With another big loss, this time on the road at Penn State, Michigan’s hopes of making the NCAA tournament are rapidly dwindling. I’ll save the actual bracket/schedule analysis for another day, but let’s talk about the embarrassment at the home of the Nittany Lions.

Coming into this game, Penn State appeared to be one of the few teams that Michigan actually matched up well with. No big inside presence, most of their scoring done by little guys. Of course, like the Indiana game, that meant the Nittany Lions shot the lights out, regardless of how open they were. Michigan, on the other hand, couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn (requisite Stu Douglass/Zack Novak “Hoosiers” joke here).

Originally, I thought that the great shooting for Michigan opponents in every game must have been a weird statistical anomaly. As the evidence mounts however, it’s become clear: this Wolverines squad just lets opponents make a lot of shots. I don’t really get it either, as if you watch the games, most of the shots that are going in aren’t great looks, and many of them are downright horrible. I think part of it is a confidence thing. Opponents know Michigan won’t score (the great shooting games by opponents are always matched by horrid shooting nights for Michigan), and they can throw up any shot without fear that missing it will result in points the other way. Combine that with slightly demoralized defense carrying over from the offensive side, and opponents can see defeat in Michigan’s eyes, and know they can score at will.

Speaking of Michigan’s shooting, it was god-awful this game. When DeShawn Sims doesn’t get things going inside, and neither Harris nor any one of the assortment of other guys can get to the basket, the offense basically consists of jacking up a bunch of threes. Of course, not all of these are bad looks, but this team has proven that they really can’t hit the threes unless other areas of the offense are moving as well. This team badly needs another scorer who doesnt rely solely on the three-point shot.

Manny Harris is getting very frustrated by not getting any calls, and I really can’t blame him. Did the refs have an offseason seminar where they determined that they had called too many fouls on guys guarding Manny last year? He couldn’t get a call if somebody punched him in the face. Compunding that issue is the fact that really soft fouls get called pretty much everywhere else (on both ends of the court), which Manny sees and gets more frustrated/demoralized.

And so, unless Michigan can right the ship very quickly, it’s NIT-bound very soon. Of course, based on last year, how bad is that, really? It seems like a good start to the year really caused expectations to be adjusted into the realm of “unrealistic.”

Posted under Basketball

Bill Martin brought a request for permission to get going on a practice facility for the basketball teams. For a mere $23.2 million, the AD wants to put in two practice courts, private locker rooms, sports medicine areas, strength and conditioning areas and offices. The plan calls for it to be built on the East side of Crisler and will remove 150 parking spots temporarily and 60 permanently.  This is prime tailgating area, so those people will still get spots, just somewhere else.

The Athletic Department will now get a design and come back to the Regents for approval.  We’re not very far into this project, but it is exciting that it’s getting going.

This is obviously a good thing for both basketball programs as it should help with recruiting and ease the scheduling conflicts of having 3 sports using Crisler.  It also signals that the Athletic Department will likely renovate Crisler as opposed to creating a new facility.  Crisler has sort of grown on me since they put in modern lights.

The document is very vanilla and doesn’t have very many memorable quotes, but there is one part that is kind of interesting:

The proposed addition will temporarily displace approximately 150 parking spaces during construction and will permanently displace approximately 60 spaces upon completion. This loss will be accommodated as part of the strategic parking and transportation plan for South Campus.

Emphasis mine. I’m not exactly sure what is involved, but I hope it involves an offensive into North Campus. Take that BFE!

Posted under Basketball

Frequent commenter and friend of blog(er) formerlyanon and I are were talking yesterday about how successful the athletic department has been in terms of coaching hires, facilities improvement, profitability, program success, etc.  While there have been some historically bad seasons in football and basketball, many of the non-revenue sports experienced a lot of success.  The current programs are fairly strong and there doesn’t seem to be issues with revenue streams, so we figured it’s about time to add more varsity sports. If my memories serves me, the last new varsity sport is Woman’s Water Polo which got started in 2001.

Obviously creating a varsity team or even promoting a club varsity team to full varsity status has a lot of strings attached. Obviously there is the cost of equipment, coaches, conference affiliation (if the Big Ten doesn’t have a championship in the new sport) as well as travel to teams that aren’t in the area.  Beyond cost, there is the Title IX issue requiring roughly equal scholarships that also needs to be factored into the equation as well as countless other issues that I am omitting.

The Unofficial Varsity Blue Position

Admittedly this isn’t thinking too far outside of the box, but adding Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse seems to make the most sense to me.  Some reasons why I think it’s a good idea in bulleted list form:

• Facilities already exist
• Men’s Club Varsity team has experienced a lot of success on its current level (National Champs!). Information is a bit hard to find on the Woman’s club team, but in 2007 they went 15-5 in the regular season, which seems good.
• Natural rivals in the area: Northwestern, Ohio State and Penn State all have programs.
• Growing interest in the sport.  It seems as though ESPN is pushing it rather hard, and ESPN really shapes the viewing market.
• At least for men, a major league exists.
• Just what we need to put some heat on Stanford for the Director’s Cup*
• Equal scholarships/teams added, so maybe there won’t be an issue with Title IX?

But there are some issues:

• Seemingly most fitting conference, the ECAC, has a pretty large footprint. In 2010 it will go from Massachusetts to Colorodo.
• The Big Ten doesn’t have Lacrosse.
• There are some real power houses in Lacrosse, so the teams may not have much initial success.
• Despite ESPN trying to make it cool, Lacrosse is still a niche sport.
• It would cost a lot of dollars.

Obviously there are a lot of things that I haven’t thought of in these lists.  Additionally there may be other sports that may be a better choice.  There’s a list of official Club Varsity level sports on MGoBlue for your (brief) perusal.  So if you have suggestions about my idea or your own idea, leave it in the comments.

*Adding another sport will not help much at all to wrest the Director’s Cup away from Stanford. Unless adding that additional team causes all the other teams to win national champioships.

Posted under Other Sports

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

Tonight, for the second time in 10 days, Michigan will take on Illinois in Big Ten basketball action. The game is a 8:30 PM Eastern  tonight in Urbana-Champaign, and can be seen live on Big Ten Network.

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.

Ohio State is a pretty good team, despite not getting a ton of love from the polls right now. Their offense depends on hitting their shots, and the defense is reliant on forcing opponents to miss their shots, as well as getting them to turn it over. Surprisingly, they don’t have a huge rebounding advantage over the Wolverines like I would have expected. Ken Pomeroy predicts a 66-64 Michigan win in a 62-possession game. He gives the Wolverines a 59% chance of winning the game.

Ohio State has had a rash of injuries and player defections this year, making them somewhat thin (depth-wise) outside the paint. Inside the paint, they have 7-1 freshman BJ Mullens. If the Illinois game is any indication, Michigan should have plenty of trouble matching up with Ohio State’s men inside. Fortunately, the Buckeyes don’t have nearly the depth in big men (the next tallest player is 6-9, and Kyle Madsen gets very little playing time). The most-used players for Ohio State are Evan Turner and Jon Diebler, two sophomores who play nearly the entire game for OSU each time out.

The Wolverines face another tough battle, and hopefully the home-court advantage can propel them to a win.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

The raw data is available in .xls format here. On individual player charts, the time played is now from the boxscore, rather than adding up to the second each player’s time played.

Half 1

Half 2

Game totals

Individual players:
(First 6 minutes of game action not charted)

Manny had what can only be described as the least shitty day of anyone on the team.

Had a poor day from beyond the arc, but did some other things that worked.

Had a good day rebounding the ball.

Awful, awful day. All of the shots he made were in the first 6 minutes.

Poor effort from three, but did a lot of setting other guys up.

Showed that he is almost entirely ineffective when the other team has some good bigs to go against.

Blerg.

Bad day shooting, but did the standard CJ Lee other things to be a steady presence.

Mediocre to bad day.

What This Says…

DeShawn Sims struggled against a lineup with actual size. When he struggles, Michigan has major trouble getting anything going offensively for any consistent period of time. Kelvin Grady and Laval Lucas-Perry had by far the best performances in terms of differential.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

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

Tonight, for the second time in 10 days, Michigan will take on Illinois in Big Ten basketball action. The game is a 8:30 PM Eastern  tonight in Urbana-Champaign, and can be seen live on Big Ten Network.

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. In free throw rate, Michigan has earned the as-yet-unprecedented 4th letter.

Illinois is a good basketball team. Of course, Michigan somehow managed to knock them off less than two weeks ago, so this game certainly isn’t unwinnable. Still, home court advantage is huge in the Big Ten, and from the looks of things, Michigan may have just gotten lucky in Crisler last time. The key when Illinois has the ball is limiting the number of god shots the Illini get. Michigan must keep the Illinois effective field goal percentage down if they want a chance to win. The Illini have a slight advantage in this area, but that includes ridiculous shooting nights by the likes of Savannah State and Indiana, where the shots weren’t really open, they just happened to fall. On the other end of the court, Michigan must get some good shots of their own. The offense works best when DeShawn Sims is able to shoot not only inside the lane, but also from midrange to open up the arc for the likes of Laval Lucas-Perry and Zack Novak. Manny Harris must continue trying to get to the line, and not get frustrated if he doesn’t get the calls early in the game. When that happened in the Wisconsin game, he unwisely kept trying what wasn’t working instead of dishing to more open teammates. Turnover margin should also play a role in this game. Michigan was forcing turnovers out of the 1-3-1 and man looks against the Hawkeyes, though I think the 1-3-1 is a better turnover-producing set. Of course, playing the 1-3-1 is heavily contingent on making shots (as pointed out after the Indiana game by commenter Mr. Ostrander), so again eFG% is important. Ken Pomeroy predicts a 70-61 Illinois win in a 60-possession game. He gives the Wolverines a 16% chance of winning the game.

Illinois is led by Trent Meachem, Demitri McCamey, Chester Frazier, and Mike Davis. Each of those four guys plays 70% or more of the team’s minutes, so getting them in foul trouble – which again leads me to believe Michigan should try to score in the lane in this game – would be helpful. Meachem is the team’s biggest three-point threat, while the 6-10 Davis is primarily an inside scorer. Newly-eligible (following his transfer from Kentucky) is Alex Legion, who has gotten plenty of playing time in Big Ten games. He also forced Zack Novak to get 6 stitches last time these teams squared off.

Call me crazy, but I think with Illinois’s size (3 players over 6-10, and another at 6-7), I think Jevohn Shepherd may get a bit of playing time in this game, if only for his athleticism on defense and to absorb a few fouls to keep DeShawn Sims and Zack Gibson out of trouble. Michigan should also be able to get by on their quickness against a bigger Illinois team.

The Wolverines are the underdog yet again, and this game isn’t a must-win, but it certainly would be nice to get the first 2-game season sweep of the year.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

The raw data is available in .xls format here. On individual player charts, the time played is now from the boxscore, rather than adding up to the second each player’s time played.

Half 1

Half 2

Game totals

Individual players:

He got an and-1 on one of those fouls in the lane. Manny did what he needs to do for the team, though his hesitation in putting up 3s has really started to annoy me.

Showed some flashes of being able to get to the hoop and draw contact. That will be important down the stretch.

Didn’t shoot the ball much, but he made some defensive plays (along the lines of CJ Lee), and did a good job rebounding, considering he’s 6-5 and playing power forward.

It seemed ike he took (and made) a ton more midrange shots than he actually apparently did. Pretty good day, though he didn’t pull in double-digit boards.

Did what he needs to do. Actually nailed a layup.

Struggled mightily If this is how he plays with almost no post presence on the other team, how will he compete against Goran Suton? BJ Mullens?

WOOO PULS!

Didn’t nail his 3-balls, and his only make was an easy layup on a good cut.

Scrappy, former walk-on, etc. Did a lot more than shoot.

What This Says…

Douglass and Gibson are the only guys who played actual minutes (i.e. not garbage time) who logged negative differentials. I think this surprises nobody. Gibson really struggled today, and Douglass is the lesser of the two freshmen.

This team has so much more success when they don’t take all their shots from three. DeShawn Sims is a major weapon from midrange, and both Manny (obviously) and LLP are able to get to the hoop and draw contact, if not just get their score on. CJ Lee was the team’s MVP, though, despite an unspectacular differential. He made hustle plays left and right, most of which won’t show up in the boxscore.

The story of the day was not the offense (rendering this little exercise at least partially moot), but the stellar defense that the team played. The 1-3-1 forced myriad turnovers, and the team was able to get a few in man as well. They were really playing tenaciously, and I think when they have some success on the offensive side of the court, it inspires them to play better defense (in addition to allowing them to play more 1-3-1).

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Nice, dominating perofrmance by the Wolverines today in Crisler Arena. After struggling on the road against bottom-dweller Indiana, it was nice to see this team get its feet back under and finally dominate from start to finish in a way that they hadn’t in quite some time.

Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims were their usual sleves, for better or for worse. This time, Manny was hitting the 3-ball after his hesitation “move,” though he did brick a dunk in the first half (oops). DeShawn was money from inside the arc for most of the day (as usual), and had a few awesome rebounds (including a one-hander as he was getting fouled on the other arm). These guys are clearly the most talented guys on the team, and they showed that they can get it done in the Big Ten.

Zack Novak and CJ Lee are entirely different types of players, but each should be singled out for his effort on this day. CJ was constantly getting in passing lanes and disrupting the Iowa offense, he had a few steals, and even got a little offense of his own. Novak nails big shots left and right, but it’s the little things that really help. He puts in some of the best effort on the team, making deflections and getting rebounds despite playing the power forward position at only 6-5.

Kelvin Grayd made a layup, Eric Puls nailed a long bomb, and even Anthony Wright and Jevohn Shepherd got a bit of playing time. It was a good day. However, it is important to keep in mind that this Iowa team is not expected to finish near the top of the conference standings, and they were without one of their best players (and by far their best rebounder) today. Optimism is good, but a dominating win over a mediocre Iowa team on this day is no reason to let said optimism run wild.

Posted under Basketball

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

Michigan takes on conference foe Iowa tomorrow morning at 11:30 in Crisler Arena (10:30AM in Iowa City – how’s that for an advantage?). The game can be seen on Big Ten Network.

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.

On paper, this looks to be a very tough game for Michigan. Each team shoots a lot of threes, though Iowa makes many more of them. After a horrific outing at Indiana, most of the Wolverines’ offensive stats have gotten slightly worse. Surprisingly given the first half against the Hoosiers, the defensive rankings have actually gotten better. Looking at the gameplans, Michigan’s offensive performance will be reliant on their ability to make shots. Given their struggles against Indiana, this may be no easy feat. However, the Hawkeyes, like the Wolverines, field a very short team – and that was before Cyrus Tate hurt himself playing against Minnesota on Thursday. Perhaps the Manny Harris method of getting to the basket will be a little more effective, and he’ll be able to draw a foul or two (and actually get them called, for once). Iowa’s lack of size (and 3-point-heavy style) is evidenced by the fact that Michigan actually has a fairly sizeable advantage in rebounding the Hawkeyes’ misses. Iowa will make plenty of those shots though, and Michigan will have to take care of the ball (something they’ve certainly shown they can do) in order to get a win. The right column of the ledger above doesn’t tell the whole story: Michigan was close to getting a third “M” in the turnover column, a second in defensive rebounding(!!), while the Hawkeyes just missed getting a second in their advantage shooting the ball. Ken Pomeroy predicts a 63-60 win in a slow (56 possession) game.

Iowa’s key players are guard Jeff Peterson, who leads the team in assists and getting to the free throw line, freshman forward Matt Gatens, who leads the team in offensive rating and three-point shooting, and forward Cyrus Tate, the team’s lone senior. The 6-8 Tate is by far the team’s best rebounder on both ends of the floor, and he suffered an ankle injury in the first half against the Golden Gophers Thursday. He didn’t return to that game, and even if he does play tomorrow, it’s unclear exactly how effective he’ll be. If he’s limited, Michigan actually has a shot to outrebound their opponent for one of the few times this year – which would go a long way towards helping win.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

In my infinite hubris, I thought “ain’t no way this game is going to overtime,” and only set the DVR for 2 hours. The shot charting, therefore, only includes regulation. The differentials do include overtime, however. The raw data is available in .xls format here. Newly added: shot clock info for each shot.

NOTE: The total differentials don’t quite add up correctly. If you want to go through and check all my work, please feel free (I’m coming up with Michigan as having 3 points to many, and Indiana having 3 points too few).

Half 1

Half 2

Overtime

Game totals

Individual players:

Way too many inadvisable shots (especially from three) early in the shot clock. Manny wasn’t making a huge effort to slice into the lane.

LLP was inconsistent from 3, and took nary a midrange jumper.

It seemed like Novak was doing a hell of a lot more than it looks like he did just by checking his shot chart. He made a ton of hustle plays (including getting a key deflection leading to a steal and fast-break bucket late in regulation, in addition to a whiteboy block) that really helped Michigan win.

DeShawn was money from midrange in the second half, when the team really needed something from inside to steady them.

Grady got much more time than he did in the previous game, and though he took a couple ill-advised shots, he was a catalyst for the rest of the offense (4 assists, 2 more assist opportunities missed). He also made the lane shot on which he was fouled.

Zack was pretty quiet, especially considering Indiana’s defense was locking down on the three-pointers. you’d think he would get some more looks inside.

Quiet day for Merritt. More on how I think he should be used is below.

Stu had a crappy day, but he did nail one big shot. I still think he’s the far inferior of the freshmen.

The timing of Lee’s shots means more than the shots themselves. He also came up with key defensive plays (including a steal with 40 seconds in regulation and Indiana up 3) and rebounds.

What This Says…

I re-watched the game (the first half, particularly) with a keen eye on how Indiana shot the lights out. In all honesty, I can’t figure it out. Offensive rebounding has something to do with it, and maybe momentum plays a role (though some might question that, I think in college basketball momentum is at least something of a factor). Maybe Michigan, frustrated on the offensive end, was letting their effort on the other end of the court suffer. However, looking at the actual shots themselves, rather than just the final number, there was no explanation for Devan Dumes and this Roth fella in particular having the first half that he did. He would airball a wide open three (which may something negative about Michigan’s defensive effort overall, but doesn’t explain the final stats), and then turn right around and nail one from 5 feet behind the line with Novak right in his face. It appears to me that the hot shooting (in this game, at least; I didn’t UFR the Savannah State or Eastern Michigan games) may be, in large part (or at least SOME part) a ridiculously unlikely statistical anomaly.

Even if you concede the defense was bad, which it may have been at some times, though not all, it was the offense that would have done the Wolverines in. If you allow the other team to score, the offensive output for your own team can’t absolutely sputter. That is what leads to huge runs like Indiana so frequently had in this game. Michigan can play poorly on one end of the court, but this team certainly isn’t good enough to struggle offensively AND defensively if they want to win games. To Indiana’s credit, they were at least playing very well on defense, and deserve some credit for Michigan’s players feeling they had to force things.

That said, I really like Kelvin Grady as a player. However, I think I’d prefer to see Merritt get the start over him, if only to be a calming force should a shellacking at the hands of the worst team in the conference just so happen to break out. Grady is a better player, Merritt is a better leader. Bringing Grady off the bench also can help spark the team with another offensive option (certainly in terms of drawing the defense and dishing it out). I prefer Merritt preventing damage with his leadership in the first place, rather than coming in as damage control later, when the momentum is out of reach. It just seems like those two roles should be reversed, no?

Gibson’s travel midway through the first half was a terrible call. His left foot is anchored, he pivots, pivots again, and suddenly a travel is called. This sounds like a ridiculously small refereeing point to get worked up over, but it happened to occur right at the moment Indiana really started taking off with all their momentum.

My apologies if you happened to see the draft of this that I accidentally published earlier today. It should be done now, sans the issue with the differentials.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball