THE ESSENTIALS
| WHAT |
Michigan (6-5) vs. Coppin State (1-9) |
|---|---|
| WHERE |
Crisler Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| WHEN | 8 pm ET, Monday |
| LINE | Michigan -22 (KenPom) |
| TV |
BTN PBP: Eric Collins Analyst: Shon Morris |
Right: We're befuddled too, Jim.
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.
| Pos. | # | Name | Yr. | Ht./Wt. | %Min | %Poss | SIBMIHHAT | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | 11 | Taariq Cephas* | Sr. | 5'10, 165 | 69 | 22 | No | ||||||||||||
| Decent 3-pt shooter, good number of assists, poor shooter inside arc. | |||||||||||||||||||
| G | 10 | Christian Kessee | So. | 6'2, 180 | 54 | 20 | No | ||||||||||||
| Low volume, high efficiency outside shooter. Bad inside arc. Turnover-prone. | |||||||||||||||||||
| G | 24 | Sterling Smith* | Jr. | 6'4, 185 | 63 | 17 | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Just 29% 3-pt on nearly 2/3 of his total FGA. | |||||||||||||||||||
| F | 3 | Arnold Fripp* | Sr. | 6'7, 210 | 67 | 22 | No | ||||||||||||
| Best (only) inside-outside threat. Plays a lot of C despite low reb. numbers. | |||||||||||||||||||
| C | 2 | Lawrence Fejokwu | Jr. | 6'9, 260 | 35 | 12 | Very | ||||||||||||
| Decent block/steal rates. Not a great rebounder. Very foul-prone. Shoots 30%. | |||||||||||||||||||
| G | 5 | Daquan Brickhouse | Sr. | 5'8, 160 | 48 | 15 | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Good assist:turnover. Top-100 steal rate. Lives up to name: 39% eFG. | |||||||||||||||||||
| G | 21 | Jahvari Joseph | Sr. | 6'4, 185 | 40 | 25 | Yes | ||||||||||||
| Volume shooter, solid inside arc (18/34), terrible outside of it (3/21). | |||||||||||||||||||
| F | 1 | Dallas Gary | Sr. | 6'5, 210 | 26 | 27 | Yes | ||||||||||||
| 5/22 2-pt, 2/13 3-pt, turnover-prone, low rebound #s. 53.1 ORtg. Yikes. | |||||||||||||||||||
*returning starter
THE RESUME
Coppin State is, um, not good. Their lone win this year came at home against Goldey Beacom, which is not an off-brand cable company but a 3-8 D-II squad. They've lost to three teams ranked in the 200s on KenPom. In their four matchups against top-100 teams, the smallest losing margin they've had was 21 points, the next-smallest 37. They share a common opponent with Michigan: Oregon, whom the Wolverines beat by seven and the Eagles lost to by 42.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
THE THEM
If there's a team to break a slump against, there are few better options than Coppin State, the #335 team (out of 351) on KemPom.* They're known for their breakneck pace (#3 in adjusted tempo) and, uh, being equally terrible at offense (327th adj. efficiency) and defense (324th), I guess? Being undersized and heavily three-point reliant doesn't hurt from Michigan's perspective, either.
While largely ineffective big man Lawrence Fejokwu is a starter, he plays fewer than 40% of the team's minutes. That puts a lot of pressure on 6'7" forward Arnold Fripp, a solid scorer—52% 2-pt, 36% 3-pt—who splits his time between the four and the five; his rebounding numbers underwhelm for a guy who spends that much time on the interior.
6'5 forward Dallas Gary will also see a decent amount of run; he's posting an unfathomably bad 53.1 offensive rating, thanks to a 22.9 eFG% and a 25.0% turnover rate. Backup big Jerimyjah Bates is shooting 33% with a 4.6 O-Reb% and 8.1 D-Reb% while committing 8.8 fouls per 40 minutes.
Starting three Sterling Smith takes almost 2/3 of his shots from downtown and hits just 29% of them. He's finishing pretty well inside the arc, but like his team in general he doesn't venture inside very often. Smith is frequently spelled by 6'4" senior Jahvari Joseph, who is one of the team's most effective players inside the arc (53% 2-pt) and not so much outside of it (14% 3-pt).
Two-guard Christian Kessee is a spot-up shooter who's hitting his threes at a 44% clip and his twos—almost entirely jumpers—at just 38%.
Two diminutive point guards get a lot of time, often together. 5'10" senior Taariq Cephas gets the starting nod and has a top-200 assist rate; he's a decent three-point shooter who has a tough time finishing inside. 5'8" senior Daquan Brickhouse takes care of the ball very well and generates a top-100 steal rate, but his last name is unfortunately apt: he's shooting 36% from two and 26% from three. Despite the shooting woes, Brickhouse has the best O-rating on the team.
*Context, since someone asked in the comments: EMU is #116—a legimitately decent MAC squad—and NJIT is #266.
THE TEMPO-FREE
We'll start with what jumps out: yes, Coppin State's shooting defense is literally off-the-charts bad. They're dead last in the country in three-point defense (47.2% ... goodlord) and 342nd in two-point defense (57.2%); compounding matters, they give up a ton of second chances and send opponents to the line with regularity.
CSU's insane tempo hasn't given them an advantage on offense, either. They hit under 40% from two, and despite attempting three-pointers at the 18th-highest rate in the country, they make just under 31% of those. They don't crash the glass and rarely get to the line; the only thing they do well is not turn the ball over.
THE KEYS
Put the ball in the basket. Please?
Don't be terrible. Seriously, losing this game would require complete and utter failure in so many aspects of the game that it would cast an NIT bid, let alone any NCAA hopes, into serious doubt. I do not expect this to happen.
THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES
Michigan by 22.
This would be decidedly worse than NJIT. Let's not with that.
ELSEWHERE
UMHoops preview. Maize n Brew preview. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh:
That and more kicks to the soul dong from MnB's Drew Hallett, who must be stopped.