Illinois/Tourney Bullets

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3/14/2014 – Michigan 64, Illinois 63 – 24-7, 15-3 Big Ten, BTT semifinalist

The duality of man! [Dustin Johnston]

A good way to escape, I guess. The Illinois game existed in two phases: a man to man phase in which Michigan eventually ran out to a 13 point lead and a zone phase in which Michigan attempted zero(!) two point shots that just about cost them the game. Groce's inexplicable decision to return to a man to man phase on Michigan's last couple possessions was decisive.

It is difficult to overstate how completely Michigan failed to attack the Illinois zone. From the 14:47 mark to the Stauskas free throw against man D with 55 seconds left, Michigan attempted four free throws, zero two pointers, and 15 threes. Most of those were terrible contested looks, with occasional exceptions.

In the aftermath, a couple of people pinged me on twitter, saying that's why they didn't want Syracuse. (That was before Syracuse's yakety sax final possession against NC State.

I'd still take them.)

And, yeah, that was alarming. But the thing about the How To Shut Down Michigan book is that it works until it doesn't work. It was deny Stauskas on the wing until it wasn't possible, and then it was put a point guard on Stauskas until it wasn't. Michigan will work it out. A zone wake up call is a good thing to get right now, especially when you pull the game out anyway. Much better to get that out of the way before next week.

It looked to me like Illinois was overplaying the free throw line and was leaving corner threes open, but Michigan did not take advantage. There's only five guys and Michigan is really good at shooting; they'll work it out.

Meanwhile in that's over now. Stauskas was a FTA machine against their man coverage. He hit both his two point attempts and went 9/10 of the line, all on drives. Whenever Illinois attempted to put Abrams on Stauskas things went not well for them, and the instant Illinois went back to man, Stauskas got to the line an assisted on the decisive Jordan Morgan basket.

It's worth noting that Illinois's late season surge was based on superior man to man defense. In their 6-4 stretch at the end of the year they held all but one non-Michigan opponent under 1 PPP (Iowa got 1.1 in the season finale) and held a number way under. They had a four-game stretch in which opponents could not crest the 50-point mark, and those were all good teams: OSU, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Michigan State. They're up to 15th nationally on Kenpom.

As concerning as the zone ineptitude was, a second consecutive torching of a defense that has been giving the rest of the league fits was further proof that Michigan cannot be contained on offense.

Survive and advance. And if you were feeling kinda bad about what went down, last night provided a reassurance. Syracuse went down; Duke had a near-identical one-point escape against Clemson; St. Louis ate a last second three from St. Bonaventure; North Carolina got rebounded to death by Pitt. Conference tourneys are full of chaos.

Falling into place. With Kansas's loss to Iowa State, Michigan (probably) controls its own destiny in their attempt to lock down the final #1 seed. Beating OSU and Wisconsin/MSU would give them another pair of wins against tourney teams, and it seems like everyone currently putting Villanova on the #1 line is just waiting for someone to take it from them. Meanwhile, Duke and Louisville probably can't catch Michigan without an M loss—Lunardi already has Michigan the top two seed. '

Louisville keeps coming up in these discussions because they're annihilating folks in their conference tourney, but the Bracket Matrix has them a four—nowhere near the conversation.

About what the ideal is. Is it a big deal to get the last one seed instead of a non-Florida/Arizona #2 seed? Not at the hypothetical-regional-final-if-top-seeds-hold level, where you're probably facing down the same team you bumped. But, yeah, it is a big deal. The first, second, and third rounds all feature worse opponents, especially at the Sweet 16 level. There you're facing down a four seed 35% of the time and a five or worse the rest.

Big difference between a probable matchup against a near equal (current 3s: Iowa State, Virginia, Syracuse, Creighton) and a probable matchup against someone in the 5+ range. Current fives: OSU, UConn, Oklahoma, North Carolina.

What was that? Caris LeVert drew the primary defensive assignment on Tracy Abrams on the last play, which was drawn up with about four seconds left. LeVert got super aggressive on Abrams, got beat, and was fortunate not to watch his decision get Michigan beat.

When you consider what kind of player Abrams is, that decision looks even more baffling. Abrams is bad at all kinds of attempts to put the ball in the basket but he's really, really bad at jumpers. He was just 30% on two point jumpers this year and 28% on threes. If you sag off him a bit and then come up to contest when he takes the shot you know he has to take, you're probably looking at Abrams putting up a 20% shot instead of a… well probably not 60% since Abrams is an impressively bad scorer, but way too good of a look.