Northwestern gave up a 31-5 run with Zavier Simpson on the bench. In the second half there were possessions were Simpson just threw it to Brooks or Livers for wide open threes. No action, no screens, just guys standing by themselves outside the three point line.

It took Northwestern over a half to get an offensive rebound. Jared Jones, the backup post you may remember canning off the dribble jumpers, seemed like the only guy on the court who wanted to be there. It obviously sucks to be on a team that's 1-12 in conference play but after watching Rutgers nearly fight all the way back against Ohio State in the game immediately preceding Michigan's it was hard not to compare the two teams.

Rutgers is still pretty much Rutgers. They can't shoot (318th in 3P%, 329th in FT%). Their offense is still a series of isos with very little team basketball (311th in assist rate). They're an island of misfit toys, and they play balls to the wall at all times. It's impossible to rattle them. They play in the RAC. Two years ago they went 3-15 in league play. So what if Geo Baker misses 12 straight shots and you're down 15 to, yep, Northwestern? Been there. Lived there. Gonna win anyway in the jankiest way possible.

Northwestern just wants to go home.

[After THE JUMP: Big Country!]

Country vs Sleep. A large part of Michigan's early futility was Jon Teske putting up a series of dispiriting bricks. Austin Davis entered and promptly went 4/4 from the floor. When he returned in the second half Northwestern was so focused on him that he got a bonafide triple team on one possession.

What's going on? Your author's theory is that Teske reacts badly to double teams and Davis does not. Northwestern was far more willing to dig on post players, and from multiple spots on the floor, than most other Big Ten teams. This is because most other Big Ten teams have Daniel Oturu (at a certain level of approximation) and Northwestern has this guy, a freshman ranked #348 on the composite:

Northwestern is very good at doubling because they practice it more than any other Big Ten team. Teske has his physical attributes and was still ranked outside the top 100 as a recruit because he was not a dominant post presence. Then he spent three years as a roll guy who never posted and flirted with having the lowest turnover rate in the country for a coach who was better at avoiding turnovers than any coach in the Kenpom era.

Doubling made Teske uncomfortable. This led to a sped-up Teske who wanted to get his dribbling done with as fast as possible. The result was a lot of jump hooks that got progressively worse as the game went on.

Austin Davis spent his high school years playing for Onsted, where every time he touched the ball he was swarmed by six-foot guys. Davis's high school career was picking the horses in the "would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?" question*. He accepts double-teaming as a way of life, like Bane surrounded by tiny horses. This is not a HoegLaw ad. Yet.

*[Clearly the horses. A duck-sized horse would have toothpick legs you could take out easily, and since they have no arms they'd be limited to trying to kick your ankles, which would probably break their toothpick legs. Also: just think of the mass. A duck weighs about two or three pounds. A horse weighs from 840-2200, per Google. The sheer amount of animal you have to take out is somewhere between four and ten times less with the duck-sized horses.]

The good news for next year game. Simpson was out for the bulk of the first half. He finished with four points and five assists. Teske had a horrendous game. Michigan still easily cleared a PPP. The guys picking up that slack are all going to be around next year, knock on wood.

Performances included:

• 7 assists, 0 TOs, and 7 points on six shot equivalents from DDJ, with his three a tough late-clock stepback.
• Eli Brooks going 4/8 from three.
• Isaiah Livers looking all the way back from his injury with two impressive tomahawks and a 132 ORTG.
• Johns, Davis, and Castleton going 8/8 from the floor.

Michigan had a veritable Kenpom Time surge with a 12-3 run to close the game, so maybe not all of that is meaningful. Brooks and DDJ performances are, though. Brooks's season numbers are still pretty ugly against Tier A+B teams; they are way, way less ugly than they were a month ago. He's broken out of that miserable shooting slump, going 15/37 from three over the last five games.

Good news for this year. Michigan was 14th on Torvik before the Livers injury and 46th without him. A solid win against MSU and a road blowout of Northwestern would see them pop up to 10th nationally if you exclude the Livers games. (If you can average BARTHAGs, which you might not be able to.)

As a couple people have pointed out on twitter, Michigan ranks very highly over its last five games, which feature two games for Brandon Johns surge and two with Livers in the lineup. If Johns can maintain his recent level of play—he didn't feature much in this one because he was sick—and Livers stays on the court maybe getting back to Bahamas-level play is possible.

redshirt: no [Campredon]

The Bajema mystery deepens. Michigan put him out there for the first time since the MSU game, officially closing the door on any sort of redshirt. He canned a corner three, naturally. He now has eight makes on the season on 10 shots. Nunez has 15 on 49.

Auburn stays Auburn. Last night Auburn won an OT game against Alabama in which the Crimson Tide attempted 59(!) threes, which caused me to delve into the maximum Auburn currently going on at Auburn. Despite being 22-2 they're just 32nd in Kenpom, behind 14-11 Purdue, 12-11 Minnesota, and 14-10 Wisconsin. This is a combination of two things:

1. Auburn played zero top 50 nonconference opponents and this year the SEC is the worst high-major conference. (Congrats, Pac-12!)
2. Auburn is #1 by a fair bit in Kenpom's "luck" stat, which is basically a comparison between your wins and how many wins you should have expected to get given the number of close games you're in. Four of Auburn's last five games have gone to OT—all wins. They also played an OT game against Furman earlier this year, also a win.

I haven't seen evidence of Auburn running back a missed three pointer for a touchdown but I assume these things are so commonplace now that they're barely worth mentioning. Auburn is a 4 in the current T-Ranketology and will be everyone's upset pick in the first round if they stick there.

If you're wondering about Michigan. They're languishing down at 285th in luck. Add in Livers getting injured twice, a month of the worst three point luck on the planet, going 0/5 from the line down the stretch against Illinois, and going from 60% to win to 13% to win against Ohio State thanks to a call that will never be made again and you've got a recipe for a lot of frustration obscuring a team that might be pretty good with Livers on the court.

Also a factor in the frustration: Michigan has played the toughest slate of opponent offenses in the country. Gonzaga(#1), Iowa (#3), Creighton (#6), Oregon(#10), Louisville(#11), MSU (#18), OSU (#19), and PSU(#20) are all in the top 20. (How the hell is Penn State a top 20 offense?)

BTW, that Creighton win is looking pretty good now. They just beat Seton Hall on the road and are likely to finish second in the Big East.

some will, some won't [Campredon]

Solving the recruiting crunch. Much talk of processing in the wilds in the aftermath of Sam Webb crystal balling Josh Christopher to Michigan and Austin Davis emerging as a reliable backup 5. Here's the situation as I see it:

• Christopher is likely to commit, high five.
• Todd is likely to stick, high five.
• Livers doesn't have enough draft traction right now to pull the trigger.
• You want to keep both Davis and Castleton.
• Greg Brown's dad has said they're going to wait until after NBA declarations to find the best spot for him, and that they want to play the 3/4. Unless one of Livers or Isaiah Todd—and probably both—head elsewhere, Michigan's not going to be the spot. Since the way Brown ends up on campus is if Michigan has unexpected attrition, he doesn't factor in to potentially going over.

That puts Michigan over by two. Getting there requires two of three things: offering a firm handshake to Davis, having one of Nunez or Bajema transfer, or having Jace Howard walk on. You get pushback when you mention the latter because Howard's said he's on scholarship but if push comes to shove the least painful thing to do is to let Juwan pay some in-state tuition. Then you'd expect that one of the two wings will decide to go somewhere they can play without arm-twisting. If not you'll have to say goodbye to Davis, which would be unfortunate.

Given the flexibility with Howard getting Christopher is the equivalent of oversigning by one, something even John Beilein started doing after the Battle/Langford situation. It'll work out.

Slight differences from Beilein, part 60. You've got Dikembe Mutumbo and Worldwide Wes sitting courtside at a Northwestern game. And then Juwan Howard shouts Wes out ("he's like an uncle") in the postgame.

Hear from head coach @JuwanHoward following U-M's road win over Northwestern.#GoBlue 〽️ pic.twitter.com/UxsirooR3z

— Michigan Men's Basketball (@umichbball) February 13, 2020

I theorize this would not have happened without a coaching change.

Latest draft items. Sam Vecenie has a new mock draft that does not contain Isaiah Livers. It does have Jalen Smith and Daniel Oturu in the first round (albeit late). Xavier Tillman and Ayo Dosunmu are just outside of it; Joe Wieskamp and Kaleb Wesson are mid-second rounders.