Stop! Have you considered you may not have to do this? [Fuller]
Always something to complain about.
Now that Stauskas has escaped from the Lilliputians and the offense has duly gone back to Brobdingnagian, are there ways to get the defense performing, say, at a top-50 instead of 100-ish level? 75? Or do you think at this point they just are what they are?
Ace: I think the Indiana game, despite the win, rid us of any notion that the defense will have a postseason breakthrough. The Wolverines are who we thought they were: a superlative offensive team with some major defensive issues. Michigan couldn't stay in front of Indiana's guards, failed to get back in transition—including after multiple made baskets—and had to go to the high-risk 1-3-1 for the entire second half to create enough empty possessions to somehow win while giving up a 66.3 eFG%. The Hoosiers entered the game with a 48.0 eFG% in conference play. That's bad, mmmmkay?
So, yeah, the defense is an issue, and projects to be going forward. Michigan was a much better defensive squad last season, and while they gave up a respectable 0.98 ppp in the NCAA Tournament, that figure swells to 1.03 after excising the first weekend. Also, that run featured the unleashing of Mitch McGary, Embodiment of Chaos, and this year's squad doesn't feature anyone with his ability to force turnovers, which proved key in the run to the title game. (Caris LeVert leads this season's squad with a 2.2% steal rate; McGary was at 3.4% last season, Trey Burke at 2.8%.)
With Michigan preparing for a potential three games in three days, followed by a prep week for the tournament that's likely to be geared more towards rest and scouting than working on defensive fundamentals, I don't think they're going to come up with a magical solution to the myriad defensive issues. The offense is capable of carrying this team into the Final Four. That's a good thing, because that will have to be the case if we're going to see a repeat of last year.
[jump…preferably before the shooter does]
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This baby's still got a few surprises
Brian: I am generally with Ace. They are what they are. Ben Wallace is not walking through that door. But there is a wildcard that Ace mentions and dismisses too quickly: the 1-3-1. That defense has been a regular feature of games Michigan is flailing in, and about two thirds of the time it proves perplexing enough to the opponent to get Michigan back in games. Pitt last year, FSU and Indiana this year. It promises a rescue or two in the tourney, a tight turnaround situation against teams that don't necessarily know who they're playing or see a junk zone, like, ever. It could prove a critical secret weapon in games where Michigan's defense isn't up to snuff.
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| The hope is what Michigan gives up in this (which frankly they're giving up anyway), they'll make up with a few more turnovers |
Ideally that would not have to be the case, but we're short on ideals on that side of the ball. Maybe the 1-3-1 is not suited for competing in the Big Ten, and thus got dumped by Beilien, but the guy made a living off the thing as he ran through tournaments as a scrappy underdog. Applied in ten-minute bursts, it could give Michigan the distance it needs as a scrappy underdog on defense... that just happens to have a nuclear-powered offense.
That nuclear power is what got Michigan past Indiana and promises a tourney run. Yeah, Beilein's West Virginia outfits were good on offense, even very good. But they do not hold a candle to what he's been able to construct at Michigan. The Elite Eight WVU team was eleventh in the country on O... and almost nine points per hundred possession adrift of this year's Michigan offense. The ranking isn't much higher but things get spaced out at the edges of the distribution. Dropping nine points of efficiency would take Michigan's offense down to 29th nationally; adding nine to their defense would shoot them up to sixth(!). Would you feel better about this team if their Kenpom profile said 29/6 instead of 3/94? You probably would. But those teams are ranked the exact same.
That's why the 1-3-1 can be a critical game flipper: it doesn't have to be good consistently. It just has to disrupt the opponent long enough for Michigan to run away and hide, as it did in a ten minute stretch of the second half against the Hoosiers when they scored ten points. At the very least it's a card to play when straights get dire.
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Mathlete: Unless Michigan makes it one win further than last season, when they lose, it will almost certainly be at the hands of this defense. This is not news. The question is, what are the conditions at which the dangers on defense become greater than the potency of the offense. With the offense having surprising resiliency, especially with their perimeter orientated nature, the question comes back to who has the guns on offense to exploit Michigan's defenses weakness.
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| This season's so weird that Wisconsin (6th on Kempom) is one of those elite offensive teams. [Fuller] |
Taking a look at Kenpom's offensive ranks, Michigan has virtually no chance of facing any of the really elite units until at least the second weekend. Assuming Michigan makes it there, that's when the going gets interesting. Brian has done a great job focusing on the matchups and I think that is especially critical for this year's squad. Possibly helping Michigan's case this season is the lack of a really elite top tier of teams. It feels like this tournament could be really wild. If Michigan can survive the first two matchups, the defense would have to survive two more potentially dangerous foes to make a return Final Four trip.
I don't see any way that the defense becomes anything less than a liability all year, but as long as the offense keeps clicking, the future is bright. Michigan won't have any room to spare on defense so the offense is going to have to be on every game. Brian's point about the 1-3-1 being a trump card is a key point. At some point the defense is going to have to put up a stretch like they did in the second half this weekend to allow the offense to get its rhythm back. The 1-3-1 can look bad at times but hopefully strategic deployment can provide the opportunity for the reversion to the mean for an early game offensive showing or a chance for a positive high variance outcome in the later stages.
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BiSB: I like the 1-3-1, and I always enjoy seeing it deployed. It's the blue shell of the Michigan defense; it only appears when they're behind, but it's guaranteed to make up some ground on the leaders. But I don't see it as being viable as anything other than a stop-gap measure. There's a reason it worked against Pitt, FSU, and Indiana: those are three teams that aren't... oh, what's the polite way to say this... let's say 'basketball smart' (remember when Syracuse sprung a 2-3 zone on Indiana with only a few decades notice, and befuddled the bejeezus out of Dwight Schrute, et al?). Beilein has been running the 1-3-1 for a long time, and he doesn't feel comfortable with it this year. He mentioned on WTKA on Tuesday that there are parts of the 1-3-1 they haven't even installed yet.
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| Fortunately for Michigan, outside the Big Ten are lots of dumb people. [Fuller] |
That said, the 1-3-1 doesn't have to be a panacea. Michigan games are almost like big-time men's tennis. If Michigan breaks serve a few times, they can gain a little separation and trade baskets until the horn sounds. That's what they did against Michigan State, and it served its purpose. Plus, the threat of a bizarre zone will force teams to spend practice time worrying about the thing that will probably appear on three possessions. There's also something to be said for Beilein schematic sub-ness; if you're going to give a team three days to scout and game plan for an new opponent (and 36 hours to do the same for a second team), you want John Beilein on your side.
Michigan has been winning with this formula for two years now. So no, the defense won't be great, and no, I don't think it matters more than it has thus far. They just won the Big Ten by 3 games with this terrible defense. They went to the title game with a similarly terrible defense last year. Snail tempo track meets uber alles.
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Seth: Some things are what they are. The 216th two-point defense in the country doesn't suddenly start holding everybody under 50, whatever tricks are up their sleeves. Except…
Except they were the 200th two-point defense last year going into the tournament. Then they had a tourney stretch where they gave up 56 to the Jackrabbits, 53 to the Commodores, 59 to the Gators, and 56 to the Orange. Kansas scored 76 in regular time. Louisville put up 82 and the run was over. They finished 175th in that stat.
All season long we've been saying that Trey Burke and Mitch McGary aren't walking on that floor, and all season long John Beilein has been making do. At the dawn of the Big Ten Tournament this team has a conference crown by three games and is in position for a possible 2 seed, a 3 at worst. Last year was a 4.
What happened last year was McGary beast mode:
| Stat/Game | NonConf | B1G/BTT | NCAA Tourney |
|---|---|---|---|
| DREBs | 3.3 | 3.1 | 7.2 |
| Steals | 0.6 | 1.1 | 2.0 |
| Blocks | 0.4 | 0.8 | 1.2 |
That is probably bad news since it's unlikely—short of McGary himself returning—that Michigan's bigs will suddenly transform into rebounding, turnover-inducing terrors while maintaining their offensive efficiency. Stauskas is what he is and since he's the engine of the offense you don't want him exerting so much on defense. There's a distant possibility that Irvin will suddenly get really hot, but Michigan's best chance for the kind of marginal improvement that leads to a tourney run is to turn something they are awful at into something they are mediocre at.
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| McGary isn't there to help, but Horgal Morford has been pretty alright despite being exactly the kind of guys Big Ten refs love to hate on. [Fuller] |
So let's find those. That horrible 2-pt defense is related to that 293rd ranking in blocks—that's not going to change. They're 320th in opponent free throw percentage—if that's luck it'll matter but I think that's just an effect of Michigan not fouling bigs very often because we can't afford to end a game without Horford or Morgan. Steal rate is 255th; Walton's probably a year away from Burke-like picking, but flashing the 1-3-1 some against certain teams might inch that up.
Here's one: they're second to last in the country in DREB % from the 4 spot. Typically, Robinson isn't interested in boards. There's no way to turn him into, well, Glenn Robinson (11.2 rebounds/game his last year at Purdue), but there's also no substitute for his ability to leap like Luigi and hover like Peach beside a rim. Anecdotally I've seen him doing a marginally better job of boxing out; the returns could be on their way, especially with the motivation of the NCAA tourney run. If GRIII goes ham en route to securing that 1st round draft spot Michigan's defense could go from laughable (for a tourney team) to something between a chuckle and chortle. Pair this offense, this coach, and a favorable seed with a just-a-bit-cruddy defense instead of a crappy one and we could be in for a long dance.