Michigan moves to 2-0 in the Big Ten, tops Northwestern 74-51

Michigan 74, Northwestern 51

The only questions coming into this afternoon's game against Northwestern revolved around Glenn Robinson III's injury status and the magnitude of Michigan's margin of victory against the lowly 7-7 Wildcats. 

On the first point, the Wolverines got a boost when Robinson took the floor as one part of Michigan's starting five. With that question settled, only one remained. 

However, nine minutes into the game, the Wildcats led, 10-9, with the Wolverines having shot just 33 percent and turned it over three times already. 

Northwestern's packed in defense gave Michigan trouble, as the Wolverines couldn't hit their outside shots early in the game. Northwestern's defensive strategy was not unlike that of a World Cup underdog, playing conservatively with one striker and hoping to beat a more talented team 1-0 via one swift counterattack goal. 

Chris Collins's Wildcats did their best to slow the game down, walking the ball up the floor and taking as much out of each 35-second possession as possible. However, Michigan eventually decided it was having none of it, and that's when it started to build up a bit of a lead. 

Michigan went into the half up 31-24, but it felt as if the Wildcats had played Michigan to a tie. Regardless, the story of the first half was Jordan Morgan. The fifth-year big man scored eight points and reeled in five boards while flashing the transition speed that has made him a fan favorite over the years. 

When the two teams stepped onto the floor in the second half, Northwestern would try to keep the game slow, while the Wolverines would once again put the pedal to the metal. Either way, the Wolverines would have play better defense, especially Nik Stauskas. Matched up against NU star Drew Crawford, Crawford scored 13 of NU's 24 first half points. 

Michigan's 1-of-8 mark from beyond the arc also conspired to keep the game close; the Wolverines would have to connect more frequently than that in the second half if they planned on pulling away before the game's final minutes. 

The two teams traded 5-0 runs to start the second frame; clearly, the Wildcats did not plan on going away without a fight. 

Fortunately for the Wolverines, Northwestern's offensive attack could most generously be deemed "punchless." Sanjay Lumpkin missed a layup that would have cut Michigan's lead to four; after that, Michigan slowly pulled away. 

Michigan's offense was far from a well-oiled machine, but its defense did get a little better, as Crawford had zero second half points by the 8-minute media timeout. 

A pair of monstrous transition dunks from Robinson later, and Michigan found itself up by 16 with under eight minutes to play. 

The lead continued to balloon, as the Wildcats simply did not have enough to make a serious push. Northwestern might be a tough team to play in two or three years, but, for now, a last place finish in the conference appears to be a certainty. 

With the 74-51 win, Michigan moves to 10-4 (2-0) on the season. Nik Stauskas led the way with 18 points, while Jordan Morgan played Crazy Eights (8 points, 8 rebounds). 

Michigan heads to Lincoln on Thursday, where they'll face the 8-6 (0-2) Nebraska Cornhuskers. 

Shameless Self-Promotion Time: Michigan State and Wayne State

Halftime of Bears-Packers is my chance to post my usual reminder that my Monday recap went up at Maize n Brew this morning.

Also, I posted a quick recap just after Michigan's exhibition victory against Wayne State tonight. Michigan wasn't incredibly impressive tonight, but the outcome was never really in doubt; the closest it got in the second half was a 13-point Michigan lead. Nik Stauskas, Caris LeVert and Glenn Robinson III filled it up and the freshmen impressed once again.

Exhibition No. 1: No. 9 Michigan 117, Concordia 44

NB: Just like last season and the season before, most of my basketball writings will go up at Maize n Brew. With that said, I'll still be putting some stuff up here, starting, well, tonight. 
----
With Mitch McGary on the bench in street clothes and the Wolverines taking on Concordia, an NAIA squad, in an exhibition contest, the stakes were about as depressed as Eeyore on a bad day.

Then again, it is a sign of the times that someone such as myself, who has always held college football aloft as the apex of amateur athletics, is legitimately excited about such a matchup. The game itself might not have meant anything, but it does mark the beginning of the next installment of the John Beilein era. On the heels of finished runner-up in 2012-13, the Wolverines have several questions to answer before the real question--Can they do it again?--can be addressed in earnest.

The Final Four run has etched itself in the minds of Michigan fans everywhere; once the afterglow of that campaign started to fade, the logical array of questions bubbled to the surface. No Trey Burke? Tim Hardaway Jr.? What about Derrick Walton? Can Mitch McGary, Glenn Robinson III and Caris LeVert take the next step? Can Spike Albrecht run the show full-time? 

And so on. Although the final outcome of these sorts of games is generally immaterial, it is worth watching just to see how various lineup combinations play together, whether the ball is ultimately being scored or not.

Michigan began with a starting five of Albrecht, Robinson III, Jordan Morgan, Jon Horford and Nik Stauskas. At the 16:27 mark, Walton, Max Bielfeldt and LeVert subbed in (Stauskas and Robinson remained in).

It wasn't a particularly great start for Albrecht; he missed an open layup in transition and also turned it over on another possession in which Michigan mostly stood around. He did take a charge down on the block before being subbed out.

Elsewhere, Stauskas started things off with a familiar sight: him driving hard to the rim and going to the line after not quite being able to throw it down. Upon hitting his patented corner three, Stauskas had scored seven of Michigan's first nine points.

Abotu four minutes into Walton's shift, Concordia brought a little full-court pressure. Walton took the ball up the right side, saw two defenders beginning to collapse on him, and left his feet to lob a doomed pass well past No. 21 Zak Irvin. In case you needed reminding, Walton is a true freshman, and he will likely make those sorts of mistakes early on in the season.

Stauskas got into the double-digits in scoring after nailing his second trey of the game, executing a seamless shot fake and one dribble left into an effortless stroke from the the left wing. Level of competition caveats aside, there probably shouldn't be any concerns about the added muscle affecting Stauskas's shot.

Despite not playing a perfectly clean game, the Wolverines jumped out to a 30-9 lead just about 12 minutes into the game, partially aided by nine Concordia turnovers. Stauskas once again put the ball on the floor, taking it from the corner and ripping through challenging defenders into an uncontested layup.

For the sake of history, let it be known that Walton tallied his first points with about 7:12 to go in the half. The freshman buried a three from the left wing, then added two more buckets in the span of about 30 seconds. Shortly thereafter, Walton lasered a no-look pass to a wide open Jordan Morgan under the rim for an easy two and dropped another easy dime to LeVert in transition. After committing a careless turnover earlier, Walton had clearly picked up some confidence during this later stretch in the first half.

Michigan went into the half up 60-19, with an eFG% of 89%. Five Wolverines tallied seven or more points in the first half. Stauskas and LeVert led the way with 12 points apiece. Not that this means anything at all, but Michigan scored at a clip of 1.71 points per possession in the first half (Concordia was at 0.56 PPP).

Also of note, late in the half Beilein rolled out a lineup of LeVert-Stauskas-Morgan-Irvin-GRIII, with LeVert running the point. There have been rumblings about the potential for LeVert to run the show some this season, so perhaps that is the lineup we'll see when he does.

Shameless Self-Promotion Time: Michigan State

I've been a little negligent of late when it comes to linking my Maize n Brew stuff here, which is probably for the better given the recent stretch. Even Mr. Kurtz is all "man, that stunk," and he was the guy who said "the horror, the horror." So, you know things have gotten pretty real.

Oh well. Anyway, here's my post from yesterday, in which I talk about the Michigan State game and what it means (if anything) going forward:

No, all is not lost. These sorts of things happen, especially when you've been confronted with the schedule that Michigan has in the last 10 days. The good news is that the most difficult portion of the schedule is behind Michigan now. The recently completed 4-game stretch, without looking into this further, has to have been the toughest such stretch in the country thus far. To recap, Michigan: 1) lost a tough one at Indiana despite getting ambushed at the start 2) gritted out an OT victory against Ohio State at Crisler, aided largely by Tim Hardaway Jr.'s sharpshooting 3) lost in OT at the Kohl Center after a ridiculous Ben Brust shot to tie it and 4) got blown out at the Breslin Center to cap this mini-campaign through the Sahara-esque portion of the greater journey.

The only fun thing about writing that post was the title, which I'm still patting myself on the back for. Good job, me. On the bright side, Michigan should have an opportunity for a nice, cathartic blowout victory on Sunday, back in the friendly confines of the Crisler Center. If everything goes according to plan, it will be like a like nostalgic trip to the early portion of the conference schedule, when everything was great and Michigan was invincible and clearly never going to lose a game ever.

Sentimental Education

If I can make it there/You know, I'm gonna make it just about anywhere

Youth is an inherent facet of the college game. It is rare to find a team with a starting lineup stocked with upperclassmen; when such teams are to be found, they are typically either a mid-major or not very good. 

It doesn't seem all that long ago that Michigan was busy dominating all comers in Manhattan and declaring themselves kings of Brooklyn for a night. In between passive-aggressive glances and cigarette drags, area hipsters spoke in hushed tones of Spike Albrecht and his underappreciated work "Four Minutes, Goodbye Appalachia." Those were simpler, rawer times, before all this corporatized, uptight Big Ten stuff. 

In a sense, that is what a nonconference schedule is: a formless sea of conflicting interpretations built on an untenable framework of nothing, by and against nobody you've ever heard of, not unlike an indie album. The Big Ten, on the other hand, is an ordered symphony, at times crashing, at times serene, but thematically consistent and often linear in form if not in plot. If not linear, then its general direction is typically clear: forward, like natural selection adapted to the hardwood. 

That's not to say that the former can't be nice; the non-conference schedule surely was just that. Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Michigan's cavalry of steely-eyed freshmen led Michigan to an unbeaten mark and, more importantly, the promise of something beyond what many of us --myself included-- had ever had the fortune of witnessing on the hardwood. 

Michigan has taken trips to Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio State and Indiana thus far (Northwestern too, I guess--#B1GCats!), all problematic places to play, and has come away with decidedly mixed results in a season that has otherwise been historic in every way. I don't mean to dismiss everything else to date, but wins against some of those teams aren't worth writing home about vis-a-vis any sort of Big Picture, which may not even exist in the world of college basketball in terms of results. In the span of 40 minutes in March, the Big Picture can become just another mundane piece in the colossal jigsaw puzzle that is your average college basketball season. 

Although I have realized over the past year or two that the losses don't really hit me like they used to, there was still a lingering bitterness Sunday. Perhaps it was the lofty No. 1 ranking, perhaps it was the opportunity to grab Michigan's biggest regular season win in some time, perhaps it was the chance to do so against a superb Indiana team, in that hall of mirrors in Bloomington no less, where every corner reveals a distorted and bizarre view of the very self you thought you knew before entering. 

It should be noted that the season promises to be a great one, and that the end is not near. Michigan will win many more games, and I think it is safe to assume that at least a few of those games will take place in some probably sparsely attended venues in March. 

Other than Michigan's occasional tendency to devolve into an NBA-style heroball game (which, to be honest, I'm not necessarily against despite its inefficiency), perhaps it was the mortality of two of Michigan's youth-belying freshmen, Glenn Robinson III and Nik Stauskas. Oddly, Mitch "CRUNK" McGary, he of the frenetic game and spontaneous shrug-inducing bursts of "Did I do that?" strength, has been the most consistent of the three insofar as his particular game is concerned. 

Again, this shouldn't be construed as me sounding the alarm, pushing the panic button, or whatever such phrase you may prefer. Rather, it's part of an overall narrative that is obvious but was somewhat buried by Michigan's pristine start. 

Like the divine right kings of old, it's hard to conceptualize your fallibility when you're strolling down Atlantic Avenue with a crown on your head and asphalt covered in rose petals in your wake. 

It's even harder to imagine when placed in the context of Michigan basketball as a whole. The moment has finally come, the resurgence, the return, and how could it be but linear and unstinting? Unfortunately, that is not and will not be the order of things, for college basketball, like football, subsists on chaos, pointed statistical variances and home crowds seemingly unleashed from the bowels of Hell. 

Robinson III, he of the No. 1 ORtg in the Big Ten, looked like just another athlete on Saturday. Of course, it's not exactly hard to understand why. Indiana is very good, Assembly Hall is a place so fearsome that you can momentarily forget your own name amid the din and, most importantly, GRIII is just a freshman. The high-flying 360 dunks would seem to defy the laws of space and time, but one cannot outjump youth. 

Similarly, Nik Stauskas (NJAS), he of the Big Ten's No. 6 ORtg, is even more prone to bouts of freshmanitis, given his perimeter-oriented game. After all, the rims do get smaller on the road, and I won't wait for scientific inquiry to prove this fact. On Saturday, our favorite Mississaugan went just 3/10 from the field and 1/5 from beyond the arc. That will happen. 

Even Trey Burke, the heart and soul through which this team draws its every breath, is a mere true sophomore. For all his brilliance, we would do well to remember that he is still very much learning what he can and cannot do, what he should and shouldn't do. 

With trips to Michigan State and Wisconsin still on the docket --in addition to home dates against Ohio State, Michigan State and Indiana-- there is still room within the amorphous bubble that is college basketball to explore. College basketball is like writing; you don't always get it right, and it is often glaringly so when that is the case. 

On the bright side, it can be a self-correcting mechanism in this way. Unlike seasons gone by, it isn't as if Michigan failed at OSU and IU and didn't have the means to answer back, or, pre-Beilein, didn't know how to. In both games, Michigan rallied back and even had the chance to win despite stretches of frazzled play. Now, Michigan has the pieces to beat anyone, but the challengers are numerous and the divine right that seemed a mandate within the boundaries of the five boroughs has become far from unassailable, if it ever was that to begin with. 

Ohio State. Wisconsin. Michigan State. On a practical level, this upcoming stretch will help to determine Michigan's tournament seeding (Big Ten and Big Dance) and the level of assistance it might need to bring home another regular season conference title, preferably unshared. 

Thematically, there is much more at stake, for Michigan's freshmen and non-freshmen. The next three games will begin to reveal just how far-reaching this sentimental education can be, for the players and fans alike. 

Michigan-Pittsburgh: We Kind Of On

Michigan 67 (4-0), Pittsburgh 62 (4-1)

Combine Michigan's first legitimate opponent of the season with the venue that is Madison Square Garden and you've got a game that produces a vicious cocktail of excitement and apprehension.

Pitt started the game with a long possession that resulted in a long 2 for Lamar Patterson reeling in an offensive board. Michigan's offense wasn't clicking early, with a missed three from THJ and a wild 2 from Burke. However, Burke converted on a nice pullup in transition after shaking James Robinson out of his shoes about halfway between the 3-point line and halfcourt.

 As Dakich's complaining demonstrated, the play earlier was a bit choppy due to some ticky tack foul calls. Through four minutes of play, Michigan was down 4-2, shooting 1-5 from the field; the rims, as always, are unforgiving at MSG.

After another offensive board, this time from Talib Zanna, Patterson knocked one in from 3-point land, putting the Panthers up 7-2. Needless to say, it wasn't an ideal start for Michigan, who looked fairly lifeless on the offensive end and less than tenacious on the defensive glass.

A corner trey from Stauskas gave Michigan some life. Glenn Robinson blocked a shot at the rim and Jordan Morgan took a charge on the following defensive possession. Pitt was able to get a couple easy buckets as the half went on, but things generally weren't easy when they were forced to execute their halfcourt offense.

After a Michigan steal, Mitch McGary took it about three quarters the length of the floor for a smooth finger roll, a brief flash of the potential we have with McGary as perhaps a Jordan Morgan 2.0 type player.

 It wasn't a smooth game on either end, as expected. Both teams started to heat up a bit from the outside as the half drew to a close. THJ pulled up for a nice jumper from just past the free throw line in the secondary break. After a rough start, Michigan was shooting 50% from the field with three minutes left in the half, although only 1-7 from 3.

Michigan went into the half down 29-33 after a mostly forgettable and extremely choppy 20 minutes of play. Most disconcerting was the fact that Trey Burke was 3-8 from the field and Michigan only had 3 total assists as a team.When Michigan scored, it wasn't via the natural flow of the offense; it either came off the bounce or in transition. Michigan has NBA talent to be sure, but this isn't the NBA we're playing in just yet. Going forward, Michigan will need to attempt to remain within the system more than it did in the first half of this game.

---
Halftime Numbers
Michigan: 0.94 PPP
Pitt: 0.88 PPP

---
Michigan went down 38-31 early in the half only to rally on the back of a pair of Stauskas jumpers and another from Burke. Michigan even switched things up a bit on defense, moving to the 1-3-1 for a brief stretch, which, if you'll read Michigan previews from national writers, is most definitely Michigan's base defensive set. Snark aside, the zone did seem to work (and Michigan actually went back to it at the 10 minute mark).

After shooting zero free throws in the first half, Pitt got the benefit of a couple block calls in quick succession on THJ. Speaking of Tim, his 3-point shooting came down in a big way. After coming into the game shooting an absurd 73% from 3, he shot 1-7 from downtown in this one. He did finish 6-13 from the field overall, however, good for 16 points, largely due to him attacking the basket. Like I said all of last season, SEARCH AND DESTROY, TIM.

All of Michigan's 38 second half points came from Burke, THJ, Robinson III and Stauskas. Just FYI, two of those guys are true freshmen, playing their fourth non-exhibition college game, in Madison Square Garden no less. I think we might have something there.

THJ hit a jumper to put Michigan up 55-50 with 3:30 to go. The Panthers didn't score again until there was only 1:15 left to go in the game.

There were a couple shaky moments at the end --including a Pitt foul on a steal attempt that didn't look like a foul at all, with Michigan only up 3-- but Michigan hit their free throws and came away with a solid, if somewhat ugly, win in MSG.

I'll have more comprehensive recaps than this one up in the future, with player bullets and whatnot (this one is admittedly rushed for various reasons). I will be at MSG for Friday's championship game against Kansas State, so it will be fun to watch a Bruce Weber team try to "run offense" in person.

On a serious note, Michigan pulled out a solid, grit-astic win against a very B1G-esque team, which bodes well for the conference schedule. Michigan's freshmen looked good and not at all overwhelmed (for the most part), and despite Trey Burke's struggles from the field, Michigan was able to gut it out to remain undefeated.

Also, like the Michigan fans at MSG, I would like to remind everybody that we are playing some team on Saturday, and hey let's beat them.

/#BEATOHIO chant at a basketball game against Pitt

Miscellaneous Minutiae, 4/4/2012

Back from a bit of a break. That noise you hear? Oh, that's just FOOTBALL. Adieu, hockey and basketball...it's time for football. Sort of. 
Self-Promotion, Still Shameless: Check out Maize n Brew later today for some basketball talk from me re: how the offense will look decidedly un-Beilein-like going forward. Basically, I suggest that Michigan basketball will look a lot like this:

Let's hope Michigan can bring a little more defensive intensity than that. "THE BALL'S IN HIS SHIRT NOOO WHAT ARE YOU DOING."-Person that takes AND1 basketball way too seriously

Footbaw Talk Is Positively Gorgeous: Al Borges sat down with Howard Griffith and talked real, live footbaw. If this sentence excited you the same way that it did me, then: a) you have a problem and b) it's probably early April.

The two issues to address in the passing game re: Denard are footwork and "second decision making." Al makes even relatively simple concepts like, say, making decisions, sound really cool. He then goes on to break down two plays, the first being that interception against Purdue, an intermediate dig route to Roundtree against Iowa, and the long completion to Gallon on Michigan's late game drive against Notre Dame. You would think that these are relatively simple plays, but I was hoping there'd be more at the end of the video. Alas, it's only five minutes long, but it does give you just enough to ward off the pangs of football withdrawal for a little while.

In any case, the Purdue interception, in particular, is the sort of play that Denard simply cannot make going forward. Given that this will be year 2 in the system, I feel pretty good about not only this sort of play being eliminated from Denard's game, but turnovers in general. Footwork is doubly difficult for mobile QBs like Denard; happy feet leads to interceptions, missed receivers, and other unfortunate happenings. Denard's feet vis-a-vis the passing game (i.e. getting the appropriate depth in his drops, not getting happy feet, not throwing off the back foot, etc.) are arguably more important than the role, in, well, running the ball. Al was not perfect in 2011, but it's hard to feel anything but comfort going forward. Now if we could only just get him to officially become enamored with the concept of continuing to recruit mobile types (of course, very few will be as fast as Denard, if any even exist) for the QB position, things would be just perfect.

Terms to add to your Michigan football lexicon: "steal his eyes" (defender reading the QB's eyes) and "gettin' in the fight" (in reference stepping up in the pocket through the lanes created by the outside rushers).

Diamond in the Rough: Nick Baumgardner's article on GRIII's skyrocketing recruiting hype is another thing to file under "Beilein is a ridiculous talent evaluator" file. According to GRIII himself:

"Those guys believed in me before anyone else really did, and that means a lot," Robinson said.

And also:

"I believe some schools look too much into what a player is right now, and not what their potential could be. Michigan did a great job with that, though, and that's what I really liked about them."

 So, there you go. GRIII has seen his stock rise from "fringe high-major" level to the #28 player in the country according to Scout, making him a just-about-5-star prospect. That is an incredible jump, but if anybody would've been able to predict that sort of spike, it's John Beilein. As much hype as Mitch McGary has gotten (and as much under-the-radar indie hype as Stauskas has gotten), GRIII is the guy from this class that I'm most excited about. He's the athletic dynamo of a winger that elite teams usually have at least a couple of...I imagine his outside game will need a little work, but he will contribute significantly no matter what.

Outside of the article's recruiting slant and GRIII's using not making the McDonald's All-American team as motivation to get better, the article references the fact GRIII was told by the staff that he'd play both the 2 and the 3, and not the 3/4 as was previously expected. I don't normally get too caught up in the numerical designations, but I though it was interesting. Then again, it's entirely possible that this quote was based on information that preceded the news of Smotrycz's departure; in light of that, it's possible that GRIII will still see some time at the 4, although I really sort of hope not. This of course leaves the conundrum of having both GRIII and THJ at the 3, and you'd really like to have both on the court at the same time. If THJ can seriously refine his handle and outside shooting this offseason, then you can pencil GRIII in for a starting spot. Otherwise, I think we're probably looking at Burke-Stauskas-THJ-Morgan-McGary, which is just fine.

Losing Smotrycz, Novak, and Douglass is unfortunate, but I think the future is still bright.

Meanwhile, in Alabama: [Insert Shutdown Fullback's "pig running across a football field" animation]

On a serious note, 2012 signee Dalvin Tomlinson sustained what is termed a "serious" knee injury. Tomlinson is 6'3'' 270. Care to guess how he hurt his knee? If you guessed "soccer," well, you must actually live in the Yellowhammer State, otherwise you'd be inclined to believe that soccer has long since been banned by the Alabama State Legislature.

I'm not completely sure where he fits in the Bama 2-deep at this point in time, but odds are he would have at least been a contributor, even with Australian manbearpig Jessie Williams officially moving to defensive tackle after spending last year as a RVB-esque DT/DE. In any case, it seems a little fishy that he says he'll be "over it" by the time the season starts. Assuming it's an ACL injury, the common wisdom is that that sort of thing takes about six months, which would see the last month of his recovery begin in September. Of course, this last sentence was rampant speculation, so who knows.

Of course, since people are horrible, I must state the obvious: all injuries, suffered by anybody and no matter for what team, are unfortunate. Anyone that roots for an opponent to get injured should be forced to watch the 2008 Northwestern game on loop in a dark room with their eyelids taped open. With that said, this is something to monitor as we get closer to September 1st, as Alabama has already lost a significant amount of defensive talent to the NFL.

More? Andy Katz has Michigan at #8 in his early top 25...yeah, try not to think about 2009 (you can't). Excellent recruiting stuff from UMHoops, as always. Spring practice notes from Tuscaloosa; nothing too exciting. Dudes are nursing injuries, the O-linemen are getting used to lining up next to new faces. Spring football, yeah!