Of course it can be manipulated…but I’ll ask you this, what would you grade Michigan’s defense tonight in letter grade form independent of PPP or FG%, and not making it relative to Michigan (in other words, don’t say it was acceptable for Michigan standards)
Come on, you’re twisting my intention; which I dont appreciate because I actually love the contrarian opinions you bring here. Forums would be boring if everyone agreed. All I’m saying is that nobody has to have agendas or narratives to disagree, it just takes differing opinions. And debate between differing opinions is good. But I think the productiveness of the debate has passed.
3 Likes
Michigan won the game for one reason and one reason only, the offense produced at a historic rate, masking the poor defense.
It’s true, Michigan was an offensive juggernaut tonight. But they also had a good defensive performance. Might be a fun couple months – if they can keep this up. Good night all, and go blue!
Wasn’t trying to twist your intentions, my apologies if it came off that way. I really have no idea how anybody could watch that game and be of the opinion that Michigan played good defense. Perhaps I could understand (not agree) if there were opinions with caveats such as "Well, for Michigan that was a decent defensive showing considering its IU’. But to say that was a good defensive game is perplexing to me indeed. It deceives everything my eyes witnessed.
A letter grade in a vacuum doesn’t make any sense to me. Stats have their purpose, context has its purpose, comp level has its purpose. For example, I can’t ignore that we help a 84 ppg team to 60 points. I cant ignore that JBjr was on the other team, and that we locked him down. I cant ignore that we gave up straight line drives, but IU takes everyone off the dribble - they just usually score more points doing it.
That being said, I have no idea what IU’s PPP was, so for the sake of not avoiding the argument, I’d give the defense a B-B+
1 Like
Fair enough. Just respectfully disagree. I’d give Michigan’s defense a D+/C- and give IU’s offensive execution (or lack of) the same. Lots of unforced TOs by IU from my view.
I thought it was an okay defensive performance (which is the most we can expect out of this Michigan team, haha). Guards definitely got beat a lot, but I felt like a lot of the “dribble off their leg” on those drives were because of swipes on the ball by the defender. Maybe I’m wrong on that though.
1 Like
We watched the same game, so I’m not going to rattle off the things that I saw, that lead me to believe that we played good defense. But I’ll absolutely take the: "Well, for Michigan that was a decent defensive showing considering its IU’’ caveat. We are on the same page, there. I am reflecting on the defensive performance of Michigan, specifically. Michigan, relative to itself, played good defense. I guess where we differ, which is fine, is that I think we played good defense compared to the rest of IU’s opponents, as well.
Yeah, ok is more in line with what my eyes witnessed. We were getting killed off the dribble nearly every time IU went to the rack, with no rotations.
Yup. There were also a couple times IU drove into the lane and we had it clogged and IU lost it out of bounds. That is a forced turnover and the result of good defense.
1 Like
Happy to agree to disagree. If anything, I think we are noticing the same things, but interpreting them differently. UFR and PFF each grade all the same Michigan football plays, and still disagree plenty of times 
1 Like
I think our D was pretty good. Last three games we have really picked things up. Hope we can keep this up. We don’t need a top 5 defense with our offense being so good, all we need is a better than average D and we can win quite a few games.
2 Likes
One thing that I did really like was the quick double on Bryant, forced him to travel once. We usually lack that those sort of decisive and quick rotations that lead to confusion on behalf of the opposition. That was really a nice look
1 Like
2 Likes
Of course we don’t need a top 5 defense…I’d settle for a top 80 defense at this point.
The no rotations was a problem. Mo was way too concerned with Bryant too far away from the hoop, and while DJ is good at helping out when he sees the play in front of him, he isn’t always great at seeing the play in front of him.
I tried man…I really did. I’ve been pretty good about that lately, but when comments strike me as absurd, I have to respond. Its in my nature
Me as well. I think it can and will get better throughout the season, we just hit a real tough stretch and I think we are past that now. Anybody see Donlon get on Wagner for missing an assignment and Beilein tapped him on his leg telling him to tone it back? I mean, it happened, but did any else see that? I don’t like that one bit.
feel free to correct me, @johnmiller; but Im pretty sure he meant top 5 in the conference…at least I hope so