Michigan at Nebraska Discussion Thread

Yeah they just looked so not themselves that if they can put together a decent showing on Sunday, I’m ready to just pretend tonight never happened.

That’s a helluva crowd for a school with no basketball pedigree at all.

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Fully believe it’s the schedule wearing them down. They’re college students not pros. How do you prep for a game and go to class on these turnarounds?

The type of mistakes they made tonight were more mental than physical.

It happens. We all had a feeling about tonight. Sunday won’t be easy but still a good opponent to come to town after this.

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Nothing else to really do but move on from this.

Re-group and get the win at home on Sunday and the have 3 and and half days to prepare for Purdue.

Overall, our schedule was a bit frontloaded and tough games were jammed in a tight window.

No game is easy to win, but after Purdue, the schedule starts to look a little more spread out.

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B Quinn feeling a little feisty after that one!

That was a teamwide no show. Everyone played terrible across the board. Maybe it was due to the schedule but these repeated terrible first half performances are a problem. That’s -34 in the last 5 games. The only one they played well in was MSU and they were down by 3. You can’t keep playing from behind and expect to always rally in the 2nd half.

We have to have counters to teams switching all screen and rolls. Clearly, no team fears Wagner posting up even against a PG so either our guards have to make them pay or learn how make a post entry pass. Wagner’s most dangerous as a pick and pop guy or driving by a big but they took that away tonight.

We finally saw a lot of the Rahk at PG and Poole at the 2. Worth a shot but they were both awful. We need Simpson to play well and he hasn’t the last two games. Hopefully, it was just one of those nights for the team and they bounce back on Sunday.

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If Wagner can’t handle any matchup that results in a quicker guy guarding him I don’t know how anyone thinks he’s going pro. The entire NBA is trending to switch everything small ball and every time a team adjusts and puts their “4” or a quick wing on him, it takes him completely out of the offense. So frustrating

(Obligatory LOL that Izzo didn’t put Jaren Jackson on him)

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Clearly Draft Express agrees. That’s why they have him ranked 76 at the moment. Not sure it means much at this point but I don’t think coming back has improved his draft stock. I do think he would have been drafted in the 2nd round last year. This year, I’m not sure. He’s going to make a nice living playing basketball. Just not sure it will be the NBA at least initially.

Regardless, we are not winning with him scoring 2 points. They need to develop more counters on offense because you can’t keep saying they surprised us by switching everything.

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I think they were laying that much more in wait for us and I think we were more of a tired team than Illinois, but I’m struggling to understand why the Illini were so much more able to exploit the paint than we were. Is it because their guards were that much more able to break down the Husker D? Is it because their guards were that much more of a threat to score on each of their drives, either pulling up midrange or taking it to the hole (and therefore creating room to operate in the paint as the Husker D reacted)? Is it because Black is that much better of a post player than Moe? Is it wrong to think that Moe’s post game has taken a step back this year? He seemed more effective off the pivot last year, although perhaps my memory fails me. Isn’t the ability to post a smaller player something he will have to develop no matter where he wants to play beyond Michigan (Euros or taking a shot at the NBA)? I know we struggle to actually feed the post, but Moe didn’t seem interested at all. It wasn’t our night, but I’d like to understand the above better.

Very common take for him. He looooves shitting on the UM hoops fanbase. He’s not wrong so whatever

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It felt like Nebraska had 6 guys on the court defending. They were everywhere. Impressive game from Nebraska.

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Illinois scored .95 PPP… Michigan scored .88 PPP. Not really much of a difference. Illinois was in the game because its defense played very well. It isn’t like they had a huge performance offensively.

And yes, Leron Black is a much more efficient post-up scorer than Moe.

One thought after watching that game last night: I think Michigan will could play some lineups like that next year. Throw Brandon Johns, Ignas Brazdeikis, Isaiah Livers, Charles Matthews and Jordan Poole on the floor and switch every screen.

Would at least be intriguing and will be one of the first time that Michigan has had an abundance of switchable 6-8 types.

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Dylan as in your recap this is the type of game when the team misses a DJ Wilson who could match up with any of their bigs and legitimately contest or block shots. Also this game really showed how much the point guard needs to be able to create and score particularly off the bounce and in pnr situations. Can’t wait to see Dejulius in this offense. Also, as far as future recruits I think Rocket Watts is the player Mich needs to full court press. I see his game as perfect for JB.

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If Wagner does turn pro after this year, I wonder if Livers will end up playing some 5 next year. I guess it depends how ready Castleton is or if Davis can contribute at all, but they should be a lot deeper at the forward spots than at the 5. I like Teske but I don’t know if he will ever be a heavy minute player. If you have Matthews, Livers, Johns and Iggy at the forward spots, then seemingly Livers (who’s played a few mins at the 5 this yr) would be the most likely to play a small ball 5. Plus Beilein likes the advantage of a 5 who can shoot, be a roll man and can switch out on pemeimter players. Now, can Livers rebound well enough, I don’t know.

Can you recommend a source for box scores that include stuff like points in the paint (the PPP is one thing, but doesn’t tell a complete story)? It seemed like they had a lot of room to operate in the paint against Nebraska - to the point where it seemed like a problem for Nebraska down the stretch - whereas we had very little with the exception of a few Matthews drives.

I wasn’t suggesting Illinois had a great offensive effort - just thinking that I recalled that of the success they had, a decent part of it was in the paint and at the line.

Any official site will have the official game box score which has the points in the paint. Just go to Nebraska or Illinois’ site/schedule and find their box.

Michigan and Illinois are very different teams though. I didn’t watch the whole Nebraska/Illinois game, but I don’t think Nebraska would defend them the same way that they would defend Michigan.

Sometimes is tough to make much sense of out of points in the paint though. For example, it was 38-34 in advantage of Nebraska last night.

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