Post any questions here!
How much of the small ball line-up will we see in the post season? Even with Dickenson. Will it work against Indiana and Illinois?
Given IU’s personnel, are there any useful adjustments they can make before the game against Michigan? Their preference for playing a traditional 4 man (next to an undersized 5) creates a very favorable matchup for Michigan, but do they have any options?
Judging by the 13 steals in the OSU game, have we placed more emphasis on turnover generation and if so can that be a viable strategy to cover up some defensive weaknesses? Or was that a one off thing?
Do you agree that the team has pushed the pace a bit more in the past however many games? Is that something that we will see more of going forward, or was it a Martelli or matchup thing?
Who is the best shooter to put up a full season of home/road splits as dramatic as Caleb Houstan’s?
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Michigan beats Indiana if: ________
Indiana wins if: _________
X-Factor is _______
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Did Michigan actually benefit from winning against Ohio State without Dickinson? Like will the committee see this as a more impressive win because we won the game without our best player?
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After Michigan dominated Indiana in the first matchup, what changes, if any, do you expect Indiana to make offensively or defensively this time around?
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I know this isn’t my podcast, so please forgive me if I’m overstepping by chiming in here, but my 2 cents:
The general rules I follow about these things are:
(a) the committee is aware of EVERYTHING – injuries, suspensions, weird travel situations, you name it. With 12 people plus a whole bunch of staffers and tech people, you can get into the nitty gritty details of pretty much every team under consideration (remember, they’re only really evaluating ~80-90 teams, not all 358). So I’m sure they’ll be aware of the injury situation from the Michigan-OSU game.
(b) the committee only makes significant adjustments when absolutely necessary. They take a whole heck of a lot under advisement, but I think the vast majority of these things just get tossed aside.
Going back to the game, Kyle Young was also sidelined and Zed Key was limited to just 7 minutes (he averages about 20/game). Does the impact of Key + Young = Dickinson? Not really sure, but I think it’s close enough that the committee will just call it wash. And in any case, U-M won the game, which makes it harder for the committee to really adjust this result.
Had OSU been fully healthy and won that game by only 2 points, in that case yes, I think the committee would give U-M some benefit of the doubt. But given how it played out and the overall injury context, I don’t think it’ll come into the picture.
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While we have you, how impactful is having the SDSU Q1 win in the noncon. If we exchange it for a home win over OSU how different is the resume?
I guess my big question is there still “non conference wins” being evaluated separately?
Did you notice anything different about the 5 games Martelli coached, or was it all the same? Autobenching, offensive/defensive play calling, BLOB, etc… If so, what do you think we can potentially see included into Juwan’s game plans moving forward?
What specific schematic and/or execution changes to the ball-screen offense have led to DJ playing so much better?
I think its familiarity with each other especially Hunter and then the freshmen knowing where to be.
Diabate seemed to thrive against OSU, especially in the ball-screen roll man role. How much of that can be attributed to…
- No Kyle Young
- No Hunter Dickinson
- Diabate playing more center
- OSU sucking at ball-screen defense
- Systemic change in Michigan’s ball screen attack
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The non-conference vs. conference wins thing is an interesting one. I don’t believe that the committee treats a conference win over the #25 team in the country any differently than a #25 win over a non-conference opponent.
That said, I do think that having your bigger wins spread evenly throughout the season is a small to moderate plus. And since usually you play your non-con in November and December and your conference games Jan-Mar, 1 or 2 big early season wins can kind of count a little extra because they convince the committee that you’ve been a consistently good team.
It can work the other way, though, too. Michigan and Ohio state both had 2 Quad-1A non-con wins in 2020, but they both lost a ton of games in conference play that year, too, which pushed their seed lines down by 1-2 lines. If all of your big wins are early in the year, they get downgraded a bit.
In Michigan’s case, it’s very close. I think they would prefer to keep the SDSU win rather than exchanging it for the OSU win. But I’d exchange the SDSU win for any of the Quad-1A B1G losses on our team sheet.