Fuller / MGoBlog

Previously: Irvin, Dawkins, Michigan’s Big Men.

The 2015 season was a breakout of sorts for Spike Albrecht: the famously under-recruited junior wasn’t projected to start at any point in his four year career, but because of the injuries to Derrick Walton and Caris LeVert, Spike ascended to starter and became an indispensible presence on the court and one of Michigan’s most valuable rotation players. Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Aubrey Dawkins saw the biggest bumps in playing time after the injuries, but Albrecht increased his minutes per game from 26.2 to 38.6 (tied for the most on the team with Zak Irvin for games after LeVert and Walton were sidelined).

Spike showed off more playmaking ability than he had in either of his previous two seasons and became a Vine star with highlights like this:

Plays like that became somewhat common for Spike – Drew Hallett, who posted the Vine above, titled the play “Spike Nash,” something I wrote about at length after Michigan’s win over Syracuse in the ACC – Big Ten Challenge:

Spike attempted a behind-the-head pass (which, if memory serves, resulted in a flubbed Mark Donnal layup) and literally dribbled around the paint a few times in another game so far this season, but this play – a seemingly effortless play that was both audacious and completely necessary – in context, was something else. Firstly, Spike Albrecht is not, nor will he ever be, Steve Nash, a surefire Hall of Famer and one of the more exciting players ever to play the game. Still, there’s been a decidedly Nash-esque quality to Spike’s game this season, even if it’s a $29.99 photo print of an original masterpiece. It’s not hard to envision Spike Albrecht watching hours of Nash highlights on Youtube as a middle-school kid and trying out that nonsense at practice or on the driveway.

Spike’s going to be that guy eventually. He’s currently the elder statesman on the team, but he has almost two entire years of eligibility left in a Michigan uniform. He still has plenty of basketball to give – unlike several players capable of singular brilliance (the Nik Stauskases and Trey Burkes), he won’t be a fleeting season’s worth of memories. I suspect that we’ll have another two years of Spike attempting insane passes that look almost indifferent and while his moments of genius will be much fewer and further in between than those from the stars of the college basketball world, it will be incredibly fun to wait and watch what Spike will do next. At the very least, he’ll probably hit about 40% of his threes, he’ll probably post a gaudy assist-to-turnover ratio, and he’ll probably be a solid player at worst, on the whole.

Spike was one of the most visible silver linings in the wake of Michigan’s disappointing season – he’s an above-average player (particularly on the offensive end) compared to others in his role. To wit, he outplayed future NBA lottery pick D’Angelo Russell in Ann Arbor last year, scored 17 points in half of the national championship game three years ago, and clearly elevated his level of play over the course of the season. Incredibly, he’s played in 107 games as a Michigan Wolverine; Jordan Morgan holds the school record at 140 games and, if he stays healthy, Spike could claim that record as his own.

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Old Man Spike

Leadership duos in Beilein era = CJ Lee/David Merrit, Novak/Douglass, Burke/Hardaway...now Albrecht/LeVert! #Legacy pic.twitter.com/YQt2kRC5gY

— LaVall Jordan (@LaVall_Jordan) April 22, 2015

Among the much ballyhooed (and eventually very successful) “Fresh Five” recruiting class, only two are left: Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht. It’s easy to see, even now, that the watershed 2012 class was instrumental in triggering the renaissance of Michigan basketball – they went to the national title game as freshmen (three started), won the Big Ten by three games as sophomores (with Stauskas and LeVert leading the way), and up to four will eventually be drafted into the NBA. Here are their individual accomplishments:

• Nik Stauskas – Second-Team All American (2014), Big Ten Player of the Year (2014), #8 overall in the 2014 Draft.
• Mitch McGary – Preseason First-Team All American (2014), South Regional All-Tournament Team (2013), Final Four All-Tournament Team (2013), #21 overall in the 2014 Draft.
• Glenn Robinson – Big Ten All-Freshman Team (2013), #40 overall in the 2014 Draft.
• Caris LeVert – Second-Team All Big Ten (2014), Preseason First-Team All American (2015).
• Spike Albrecht – Final Four All-Tournament Team (2013).

As it turns out, Caris and Spike will be the only two to finish out their four years of eligibility at Michigan and – for the first time in several years – the Wolverines will have two senior cornerstones. LaVall Jordan’s tweet above calls an interesting comparison to mind: Zack Novak and Stu Douglass were four year contributors and valuable leaders in their time at Michigan and, like Caris and Spike, were under-the-radar prospects added late in the recruiting process. Beilein’s had success in uncovering gems late – Aubrey Dawkins and Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman come to mind – and they’ve made quite an impact at Michigan.

Albrecht and LeVert have obviously had very different careers, but there’s one interesting factoid that underscores the leadership role Albrecht’s in: Spike’s two years older than the next-oldest Michigan player (LeVert) and has several years of game experience. Because of prep school, Spike will be 23 by the time next season starts, providing a level of veteran leadership that was lacking at times this past season. Last year, he was unexpectedly called on to fill a big role and performed admirably – Spike was a captain as a junior and was eventually named team MVP. His hips were so badly messed-up that he had to have offseason surgery on both, but he played star minutes through the end out of necessity. Hard-hats, lunchpails, and all that.

Additionally, he’s the front-runner for the Robbie Hummel Memorial “That Guy’s STILL In College?” Award given to the Big Ten player who seems to have been around forever more than anyone else in the league.

After the jump, more on Michigan’s floppy-haired cult hero

Anybody who followed the 2015 team closely would be able to identify Spike’s value as a starter who played as many minutes as possible – by the end, he was arguably the team’s most valuable player because of the injuries to LeVert and Walton that sapped Michigan of its ball-handling and playmaking ability. Drew Hallett of Maize n Brew gave him an A grade on the season; Alejandro Zuñiga gave him an A-minus at UMHoops.

By “Game Scores” (an advanced stat metric that quantifies a player’s  individual game performance with all of the traditional box score stats, including efficiency), most of Spike’s best games as a Wolverine came in the second half of his junior season:

Of the top 12 games in his career, Spike recorded one (the Louisville game) in his freshman season, two as a sophomore, and nine as a junior – including seven in Big Ten play. The Ohio State game late in the season was objectively the best performance of his career: an efficient 16 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists to zero turnovers, and 2 steals is a comprehensive box score line that somehow undersells his terrific performance in that game. After the game, I wrote this in the game recap:

Check his statistical comparables and there are a few interesting names:

Kelvin Grady left the program after his playing time diminished as a sophomore in 2009 and eventually wound up playing in the slot for Michigan football. That departure freed up room for Darius Morris to see playing time; Grady also must have been dissatisfied with being the fourth guard (behind Douglass, Merritt, and Lee) by the end of the season in Michigan’s NCAA Tournament run. In the end, he had a fairly unremarkable Michigan career when it was all said and done.

Grady was the seventh-best Michigan high school player in the 2007 recruiting class (Kalin Lucas, Manny Harris and Durrell Summers were the top three, Laval Lucas-Perry was fifth) and he was a 247 Composite Top-150 recruit, so it was disappointing to see his career end after just two seasons. Fortunately, he was a rotation receiver for Michigan football and spawned this excellent wallpaper:

Brian’s Senior Day Haiku:

Suns collide, stars burst
the duality of man
Grady Wallpaper

What we find when we head down the rabbit hole. Seth’s career recap is worth a read for nostalgic people like me. Anyways, I digress. Grady is not a flattering comparison to Spike, but their numbers are quite similar:

The biggest difference between Albrecht and Grady was playing time: Spike played about 7 minutes more per game (and was slightly more efficient on slightly higher usage). Their shooting splits – 45 / 37 / 91 for Spike versus 47 / 36 / 83 for Grady – are very similar; Spike was better at holding onto the ball, but they were proximate in most other statistical categories.

Comparing Spike to Stu is much more favorable: Douglass was another Beloved Beilein White Guy™ and was a key rotation player for three NCAA Tournament teams. As a senior, Stu played the two guard and mostly deferred to Trey Burke – Albrecht was more of a distributor, but Stu scored more. This statistical system (along with a lot of basketball analysis in general) doesn’t count for defense as much as it should, and Stu was clearly head-and-shoulders above Spike in that regard. Stylistically, Spike mirrors quite a few Beilein point guards:

Grady (‘08) is the #1 comparison for Spike. Senior Douglass is #2, Grady’s sophomore season is #5, Walton’s freshman year is #16, Spike’s sophomore year is #18.

The biggest thing that this chart tells me is that Spike’s usage took a significant jump from his sophomore to junior season, and his efficiency took a proportional dip. Even with two bad hips, he had a higher true shooting percentage than Douglass’s senior year and both of Grady’s seasons. With Michigan devoid of its characteristic group of creators, Albrecht was forced to be a catalyst on offense and he responded with a healthy assist rate – the best of this group.

So how good is Spike then?

Better than Grady was and worse than Douglass was as a senior. The roles he and Grady had were very similar (or at least more similar than his role vis a vis Douglass’s when he played next to Trey Burke) but Spike was the better player. As much as Spike carried us in big games (Louisville is the most obvious example, he played well in both games against MSU this year, and Ohio State was his best game as a Wolverine) and as much as he provided us with regular highlights, he still wasn’t a top-half Big Ten point guard. In fact, it’s easy to make a case for several 2015 point guards to be much better than Spike: D’Angelo Russell was effectively a point guard, and Travis Trice, Melo Trimble, Yogi Ferrell, Bronson Koenig, Deandre Mathieu, and Jon Octeus were better. You could argue for a handful of others.

Still, Spike proved that he was an adequate point guard and once Michigan was stripped of its two primary creators, he was thrust into a role that he wasn’t recruited for – which was made more difficult by two nagging injuries – and did well enough: in fact, under his stewardship, Michigan’s offense looked more fluid and polished – though Zak Irvin’s emergence (and more experience in general for a really young team) helped. With a return to his customary role as a sixth-man, he would be projected for a modest breakout again next year if not for those hips, which effectively limit any offseason training this summer.

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Showtime Spike

Vine is the new medium for sports highlights, and Spike produced some good ones. Drew Hallett of Maize n Brew chronicled the latter half of Michigan’s season and – in addition to the behind-the-head pass above – here are his best plays from the point when LeVert and Walton were lost for the year:

• This one kinda reminds me of Darius Morris
• I saw this game with Jaime Mac (and we got crushed) but nice play early
• “Spike, this is why no one ever challenges you to H-O-R-S-E“
• Defense(!?)
• Huge shot in a game that wound up being incredibly painful
• Aubrey Dawkins brought alley-oops back (and Spike tossed this one)

And obligatory:

Spike is a cocky, audacious little guy and I love his game. He’s got the old-man-game craft down with his little scoops, sneakiness around the rim, general lack of explosiveness, and wet jumper, but he also has the type of creative flair that Michigan hasn’t seen since Darius Morris (who was more consistent in displaying that gift). Spike makes passes plenty of point guards wouldn’t think about, and plays with a calm swagger and confidence that inspires confidence. Apply that style to a scrappy, vastly under-recruited kid from the state of Indiana and you get Spike, who’s story is inextricable from everything else about his presence on the basketball court.

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Michael “Spike” Albrecht seems like he’s been around forever, but Michigan has one last season with him on the floor. The hips may be an issue – some have speculated that he might be redshirted, though that isn’t the plan – but if he’s healthy enough to play, he should slide right in as the third guard in the rotation behind Walton and LeVert; Beilein typically prefers short rotations and it’s almost certain that Spike will get playing time on the current roster.

This upcoming season will tell us a lot about him as a player (as he settles into his biggest role on a (hopefully) good team) and, much like Merritt and Lee and Zack and Stu, Spike and Caris are senior cornerstones who will be tasked with leading the program. In the end, Spike won’t be the one that ultimately affects the bottom line – Michigan needs more from several players than it does from Spike, but he’ll be a key player yet again. After four years and one of the most perplexing recruitments of the Beilein era, Spike has proved that he belongs.

Here’s to hoping that he’s at full health, because I can’t wait to see what Vine’s he’ll provide for us this year.