When it rains, it pours (Upchurch / MGoBlog)

Your Weekly B1G Hoops Column

Table of Contents:

1. Week III Results
2. Post-Week III Standings
3. Team of the Week: Iowa
4. Player of the Week: D’Angelo Russell
5. Stat of the Week: Youth and Success
6. Various B1G Thoughts
7. Michigan’s Week That Was
8. IT’S TIME TO PANIC
9. Week IV Schedule
10. Some Personal News

1. Week III Results

There weren’t any true upsets this week, as the conference race is starting to take shape. Indiana staved off a challenge from Penn State and notched a nice road win against Illinois (without Rayvonte Rice); Illinois defeated Northwestern in Evanston, Purdue had a miraculous sequence at the end of regulation to win against PSU in Happy Valley, and Iowa failed to choke away a game against rival Minnesota in the Barn – those were the only road wins, none of which could really be considered upsets.

Maryland and Ohio State each had impressive home blowouts, over Michigan St. and Michigan, respectively. Other than that, there wasn’t much of note in terms of on-court results – everything more or less went as expected, to a large extent.

2. Post-Week III Big Ten Standings

Even though Maryland has one more win than Wisconsin (due to scheduling), the Badgers are still the class of the conference from an efficiency standpoint, even though they haven’t faced any legitimate challengers yet. The Terps are a weird team – they have the 9th-best offensive efficiency and best defensive efficiency in conference play.

From there, the race is still indistinct. Iowa finally shook off their late-game demons after squandering a lead at Minnesota, only to win on a late Jarrod Uthoff jumper, and held off Ohio State at home; Indiana still has a negative efficiency margin, remarkably – that blowout loss in East Lansing has overshadowed an otherwise decent start to Big Ten play; Michigan State’s schedule will start to get easier from here on out; Michigan is assuredly out of the race after Caris LeVert’s injury.

One other thing: Poor Damn Minnesota. They have a very disappointing 1-5 record, but the Gophers are only four points worse than their opponents over 100 possessions. I’m not sure if I’m crazy for thinking this, but I don’t think it’s over for them quite yet.

Click on image to enlarge. Data’s starting to fill in a little bit.

3. Team of the Week: Iowa

The moment when Iowa purged its late-game demons (source)

Though Maryland is currently atop the standings and Wisconsin – the clear frontrunner for the conference title – has an excellent efficiency margin, it might be time to seriously consider Iowa as a potential challenger. They’ve rightfully received plenty of attention for their chronic propensity to blow leads in the second half; they’re still one of the better teams in the country, when they’re at their best.

Minnesota erased a 17-point second-half deficit and took a two possession lead late in the game, only for some unfortunate missed front-ends and clutch baskets from Jarrod Uthoff to enable Iowa to steal the game late. It’s hard to assess whether Iowa’s late-game struggles over the past two seasons are an inherent problem – the analytically-inclined would be more likely to ascribe simple bad luck as the root cause, but at a certain point, it’s harder to explain away. Regardless, the win over Minnesota is a nice sign. Iowa’s still not exactly a team that exudes reliability, but a 4-1 start is undoubtedly positive.

After this week, they’ve swept Ohio State – remarkably, the Buckeyes are now two games out of first place after three weeks of conference play. Iowa’s win this past weekend showed off their capabilities when they’re playing particularly well: they attacked the basket well and got to the free throw line a lot (and converted there); they forced the Buckeyes into an uncharacteristic 16-42 (38%) from two-point range; they managed to overcome a herculean performance for D’Angelo Russell and a mini-run early in the second half that could have led to another backbreaking comeback against the Hawkeyes.

It’s still a little tough to trust Iowa, but the Hawkeyes have generally been playing good basketball this season – an insane barrage of threes from Michigan State notwithstanding. The Hawkeyes might be a step below Maryland and Wisconsin, but they should receive plenty of attention – they might be the best team behind those two.

Previously – Maryland (Week I), Rutgers (Week II)

[HIT THE JUMP for the rest of the article / lamentations on our bad luck]

4. Player of the Week: D’Angelo Russell

DAT PASS (source)

 vs. Michigan (W) – 21 pts (6-12 FG), 4 reb, 6 ast, 4 stl

@ Iowa (L) – 27 pts (10-22 FG), 14 reb (6 off), 2 ast

If not for the general inertia that accompanies player of the year awards – Frank Kaminsky is playing well and he was the favorite, so he remains on top – it would be very hard to argue against D’Angelo Russell as Big Ten Player of the Year. He’s proven to be the best two-guard prospect in the upcoming draft, and he’s an extremely effective (and sure to be one-and-done) college player. He’s currently sixth on Chad Ford’s ESPN Big Board, and his last two updates were glowing ($):

Jan 6 Update: Ohio State has come back down to earth, but scouts still are enamored with Russell, a silky smooth combo guard who looks more and more like he'll be able to play both the 1 and the 2 in the NBA someday. He had a career-high nine assists against Miami (Ohio) and has recorded at least four assists in 13 of the 15 games he has played this season.

Dec 31 Update: Russell plays shooting guard for Ohio State but I recently changed him to point guard after virtually every scout I spoke with said they are evaluating him as a point guard at the next level. He's been one of the most consistent freshmen in the country and, at 6-foot-5 with deep range on his jumper, could be a very intriguing prospect.

He’s been Ohio State’s best wing player since Evan Turner – who was national player of the year in his final season in Columbus. He’s scored 20 or more points in four of his six Big Ten games; he’s averaged just under four assists per game in that same span. His usage rate is fourth-highest in the conference (behind Terran Petteway and Purdue’s center platoon of Hammons and Haas respectively) and he’s been very effective, even with the high usage. Even his steal rate (3.3, tenth-best in the league) indicates that he’ll be a good future pro.

Thad Matta is, in my opinion, quite underrated as a coach – in no small part because he can attract players like Russell to Ohio State. Programs can’t thrive on a year-to-year basis unless there’s an incredible culture of improvement from veteran players – or if there’s a pipeline of elite recruits coming in. The Buckeyes are fortunate to have a collection of older role players to complement their superstar freshman.

Previously: Jarrod Uthoff (Week I), Travis Trice (Week II)

5. Stat of the Week: Youth and Success

I collected this data in an attempt to rationalize Michigan’s lack of success this year – my guess was that younger teams tend to do worse on average than their older opponents. Basically, that was wrong: the trendline across the data is essentially flat and there’s virtually no correlation between age and success (over this sample of 50 teams).

Over the last three seasons, Michigan’s had three of the four youngest Big Ten teams, though it really hasn’t mattered. Unfortunately, unlike the 2013 and 2014 iterations, this Michigan team hasn’t been stocked with future pros – only Caris LeVert looks to have a shot at the NBA as of right now (and now he’s injured… more on that later).

Quite simply, Michigan isn’t Kentucky. It was foolish to assume that, because John Beilein had uncovered very underrated recruits turned college stars (Trey Burke, Nik Stauskas, Caris LeVert, Glenn Robinson) that he’d be able to do so again with regularity. Those were extreme outliers, and Michigan’s lack of success this season has less to do with their lack of experience and more to  do with their lack of top-shelf talent.

Discussing that paradigm could take up its own article in and of itself, but there’s still reason for optimism (in the long run, not in the short run). Ricky Doyle has been a pleasant surprise; Derrick Walton and Zak Irvin should only improve from their sophomore slumps as their careers progress; Kam Chatman simply cannot be as bad as he’s been thus far in a Michigan uniform; Aubrey Dawins and Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rakhman could mature into serviceable rotation guys in time, the list goes on.

To put it bluntly, though: Michigan’s not very good, but not because they’re young.

6. Various B1G Thoughts

Melo Trimble is really, really good (source)

• Maryland is legit. They’ve yet to play Iowa or Ohio State – who they only play once each – and they don’t face Wisconsin for several weeks (and don’t travel to Madison this year, which is a huge boost to their Big Ten title aspirations), but they’ve done most everything they’ve been asked to so far. After drubbing Michigan State at home this weekend, they completed a season sweep of a pretty good Spartan squad; Melo Trimble led the charge with an explosive first-half scoring binge and the Terps were never really challenged. Trimble has been one of the best five players in the league this season without a doubt, and he could be an NBA player someday. Between he, Dez Wells, and Jake Layman, Maryland’s core three can stack up well with pretty much everyone else in the league.
• There is a little reason for alarm though: Maryland’s offense is only ninth-best in conference play and their defense (which has been the best thus far) is buoyed by an extremely anomalous collective 3-point shooting performance by their opponents. 3-point defense is largely random, so Maryland should expect that their opponents – who have only been hitting at a terrible 24.8% – will start making open jumpers soon. The stout Terrapin defense could falter as a result.
• I still have no idea what to make of Indiana. They’re 4-1, even after playing their last few games without Hanner Mosquera-Perea, but they do have a negative efficiency margin in conference play. That mark is dragged down by the beating that they suffered in East Lansing, but it’s still extremely bizarre to see a team with a negative EM sitting half a game out of first place. IU’s home contest against Maryland this week will be a massive game in helping determine exactly how good each of these two teams are.
• Speaking of big games, tonight’s contest between Iowa and Wisconsin will probably have a big effect on the conference race. If Iowa steals a win, they might be the presumed front-runners; if Wisconsin holds serve at home, they’ll have reasserted their dominance in some small way. Regardless of outcome, this is the first must-watch game of the season in Big Ten play.
• Jerry Palm’s bracketology has Ohio State as one of the first four teams out, which is fairly ridiculous. OSU doesn’t have any marquee wins yet, but the general structuring of brackets (in January, nonetheless) to take things as they are now is quite silly. If Ohio State doesn’t manage to add to its resume – a long shot, to be sure – then they’ll be on the outside looking in, but the Buckeyes are, to me, a near-lock to make the NCAA Tournament.
• If I had to guess which teams would be in – not as of today, but in March after everything’s shaken out – I’d choose: Wisconsin, Maryland, Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Indiana. Six bids out of 14 teams isn’t ideal, but it’s a down year for the conference and Michigan and Nebraska have really disappointed. Minnesota’s run of terrible luck hasn’t helped either.
• Since I haven’t talked about him in a while, I’d just like to note that Frank Kaminsky is still incredible. That’s all.

7. Michigan’s Week That Was

There’s not really much to say about these games after the news broke about Caris’s season-ending injury.

8. IT’S TIME TO PANIC

Kam Chatman’s gonna have to play a lot more (Upchurch / MGoBlog)

In a way, Caris LeVert’s foot injury is sort of like ripping off the band-aid on this nightmare season. NCAA Tournament contention was unlikely, and even Caris probably couldn’t have dragged Michigan anywhere close to the verge of actually making it in. It was a lost season far before Caris’s moment of abject luck, and it’s most certainly going to be a lost season afterwards.

Don’t get me wrong, this sucks. It’s the second year in a row that Michigan’s seen an All-Conference caliber player go down with an ultimately season-ending injury and, more importantly, it throws Caris’s NBA future (and, by extension, his future earning potential) into further doubt. I have no idea whether he could or should leave after this season, and speculation won’t do us much good in the regard. He still has plus size and shooting for the two-guard position, but now his history of foot injuries might haunt his draft evaluation process – if it comes to that.

Often times, Caris was the only bright spot for this Michigan team. For whatever reasons, Zak Irvin and Derrick Walton failed to step up, leaving Caris a tremendous burden of offensive responsibility as he attempted to drag along a ragtag bunch of young players. LeVert was prone to ugly stretches of failed hero-ball, sure, but it’s not like Michigan’s staple offense was prone to generating great looks anyways. Still, his potential and his ability shone through because of his skill and ingenuity with the ball in his hands. Ultimately, this year has been and will go down as a failure, but Caris is not the first one to blame for that.

At this point, parsing through (what will likely be) a barrage of losses to close the season in search for silver linings in terms of individual player development is probably the best, most hopeful way Michigan fans can look at the rest of the season. John Beilein is a phenomenal coach, but Michigan simply hasn’t reloaded with talent after the exodus of college stars and future NBA players was complete. We’ll have to look for bright spots in the form of Ricky Doyle – who’s been a pleasant surprise – and perhaps even Aubrey Dawkins and Kam Chatman, who could theoretically thrive in the minutes vacated by LeVert. The NIT seems unlikely, so we’ll have to see what this team can do in the next 12 games of Big Ten play and in the Big Ten Tournament.

Maybe it’s not time to panic – panicking is long behind us as we have to resign ourselves to one of the most snake-bitten and disappointing seasons by any team in college basketball this season.

9. Week IV Schedule

• Michigan at Rutgers
• Minnesota at Nebraska
• Iowa at Wisconsin
• Penn State at Michigan State
• Purdue at Illinois
• Ohio State at Northwestern
• Maryland at Indiana
• Iowa at Purdue
• Rutgers at Penn State
• Illinois at Minnesota
• Michigan State at Nebraska
• Wisconsin at Michigan
• Indiana at Ohio State
• Northwestern at Maryland

Arbitrarily chosen key games are in bold.

10. Some Personal News

In the next week or so, I’ll be starting up a Michigan Basketball podcast – co-hosted by my brother Brian (not that Brian Cook) and powered by Wolverine Sports Radio. (WSR’s Twitter account is found here). Title and content are still in the works, so any suggestions would be much appreciated. I’ll post a link to my show when it’s up and running.