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THE ESSENTIALS
| WHAT | #16 Michigan (25-7) vs #95 Iowa (14-18) |
|---|---|
| WHERE | Madison Square Garden New York, NY |
| WHEN | 2:30 PM |
| LINE | Michigan –9 (KenPom) |
| TV | BTN |
ayyyyyy i'm just walkin heah
THE US
Postseason time for a Michigan outfit that is streaking, recording five comfortable wins in a row after a nonsense game at Northwestern. Michigan's played themselves on to the five line, per the Matrix—Rhode Island chipped in by getting deathmurdered by St Joe's a couple days ago—and needs this game and tomorrow's to maintain that spot, even tenuously. Make it past the semi and then maybe we're talking about a protected seed.
This game should be a relatively easy one against an Iowa team Michigan has comfortably beaten twice, the second just a couple weeks ago. Fran McCaffrey's unlikely to have another trick up his sleeve in a tournament setting, and Iowa played yesterday.
You never know and all that. Maybe Michigan will shoot four for a zilly from three. They do not have the advantage of a plane crash this time around. Which is good! Unless they lose.
THE LINEUP CARD
Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. 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. It's a free country.
| Pos. | # | Name | Yr. | Ht./Wt. | %Min | %Poss | ORtg | SIBMIHHAT | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | 3 | Jordan Bohannon | So. | 6'0, 180 | 78 | 20 | 122 | Not at all | |||||||||||
| SG forced to play point, good A:TO ratio. Lethal shooter, but terrible inside the line. | |||||||||||||||||||
| G | 4 | Isaiah Moss | So. | 6'5, 205 | 59 | 22 | 111 | No | |||||||||||
| Multi-purpose O weapon w high shot volume and middling efficiency. Again, force inside line. | |||||||||||||||||||
| F | 51 | Nicholas Baer | Jr. | 6'7, 210 | 43 | 16 | 107 | Sort of | |||||||||||
| Defensive pest and OREB threat is mediocre scorer. | |||||||||||||||||||
| F | 5 | Tyler Cook | So. | 6'8, 215 | 67 | 26 | 110 | Very | |||||||||||
| Skilled 4/5 took it to M in first matchup, then got DUNCBLASTED two weeks ago. | |||||||||||||||||||
| C | 55 | Luka Garza | Fr. | 6'10, 235 | 50 | 24 | 121 | Sort of | |||||||||||
| Rebounding machine w solid block rate, efficient, low TO interior scorer. Excellent long two shooter. | |||||||||||||||||||
| F | 35 | Cordell Pemsl | So. | 6'8, 240 | 42 | 19 | 107 | Very | |||||||||||
| Hambeast PF rebounds everything and dunks off assists. | |||||||||||||||||||
| F | 20 | Jack Nunge | Fr. | 6'11, 225 | 41 | 19 | 109 | No | |||||||||||
| Stretch 4 still a bit skinny; poor DREB gent. | |||||||||||||||||||
| G | 25 | Maishe Dailey | So. | 6'7, 195 | 40 | 16 | 103 | No | |||||||||||
| Super large G is another guy Michigan should run off the line as his efficiency drops inside it. | |||||||||||||||||||
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]
THE THEM
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]
With one rather large exception, Iowa has not changed much from the team previewed just over two weeks ago. They're still a bunch of very tall guys and Jordan Bohannon; they are very good at offense; they are very bad at defense; Bohannon, Tyler Cook, and now Luka Garza are their main offensive threats.
More details can be found in the previous, er, preview. The main personnel updates/corrections:
- Luka Garza is now at ~30 MPG as the season winds down
- Jack Nunge is a very large stretch four, not a 5.
- Maishe Dailey is a very large guard, not a wing.
All else remains virtually identical.
The rather large exception: zone. Fran McCaffrey gave up on his terrible man-to-man defense for the Michigan game, starting in a 2-3 zone for the first time in his coaching career. Michigan did its thing where it glares at a zone helplessly for a few minutes—they had 5 points at the first media timeout—and then recovered to post 1.1 PPP.
Subsequent opponents haven't been much more phased. Iowa's defense has gone from a dismal #248 on defense to a slightly more dismal #259; they reached this game despite allowing Illinois to score 87 points in a 73 possession game. Iowa continues to zone in the very vague hope that it'll come together in a way that their man to man did not over most of a season. Since Michigan seemed to spur the original decision to go zone, and performed worse than Iowa's subsequent four opponents, Fran is likely to stick with it. Which he should, because I hate it when Michigan faces a zone.
Hopefully for Michigan they'll be caught less off-guard now they know what to expect—and are presumably playing against a 2-3 in practice some since they've added that to their defensive quiver.
THE TEMPO-FREE
More or less the same. Allow myself to quote myself:
...those OREBs come at a price. Iowa's giving up 59% eFG in transition and has a big chunk of their defense (21%) in that phase. Michigan, by contrast, is at 47% eFG.
Iowa's other main issue is preventing shots from the good bits of the floor. Compare it to Michigan's system, which is making chicken salad nightly. The following chart is a breakdown of where opponent shots come from:
Michigan Iowa RIM 23% 36% 2PJ 47% 28% 3PT 30% 36% That 3 point number isn't that bad, it's average. The rim number is.
Iowa's other other main issue: forcing turnovers. They're in the 300s in that department, and since they're mediocre at DREBs the opposition gets a lot of shots up. Those shots are at the rim or from three, and opponents tend to make those shots.
We should note that we are now suspicious of Michigan's rim numbers because of the thing where nobody gets credited with an attempt at the rim at Crisler, but having nearly 40% of opponent shots at the rim is real bad.
The offense remains pretty dang good, with open two point jumpers from Garza, threes from Bohannon, and Tyler Cook working in the post.
THE KEYS
DUNCAN ROBINSON DOMINATES THE POST. That game two weeks ago was the one where Duncan Robinson confirmed that he'd broken out of his near season-long slump. Not only did he nail 6 of 8 threes, he neutralized Tyler Cook. Cook managed to get up to ten points, but only very late. For most of the game he was stuck on four, largely because he wasn't able to post up Robinson effectively. That spurred Appreciation For Duncan Robinson's Defense week, which is one of the oddest things that's ever happened.
Duncan is key to a postseason run and a solid game from him here helps re-confirm that late renaissance.
[Campredon]
CHARLES MATTHEWS BACK FROM THE DEAD PLEASE. 11 points in the second half of the Maryland game are hopefully a sign he's emerging from his months-long stretch of doldrums. Don't need him to create a ton, especially if MAAR can maintain his increased usage. Do need him to chip in some stuff other than TOs.
Shot advantage. Michigan clobbered Iowa in this department in their recent outing with a +10 TO margin and +6 OREB margin. Iowa pounds the offensive boards but in both games they've gotten beat, last time by a substantial margin. A whopping 13 of those Iowa turnovers were steals, which helped Michigan get a bunch of transition opportunities in which they did not have to face a 2-3 zone.
Shooting over it. Robinson eventually shot Iowa out of that zone, and has the potential to do so again. Ditto MAAR, who's coming off a game in which he hit a number of rise-up threes against bigs who switched on to him. Michigan is going to be taking a fair number of half-contested threes from NBA range, and those are big swing moments. Jaaron Simmons is probably going to get ten minutes and those could be the difference between a tight game and a relaxing one, depending on whether he's able to rise up in a way that Simpson simply does not.
THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES
Michigan by 9.