Beilein, analyst. Basketball dad is working with BTN now, and has some things to say about Hunter Dickinson:

That was a lot more detailed than I thought it was going to be. My expectations were something along the lines of "He's in what people call 'the post', and… okay he's got his back to the basket, which is weird, I always taught my players to look at it—oh wow he turned around okay I see where this is going… huh. Well, I never."

Instead he knows many things about the thing he never did.

Beilein was set to debut as a color guy for BTN but the Nebraska-Purdue game was postponed (say it with me: May Madness). That's going to be weird even if I imagine they'll keep him away from Michigan games. Looking forward to him talking about the basketball game in front of his face instead of whatever Andy Katz's deal is. QUIT RANKING DELIS ANDY KATZ.

[After THE JUMP: dunk tech FACTS]

Various actions. I watched Maryland-Indiana last night, which I do not recommend. It was rough. The announcer called it a "slugfest" at one point, which is accurate if it means there are a great many slugs in one area. It was not accurate if it means two guys throwing haymakers at each other.

I had a deja vu thing where I remembered watching some Big Ten game between middleweights several years ago. The thought was the same: "this does not look like a Michigan game." Maryland's always been a team that barely runs offense. Indiana does a bit more, but once Armann Franklin went out with an ankle issue those Purdue-ish elevator screens left the offense because there wasn't anyone worth elevator screening for. What was left? A lot of aimless dribbling and the occasional Jackson-Davis post-up. Very little of it looked like an intentional response to what the opposition was doing.

Meanwhile I keep sticking compilations of Michigan actions in these posts because they don't stop coming. Here's a response to Northwestern blitzing screens:

Juwan Howard Wrinkle: Spain PnR+Hammer

Michigan up big v NW late & Juwan looks to be experimenting

This looks like to be Spain, but NW blitzes ballscreen so Franz can’t set backscreen for HD

But look at opposite side - Eli directing Livers + setting a flare/hammer screen pic.twitter.com/bVtMcoFtWa

— LAbound (@LAbound2) January 5, 2021

That is a long, long way to recover off a blitz.

Here's six actions off a particular set:

Michigan scoring on 6 different actions out of Motion Weak, a set popularized in the NBA by the San Antonio Spurs: pic.twitter.com/0XXeDwaihY

— Eric Shapiro (@eric_shap) December 30, 2020

I've made this point before but Michigan is not just running Dickinson into the post and hoping he's able to bull his way into good post position. They are seeing what the opposition is running and finding various ways to exploit it. The number of bad possessions—defined as dribbling around aimlessly and getting locked into a late clock iso, obviously TOs are a bit of an issue—this team has is incredibly low.

Unprecedented. Pretty good!

#Michigan center Hunter Dickinson has shot 55% or better from the field in his first 8 games with the #Wolverines. That's tied for the longest stretch of any Division-I player to begin a career in the last 10 seasons (min. 5 FGA in each). #B1G #B1GMBB #MICHvsMD @B1GMBBall @bigten

— BTNStatsGuys (@BTNStatsGuys) January 1, 2021

Collins on Michigan. Chris Collins's team has played MSU, OSU, Iowa, and Indiana:

“We really haven’t seen that kind of size and physicality and length in any of our games we’ve played yet … I thought it really knocked us back. That front line of Wagner, Livers and Dickinson — they’re big, they’re long. On both ends, the size really bothered us. They physically imposed their will in a lot of ways. I thought they had great balance.”

NET looks less weird now, but still weird. The initial release (probably) didn't have games from Sunday, so it didn't know that Colgate lost to Army after hammering them by 40+. Now it does and they've fallen to 46th. (More evidence for the Sunday theory: Minnesota made a major move up, seemingly because their 17-point win over OSU on Sunday got included.) Still vastly too high, but this is a descriptive ranking with no priors attempting to rank a Patriot League team when Army appears to be the only Patriot League team that's going to play any nonconference games. There are going to be a ton of weird outliers this year.

I merely report facts. Chin-up == tech.

Nice follow jam for Issa Samake. @DrakeBulldogsMB | @ValleyHoops pic.twitter.com/N3WlNi9TH2

— CBS Sports Network (@CBSSportsNet) January 5, 2021

In this way you can determine for yourself whether a hang on the rim is going to get a tech, moments before it is called. This dunk put Drake up 34 so, like Chaundee Brown, you should look at this tech as a necessary cost of being rad.

Talking with Stu Douglass. Extended podcast interview with Stu Douglass here starting at about the 30 minute mark:

Douglass is also hosting his own podcast these days, and he got an okay guest for Episode One.

Grant Newsome's injury. The alumni magazine checks in with Newsome and gets some details on what was a touch-and-go situation:

That’s until the physical exam continued and the doctors asked Newsome if his leg or foot was tingling. It was, and it was numb too. This started a whole battery of vascular tests.

“You get a sinking feeling, ‘This isn’t as routine as I initially thought,’” Newsome remembers.

Upon realizing Newsome might be experiencing a dangerous lack of blood flow, physicians paged the vascular surgeon on call. Matthew Corriere, M.D., an associate professor of surgery at the Michigan Medicine Frankel Cardiovascular Center, flipped off the U-M game on his TV at home, just a few miles away, and got in his truck.

“They were concerned he had a posterior knee dislocation, which is when the artery gets pinched between the femur and tibia bones,” Corriere says. “There’s a very real risk of leg amputation when this happens so it’s a high stakes situation.”

Ban cut blocks on OL on the edge.

A gold medal game. USA—featuring Cam York, Matt Beniers, and Brendan Brisson—and Canada face off for the WJC gold medal tonight on NHL Network at 9:30.

Etc.: Chris Webber's creating his own Fab Five documentary. Entire NCAA tournament is going to be in Indiana. New Vandy head coach Clark Lea hires 247's Barton Simmons as a kind of GM-type guy. Quinn on Donnie Kirksey and his relationship with Juwan Howard. Paye checks in #7 overall in 24/7 latest mock draft.