THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#47 Michigan (5-1) vs #5 Virginia (5-0)
WHERE	Crisler Arena Ann Arbor MI
WHEN	9:30 PM
THE LINE	Kenpom: UVA -5 Torvik:
TELEVISION	ESPN

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan's last ever Big Ten/ACC Challenge matchup is a doozy against Virginia, which won a national championship recently and has done more to disrupt the UNC/Duke duopoly in that league than any other program. Last year's Cavaliers were anomalously bad, finishing 21-14 and falling to the NIT. They ranked 72nd on Kenpom, Tony Bennett's worst team since 2011 when he was in year two and still getting his feet under him.

Fancystat purveyors largely shrugged at this and stuffed Virginia up near the top of their rankings, which raised eyebrows but looks to be prescient so far. UVA has neutral-court wins over Baylor and Illinois and has stomped a couple of members of the KP300 club. Michigan has been very shaky so far this season and looks like they could really use a signature win; UVA is favored here but this is in the very winnable range. Would behoove Michigan to do so.

THE LINEUP CARDS

Seth is under the weather so these do not exist. Apologies.

[Update from Seth: I'm okay. Here you go.

The Us:

The Them:

The pogo stick with a broom is new. It means he hops up and sweeps the boards a lot. Going back to bed.]

THE THEM

Point guard Kihei Clark is a Not Just A Shooter type whose lack of height makes him an extremely poor finisher at the rim. He makes up for it with solid midrange game and good-but-not-great three point shooting. He has an elevated TO rate, again because of his height. He's an 86th percentile spot-up guy; the rest of his offense is quite bad.

Reece Beekman is another point guard type substance who has a severe bias towards getting to the bucket. He has historically not been much of a shooter. He hit 34% a year ago on just 65 attempts; about 75% of his shots are inside the line. There he goes to the bucket over and over again. He's not particularly efficient at the rim but his assist rate was 30 last year, so he creates a lot of problems by collapsing the defense.

If you can force him into a two point jumper that's a win. He completely lacks that level.

SG Armaan Franklin will probably be familiar, as he spent the first two years of his career at Indiana before transferring. Franklin was a promising combo guard on a hideous team that got Archie Miller fired. He found a major role upon arrival at UVA but his shooting deserted him. This might be a curse sort of thing where he's terrible every other year. Freshman: 27% from three. Sophomore: 42%! Junior: 30%. Senior: 42%!

UVA has devolved virtually all playmaking responsibility from Franklin. All of his usage is spot-up shooting or actions generated off screens; he has a background radiation assist rate. Franklin remains a shooter first and foremost, a guy who canned 45% of his other twos a year ago and only got to the rim on about 30% of his shots inside the arc, where he was only marginally more effective than he was from range. An open Franklin midrange jumper is not a good shot to give up.

Wing Jayden Gardner starts and has the highest usage on the team by some distance but has seen his playing time decrease significantly from last year, when he was on the court for 32 MPG. He's down to around 20—Kenpom actually lists Ben Vander Plas as a starter because he's on the floor a hair more—but that has not impacted his usage, which is in Alpha Dog territory.

Gardner has no three point range but thrives as a cutter and post-up threat against undersized fours. While he's not particularly efficient at any one thing he has an incredible distribution of shot attempts. Synergy charted fully a third of his FGAs last year as resulting from a cut, and while he's only 35th percentile converting those opportunities that is still 1.1 PPP.

He is extremely proficient at goofy old-man stuff in the midrange, and his ability to knock down 46% on other twos gives Virginia possessions a high floor.

Center Kadin Shedrick has little back to the basket game (9/24 on post-ups a year ago) but checks every other box you'd want a center to. He is a monster rebounder who had a double-digit block rate last year and when given an opportunity he finishes emphatically. Dude was 76% at the rim a year ago. He even hits FTs at a 74% career clip. Last year his time on the floor was a bit limited by foul trouble, which has improved a bit in the early going.

Despite being a very bouncy guy with pterodactyl limbs, though, he was a pretty bleh post defender a year ago. Opponents shot 44%, which doesn't sound great but is about average nationally. Hunter Dickinson is an extremely good post scorer and may be able to put Shedrick under the basket—he's 230 pounds—where his arms are of little use.

The bench:

• Freshman Isaac McKneely is the only back-court backup who saw more than scattered minutes in UVA's two games against P5 competition. He was the #61 player in the composite last year and is off to a red-hot start from three.
• Stretch four Ben Vander Plas transferred in from Ohio, where he was an inside-outside threat who experienced a huge surge in efficiency as a senior because he cut out a bunch of turnovers, got to the line more, and shot an impressive 60% from two. His highlights reveal a guy a bit like Terrance Williams: thick, mostly below the rim, some post savvy, and outside shooting. He's not a great three point shooter—33% on 636 career attempts and not much of an upward trend—but he's off to a hot start with the Hoos. He plays about 20 MPG.
• Senior seven-footer Fransisco Caffaro is the backup C. Virginia appears to want to relegate him to a bit role after he played almost half of UVA minutes a year ago. He's averaging just eight MPG this year as UVA goes small for 10-15 minutes a game. Offensively he's your typical backup big stiff; defensively he was effective as a post defender, ranking in the 75th percentile. He'll likely have a larger role in this game as Michigan demands you check their bigs with good defenders.
• Freshman Ryan Dunn exists but will likely get spot minutes only.

THE TEMPO FREE

Virginia's hot start has them in the green in a lot of stats. In addition to what you see above, they're hitting 45% of their threes, fourth nationally. This is likely to be an outlier. Everyone with any established track record in college basketball is shooting way over their established baselines.

The other thing that jumps out is that Virginia is assisting on 71% of its makes, which is first nationally. Sometimes this can be an indicator of a team that doesn't have a lot of tough shot makers, but when you're at the tippy-top end in efficiency it's not a bad thing.

As per usual, Virginia is one of the slowest teams in America.

THE KEYS

Make or miss league. Michigan's starting guards are hitting 17% and 14% from three. These are good looks in the flow of the offense from good shooters and they are just not going down at all. Meanwhile Virginia is completely unconscious from three. If those two trends do not revert to the mean in this game Michigan will get run off the floor.

Point guard Kobe Bufkin? Feels like it might be time to start exploring the idea of running Bufkin at the 1 and having either Joey Baker or Jace Howard get some extra minutes. Dug McDaniel has an ORTG of 78; Llewellyn is at 90. Bufkin isn't particularly far in front of them but has looked like Michigan's best option as a playmaker.

Can Virginia single Hunter Dickinson? At first blush they have the kind of center duo that could give Dickinson enough resistance that they could just play him straight up, which would have deleterious effects on the rest of the Michigan O. That probably relies on Shedrick having improved as a post defender over the offseason, though, because his numbers from last year aren't impressive.

Can Michigan make the right switches? This offense is getting tons of assists as their cut-heavy blocker/mover offense gets guys to the bucket without having to dribble that much. Michigan's ability to stay in the right rotations will be stressed.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Virginia by 5.