Oh what a softball that is…
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Wow…using that data you’d argue Davis isn’t even first team. TJD stands out too. If you throw out positions you’d go:
1st - Hunter, Kofi, EJ, Murray, Ivey
2nd - Davis, Willis, Buie?, Harper? Frazier?
The problem as you guys started to hint at with national media narratives are numerous though:
- Post season awards are rarely as scientific as we’d hope
- Narratives have been built around a lot of these players that are hard to shake
- Wisconsin continues to win and sits higher than OSU right now in the standings and way higher than Iowa (Murray) or Michigan (Dickinson)
Ant Wright tweeted this very uninspiring stat tonight:
Michigan ranks 334th in pick and roll ballhandler defense. 334th out of 358 teams… and this is the 2nd most frequent offensive situation that occurs against them.
Woof.
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Is our lack of athleticism the cause for that?
This stat has been pulled by a lot of people and it is a valid thing but it doesn’t get to the root of Michigan’s issues. Some of it is by design to the extent that U-M forces a lot of PNR handler possessions.
Last year they had a top 5 defense and were in the 27th percentile defending PNR ball handler possessions… and PNR ball handler was the most used play type against Michigan.
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Thanks for the deeper explanation!
We have a lot of issues defensively. Eli is our best defender, but he’s so short everyone can shoot over him. Moussa is lost. Houstan isn’t strong enough or quick enough yet. Hunter lacks lateral quickness and isn’t a good rim protector. Jones looks slow to me as well. Put all those parts together and it makes a very underwhelming defensive group.
Do you mind elaborating on that? Why by design if they aren’t good at it?
Because it is better to force shots out of pick and rolls than spot up opportunities. Illinois is sort of the ultimate team in this respect (and Michigan was up there last year. Wrote about some of that in the Illinois preview.
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Ah, ok. Like what teams used to do to us last year trying to force Smith to shoot instead of pass?
My dumbed down explanation…that stat focuses on the ball handler. It isn’t just PnR in general and if they were hypothetically elite at stopping the roll man or other actions it doesn’t mean as much.
The bigger issue is that you could choose from so many stats that indicate the struggles of our defense. We are indeed Iowa right now where we aren’t good at much and throwing out junk zones and presses to try anything.
Yeah, essentially drop coverages forces the ball handler in the PNR to shoot more often rather than pass to open wings in spot up (catch and shoot or catch and drive) opportunities. Other defenses against ball screens (hedge, etc.) will usually send two to the ball which forces the ball handler to pass not shoot but yields play types that can be more efficient and require the defense to help and recover more.
I’d argue that the bigger issue with Michigan’s defense is it is allowing more spot up possessions ( 24.4% of defensive plays vs. 19.7% last year) as the larger issue but that’s not quite as sexy in a tweet.
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That said, apols if I get it wrong, but I think the way it’s been put here in the past is that the beauty of P/R for the offense is that you make the defense give up something. So why push teams into it, especially if you’re bad at defending it? Why do anything but drop coverage?
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What I’m talking about is a product of playing primarily drop coverage against ball screens.
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Stephen Bardo doing the MSU game. Time for the Bardo drinking game.
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I’ll take a drink out of appreciation that he’s not doing our game
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Nice to spot Scirroto, Courtney Green and Rob Riley early today as well… 
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Tuesday night rock fight. I took the under 64.5 in the 1st half
Analytics and efficiency be dam*ed! Bardo doing his best to prop up the Johnny Davis POY talk. Hyped the fact that he’s the only B10 player to lead his team in points, rebounds, and assists (not sure that’s actually good for the team, but that didn’t stop them). Then Bardo ranted about how tough he is. Now Andy Katz is pumping up the hype.
To be fair, BTN will hype any player and any team as long as they are in the Big Ten and playing on BTN.
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It’s gonna take a while for the narrative to go against JD. Gonna need them to fall back behind Illinois and Purdue