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3/21/2019 – Michigan 74, Montana 55 – 29-6, Round Of 32

There's not too much to say about an opponent who listed all five starters as guards and was so small that Jon Teske got 23 minutes and had one foul in that time. This was the opening tip.

The announcing crew spent most of the first 25 minutes openly hoping Montana could get their ass in gear and make it a game, and most of the last 15 talking about Reggie Miller's blood feud against a Michigan tuba. At one point Montana got a bucket and the tenor of  the conversation is "Michigan's letting them hang around!" It was a two-point run from 15 down to 13 down.

The final score doesn't quite do it justice. Michigan was up 27 with six minutes left when blowout sloppiness set in, allowing Montana to score on seven of their last nine possessions. Before that: 39 points on 59 possessions. Like last year there was a point at which it was clear that Montana was out of offensive ideas. Unlike last year this point was their first shot.

So here we are on the 10th anniversary of Michigan's first Beilein bid, being bored. The foul-fest that was Nevada-Florida pushed Michigan's game a half-hour late, so the spacing on all the late games got mucked up. By the time Michigan was up 27 or 24 I kind of wanted to flip to the momentarily lit Wofford-Seton Hall game that Twitter was flinging up exclamation marks about.

Time to stop and think about where we are.

Hook oop! Oblig:

I want to see that 5 times a game from now on plz.

[after the JUMP: a spectacular photoshop]

Failure to devastate. Bonner/Reggie/etc weren't wrong when they spent a bunch of the first half marveling that Montana managed to stay within 20. At no point did this game feel like one that would ever devolve into a competitive one, and yet it took Michigan a good long while to push it out to 20.

This was a rickety offense thing. Michigan doesn't prepare to wallop on vastly overmatched opponents, and doesn't post, so there was not an endless parade of Teske dunks on which the opposition's only option was to fall over and hope to draw a foul. That happened exactly once. Teske had 11 points against Foster Loyer, The Team.

Meanwhile Montana was able to jump a lot of passing lanes and force TOs. (The uncontested dunks afterwards proved even more of an issue than actual Michigan players.) At times Michigan fell back into last year's Montana-induced stupor, except that's just a thing that happens with this team.

via twitterer @cabin__13

Please leave a bowl of milk out for Tournament Matthews. After 22 points on 15 shot equivalents this was Matthews's first Kenpom MVP since the first Indiana game. That feels enormous. Here's the bit where we acknowledge that Matthews is the most elite wing defender of all elite wing defenders. Here's the next bit where we're all like " ehhhhhh" about his 93 ORTG against top 100 opponents.

Montana doesn't count in that department but even so, watching Matthews up-fake and get to the rim stirred old feelings. Part of his game is being decent on midrange fadeaway jumpers and he was probably bad at those this year largely because he had bad luck. Those are opponent invariant.

The frustrating bit about this year was just how much Matthews usage got stuck into Other Twos. He had three shots against MSU, all of them iso fadeaways. Brutal. It felt like the guy got scouted to death.

Here's to new opponents and short turnarounds.

TIMMY FALLS. I want to make it clear that I'm not passing a value judgment here. But this is something:

Timmy Falls is Breaking Bad, the human pic.twitter.com/875yNXpglZ

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) March 22, 2019

This is a man with a Soundcloud. If I go back and rewatch Breaking Bad there's a 32% chance he'll be Jesse. When we play Montana in next year's tournament he's going to look even more like an instagram rapper. It is amazing.

Poole, restrained. This was again a chastened Poole. When he got an and-one on his only two he just got up and took his free throw, stone-faced.

It felt like the kind of Poole who cuts his hair to show he's serious now, even though he did not cut his hair. Watch him after he throws up an oop to Iggy:

The effervescence was absent.

Even so the feed got testy early when Poole curled off a screen for a three that did not go down. That was a perfectly fine shot on a play designed to get him that exact look. Maybe it was a bit contested, sure, but it's a far cry from a lazy stepback. It rattled in and out and Matthews was able to get a putback in part because the team was moving and running offense.

Poole played within the structure of the offense and finished with an efficient 10 points on 8 shot equivalents with a couple assists and a turnover. He was also a part of Michigan's stellar team defense.

Matthews being able to shoulder more of the offensive burden helped a lot there, as Poole wasn't forced into late clock situations. Michigan also largely avoided pick and roll because of Montana's trapping, preventing the frustrating switch/stepback sequence that submarined Michigan so many times against MSU.

[Barron]

Teske vs 6'5". Teske did a good job against Sayeed Pridgett, for the most part. To do so he had to leave him open from three. Pridgett took an open early three that rattled out and I thought this might be a problem, but he really really did not want to continue shooting from the outside. Despite the clear invitation to he had just two more attempts, with one make. I don't get it. Pridgett was 19/41 on the season. If you are a 46% three point shooter you should probably increase your rate of attempts until it's at least, you know, two per game.

Pridgett did have one spectacular take on Teske and had a couple more tough conversions to keep his head relatively above water.

Teske vs contests. Teske issue from three is that when he's rushed he leaves it way short. His early make:

Airballs don't make highlight reels so the subsequent rushed one isn't on this reel, but Teske was concerned with the closeout and just trying to get the ball out of his hands. The Fernando Problem. Hopefully he can get a bit quicker with his release over the offseason.

Something was Said [Barron]

Iggy gonna Iggy. Brazdeikis converted an and-one late, well after things had been decided. This didn't stop him from his usual roar-flexing. This is fine. The next trip down the floor he got torched for a bucket, causing Montana bench-mobbers to stand up and flex at Iggy. This is also fine. It was the most entertainment anyone got from the second half, at least.

A recovery. Michigan started 1/6 from the line and made 18 straight after. Matthews went 5/6 to pull him up to 65% on the year. That's a ten point improvement.