Moe Wagner is earning John Beilein's trust on defense. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

The Block Is Hot

I wasn't planning to do another Basketbullets before the UCLA game until I sat through John Beilein's presser after Tuesday night's win over Texas. Beilein is coming around to the idea that Moe Wagner is, in fact, his best all-around big man, and a big reason for that showed itself on the game's deciding play:

We got done what we had to get done. Moe’s block at the end was big. Moe’s blocking shots really for the first time in his life. His first blocked shots last year I think were in the Tulsa game. He’s learning when he should leave his feet, when he shouldn’t, to be a bigger presence at the rim. Really pleased with his development, as with DJ.

Beilein's memory is pretty good: Wagner had two blocks in last season's late-November win over Charlotte, then didn't record another before his four-block breakout against Tulsa in the NCAA tournament. Wagner has always possessed the requisite length and athleticism to be a good rim protector; now he's developing the necessary timing to challenge and alter shots without picking up fouls. That was on full display with Wagner's game-sealing block, which came after he and DJ Wilson seamlessly executed a switch. Wagner stayed vertical and waited until the last moment before swatting the ball away:

After recording blocks in two of his 29 appearances last year, Wagner has six in nine games. DJ Wilson has 14. Those two almost entirely account for Michigan's team block rate rising from 6.1% (308th nationally) last season to 8.4% (189th) this year, the team's highest mark since Beilein's first season, when Ekpe Udoh had 92 of the team's 160 blocks. Incidentally, that's the last time Michigan started two bigs. While there's still plenty of room to improve, those two have added a new dimension to the defense.

[Hit THE JUMP for Billy Donlon's clutch veto, a look at the game-winning bucket, and more.]

Billy Donlon's behind-the-scenes influence is already producing results. [Campredon]

Bless You, Billy Donlon

Heading into this season, we gathered that Billy Donlon would have perhaps-unprecedented levels of control for a Beilein assistant; he spent much of media day trying in vain to convince the press corps that he wasn't a de facto defensive coordinator even though Beilein had said as much just a few minutes earlier. If there was any doubt that Donlon wields an unusual amount of power for an assistant, here's the most telling Beilein quote of the year:

I thought [Wagner]’s making major steps defensively right now. I was shocked when I wanted to make a defensive substitution at the end and put Mark [Donnal] in for Moe, and Billy [Donlon] said no, Moe’s really hedging the ball screen well. So we stayed with him down the stretch. He has been, he’ll ask me questions, we joked about the language barrier. There’s a lot going on in that huddle that is English, and he’s very good in German, but I think we take it for—he misses some things here and there that I’m picking up more on, that we’ve just got to sit and explain it more. The growth, offensively he was probably here, and defensively he was here. Well he’s rising here but this is rising too.

1. fwieaojranwebfuadfonadfkl /aneurysm

2. Thank you, Billy Donlon.

3. I'm not necessarily saying the program should invest in a translater but I'm also not not saying that.

Donlon is probably picking up on stuff like this, where Wagner—guarding 6'8", 275-pound Texas big Shaquille Cleare—maneuvers around a screen, gets his body on Cleare, denies the pass, and forces Cleare to try to post up so far away from the basket that he ends up setting a high screen instead, to which Wagner reacts by cutting off the baseline drive before getting back to his man.

The following clip is a better example of Wagner's developing pick-and-roll defense. Michigan is utiziling a wider variety of ways to defend the high screen; in this case, Wagner does a soft hedge, stringing the ballhandler out to the sideline while Derrick Walton fights over the screen and recovers.

As Walton gets back to his man, Wagner slides back to the center—note how DJ Wilson pauses in the paint instead of following his man to the perimeter to give Wagner time to get back—and then does a beautiful job of denying post position. Despite a couple attempts to establish better position against a lighter defender, Cleare catches the entry feed with both feet well outside the paint and has little choice but to kick the ball back out.

Not to shamelessly brag or anything, but I'm feeling pretty good about the timing and content of this post.

Bless You, Billy Donlon, Part II

De-fense? [Campredon]

Quick, somebody fetch my fainting couch.

via KenPom, obviously

Oh, thank goodness, I'm already sitting on a couch. Close call, you guys.

Michigan is in the top 100 in all four defensive factors, a feat they've never accomplished over a full season under Beilein. During his tenure, Michigan hasn't finished better than 148th in eFG%; they're 86th right now. Other than an anomolous 36th ranking in the 2009-10 season, they haven't finished better than 134th in turnover rate; they're 99th. That rebounding mark would be the second-best of Beilein's tenure to last year's team. The free-throw rate would be highest of Beilein's tenure by a decent margin; it's still well above average.

Three more defensive stats leap off the KenPom page. Opponents made 51.1% of their two-pointers last year, a mark that put Michigan 264th nationally—second-worst among power conference teams. This year opponents are connecting on 45.2% of their twos, good for 77th in the country. That only becomes more impressive when you notice that Michigan is doing a remarkable job of preventing opponent three-point attempts. They're ranked 12th in that stat—only 27.8% of opponent field goal attempts come from beyond the arc—after never falling in the top 100 under Beilein previously.

The third eye-opener is opponent assist rate, which sits at just 44.1%, the 26th-lowest percentage in the country. Only one under Beilein, in 2013-14, has Michigan held opponents below 50%. Despite working with essentially the same set of players as last year, Michigan has dramatically improved in pretty much every regard on defense. The vast majority of the credit, of course, goes to Donlon, but don't forget about the Saddi Washington hire—Washington is the assistant in charge of the big men.

Rahk, Unsteady

MAAR has been frustratingly inconsistent on both ends. [Campredon]

Beilein didn't mince words when assessing Muhammad-Ali Adbur-Rahkman's performance after the Texas game:

He’s got to be a better player than he’s playing. He’s just got to continue to work. He’s lost a little confidence right now. With all our guys, if you’re having a bad offensive game, it doesn’t mean you’re going to have a bad defensive game. Muhammad’s not alone. It affects his defense. The first play of the second half, the first time in there, man, they just took him right to the basket and scored right over him. You’ve got to be able to play defense better than that. That bigger lineup without him, you know, is something you’ll see more as we try to figure out what’s best for this team.

MAAR's defense has been noticeably poor for much of the year with the most frustrating stretch coming late in the Virginia Tech game; he was late to rotate back to an open shooter who drilled a three to cut M's lead to one with 2:16 left, then committed the cardinal sin of going under a screen against a shooter—or trying to, anyway, as he ended up running smack into the pick:

Michigan never quite recovered.

While much of the focus has rightfully been on the offensive struggles of M's two senior leaders, MAAR's season-long play is also worrisome. He's making a career-low 46% of his twos, is only 8-for-32 on threes, and his turnover rate has nearly doubled from last season; meanwhile, he's playing often-porous perimeter defense.

As Beilein mentioned, Michigan could go to a bigger lineup if MAAR's problems persist. While Duncan Robinson isn't any better on defense, he provides a whole lot more offense at the moment, and Michigan did well against Texas when they played Robinson at the three, Irvin at the two, and Wilson at the four—a lineup with more size than any in recent Michigan memory, and one that doesn't sacrifice anything in the way of shooting ability, especially if Wilson continues to knock down the occasional corner triple.

Not Heroball

I noticed some heroball accusations thrown Zak Irvin's way regarding the game-winner against Texas. While Irvin had a couple heroball possessions in that game—one a made three when he found his sweet spot at the top of the key, the other an ugly midrange miss—the game-winner wasn't one of them.

Irvin played within the flow of the offense, got a step on his man off the screen from Wagner, and drew extra attention by getting all the way to the rim. Wagner probably doesn't get that rebound if his man doesn't leave him to contest Irvin's layup. That's a legit Kobe assist and a good play in an otherwise underwhelming performance from Irvin.

DJ Photogenic

Marc-Gregor has been snapping so many excellent shots of DJ Wilson that I felt compelled to feature a handful of them in this post's final section.

It's gotta be the shorts.

Elsewhere

I planned to get to Brendan F. Quinn's examination of home attendance this season but I've rambled long enough:

According to updated number provided to MLive by the university, U-M's student season ticket sales are down 44 percent year over year, falling from 2,515 in 2015-16 to 1,743 in 2016-17.

It marks the second significant drop in student ticket sales, dating back to 2014-15. That year, a season that came on the heels of a run to the Elite Eight, Michigan sold 3,193 student tickets.

Thus, all told, U-M's student season ticket sales are roughly half -- 1,743 compared to 3,193 -- of what they were two years ago.

As anyone who's been to Crisler this season can tell you, the attendance sitatuation isn't any better in non-student seating. Team performance from the last couple years and a home slate largely consisting of cannon fodder will do that; I'm guessing there's also a lingering effect from Dave Brandon reorganizing the seating chart and booting a bunch of loyal season ticket holders into the upper bowl right as the program got really good.

Despite the lagging student ticket sales, I still believe dedicating more courtside seating to students would provide further incentive for them to show up in force; while the overflow seats are often left unoccupied, the courtside Maize Rage seats are almost always packed.