despite winning by 30 and holding Blackmon to invisible - IU still shot 53.8% from 3. Unreal lol
I try not to overanalyze the 3 point shooting metric, but Michigan is just really bad at defense period. Even in a blowout win where the offense was just operating at an insane level, the defense was really poor. We gave up multiple straight line drives where no help arrived at all. Its just so frustratingâŚand doesnât appear to be getting any better.
Indiana is 10th in AdjO and we held them to 60 points.
Ehhh, I donât put too much into points. I tend to look more at FG% because points are dictated by shots, and if the opposition turns the ball over then obviously they arenât going to get as many shot attempts, and therefore not as many points. Indiana shot 54.5% overall and 53.8% from three. To call that anything other than a bad defensive performance is disingenuous in my opinion. But I get the inclination to feel good after a win.
I think the point is that a team had yet another uncannily good shooting night, from 3. Yeah, they got some straight-line drives, every team does every game. But, at the very least, MAAR and Walton held Blackmon (top 3 scorer, and tops efficiency) in check. Not saying we are good defensive team, but this makes 3 straight good defensive performances (Duncan is just hard to watch tho, I literally track him instead of the ball, when heâs playing defense)
Edit: and, in response to your post above, TOs are a result of defenseâŚat least some/most of them
Points Per Possession is what it comes down to. Forcing turnovers helps limit PPP.
This will be my last comment on tonightâs defense, because I can see where this is headed. But to call tonightâs defensive performance good is borderline insane. The opposition shot 54.5% from the field and 53.8% from distance, scored probably 10-12 baskets on straight line drives where literally no help arrived at all. Tons of missed rotations. Perhaps my standards for defense are just a bit higher than others. Somehow I think that if we lost the game some opinions may be different, but I could be wrong.
Exactly. There is a difference between forced turnovers and the self imposed variety. Michigan only had 7 steals, while IU had 16 TOs. Michiganâs defense was not good, at all.
Steals arenât the only way to force a turnover. I saw several forced turnovers that resulted in an out of bounds call rather than a steal.
They had been averaging 84 points, and we held them to 60. I get that we had plenty of lapses, but those were on a minority of possessions. I just dont see how you can watch that game, flaws included, and not see improvement - even with the absurdly low baseline. But youâre probably right, we just have different standards.
When you hold the B1Gâs high scorer to 4 points and the B1Gâs best offense to under a point a possession, thatâs a good defensive performance. Saying otherwise isnât have a âhigh standard,â itâs wrong. Judging defense exclusively by FG% is dumb. Imagine judging offense that way. If we had a high FG% but got no offensive rebounds and turned the ball over a ton â youâd say we had a good offensive night?
Quite literally, the most important defense stat is Points Per Possession. Iâm waiting to see what Indianaâs PPP was tonight.
Dylanâs tweet says it all. Michigan didnât force much
If this team keeps playing like this, expect a lot of this upcoming â âyeah, sure, we won, but with my super duper high standards I was sort of right all along.â
I think youâre viewpoint is dumb to be candid. There is a distinction between good defense, and the offense simply turning the ball over unforced. Just because X team scores Y points per possession does not necessarily mean the opposition played good defense.
Itâs just not worth the conflict. Lets revel in the win, and what we think is good defense. We can hope for more performances like this one, and he can hope it getâs significantly better.
Flat out stupidity. No other way around it. Said it before and Iâll say it again. Wins mask flaws, and thatâs why you feel good right now.
You hit the nail on the headâŚrevel in the win. There is no way in hell that was a good defensive performance regardless of the narrative that some want to portray. Win or no win, that was very poor defense.
Everyone knows that one stat can be manipulated/presented in ways to âmeanâ dozens of different things. FG%, total points, PPP (I guess). Itâd be pretty great if MgoBlog (or anyone) developed a UFR-type rating system, because grading each guy on each possession, with a consistent rubric, is really the most precise way to grade.