No but seriously, basketball?

One of the most important aspect of running a successful athletic department is being able to rely on your revenue sports to support everything else that goes on. Under Bill Martin, Michigan has been able to turn from a money sink into one of the nation’s most successful athletic programs (monetarily) despite not having a basketball team that has been anywhere close to successful. Thus, if Michigan is able to make the basketball team a big draw, and perennial NCAA tournament participant-type program, it can only continue to help.

Without further introduction, I present the basketball-relevant portion of Bill Martin’s interview with the BTN’s Dave Revsine:

It is clear that Martin is intent on supporting basketball, and trying to bring success back to the program.

Facilities
Crisler Arena is a dump. Regardless of what Martin says, it really should just be demolished, and the AD should start over from scratch (a few suggestions: smaller size, better concourse layout, and location closer to campus (ok, that one is just a pipe dream)). Failing that, The House that Cazzie Built is eventually going to be overhauled for the better, though definitely not until Michigan Stadium is completed, and probably not until there is a practice facility. The practice facility is apparently ready for approval. The sooner that can be completed, the better for Michigan Hoops. Interesting note: Martin stated in no uncertain terms that the funding for a facility will be ready whenever plans are completed.

Recruiting
Martin states that he doesn’t want his coach to recruit players who want to go one-and-done to the pros. Luckily for him, the coach he hired is John Beilein, who does not seem to favor this type of player (and nor does his system). Martin favors the NBA amending its entry rules to require players to spend 3 years in school (I believe they should probably step it up one year at a time).

The Future
Though Beilein was unable to get it done in year one, the improvement made by the team over the course of the year was encouraging, and it is unlikely we will see 2008-09 be a repeat of the epic struggles of 2007-08. With several players accustomed to the system after one year in it, and a few new additions who are good fits for Beileinball, an NIT bid isn’t out of the question. Though that may not be good enough for some fans, it is important to remember how far this program had fallen, and realize that it will take some time to rise again.

Udoh
Rumors have been circulating for weeks that Junior-to-be Power Forward Ekpe Udoh intends to transfer from the University of Michigan. This has now become official. While I am not sure he is making the right decision (though UMHoops.com’s analysis has certainly gone a long way to convince me), I wish Udoh the best of luck in the future.

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UM Press Release:
University of Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein has announced today (Monday, May 5), forward Ekpe Udoh (Edmond, Okla./Santa Fe HS) has made the decision to leave the Wolverines basketball program and transfer to another school. Udoh has not yet made a decision on which school he will attend.

“Ekpe is a fine young man and we thought he made tremendous improvements throughout the season,” said Beilein. “I will miss Ekpe as a person and as a player and we hope success will follow him in his future endeavors.”

“This was a very difficult decision for me,” said Udoh. “I just feel I need to explore other options right now. I had a wonderful experience at Michigan and I want to thank everyone for helping me the last two years. I wish them nothing but success in the future.”

In two seasons in Ann Arbor, Udoh did not miss a game playing in 67 consecutive contests, with 31 starts. He averaged 5.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game for the Wolverines. After leading the Big Ten in blocked shots in 2007-08 with 92, Udoh compiled 159 blocks in two seasons ranking him fifth all-time at U-M.

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…but our coaches aren’t. On top of Rich Rodriguez’s ongoing lawsuit deliberations with West Virginia University, Coach John Beilein is also paying the Mountaineers for his departure to Crisler Arena.

Don’t believe me? The Wizard of Odds has some proof (which they got from West By God Virginia, who, presumably got it from the source).

Perhaps interesting to note: The Bank of Ann Arbor, the institution that allows Beilein to write checks for more than a quarter-million dollars, is owned by Michigan Athletic Director Bill Martin.

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With two commitments and a few prospects down, it was a big weekend of change for the recruiting board.

Removed:
KS LB Jaydan Bird. Committed to Oklahoma. Not a huge loss, as I don’t think there was ever great mutual interest. He seemed like one of those guys who mention Michigan early in the process to make them sound like big-time prospects.
TX OL Mason Walters. Committed to Texas. Not sure anyone but the Horns ever had a really legit shot at him.

New Information:
MI RB Teric Jones. Freep article on his commitment.
VA QB Kevin Newsome. Track video interview.

Etc.: Wisconsin looking to add some spread? Trotwood-Madison track (Michael Shaw and Chris Freeman). AP Indiana all-state basketball selections (Stuart Douglass special mention, Zach Novak 1st team). Mike Hart will be signing autographs at Briarwood MDen on Saturday. Free Press photo gallery from Saturday’s spring practice.

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…a post about a team that wasn’t even close to getting there!

Michigan’s 2007-08 season was a disappointment by almost any standards. Not only did Michigan not make the postseason, but the Wolverines were well below .500, and lost to opponents both superior and inferior. A lack of senior leadership (Ron Coleman was the team’s only graduating player) and overall depth (Michigan had only 9ish scholarship players after several Wolverines left the program) were key factors leading to the poor outcome for the team. A lack of players who were capable of running John Beilein’s offensive system, which is heavy on three pointers, was also a stumbling block.

The future, however, is much brighter. Michigan loses only Ronald Coleman as a scholarship player, and has three incoming freshmen who are better fits for the Beilein offense than the players left behind by Tommy Amaker. Ben Cronin, a big man who can shoot, and a pair of shooting guards with long range capabilities in Stu Douglass and Zach Novak spell a brighter future for the team. Additionally, Arizona transfer Laval Lucas-Perry will bring additional talent. Losing Coleman is not a big hit. Though he was recruited as a shooter, he could not hit from the outside consistently enough for Beilein’s system.

Roster Analysis – 2008-09

With 13 scholarships allowed for the team, Michigan will either be able to take one more freshman next year, or bank the schollie for the following recruiting class and give it to preferred walkon Eric Puls. Please note that the roster on MGoBlue is terrible, so this may not be entirely accurate.

Minutes Played: Top 4 return. (Harris, Sims, Udoh, Grady).
Points Scored: Top 6 return. (Harris, Sims, Udoh, Grady, Gibson, Wright).
Steals: Top 5 return. (Harris, Sims, Udoh, Lee, Grady).
Blocks: Top 6 return. (Udoh, Sims, Gibson, Harris, Wright, Shepherd).
Assists: Top 3 return. (Grady, Harris, Lee).

The main scary part is assist-to-turnover ratio. While the top two (Kelvin Grady and C.J. Lee) return, Coleman was third, and at 1.25 the only other player with more than one assist per turnover. Fans can take heart in the fact that two of the top three Michigan players in terms of turnovers (Manny Harris and Kelvin Grady) were just freshman, and it stands to reason that they have nowhere to go but up.

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I can only blog the first half, but hopefully it turns out like last time I was only able to blog half of a game against Iowa.

12:04 PM Tipoff is won by Iowa.
18:10 1H Iowa finally draws first blood on a drive to the hoop. Udoh get some post points to answer.
17:30 1H Iowa misses another open look for three. Michigan has given up a couple of those, they’re lucky Iowa hasn’t capitalized.
16:57 1H Another open Iowa look that Michigan is lucky they missed. Udoh draws the loose-ball foul on the rebound,
16:21 1H Michigan gets his first lead of the game on a Manny Harris jumper. Michigan forces Iowa to run down the clock and take a DEEP three that is missed.
14:34 1H Michigan’s strong man defense puts a lot of pressure on the ball, forcing a turnover. Anthony Wright capitalizes on the other end with three. The defense is looking good other than the giving up of open threeball looks earlier.
14:33 1H Timeout. 10-4 Michigan.
13:41 1H Iowa nails a threeball, then there’s a TV timeout on a Michigan foul when the Hawkeyes get the ball back. 10-7 Michigan.
12:37 1H More strong man defense from Michigan leads to a Hawkeye turnover. Deshawn Sims hits a jumper on the break. Fortunately for the Wolverines, Iowa is stone cold from the floor.
12:03 1H Three ball is good for Manny Harris. After a couple more missed Iowa FGs, Deshawn Sims is fouled rebounding the ball.
TV Timeout. 15-7 Michigan 11:39 1H.
11:25 1H Manny Harris comes of the dribble-handoff screen and nails a fairly deep three. Michigan 4-7 from the arc. More good defensive pressure from Michigan. They knock the ball out of bounds with 12 of the shot clock and Michigan steals off the inbound, leading to more Manny Harris points.
9:56 1H Iowa gets a switch off a screen, adn Freeman uses a nice stepback move on Anthony Wright.
9:30 1H David Merritt makes an appearance!
9:10 1H Commentator notices that Michigan is showing much more hustle. the 22-9 lead is certainly evidence of that.
8:43 1H Where was this defense all year? Obviously the poor shooting so far by Iowa has helped, but Michigan is causing turnovers left and right. this time, it’s a 3-second violation.
7:52 1H Really nice play by Iowa to get Michigan scrambling, then a fake shot to feed down low for an easy deuce.
22-11 Michigan 7:23 1H.
7:01 1H Not a great offensive foul called, drawn by Ekpe Udoh. I’ll take it. Deshawn Sims gets a three on the other side.
6:19 1H A better call this time, as Justin Johnson’s shoulder is lowered and the forearm extended. You really don’t want to get an offensive foul that far from the basket.
5:35 1H Loose ball foul on Iowa, though I think the play should have been called out of bounds off the top of the backboard first.
4:43 1H Michigan is coming back to its regular form, as they turn it over for the second consecutive trip down the floor. Iowa is getting a chance to stay in this game. An and-1 for the Hawks does just that.
4:25 1H The first free throw for either team is missed. Manny Harris gets a deep 2 on the other end.
TV Timeout. 3:54 1H 27-15 Michigan. Iowa shooting 2 when we get back.
3:15 1H Cyrus Tate heads to the foul line once more. This time it was a pretty bad call, as Ekpe Udoh kept his arms completely vertical the whole time. Tate gets both.
2:55 1H Ekpe Udoh’s second foul comes on an illegal screen. Michigan’s at-least-once-per-game scoring drought has begun.
2:24 1H Zach Gibson ends the drought with authority, getting a big dunk and the foul. He does work on the other end as well, accepting a charge from Tony Freeman.
1:53 1H Michigan’s strong defense again forces a bad shot by Iowa. The ricochet of the rim ends up out of bounds, off the Hawkeyes.
1:08 1H Gibson nearly blocks a runner off the glass, but it drops for Iowa, and they are back within 8.
0:39 1H Offensive rebound, true hustle play by Gibson. Tate fouls Deshawn Sims. He’ll shoot 1-and-1.
0:18 1 H after a good half of defense, Michigan lets a three ball shooter get wide open again, and this time Iowa capitalizes. Zach Gibson finishes the half with a field goal.
Halftime. Michigan leads 34-25.

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Chesterton Indiana shooting guard Zach Novak (6-4, 215) has committed to Coach John Beilein of the Michigan basketball program. He is the third player committed to the Wolverines.

His local paper does not like to spellcheck. Like, even for the name of the person the article is about. He was an Indiana All-Star as a junior. Novak is a three point shooter who will fit in well with the Michigan team, other than the fact that he is actually capable of making the occasional shot.

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If you really want to know about tempo-free statistics, you should really head over to Basketball Prospectus. Anything and everything you would ever want to know about the statistical analysis of basketball is there. Since the Big Ten Wonk left his blogspot home and moved to BP, there hasn’t really been a focus on the statistics of Big Ten Basketball lately.

I’m just starting to get into this and I haven’t really gone too deep into the statistics. For those of you who like charts (and/or AJAX filled Web2.0 applications) I compiled some basic tempo free stats online. You can see them here. The conference sheet is sorted by Possessions and the U of M sheet is sorted by effective field goal percentage.

If you want a quick crash course on tempo-free statistics, I recommend checking out the tutorial on Big Ten Wonk.

From looking at Michigan’s stats compared to the rest of the conference, I’m cautiously optimistic. One of the biggest complaints I had from the Amaker era was the frequency of turnovers, which killed any chance of Michigan winning. Michigan this year is number 3 in the conference in Turnovers per Possession (TOPP on the chart). Another complaint is that the games were boring. Michigan versus Northwestern did not even pretend to be a basketball game as both teams pointlessly dribbled or passed the ball around the perimeter until the shot clock ran down. Michigan is 3rd in the conference in possessions behind only Purdue and Illinois. This does not mean they are good, but it’s more a matter of personal preference. I like a smooth, flowing game; the change is like going from Mike DeBord to Rich Rodriguez.

Where Michigan is crashing and burning is shooting the ball. They have the worst effective field goal percentage (eFG%) in conference. eFG% even appropriately weights the benefits of 3pt shots and it still doesn’t bring them up. Michigan is shooting about 46% when the median is 50%. There could be a silver lining on this horrible showing. Michigan is 4-1 when their eFG% is greater than 50%. It isn’t ridiculous to think that once Beilein gets his players in and really gets the freshman and sophomore class shooting well this team will contend.

Beilein has stopped a lot of the bad the Amaker left him. He just needs to get his players playing his system and things should look up. If Michigan shoots well, they can beat some good teams (see Ohio State). I think most of the pain from this season is coming from square pegs meeting round holes.

I’ll try to dig a little deeper through the week and look up some defensive numbers. The spreadsheet is saved on GoogleDocs, so if anyone wants to put together the team table for their (or any) team, let me know and you can be added as a collaborator.

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Excuse me if this is shitty; it’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these.
9:06PM The tipoff is won by Michigan. Coleman actually does something worthwhile, drawing a foul in the post. He then ruins it by going 1-2 at the line.
19:10 1H Michigan comes out in man defense, Iowa gets an offensive rebound and nails a three. Ron Coleman travels on the way back up the court.
17:33 1H Manny Harris makes a strong drive to the hoop, and bricks an ugly pullup jumper. Udoh goes over the back on the rebound.
17:00 1H Michigan forces Iowa to throw up a shitty three at the end of the shot clock, and Udoh finishes at the other end with a dunk. Then, the other way back down, he fumbles a rebound, ball to Iowa.
15:55 1H Manny Harris plays weak defense on an Iowa drive to the hoop. If he just stands his ground, it’s a charge.
14:57 1H Michigan’s defensive rebounding has been awful. Fortunately, “dribble” was not near the top of Iowa’s agenda, whereas “walk” was. Commercial break.
9:14PM Back to the game.
14:33 1H Kelvin Grady banks one in. As bad as Michigan’s shooting has been at times this year, it is refreshing to see players who look like they have a fucking clue on the offensive end of the court. Michigan compensates with giving an easy dunk to Iowa.
13:27 1H DeShawn Sims airballs a wide open 3-ball on the fast break.
12:52 1H Michigan scrambles because Manny Harris tries to go for a steal. Ekpe Udoh has to go out for a block attempt in the corner, leaving nobody in position to get a rebound if the shot is missed. It isn’t.
11:36 1H Really bad call by the officials giving the ball to Iowa on an out-of-bounds call. Michigan deserves to lose it, I guess, based on the shitty idea by Manny Harris to get in the air under the basket. Commercial Break.
9:21PM Back to the action.
11:25 1H Michigan goes for the trap, and gets good pressure on the ballhandlers despite not forcing the turnover.
11:00 1H Shot clock low, Freeman hucks one and gets lucky. Anthony Wright tosses it out of bounds. It seems Michigan can’t just make one mistake, but rather must compound said mistake to put selves in a hole.
9:30 1H Gibson gets whacked on the offensive glass. No call. They can’t get a defensive rebound to save their lives.
8:32 1H I think this is a makeup call. Manny Harris is nominally fouled going for the rebound on a shot that would have ended Michigan’s chances.
8:12 1H Todd Lickliter takes the ball away from Jevohn Shepherd, who is trying to save it out of bounds. CJ Lee looks the gift horse in the mouth by immediately traveling. They can’t even utilize Iowa’s mistakes to their advantage.
6:57 1H Seemingly a bad call on an Iowa travel. Oh well, Michigan needs all the help they can get. TV Timeout.
9:30PM The action starts again.
6:42 1H Michigan turns it over immediately again. They haven’t scored in 7+ minutes.
5:43 1H Many Harris is stripped going up for a 3, Tony Freeman returns the favor by turning it over on the fast break.
5:27 1H After a quick TV timeout, DeShawn Sims finally gets Michigan back on the board. Kelly answers with a 3 for Iowa.
3:45 1H Terrible call giving Michigan the ball on a play out of bounds. TV Timeout.
9:38PM Back in the house. Holy god is Iowa’s stadium empty. It’s like 10 times worse than Crisler.
3:36 1H Michigan finally hits a 3 (after 7(?) attempts). DeShawn Sims gets Michigan back within 9.
2:54 1H Deshawn Sims gets the rebound after Iowa forces a 3 at the end of the shot clock. He is fouled on the play. Michigan has some signs of life. Michigan returns the favor, with Ekpe Udoh fouling on the rebound of DeShawn Sims’s hookshot.
2:06 1H Iowa gets an easy dunk with 1 second left on the shot clock. At least Michigan is defending well enough to force them to use all the clock. Sims brick a three on the other end.
1:25 1H Johnson airballs a trey for Iowa. Manny Harris Harris is whacked on a left handed runner, and Zack Gibson pulls it down while abosorbing a foul. He’ll shoot two.
0:53 1H An Iowa player performs the funciontal equivalent of airballing a layup, hitting glass and not coming close to anything else. Harris fouls on the rebound. Michigan eventually gets the ball back for the last shot of the half.
0:09 1H DeShawn Sims with a… curious… shot with 7 seconds left on the shot clock. Iowa boards, and runs back to brick one last three pointer of the half.

Michigan trails 27-16 at halftime.

This is painful to watch; second half not being blogged.

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Coach Beilein has dismissed Jerret Smith from the Michigan basketball team. This makes 3 players that have left the program since Beilein became coach. K’Len Morris and Kendric Price left for personal reasons.

Posting on football pending when I have time to sit down for a minute and do it.

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