I wrote it in the recent article and a few of us have mentioned it, but because it’s not a big deal we all let it go. However, now I’m legit curious if anyone knows why or has an opinion.
Why was Donnal on the inbounder on the final play versus Moe or Teske?
I just don’t see any reason at all why he was.
That was my initial complaint over anything else. Still doesn’t make sense why Donnal is out there. He’s literally the smallest guy you could put out there compared to Wilson, Wagner, and Teske.
I have to believe us demolishing some teams will give us a boost in NCAAT seeding.
Matt Sheperd said:
Marquette
SMU
Maryland Eastern Shore
Michigan State
Indiana
Purdue
Nebraska
So the regular season went pretty much as expected ---- or at least pretty much as should have been projected
10-3 out of conference, 10-8 in conference
Seem to pretty safe heading into Selection Sunday, likely in the 7/10 or 8/9 game
You can make a case with its schedule maybe Michigan should have gone 11-2 out of conference. And some people thought UM could go 11-7 in-conference, but many others thought 9-9 was likely (and after the first 4 games of B1G schedule 8-10 looked realistic)
Someone on this board said we were going 7-11. Oops. Forgot who it was. I’d still love for Billy to be our next head coach so hopefully we can keep him around.
10-8 finish but we were actually the third best team in scoring margin per game and per possession in conference and the third best kenpom B1G team over the year. Probably on the slight low end of the range I thought we’d be in record wise but pretty much where I thought we’d be in efficiency numbers. We end the regular season with kenpom’s 6th best offense and 85th best defense (the latter being lower than hoped for but with some 3 point “bad luck” too).
The high computer rankings (which are correlated to our demolitions of several teams) will help us regarding seeing, I believe.
edit: Gasaway says UM had the second best per possession scoring margin in B1G play.
Final efficiency margin numbers in the recap:
@slyboogie2 I’m feeling like tonight’s version of this team is what keeps you so optomistic about our ceiling. Man we were humming!
Yes. If you look we demolish opponents. When we lose its very close usually and takes horrible calls ( Minnesota, Wisconsin) or just us playing flat or sloppy more then the other team straight out playing us.
This team has so much talent, skill and balance it can be so good at times, honestly our record is almost a disappointment. We should be a top 25 team imo and could easily have 4-5 more wins. I wish the season was longer this year because I believe they’d really make up a lot of ground with ten more games. Lots of potential.
I hope they hit their stride here and make a deep big ten tourney run. We need to get up to that 7 or 6 seed somehow. I think we’ll go deep if we can just avoid a few bad draws.
Things of note. I wish dj would up his intensity on both ends. When we play better teams we are gonna need all hands on deck and everybody playing well. He could be an X factor. I’d like to see him on a few more post ups a game. He has a very effective back to the basket game. He needs to alter more shots and play that tenacious d we saw early along with hitting the o glass. He’s a very tough match up for teams. Also maybe use him on some more pick and ups.
Is there any team with three bigs who can shoot the three like moe, dj and mark? If still like to see all three used a little more. Particularly in the post. Also there is a few plays a game where moe is open and we don’t hit him for the three like we should. I mean how do you guard our pick and roll game now that Derrick is playing so well and aggressive?
Well, if they play good enough, they could make this season about 10 games longer.
We’re going to need dj to step his aggression up big time on both sides of the ball. Id like to see more post ups for him. He does really well in those ISO sets. He needs to crash more and go after some more o boards. Also we need his shot blocking and rim protection too. He’s really another guy who needs to up his consistency to force us to Max our potential.
I’m generally happy with the way the team has improved over the course of the season, but one thing that still gets me is this sort of topic. He can be absent for long stretches, then after the game they can give him a pep talk about how he got 1 more rebound than a dead person, and then he comes out and gets 7-8. Why isn’t that something that can be dialed up all the time, at least to a minimum floor?
He is such a tough matchup for opponents and his presence just makes us that much harder to match up with. He has a pretty damn good all around game. His shooting, handle, passing and back to the basket moves in combination with his athleticism and length is so tough to guard, he gives the lineup a versatility that few can match.
We are already a tough matchup to guard. When he is bringing it he makes it impossible to match up with. His ability to run the floor and match up with guards and bigs on d among with weak side defense and shot blocking really adds a great element. Look at his play at MSG for instance and just how dominant we looked when he was bringing energy and being aggressive. Same with Purdue. If he plays like that along with the way the rest of the guys are playing currently we will go very deep,
Play Duncan at the 4, DJ at the 5…Need to get him closer to the basket…Maybe getting him banged around a little bit will help motivate him. We need his rebounding and shot blocking which isn’t happening behind the 3 point line.
Interesting stats based on a note in a MGoBlog column.
Barttorvik.com uses a similar advanced stats methodology as to KenPom, but it allows you to filter the stats and sort by a time period.
According to this site:
Post-Nebraska home game, we are the #8 team in the nation with the #6 offense and #34 defense.
http://barttorvik.com/trankslice.php?year=2017&sort=&conlimit=&begin=20170117&end=20170501&top=&mingames=3
Post-OSU loss, we are the #4 team in the nation with the #2 offense and #34 defense.
http://barttorvik.com/trankslice.php?begin=20170207&end=20170501&conlimit=&top=
Wow… great find
It’s nice when metrics acknowledge just how close our losses were. Of course I’d prefer the tangible results of winning those games, but when defining how ‘good’ a team is, W vs L is too black and white and ignores the luck/randomness that frequently determines the score of a tied game with 2 minutes left.
It’s also great that our blowouts are acknowledged. To the RPI, our destruction of MSU yields the same statistical value as our close loss at Breslin.