Preview: Oregon

THE ESSENTIALS

THE STAKES

We've reached the actual tournament portion of the Legends Classic; while last week's games against Bucknell and Detroit were referred to as regionals, they had no bearing on which teams ended up in Brooklyn.*

This is really a four-team tourney. The Michigan/Oregon winner will take on the winner of tonight's matchup between Villanova and VCU, which tips off at 7 pm on ESPN2, tomorrow night at 10 pm. There is a third-place game at 7:30 pm tomorrow, as well, so no matter what the Wolverines will face a quality opponent tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Michigan's game tonight is an ESPN3 stream only, while ESPNU is featuring Pitt-Chaminade in the same time slot. And, again, tomorrow's consolation game gets the far more palatable time slot than the actual title game.

Scheduling. You're doing it wrong.

*Though, as anticipated, all four teams in Brooklyn swept their respective regionals.

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. %Min and %Poss figure are from this season now—yes, there will be a fair amount of noise in these numbers for a while. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open.

*returning starter

THE THEM

While still talented, this is not the Oregon squad that won 24 games last year and gave Wisconsin a major scare in the NCAA Tournament. The Ducks return just three scholarship players from that team, and only two—star guard Joseph Young and forward Elgin Cook—were remotely significant contributors. The eight-man rotation now features four true freshmen, a JuCo transfer, and a senior who played just 7.7% of the team's minutes last season.

Dana Altman's squad has made it work so far, with comfortable wins against #328 Coppin State, #139 Detroit, and #112 Toledo, though both the Titans and Rockets hung close for a half before the Ducks pulled away.

They've done so in large part due to the exploits of Young, who's not only maintained very efficient shooting numbers while shouldering a huge portion of the offense, but has done an admirable job taking over as the team's primary distributor. His season averages pop off the page: 26 points, a shade over four boards, and an even five assists per game thus far. He's a lethal catch-and-shoot threat from the outside, boasts a decent midrange game, and is quite effective getting to the basket and either finishing or drawing a foul—and he's 18/18 at the line this year (not a fluke, as he's a career 88% FT shooter). Slowing down Young is Michigan's #1 priority, and several subsequent priorities, as well.

Young is joined in the backcourt by the freshman Ahmaad Roorie, who's mostly staying out of the way save for some forays to the hoop that tend to end in either a miss or a drawn foul and a handful of spot-up threes (3/10 on the year). Another freshman guard, Casey Benson, sees about an equal amount of time off the bench; he's either been an effective spot-up shooter (Coppin State, Toledo) or a turnover-prone non-factor (Detroit).

Top-100 freshman Dillon Brooks has displayed a nice jumper both inside and outside the arc, but while he's been able to get to the hoop (46% of his shots, per hoop-math), he's only finishing 38% of those shots and isn't drawing many fouls, either. It looks like he takes some gambles defensively; his three blocks and three steals are somewhat offset by his ten fouls through three games.

Cook is capable of playing both the four and the five despite standing at just 6'6, 205; he did so effectively last season off the bench, and while he now starts at the four he'll play both. While he doesn't have a jump shot to speak of, he finished very well at the basket last year—often off putbacks, as he posted a top-100 offensive rebound rate—and he's also a foul magnet. Cook's biggest issue is staying on the court; he averaged 6.2 fouls/40 minutes last season and has at least three in each game this season.

Nominal center Dwayne Benjamin is undersized at 6'7", 210, but he's posted very impressive rebounding rates on both ends of the floor while being quite disruptive (5 blocks, 3 steals) on defense. A former four-star recruit and very productive JuCo player, Benjamin has yet to find his offense this year, connecting on just 6/18 twos, 2/7 threes, and 4/11 free throws this season.

Four-star freshman Jordan Bell has been quite productive as the team's sixth man. He's 10/14 from the field on the season with 27 rebounds, 7 assists, and 7 blocks in just three games. A very good athlete, Bell's made all of his baskets at the rim; he's not creating much offense, but he's good at finishing what others have started.

The final rotation piece is senior guard Jalil Adbul-Bassit, who barely played last season but is fourth on the team in scoring despite playing just 18 minutes per game. After being a relatively ineffective Just-A-Shooter last year, he's knocking down his outside shots and doing a much better job of getting to the hoop and converting, though we'll see if that holds against better competition.

THE TEMPO-FREE

Sample size caveat very much applies.

The first thing to know about Oregon is they're going to turn up the tempo; they've been well within the top 100 nationally in adjusted pace the last three years under Altman and rank 55th this season. With a small, athletic team, they're looking to run, and for good reason—they're posting a 61.7 eFG% in transition as opposed to just 51.8% in halfcourt, with nearly a third of their shots going up within the first ten seconds of the shot clock.

Oregon's defense has been very good so far this year, but their numbers appear untenable. The Ducks are eighth nationally in two-point defense (31.7%), but have played just one opponent that's shooting above 40% inside the arc this year: Toledo, which isn't exactly impressing with a 45.9% mark (200th nationally). Meanwhile, they're getting absolutely bombed from the outside, with opponents shooting 40.5% from three on a high number of attempts.

The Ducks are blocking a remarkable 21% of opponent shots at the rim, which is unlikely to last, and their opponents are only finishing 51% of their shots at the basket that aren't blocked; they're also allowing just a 22% mark on two-point jumpers. That seems... fluky.

On the other end of the floor, something has to give on the glass. Michigan's strategy of sealing off the bigs and letting the guards do much of the defensive rebounding is working incredibly well so far; in fact, M is first in the country in defensive rebounding rate at 90%(!!!). That number isn't going to last, of course, but a very undersized Oregon squad hauling in 42% of their misses probably isn't, either.

THE KEYS

You want to run? Okay! Derrick Walton has been stellar leading the fast break this season, and in general M has been great in transition, either creating gimme shots at the rim (they've yet to miss there in transition) or open three-pointers of which they're making nearly half. Meanwhile, the team's transition defense has been quite solid—M's opponents have had a very hard time getting to the rim on the break. As long as the Wolverines take care of the ball, which they've done extremely well, then they should be fine in an up-tempo game; it may even play right into their hands.

Seal and grab. Oregon's impressive offensive rebounding production is mostly coming from three guys: Benjamin, Bell, and Brooks. For the most part, only two of those players will be on the court at the same time, so M just needs their inside guys to continue boxing out as well as they have been and let LeVert and Walton go to work—both have top-150 defensive rebounding rates. If the Wolverines can limit putbacks, they should be able to outshoot Oregon unless they let Young go off.

Go with what works. While there's certainly long-term concern that Michigan's best lineup at this point in the season features Max Bielfeldt at center, that shouldn't be a huge problem tonight; Oregon's only playing one rotation player taller than him, a lanky 6'9" freshman. If the freshmen are ineffective again, expect Beilein to have a quick hook handy.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 2.

ELSEWHERE

UMHoops preview. Maize n Brew preview. Per MLive's Brendan Quinn, Beilein suggested that M will try to stop Young by denying him the ball.