Louisville perspective:
Louisville is clearly a legit team who is going to be really good in the ACC all season, but it sure looks like they have played no one the season with even a remotely solid defense. This is most obvious on the video clip of the small shooter who was open on numerous occasions when the opposing mid-major defenses were completely outmatched and were over-helping like crazy to try to catch up to the athletes of Louisville. As we saw in the Battle 4 Atlantis, Michigan did a pretty good job containing Anthony for a lot of the UNC game and the addition of Franz makes the rotations and ball screen coverage of Michigan’s defense much harder than anything Louisville has seen this year. Should be a fun game.
Man if only we had Matthews to put nwora
Easy to envision this being a frustrating game for M. I’m expecting a loss and poor performance. Hopefully not @ South Carolina poor…or North Carolina…or Duke but definitely not on par with @ Villanova last year. I expect a crazy, rabid environment down on the banks of the Ohio River. Whoa Nelly. This gonna be a tough one. If M wins, they are the best team in the USA effective 12/3/19.
I am curious to see how we perform against a pack line team. Obviously we are running a lot of similar things to beilein and I always felt like that was the worst defensive style matchup for beileins offense.
Feel pretty good about this one, tbh. From what I’ve seen, I’m not at all impressed by Enoch as a pick and roll defender. Seems pretty inconsistent / sloppy with his hedges and doesn’t do much to disrupt the ball-handler. I feel like X will eat him for lunch.
I really feel like the 1-5 screen resulting in a hedge from Louisville is going to lead Simpson to finding Teske A LOT on the roll. Also if we are getting a lot of good looks at 3 because of the pack-line that has to bode well for us too.
I also like McMahon getting shut down. Our twos (Brooks and DDJ) are small but are good defenders which should bode well guarding their short 2-guard. I am really liking the way that we are matching up
The block was clean, and so was the team!
playing against pack line could be very frustrating, interesting to see how Juwan would do
Dylan, is a Friday afternoon to a Tuesday night that short of a turnaround for Michigan to cause them not to do well tonight?
Also why is the successful 3 game Atlantis Tournament not so good for Michigan as their last games before meeting up with Louisville tonight? “CONFIDENCE” is important tonight and the tournament should be resulting in lots of confidence.
I also don’t think we should be viewed as an underdog. Kenpom’s preseason assumptions regarding Michigan were ridiculous to the point of my questioning his professional abilities. Few teams returned juniors and seniors with the skill and experience of Simpson, Teske, and Livers.
Staying out of foul trouble will be key. Need our starters to stay on the court as much as possible.
Fly back Saturday from an island. Fly our Monday night for a road fame. 4 games in 6 days. I think it is a tough stretch of schedule.
Come on, man…
Oh Wolverheel, you think a 50 preseason ranking was appropriate for Michigan.
Come on man, think about it. Ridiculous. Biased?
What are you talking about? Kenpom had Michigan 21st preseason.
And you’re saying his purely computer based metric ranking is biased? Am I missing a joke here, or…?
Wolverheel, aren’t Kenpom’s preseason rankings completely dependent on assumptions for various analytic numbers?
With two good defenses focused on forcing their opponents to take mid-range shots, the game may hinge on who can make those short jumpers.
Best case scenario, Livers continues to show off his drive to the elbow, Brooks gets the floaters to drop, Teske knocks down the short roll looks, and the team picks up a few transition opportunities.
Worst case, the friendly whistle puts Wagner and Livers into early foul trouble when they try to drive into help at the basket. Just like every game in Madison.
Worried about the turnaround for sure. Just got back stateside, now heading to one of the toughest road environments in the country against a really good team. I think we match up well enough with them, but see a lot of ways this could go sideways for us. But we’re playing with total house money and already have an incredibly successful non-con so I won’t be particularly upset with a bad performance.
Wouldn’t say Louisville forces opponents to take mid-range shots, moreso just jump shots in general. They rank 275th in the country at 3pt rate allowed with 41.5% of opponents shots from 3.
Also worth noting, when you take out preseason numbers, Louisville’s defense is only 48th on Torvik.
And Virginia’s offense is 276th lol.