Or: Tim’s foray into tempo-free statistics.

Michigan takes on UConn at 6PM tonight on ESPN. The game takes place on the Huskies’ home floor in Storrs.

Tempo-Free and efficiency comparison (if you need an explanation of what any of these things mean, head to KenPom’s website):

Differences of more than 100 places in the rankings garner two-letter advantages, differences of more than 200 get a third.

I’ll keep this brief, since Michigan is going to get beaten down by the #1 team in the country. 1 fact of note: Michigan’s team profile improved in every single respect following the Penn State game except for offensive rebounding. They still have huge deficits to UConn in most of the Four Factors, though the discrepancies in overall offensive and defensive efficiency really aren’t all that bad.

KenPom predicts a 77-59 Huskies win, and I think it’ll be a little closer, but still something of a blowout.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Quick programming update: The first few recaps of info on individual players from the press conference are up on MGoBlog. Subsequent notes will be here throughout the day and maybe a bit tomorrow.

If you want a full recap of the game that’s not obscured by some post work revelry, I suggest you head over to UMHoops and check out Dylan’s always excellent recaps.

For a lot of games in the Big Ten season I’ve found myself repeating the same things over and over again. Indiana/Purdue/Penn St./Illinois can’t keep hitting those shots. They invariably kept hitting them. Michigan can’t keep shooting this poorly all game. They sure could. The refs will actually start calling those hacks on Manny. They never really did. Finally, against Penn St. last night, I was actually right.

In the first half Battle made some ridiculous shots that no one has any business making.  But Michigan kept playing mostly good aggressive defense and eventually it payed off. They held Battle to 3/16 shooting and only 9 points.  This is the guy who has to be the odds on favorite for Big Ten player of the year and he was pretty much stymied.

On the other side, Manny blew up.  He got his 3pt shot to fall early, which seemed to give him a bunch of confidence.  He also, for probably the first time in conference, got to the line like he should. 14 free throw attempts! That has to be the record for him in Big Ten games this year. He didn’t just score either. His final line was 28pts/6reb/7ast/2blks/2stl and only 2 turnovers.  This was easily his best game of the conference season and definitely top 3 on the year.

I’m not sure if Penn St. was doing something different from the first time the two teams met, but it really seemed that Michigan was able to get a lot of cuts moving toward the basket for easy lay ups and dunks. Like I said, I was certainly enjoying myself during this game, so my analysis is lacking, but I feel the big difference was Michigan finally started hitting some outside shots. This stretched out the defense, which allowed for the cuts and for Manny to get into the lane and make things happen.  On top of that, when Michigan is hitting their shots, all the players seem to be much more energetic in the 1-3-1 and force a lot of action.

When Michigan gets going like they did last night, they can hang with most teams in the league, especially at home.  I’m not going to say there’s a chance against UConn, but the performance of Manny and the defense of the entire team gives me hope that Michigan could steal a game down the stretch and maybe win a couple of tournament games.  Every time I think this team in done, they go and play well.

Posted under Basketball

We’re suffering from live blog fatigue from Signing Day, but the guys from WLA are ready and raring to go. They’ll be moderating, but we may come in for a bit. Also check out their new digs.

Posted under Basketball

Or: Tim’s foray into tempo-free statistics.

The Wolverines have a chance to exact revenge on Penn State tonight at home. The Wolverines will try to get a home victory on BTN at 7PM.

Tempo-Free and efficiency comparison (if you need an explanation of what any of these things mean, head to KenPom’s website):

Differences of more than 100 places in the rankings garner two-letter advantages, differences of more than 200 get a third.

When Last We Met…

Various Nittany Lions were absolutely on fire from he floor, and DeShawn Sims was the only Michigan player who could do anything from the field (LLP was 0/6 from 3, for example, and Manny was 2/11 from the field). Michigan got sent home from State College with a 58-73 beatdown.

Since Last We Met…

Michigan briefly halted their slide against Northwestern, but got beaten up at the hands of Ohio State and Purdue. Zack Novak and Manny Harris were ejected (fairly and unfairly, respectively) in those two games, and Michigan’s offense and defense are both headed into the tank. The one area in which Michigan has improved is rebounding, but that hasn’t been enough to net them any wins. The Wovlerines, preiously great at not turning the ball over, have startedmaking up for lost time in giving the ball away, and the shooting has gone from very good to aboslutely pitiful.

The Nittany Lions, on the other hand, have caught fire. They struggled throughout most of their game with Iowa, but pulled together at the end for a huge come-from-behind win, then they beat Michigan State in East Lansing.

And it Means…

Sine the long break before OSU wasn’t enough to spur the team to a win, the even longer break this time can hopefully help them. With Zack Novak taking a breather for the Purdue game, and Manny getting one for nearly the entire second half, the team should be well-rested. The key will be for the shooting to return to respectable levels, if not where it was early in the season. Limiting easy baskets by Penn State, and not sending them to the foul line will also be key. PSU has advantages in most tempo-free cateogires, so the current Michigan team will have to revert to the non-conference Michigan team is they want to win.

Ken Pomeroy predicts a 68-66 Wolverines victory in a 62-possession game, and gives Michigan a 56% chance of winning. Since NCAA tournaments dreams have basically become unrealistic, the Wolverines absolutely require a win here to stay alive, or they’re at least playing for NIT seeding.

Posted under Basketball

Raw data in .xls format here.

Half 1

Half 2

Game totals

Individual players:

Aside from the elbow, Manny didn’t have a particularly good game. He complemented bad shooting with a bunch of turnovers as well.

LLP’s shooting is mostly frightening because he’s missing the really easy ones. That speaks to a mental hurdle. Hopefully Beilein will be able to take care of that with a long week of prectice.

Suspended, yo.

As Michigan’s best offensive weapon for most of the day, Purdue was able to concentrate on him. Both 3-point makes came early in the game (Michigan’s first 6 points).

Didn’t look to shoot the ball, and got surprisingly little playing time. As the most consistent 3-point shooter on the team, he could have been used better once Harris went out.

His makes were notable (a thunderous dunk and the tip-in to give Michigan a halftime lead), but he was fairly quiet.

Shot the ball horribly, but he actually wa on a number of positive shifts.

When CJ Lee plays 3/4 of the game, your team is undermanned; he made the gritty walkon plays we’ve come to associate him with.

He is so athletic, but his basketball skill is so limited. It’s a shame Beilein didn’t have another year with him, as Jevohn could have been made into a real player if he’d had a legitimiate coach for more than 2 years.

I’m actually surprised his differential was that close to zero. He was on the floor for pretty much the entire Purdue run early in the second half that toasted Michigan’s chances to win. He can’t shoot to save his life, either..

Dude can shoot the ball, but at 150 lbs soaking wet, he’s a major defensive liability. If only players could redshirt 2 years, he could add some bulk and become a good player down the road. He should contribute in future years if he can add weight.

What This Says…

Manny Harris and Zack Novak are both really important to this team (and maybe Novak will have his shooting stroke back after an extended practice period with no games to break it up). By the way, I’m disgusted in Purdue’s reputation as this awesome defensive team: if I could describe them in one word, it would be dirty. Chris Kramer is the best example of this, as he flops more than Anderson Varejao, and does more grabbing, bumping, getting through screens using the point of his elbow, etc., than any player I can recall (and it’s a shame the conference rewarded him for it by naming him the Defensive POY last year). Coming out in a mask because he had a little cut on his skin was particularly douchey. I’m now convinced that Purdue’s defensive reputation is built more upon getting away with a bunch of dirty stuff, rather than actually being good on defense (which they are as well, to be fair).

Manny Harris’s ejection was ridiculous, as the refs changed their original call after seeing Kramer was bleeding. By the way, they thought Kramer had broken his nose, which was a fair assumption based on the rolling on the floor he did. Alas, that was all part of his acting job, since the only blood came from a small cut on his nose. Harris didn’t even hit him hard enough to knock him down (watch the replay: he falls opposite of the direction he got hit, and about a half second later), and had Harris moisturized his elbows before the game, this would have been an innocuous offensive foul.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Raw data in .xls format here. Apologies for the delay in getting these UFRs published. With the next game not until Thursday, The Purdue edition is coming tomorrow.

Half 1

Half 2

Game totals

Individual players:

Manny didn’t shoot particularly poorly, and a few of his misses could have conceivably been called fouls. It was the turnovers that Manny really hurt the team with on this day.

LLP shot better than I would have guessed from watching the game. It would probably be best for him to not start a few games to get his head right, and hopefully he’d be more effective off the bench.

Bad day shooting, though he did his standard job rebounding and making various hustle plays. Also, he got suspended for elbowing a dude in the face.

Really tough day for DeShawn. He started off pretty well, then faded down the stretch (as has become a pretty strong trend lately). He has to play the lion’s share of minutes, is often guarding (and being guarded by) bigger guys, and gets worse looks as his teammates decide to start jacking ill-advised threes.

Not a whole lot of shooting from Kelvin, which is too bad, because he’s certainly one of the best three-point shooters on the team, if not the best. He set his teammates up with a lot of decent looks still.

When Sims struggles, the team really neeeds Gibson to step up and prove his worth. Ohio State does have much better big men (and more depth) than Michigan, but Zack’s perfomance was truly bad.

Yikes. Maybe stepping in for LLP in a starting role isn’t what Douglass needs right now. He’s really been struggling lately as well.

Standard CJ Lee.

When Anthony Wright is playing outside of garbage time (and more than a minute here and there), it’s probably not a good thing for the team’s success.

What This Says…

After the terror that was the opening few minutes of this game, Michigan’s players really settled down and played the Buckeyes evenly for the remainder of the game. Of course, playing even isn’t good enough when you start in an 18-point hole. The shooting was subpar, but Michigan would be able to get through this if it wasn’t for the horrendous turnovers they had. In the .xls sheet, look at all the times Michigan didn’t even have a shot attempt while Ohio State was scoring 6 or 8 points. That’s all due to turnovers. Of course, the Buckeyes helped Michigan a bit by turning it over a bunch themselves. The final score of this game is a little wider than the contest actually was, as Michigan had a technical and a flagrant foul late in the game, and were fouling the Buckeyes at the end to try to extend it.

A couple comments on how unbelievably stupid the BTN analyst was (these are drawn straight from the .xls):

• Michigan’s first 3-pointer in 10 shot attempts prompts the announcer to say “Michigan has been almost exclusively a perimeter team [this game].” At that point, 14 of Michigan’s 20 shot attempts (70%) had been from inside the arc.
• After Michigan gets an offensive rebound, “This will give Michigan a rare opportunity for some second-chance points.” At that point in the game, Michigan already had 8 offensive rebounds, and they ended up beating the Buckeyes in offensive rebounding by a wide margin of 13-4.

Of course, color analysts are often stupid, but BTN has some of the worst of the bunch (don’t even get me started on football). It seems that, especially with this Michigan team, they go into the game with the assumption that Michigan will only shoot threes, and won’t get any offensive boards, and they continue to hammer on those points, even as such trivial matters as “facts” go completely against what they’re saying.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Purdue 67 – Michigan 49

At the end of the first half it was 26-25 Michigan after a last second tip by Gibson as time expired.  The first half Manny was quiet and Novak was suspended. Michigan got some good production from DeShawn Sims early and then the bench brigade, mainly Sheppherd and Gibson, was key in providing a lot of the first scoring.

The first half was pretty brutal offensively overall. Michigan didn’t score for the first 6 minutes of the game yet only trailed by 4 points.  Michigan played tough and hustled hard on defense even though they were overmatched at more than a few positions.

The second half is where it all went to hell. Usually there isn’t a particular play in a basketball game, much less a 18 point blow out,  but this game is defenitely an exception. Like most games, Manny Harris was frustrated as he would go to the basket, get mauled and have to get back on defense when the ref didn’t blow his whistle.  Before the 18 minutes mark in the second half, Manny had the ball outside the 3 point arc on the wing. The defender, Robbie Hummel [UPADTE: It was Kramer. My rage got the best of me], was right up in Manny’s face playing tight D.  Manny brought his arms with the ball around and accidentally caught Kramer in the nose with an elbow.  Kramer went to the ground holding his nose.  There was blood, and the Purdue fans were howling for more. Immediately a foul was called. Manny looked around for a ref, so he could give him the ball. All of a sudden they called it a flagrant personal foul and Manny was heading to the locker room. The rule book (pg 87) says:

Art. 4. Flagrant personal foul, live ball.
A flagrant personal foul shall be a personal foul that involves severe or excessive contact with an opponent or involves contact that is extreme in nature while the ball is live.

I guess there isn’t anything in there about intent, so if the official thinks that the contact is that far out of the realm of normal play, he has every right to throw Manny out. But it wasn’t a dirty play. Manny wasn’t trying to hurt the player; he wasn’t even trying to hit the Purdue player. Obviously it should be a foul. There was contact and the defender had his position, but there shouldn’t have been an ejection for that.

Speaking of the refs, they were pretty awful the entire games. Like most Big Ten crews, they love to call stupid, ticky-tack fouls, yet don’t call muggings at the rim. I really don’t get it, at all.

After that, everything went to hell in a handbasket. Purdue got hot and Michigan was rattled. They couldn’t get anything going offensively and that affected their defensive ability.  Eventually it got to be too much. Around the 11 minute mark, most observers could tell the game was effectively over.

They were able to lead a good Purdue team at the half without Novak, who is arguably Michigan’s 3rd or 4th best player. No way Michigan had a chance without Manny for the second half. Manny averages 32 minutes a game, but only could play 18. Novak averages 26 and played none.  Playing on the road against a team with better talent, it was just too much for this team to overcome.  They played hard, but when Anthony Wright, CJ Lee and David Merrit all have to play serious minutes, the team is not going to win much.

Do you think that the ejection was the wrong call? Let us know in the comments.

Posted under Basketball

Can Michigan pull the upset? Will there be enough grit without Novak? Figure it out here. We’ll get started a bit before 1pm.

Posted under Basketball

Or: Tim’s foray into tempo-free statistics.

Michigan has a chance to best the conference’s preseason favorite as they take on the Purdue Boilermakers today at 1PM. The game takes place in west Lafayette, and can be seen on CBS.

Tempo-Free and efficiency comparison (if you need an explanation of what any of these things mean, head to KenPom’s website):

Differences of more than 100 places in the rankings garner two-letter advantages, differences of more than 200 get a third.

Purdue is a very good defensive team, and one of the more well-rounded squads Michigan has faced on the year. They’re a horrible matchup for a Michigan team that is struggling to produce on offense, and especially one that is struggling to hit its shots. The Boilers are #1 in the nation in forcing their opponents into missing their field goal attempts. Another sign of a tenacious defensive unit is opponents’ turnovers. The Boilers have been pretty good at forcing the opponent to give up the ball. Michigan, on the other hand, has been good at holding onto it, save for a few bad perfformances (most notably Wednesday night in Columbus). Michigan will face a tough challenge in getting the offense going. Ken Pomeroy predicts a 73-60 Boilermaker victory in a 66-possession game, and gives Michigan just a 9% chance of winning.

The key players for Purdue are E’twaun Moore, Chris Kramer (#29 in the nation in steals and last year’s conference defensive POY), and Robbie Hummel, who is now coming off the bench after coming back from an injury. Hummel is an efficient offensive player, as is big man JaJuan Johnson.

Before the end of the Ohio State game, I thought it might be time to reduce Laval Lucas-Perry’s minutes, as he’s clearly struggling on the floor right now. With Zack Novak suspended for a game though, LLP will probably have to play at least as many minutes as he’s been getting. There should also be a lot of Zack Gibson in the game (not necessarily a good thing), and Manny will probably have to play the 4 a lot as well.

Things look grim, but if the Wolverines somehow manage to pull off a huge conference road victory, they may be able to scratch their way back into the tournament discussion.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Near the end of the Ohio St. game, Zack Novak appeared to intentionally hit PJ Hill with an elbow in the face after a free throw attempt.  He was given a flagrant foul and ejected from the game. Coach Beilein announced that Novak will serve a one game suspension:

“We are taking swift and appropriate action with Zack for the unacceptable incident that occurred at Ohio State,” said Beilein. “After speaking with Zack, he understands the severity of his actions. He expressed regret and embarrassment for his behavior. I hope Zack will learn a valuable lesson from this imposed discipline.”

This seems like the appropriate response. People have made comparisons with the Conboy play on Kampfer. While there are common features, the biggest difference is that this is Zack’s first time pulling something like this while Conboy had a string of prior bad acts. Hopefully this was a one-off, gritty freshman mistake.  For those of you who like Jevhohn Sheppard, you’ll be seeing plenty of him against Purdue.

UPDATE: The Big Ten approves of the suspension. Here’s the commish:

“Zack Novak’s actions at the end of the Ohio State game are unacceptable and have no place in the sport of basketball or the Big Ten Conference,” Commissioner James E. Delany said. “We support Michigan’s implementation of a one-game suspension. Also, SEC sux, Big Ten rulez!*”

*He didn’t actually say that last part

Posted under Basketball