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**Hannibal** · February 29, 2016, 01:14 PM

Brian Cook finally calls out Beilien.

This Is Our Concern, Basketball Edition | mgoblog

http://mgoblog.com/content/our-concern-basketball-edition

2/28/2016 – Michigan 57, Wisconsin 68 – 20-10, 10-7 Big Ten [Patrick Barron] I try to avoid putting certain thoughts on twitter during basketball games because the replies they draw tend to send me into a "someone is wrong on the internet" pit. This didn't go so well yesterday, in both directions. I expressed frustration at Michigan's horrendous defense in the first half, when Wisconsin bricked a huge array of wide open threes. I got a couple responses about how it was better to give up wide open threes than to let Nigel Hayes eat in the paint, with one guy offering up Hayes's shot chart as evidence. Evidence of what, though? Hayes isn't actually an efficient offensive player this year in any way except one: he gets to the line a lot. He's suffered with the extra usage heaped on him in the absence of Dekker and Kaminsky; Wisconsin has a lot of bad possessions and Hayes ends up taking a lot of 15-footers as a result. He's good at those, which is like being good at writing about Rutgers sports. As a whole, Wisconsin is decent at threes (4th in the league) and mediocre at twos (7th). They are not a team that you should be constantly doubling until they get a launch off. This is what Michigan did in the first half; they got lucky. So I got into a fight about that despite the fact that Hayes wasn't even taking the open threes. Later, I expressed further frustration at Michigan's defense and got an array of FIRE HIS ASS and PATHETIC replies. I have only myself to blame. ------------------------------------------- But it's true, and playing Wisconsin is designed to highlight everyone's frustration with this year's basketball team. At halftime I predicted a ten point Wisconsin win in our slack channel, and there was grunting agreement. UMHoops felt the same way: Michigan is hanging around in Madison, but a Wisconsin run almost feels inevitable. pic.twitter.com/mQRJmD60DQ — Dylan Burkhardt (@umhoops) February 29, 2016 It was, with Wisconsin staking itself to a seven point lead by hitting six straight shots. The threes versus twos discussion became moot as Michigan failed to defend either well. Then you look over at Wisconsin's collection of athletes. Wisconsin features a guy Mark Donnal wrecked in high school and a variety of gentlemen who seem like ringers grabbed from the Plattville YMCA. Their main post is a freshman. They are 18th in defensive efficiency. It's pretty tough not to be sour at Beilein after watching a bunch of try-hard types with excellent organization stifle Michigan. It's pretty tough not to be sour when Vitto Brown, the guy that Donnal worked in high school, goes 4/6 from three on six uncontested looks. I don't expect Michigan to be actually good at defense for a lot of different reasons, but there's a difference between Michigan's usual meh and this. The trend is worrying. Defensive efficiency in the Beilein era: 2008: 100th 2009: 69th 2010: 58th 2011: 37th 2012: 61st 2013: 48th 2014: 109th 2015: 107th 2016: 145th This is the third straight year of a triple-digit ranking. While you may remember things as "not good" even when the larger picture was much prettier, this is a whole new era of ineptness only matched by Beilein's first team of castoffs and runaways. This year's team is in fact considerably worse despite than those guys despite having a reasonable amount of experience. For the first time in a while Michigan doesn't have a freshman playing major minutes; for the first time in a while they've crawled out of the 300s in Kenpom's experience stat. This was the first year in a while you could reasonably expect year to year improvement, and yet. The reason that the world expected Wisconsin to pull away in the second half is because they had a guy where Michigan was when their shots went up and Michigan did not do this. There is no reason for this based on the guys on the court. That is what's scary about this team and those down the road: something appears to have left the program over the last three years. The 2014 team managed to paper over it with Nik Stauskas and his merry band; Michigan outfits that do not have the ability to finish #1 in offensive efficiency have not found a plan B. This is in no way a plea to fire anybody. Michigan has lost an NBA first round pick to injury each of the last three years, along with their starting PG last year and backup PG this year. If a Tom Izzo player gets a hangnail it gets a special edition of SportsCenter on which Izzo weeps and quavers; Michigan has suffered the insult of injury stoically. But there's no reason that losing Caris Levert would send the defense into a tailspin. There's no reason that Ricky Doyle should go from promising freshman to afterthought in a year. There's no reason that Michigan should find itself 11th in defense in a league featuring luminaries like Penn State, Rutgers, Northwestern, and Illinois. This is our concern, dude. Bullets I mean like whatever. I am super not into this basketball team for the reasons detailed above, which I why I haven't written about it much. Whatever motive force was behind the back to back elite eight teams left the building with Stauskas and has not given a hint of a return. I would not be surprised to see a coaching shakeup after the year. Beilein did it once before, and since he's clearly not going to be the guy who fixes the defense he's got to get someone in who can give it a shot. Bright spots? Michigan had a bunch of tight curl screen action that we hadn't seen much of before that was effective; they also made a number of interior passes to their bigs in situations they had not attempted much previously. Those resulted in a few turnovers but also a number of shots at the rim that were generally effective. I wonder how much of the problem with the offense is that there aren't many good passers on the team. MAAR and Irvin are getting better but had to come up from absolutely zero assists; Walton is so bad inside the arc that there's not much reason to overplay him. This is no longer a bright spot. Sorry. I'm shocked. Jon Crispin does not like dabbing.

I don't expect Michigan to be actually good at defense for a lot of different reasons, but there's a difference between Michigan's usual meh and this. The trend is worrying. Defensive efficiency in the Beilein era:

2008: 100th
2009: 69th
2010: 58th
2011: 37th
2012: 61st
2013: 48th
2014: 109th
2015: 107th
2016: 145th

This is the third straight year of a triple-digit ranking. While you may remember things as "not good" even when the larger picture was much prettier, this is a whole new era of ineptness only matched by Beilein's first team of castoffs and runaways. This year's team is in fact considerably worse despite than those guys despite having a reasonable amount of experience. For the first time in a while Michigan doesn't have a freshman playing major minutes; for the first time in a while they've crawled out of the 300s in Kenpom's experience stat. This was the first year in a while you could reasonably expect year to year improvement, and yet.
The reason that the world expected Wisconsin to pull away in the second half is because they had a guy where Michigan was when their shots went up and Michigan did not do this. There is no reason for this based on the guys on the court. That is what's scary about this team and those down the road: something appears to have left the program over the last three years. The 2014 team managed to paper over it with Nik Stauskas and his merry band; Michigan outfits that do not have the ability to finish #1 in offensive efficiency have not found a plan B.
This is in no way a plea to fire anybody. Michigan has lost an NBA first round pick to injury each of the last three years, along with their starting PG last year and backup PG this year. If a Tom Izzo player gets a hangnail it gets a special edition of SportsCenter on which Izzo weeps and quavers; Michigan has suffered the insult of injury stoically.
But there's no reason that losing Caris Levert would send the defense into a tailspin. There's no reason that Ricky Doyle should go from promising freshman to afterthought in a year. There's no reason that Michigan should find itself 11th in defense in a league featuring luminaries like Penn State, Rutgers, Northwestern, and Illinois. This is our concern, dude.

**hack** · February 29, 2016, 02:00 PM

About fucking time.

**Cody_Russell** · February 29, 2016, 02:16 PM

If Michigan loses to Iowa, I'm not sure a 21-12 Michigan team makes it in the tourney. I assume Michigan will win 1 game in the B10 tourney in this scenario. Who knows, that win is no guarantee.
20-13 Michigan? No way.

**Hannibal** · February 29, 2016, 02:17 PM

If I'm a member of the selection committe, Michigan needs to win two more games. Either Iowa + one BTT game, or two BTT games.

**Mike** · February 29, 2016, 02:35 PM

That sounds about right to me. 20-13 is 5% chance of making the tournament. 21-12 might be a coin flip. 22-12 is likely in. I don't see two more wins on the schedule.

**hack** · February 29, 2016, 03:37 PM

Eh, well, dunno. On the one hand, nobody's ever missed the tourney from the Big Ten at 11-7, the halftime guys pointed out. So just one more win should be plenty good enough. Frankly, esp considering there are three teams with posteason bans in SMU, Louisville and Syracuse, that only opens up three more spaces for bubble teams.

But that sure isn't the vibe at this point. Maybe because the bottom half of the league is so damn weak. The top half has lots of room to feast on the bottom half. Halftime guys also commented that while Michigan has no bad losses in terms of the rankings of their opponents, that it has gotten assraped on its own floor three times this year, and that the committee does notice those qualitative details.

Either way, I'm fine. I think it's a shame for this group to not get the chance, and I still think there's a good shot at getting to the second weekend, but if this would be one step closer to the end for Beilein I'm fine with that too. If I knew it would be. I'd rather try and make the tournament and salvage some credibility amongst recruits.

**iam416** · February 29, 2016, 06:52 PM

There will absolutely be an 11-7 team not making the tourney this year.

**hack** · February 29, 2016, 07:15 PM

That sure seems to be the feeling. Admittedly, there are a lot of easy wins in the conference this year. With 3 teams sitting out the postseason it's odd that this would be the year for that, but it very well might be.

**hack** · March 1, 2016, 10:26 AM

LeVert's out for the year. Ramp up the excuses machine.

Speaking of, Kstat, while I was out of town last week you made an assertion about the health of the team for that NJIT-EMU week. I couldn't reply at the time, but you should check what you know about that. Not to single you out. There seems to be a lot of confusion about when the injuries hit last year. Which, sadly, doesn't have to be. It's easy to find out.

**lineygoblue** · March 1, 2016, 10:39 AM

Forget the excuses machine, that really sucks for Levert. He probably would have been a first round pick last year. This year, you may not even get drafted.

**hack** · March 1, 2016, 10:56 AM

Good point. Very valid to point out that LeVert wanted to come back and play for his team. He should not have. A good example of why we should rarely expect them to.

**Whitley** · March 1, 2016, 02:44 PM

Originally posted by hack View Post

LeVert's out for the year. Ramp up the excuses machine.

Speaking of, Kstat, while I was out of town last week you made an assertion about the health of the team for that NJIT-EMU week. I couldn't reply at the time, but you should check what you know about that. Not to single you out. There seems to be a lot of confusion about when the injuries hit last year. Which, sadly, doesn't have to be. It's easy to find out.

It's an excuse to think the team is going to miss its best player especially against more talented teams?

**CGVT** · March 1, 2016, 02:50 PM

A healthy LeVert doesn't fix what is wrong with this team. They get abused inside and don't rebound well. I don't think a healthy LeVert would remedy those problems.

**Whitley** · March 1, 2016, 03:07 PM

I didn't say it would fix all the problems (though LaVert was a good rebounder), they would still get hurt inside. But he still clearly was their best player and I think with him...they probably beat Wisconsin a few days ago along with Ohio State....I don't think they get run out of building against MSU or Indiana (still lose both though)....

Now all of a sudden you are talking about an (12-5, 22-8) team that is probably a 5-7 seed in the tourney. Still a flawed team but the tone/narrative would be a lot different.

**hack** · March 1, 2016, 03:23 PM

Nice to see you here, Whitley. Been a while! Hope you're well.

As for this, well, we've been over it. Read upthread. Short version: We most certainly do not agree.

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