Hmmm…so they defend the middle well, but are bad at defending the three-point line. On the other side of the court, they are very reliant on that ball screen. Very interesting! I won’t be shocked if Matthews guards Culver because he locks up his guy up pretty well! I wonder what Beilein would focus on to get into the middle of the paint because they cannot panic and jack up a three with time on the shot clock.
Yikes. Sounds like we have an appointment with a particularly vindictive dentist. Oh, and guess what, the pharmacy is out of codeine.
Dylan did not say that Texas Tech was bad at defending the 3 point line, he said they give up a lot of 3 point attempts. While there are some (Ken Pomeroy for one) who believe that the percentage of makes on 3 point shots is a pretty random defensive statistic, it is noteworthy that this so-called “randomness,” as Dylan points out, always seems to fall on the very low side for Chris Beard teams. Me, I think contesting the 3s that are taken via strong closeouts impacts 3 point shooting percentage, and from what I’ve seen of Texas Tech, they do just that.
The thing that gives me the most amount of hope in this game is that Michigan’s offense becomes stagnant because of hero-ball/stagnant movement and just plain missed shots. Beilein’s offense generates good looks by nature and I am not sure that TT’s defense can remedy that. I honestly feel like the only thing that holds back our O is ourselves, not another team’s D. I feel pretty good about this game 
Fair point, but it seems that even though they allow 30% of 3 point shooting…that is something to watch
Passing and execution on the offensive end will be critical in this game
Agree…add TO’s as a key statistic. This, like most games will come down to possessions. Can’t waste them!
Kenpom has suggested that there may be teams for which opponents’ 3pt% is not completely random, using Cuse’s zone as an example. But he has said that 3 point attempts are much more controllable by the defense than 3pt%, and that generally speaking 3pt% against will regress to the mean.
But 3pt% is not really the most worrisome thing about TTech’s D. Buffalo didn’t score .87 ppp because they went 9-27 on 3s, which is a point per possession. Instead, they missed some FTs (11-22), shot 40% on 2s, and turned the ball over on 24% of their possessions.
Michigan should get some decent looks from 3, and not having a 20% shooting day would be great – hitting 37% or better would be huge.
I will be watching turnovers… so they seem like a smothering type of defense that overextends… good passes are the anecdote to that, bad passes are the poison
take care of the ball
IMO
I believe that Buffalo panicked as well because TTU forced them to play a half court offense and their transition offense was cut off too. Michigan should have no problems breaking down the Red Raiders defense as long as they execute on offense. Two things that I would be watching, the battle inside with Teske and the battle between Matthews and Culver
Michigan has been slightly sloppy with the ball and they can’t afford to make critical mistakes because that’s what TT feasts on
Interesting to look at them on Torvik:
-
Very average at taking care of the ball. 152nd in TO rate, 4/8 rotation players with a TO% of 18 or higher (only Z is >18 for Michigan at 18.1) and everyone for Tech is at 14.6% or higher (only Brooks and Simpson are for Michigan).
-
Not a great rebounding team (172nd in OREB, 202 in DREB).
-
They don’t get to the line a lot (160th in offensive FTR, only Odiase gets to the line at an above average clip but he’s shooting 63% on only 59 attempts). They foul a ton though, 276th in defensive FTR and Owens and Corprew are called for 4.5 fouls/40 while Odiase is at 5.5.
-
Culver is their offense. His usage is at 31.5% (31st of all players playing at least 50% of minutes) and his assist rate is 26.6%. The only other player above 18.5% usage is Mooney at 22.5%, who has a 20.7% assist rate. Compare that to Michigan where 4 guys are at 19.5%+ usage but no one above 24.5%.
-
Mooney is a weird player. At South Dakota the past two years he was a 37% 3 point shooter on 200+ attempts a year and 50% 2 point shooter on 250+ attempts. This year he’s still attempted 200+ 2’s but dropped to 44%, and only attempted 100 3’s but still at his 37% clip. Against top 50 teams his 3P shooting and assist rate drop leading to a 91.2 ORTG in those games.
I’ve focused on their negatives here but all in all it seems like the keys have to be shut down Culver and don’t turn the ball over. If you don’t give them easy transition opportunities or extra possessions and then shut down Culver in the half court, I don’t see how they score. Then again we’re not well equipped to score on them either (don’t OREB or get to the line often) so it seems like a rock fight. Just gotta hope 3’s are falling or we’re able to buck the foul trend, get to the line and get them in foul trouble.
Watching Texas Tech, you can see why they foul so much and cause so many turnovers. When players drive, they really attack the ball. Not sure I’ve seen a team this year that is that aggressive attacking ball.
I may be dead wrong here, but I don’t think they’ve played very many great PGs this year. Iowa St and Duke are the only two teams that come to mind with good PG play.
It’s a whole different animal going up against Zavier, just like Michigan’s elite D learned going up against Winston.
I still like Zavier and Michigan being able to break them down enough compared to what they can do on offense. I’ll hammer home the Culver vs. Matthews matchup. I do think it’s as simple as saying if Matthews slows him down, Michigan wins.
This is vitally important. Buffalo is not a half-court team but was forced to play that way – the 66 possession game was tied for the slowest pace they had played all season. For Texas Tech it was right at their average (66.5). Then you have Michigan who is well-versed in a slow-paced game featuring long possessions. TT isn’t going to scare Michigan into playing how they don’t want to play…because it’s already the way they prefer! I’m probably oversimplifying but I think this matchup isn’t necessarily a bad one for Michigan (though not saying it’s a good one, either!).
Limit Culver, and their offense suffers! Michigan is capable and honestly, some of the talking heads are counting this team out which is fine! They got this!
It may not be a good matchup for UM, but it’s probably even a worse matchup for TTech. They’re in many respects similar to UM but without as good an offense.
They shoot the ball quite well from 2 with only an average assist rate, but UM has a lot of good one on one defenders, including guys who matchup with their high usage players, and Teske in the middle.
Their 3pt shooting is interesting. They shot more 3s at a higher clip for about a 10-game period toward the end of B12 play - that seemed to coincide heavily with their surge – then came back somewhat in both attempts and % in their conference tournament and the first weekend.
Matthews being close to 100% is pretty telling because he shut down the leading scorer for Florida the other day! If there is one guy that can take on Culver, it is Matthews!
Agree! It will be a great game that’s for sure!