Player Bullets: N.C. State

So, as I mentioned at the end of last night's recap, I'm going to try to start spacing out the basketball coverage here. A general schedule (again, time permitting, what with school and all that being a thing that I have to do):

• Immediately after the game: recap
• Following morning: Individual player bullets (observations, stats, etc.)
• Between then and the next preview: miscellaneous ramblings (posts going WOO, talking about how this is a Beilein team but really isn't, etc.) 

Bullets, Sponsored by Edmund Burke's "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Wisdom Emporium:

• Burke: Went scoreless again in the first half, albeit on only two attempts. Nonetheless, for the second game in a row the Wolverines went into the half despite the lack of scoring. This doesn't matter so much when you drop a whopping nine dimes in the first half alone. Burke hit his offensive stride early in the second half, putting up a quick 10 points in the first ten minutes of the second half. He finished with the following line: 5-9 (3-5 from 3), 18 points, 11 assists, 2 steals, 1 block and 0 turnovers. Also of note, with him matched up on 6'5'' PG Lorenzo Brown for much of the time, Brown only scored six points on 3-10 shooting. All the gold stars go to Mr. Burke. Evil did not triumph because our Burke, a good man, did many things.

• THJ: A very 2011-12 game for THJ. He scored 18 points on 7-18 shooting and, you guessed it, 1-9 from beyond the arc. When he opted to SEARCH AND DESTROY, the Wolfpack had difficulty checking him. THJ also pitched in 3 boards, 1 steal and 1 block. It was a solid if somewhat inefficient night for THJ (eFG% of 39%).

• Stauskas: His swag continues to be off the charts. Flying against all preconceived notions about the type of player that a guy like Stauskas is "supposed" to be, he can do it all: he can shoot the three and he can create, going to the basket or to set up a jumper. Stauskas led the Wolverines in scoring, and, most notably, the offense seemed to lose a bit of oomph when he left the game. He finished with 20 points on 6-10 shooting (4-7 from 3), good for a typically hilarious eFG% of 80%.

• Vogrich: At this point, he is basically only nominally a starter, and I'm not even sure he will even be that after Stauskas' performance last night. The consensus has been that Vogrich is starting due to his superior defense, but that can only took you so far when the other guy is putting up the stats that he is. Vogrich logged a mere five minutes in this one, and didn't attempt a single shot. 

• Morgan: A standard JMo line: 3-5 from the field for six points. Unfortunately, N.C. State did have some intermittent success on the offensive glass. Morgan has to be somewhat to blame for this, as he only grabbed three boards in 23 minutes of play. He showed some hesitation with the ball on a couple occasions from about 14-16 feet. I was kind of expecting to see him bust out that jump shot that I spent the end of last season talking about re: the one thing he needed to add to his game. Alas, he didn't pull the trigger, once settling to dish it back up top, the other time hesitating at the free throw line and firing a pass that was deflected out of bounds by an NCSU player.

• McGary: CRUNK had another crunkly game, scoring 8 points on 3-4 from the field (all dunks and layups IIRC), also pitching in 5 boards, a block and lots and lots of generally crunkly play.  I've been going with the Jordan Morgan 2.0 analogy ("energy guy" plus an additional athleticism booster pack), but hey, if Dakich wants to roll with the Hansbrough comparison, who am I to disagree?

• GRIII: Like Stauskas, Michigan seemed to struggle a bit at times when he was out of the time (whether this is correlation or causation, I'm not sure). GRIII scored a breezy 11 points on 3-5 shooting, also pitching in a team high 7 boards. As expected, he is Michigan's best leaper, which will continue to come in handy on the boards, put-back situations and alley oops (seriously, we can do that now). 

• Akunne: Akunne has been getting some non-garbage time run these past few games, but that might need to be put on hold after he took a couple questionable shots against the NCSU zone, triggering a decent run from the Wolfpack. His leash was short, as he only logged three minutes. 

• Albrecht: Didn't play much either (6 minutes), but his contributions will never be perceptible through the lens of a box score. Even on nights like this, Albrecht has done his job if he can come in and play 5-7 minutes, not turn it over and share some of the ball-handling duties with Burke.

• Horford: Played six minutes, zeroes across the board on his stat line. It's hard to tell whether or not he's still recovering from his foot injury, but his role will continue to be fairly limited on most nights anyway. I still think he will be a very useful player against certain front courts this season, but his certain set of skills wasn't needed tonight. Michigan had some issues on the defensive glass here and there, but not enough to give Horford extensive minutes.

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.

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Halftime Numbers
Michigan: 0.94 PPP
Pitt: 0.88 PPP

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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

Michigan-Iowa: You Know They Left Me In An Alley, Took My Money and My Guitar Too

Michigan 59, Iowa 75

via Parks and Meth

It seems that predicting things is not my forte...Phil Steele I am not. I assumed that Michigan had progressed to the point that losses like this wouldn't happen, but I look around the conference and see the Spartans dropping one at Welsh-Ryan and the Hoosiers losing at home to a bottom-third of the conference Minnesota squad and feel a little bit better, but, not by much.

This one will be a little bit shorter and less comprehensive than the other recaps because there are only so many ways you can express "That was bad" while not being completely annoying. Also, there was a certain point in the second half when I was paying more attention to the Hawks-Wings game playing on my computer, and that in and of itself says something.

Of course, there is nowhere else to logically start but Beilein's adherence to the "two fouls and it's off to Siberia for you" game theory nugget. As Ace mentioned on Twitter, Burke is averaging 1.8 fouls a game. Sort of like the "would it have really changed things?" question vis-a-vis Jarrett Lee in the MNC game, there's no way of knowing if Burke not sitting out for as long as he did would have resulted in a win or even a competitive second half. With that said, Michigan was down four when he went out and went on to enter the half with a 10-point deficit. It was never really a game at any point in the second half, either. As much time as I've spent fretting about Burke's heavy minutes in the non-conference, seeing a miniscule by comparison "27" next to minutes played on his stat line--paired with 19 points in that short time--is a little bit frustrating. This is the game in which Beilein's propensity to bench on sight when a player accumulates 2 fouls becomes somewhat of a problem. If Michigan is a team with quality depth, then maybe this isn't a problem; alas, they are not that team. This tactical choice is the basketball analogue of punting from the opponent's 35.

Point the second: the offense and Jordan Morgan. I understand that Morgan is not a pure, back to the basket scoring threat, and he likely never will be. The Wolverines will have to wait for Mitch McGary's arrival to have that as an option. While Morgan has his issues with the ball in his hands, there have been too many games--to the point that it is an out and out trend and not just a product of the "flow" of a given game--where Morgan will only have a couple field goal attempts well into the game. The offense needs to get him involved in some way other than hoping he gets some easy put backs. Iowa's Aaron White, who I thought was Iowa's closest thing to a Jordan Morgan type player, scored 12, largely on the back of 10 attempts from the FT line. There's no reason why Morgan can't be involved in that way. I hate resorting to sports cliches, but Morgan is a player that seems to desperately need to see the ball go in before he starts believing in himself. Otherwise, he is generally invisible, partly due to his skill set but also because he just doesn't see the ball unless it is careening off of the rim after an ill-advised three.

Point the third: road games. In the Middle Ages, serfs commonly never traveled outside of a tiny slice of land throughout the course of their entire lives. While this was the case for a number of reasons--one being that feudal lords were kind of like the University of Texas of their time, personified--one was that the outside world was a dangerous, warring place, and venturing out into it was often as imprudent and likely to yield misfortune as a life of continued miserable agricultural servitude would. The aforementioned was a stupid analogy indeed. Hitting the road has been a dicey proposition for Michigan (as is the case for most teams, even really good ones), but we will have to grab a few road wins at some point in order to keep our heads above water.

As I said in the preview, road wins are quality wins no matter the opponent. This was especially true against an Iowa team that has given us problems of late. No game on the schedule is a gimme (except maybe Nebraska?), and Michigan will need to really bring it against the dregs of the conference if they want to avoid the horrible fate of missing out on a tourney bid. I'm not saying that's a likely outcome whatsoever, but I think Michigan's top 15 ranking has lulled us into a sense of deservedness that just doesn't line up with reality. What happens tomorrow night in Crisler will go a long way toward determining what sort of team we'll be watching the rest of the way.

Player Bullets, Also Known As "Trey Burke And Those Who Are Not Trey Burke":

• Burke--Insert the aforementioned benching rhetoric. Otherwise, scored the ball relatively efficiently given his minutes, scoring 19 and going 5/6 from 2. Three-point shooting continues to be mediocre, as he went 2/7 from beyond the arc. The much-circulated talking point among various personalities proclaiming that Burke>Morris because of the ability to shoot might be losing a tiny bit of traction, although Trey is still shooting 34% as opposed to Darius's 25% last season. Also, only had 3 assists (Michigan had nine total, compared to Iowa's 18). We are not going to win like that. Morris's ability to simply create space via his frame and a sheer force of will is becoming increasingly missed as the offense completely bogs down from time to time. 

• Hardaway--After a strong performance from outside against Northwestern, THJ reverted to his previous shooting form, going a turrible 0/8 from 3 and 2/13 overall. The gripes continue to be the same re: THJ's game. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if conference-wide scouting reports tell defenders to sag and dare THJ to take the three from now on. A brief 2-minute period in the second half in which THJ made three trips to the line, with a dunk in that span, gave me hope that he was deciding to enter SEARCH AND DESTROY mode. Unfortunately, that did not happen. THJ's affinity for the 3 is akin to a bag of Costco brand cheesy poofs that aren't very good but your hand keeps going in the bag regardless and then 30 minutes later you realize you've eaten the entire bag and approximately 3,000 calories in the process and your fingers are tinged orange no matter what cleaning agents you use to eliminate it and OH HOW DID THIS ALL HAPPEN SO FAST. 

• Novak--Ace mentioned on Twitter that there was a play where Zack seemed to be "loafing"...the game is a haze and I don't remember the play in question, but, if true, RUN TO THE HILLS. If Zack Novak isn't being gritty at all times then we have no shot. However, an efficient output of fourteen points on 5/10 shooting (4/8 from 3) might be the lone bright spot of this game. 

• Smotrycz--A true clunker of a performance, as if this game was meant to be held up as a hyperbolic example of the infrastructural flaws in Evan's game. Smotrycz's stock has crashed precipitously, not unlike Notre Dame football after Week 2 this season. He has become an "X factor," and not in a good way. Rather, his performances have been either "really bad" or "really good" as opposed to steady with occasional bouts of brilliance. We need him to be the latter. Michigan simply has no chance against anybody with Evan putting up a goose egg and THJ going 0/8 from 3. 

• Morgan--Frustrating to say the least. As mentioned, he will never be a pure post-up threat, but he will never improve upon his admittedly limited bag of tricks if we don't get him the ball in some form or fashion. 

• Douglass--I kind of want to stop talking about this game but I guess I might as well just hunker down and finish this post. He went 3/6 from the field (2/3 from 3), which is nice if he can keep it going with a modicum of consistency. This might be the time to give him some retroactive praise that I forgot to give him in the Northwestern recap; he did an excellent job defending Drew Crawford. Crawford had a much tougher time after THJ rotated off of him. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but he is definitely our best defender. I just wanted to make sure I said that after looking back and realizing that I was maybe overly harsh on his performance last Wednesday. 
• Vogrich--Zero points, 1 attempted three. Did grab three boards in his continuing quest to be a sneakily effective rebounder. 
• McLimans--Am I irrational in saying that I'd like to see him get a few more minutes? Not that he's an overwhelming force on either end of the floor, but, he is tall. HE'S TALL, GUYS. When Smotrycz and Morgan comprise the entirety of your team's relevant bigs, you're kind of in trouble. The sky is blue, water is wet, and so on.