Game 26: Maryland at Michigan Recap

I still have no clue how our offense is 4th in the Big Ten.

Because there are really only three good offenses in the Big Ten. Looks like Maryland dot is off slightly, but you get the point:

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I think this type of plot was a good choice for the blog.

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We’re really a couple of threes a game away from being waaaaay better. It’s maddening how the shots aren’t falling, but two more of them go in (say, one from Poole and one from Teske) and the game is never close and Michigan is shooting 35% from deep. Which isn’t great but it’s not terrible.

That and the transition offense.

Beilein just can’t make those shots go in.

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Was only able to watch the first half but it really appeared in my limited viewing that Teske was really falling off in his jump shots. When this happens they have almost no chance of going in.

Yeah, he was short on basically everything. His shot never looks particularly great, but it did seem like he was fading a bit.

Now on to Minni Thurs with an extra 2 days off than we had going into the PSU game should help us. Can’t afford to look ahead to Sparty though.

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Going to be hard not to look ahead. I have a bad feeling about the Minnesota game. They really need it, they’ve just gotten some momentum against Indiana, and they came awfully close at Crisler. Michigan generally doesn’t get hot starts on the road; this might be painful.

1-1 seems like a reasonable expectation from the next week. 0-2 is on the table. 2-0 is theoretically possible, but seems awfully unlikely.

I think 2-0 is just as likely as 0-2. I wouldn’t say it’s that unlikely. 1-1 is probably the most likely outcome though.

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The great thing about pessimism is that if I’m wrong I still get to enjoy the wins.

Part of my pessimism is my remaining, though slim, hopes to catch the game in Minneapolis. One thing that brings me up short is that these games are so short that if Michigan shows up like they did in State College it’s just not that much fun.

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Actually, Michigan has jumped out to a big lead early in 5 of 8 road games this season.

Maybe I’m just remembering the losses.

Now you’re sounding like Coach B

Interesting note: Hartford is the only team that plays fewer bench minutes than Michigan. They’re also first in the NCAA in experience (Unrelated, but a fun split).

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We probably should be more confident about our first-place 23-3 team, but it’s hard when the offense looks so bad at times. I’d sure like to go at least 3-2 down the stretch here and get to 26-5. I sure would have taken that deal if offered to me at the beginning of the season. (Honestly I would have taken 23-8 too.)

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I try to keep reminding myself that the defense in previous good years (2014 particularly) was way worse statistically than the offense is this year.

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At some point we’re gonna start knocking down some of those open looks.

We are more than capable of running the table in our remaining B1G regular season games. Gonna be fun watching it play out.

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I wrote this in another thread, and wonder what smart people here might think: The consensus seems to be that the offense just isn’t great this year and that we may be at or near our ceiling. But when I look over the roster I think I see that both Jordan and Iggy have shot really badly for a number of games now, but are likely better shooters than their averages of the last four-five games. Likewise Teske was canning 3s at a 37% clip over the season, despite today’s struggles, according to Turgeon in his post-game presser. I think it’s possible other teams have figured out how to guard Iggy, so a return to form for him could be less likely (?), but it looks to me like Poole is just missing. Is it possible that that extra 3-4% shooting the team needs to make some of these games more comfortable is in fact within hailing distance?

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