And Then There Were 2…
If you’ve been following hoops
this season, you know that Michigan and Virginia are the only two undefeated teams
left out of the Power 5 conferences.
While that doesn’t mean much (Remember – Virgina lost as a 1-Seed to the 16-Seed University of Maryland Back-Up College in last years Tourney!), Michigan’s
record is actually better than advertised when you consider that Michigan
has dominated the ranked teams that they have played. Let’s peek at Ken-Pom and Torvik for a little
insight as to how well Michigan is actually doing (link to Bart Torvik’s
Ranking Page below):
Michigan in Kenpom is taking
all the games into consideration and Michigan didn’t play well when they faced
several of the worst ranked (greater than 200) teams in Kenpom (Air Force, Binghamton,
etc) What I like about Torvik is you can
slice and dice the data. When you take Michigan
vs. Top 50 teams that they’ve played, and they’ve played 4 of those, Michigan
jumps to Number 1. When you slice it to
the top 100 teams, and they’ve played 7 of those, Michigan still hangs in at
number 1.
It’s only when you look at
everyone that Michigan slides down to number 3 in Torvik. So, don’t worry too much about that Kenpom
rank. Torvik tells a better story when
Michigan is playing superior talent. The
major, GLARING issue: Free Throw
Percentage! I can’t believe Michigan is
in a situation where it appears that Free Throws are going to become a thing
that as fans, we’re going to need to sweat and worry about. Sooner or later, a game is going to come down to
the charity stripe and Michigan needs to improve in this area – quickly.
If you’re a Negative Nelly –
another way to look at this data is that Michigan plays DOWN to the level of their
opponent.
So why all the stats? Well, tonight could be problematic for the
Wolverines. Last year, I thought the Illini
were about a year away from being really good. This season, they haven’t shown a whole lot
of improvement and in some ways, they’ve gotten worse. Right now, against all opponents, Torvik
has the Illini ranked 73. That puts the Illini out of
the NCAA Tourney as it stands, so the Illini need to start posting some B1G
Wins and soon. The Illini have nothing to lose at this point
and will pull out all the stops…
Another interesting
factoid: After The LNU and Michigan, the
other B1G teams that maybe have a chance are ranked down in the teens – Purdue,
Wiscy and Maryland. Purdue (9-6)
was just destroyed at the LNU and Wiscy and Maryland have looked mediocre at
best.
The last week in February and 1st
week in March will probably decide the B1G Championship with games in East
Lansing and Ann Arbor.
Way too early look at the NCAA
TOURNEY and the seed line projection: Lunardi has Michigan as a 1-seed
currently. Kenpom projects Michigan
finishing a best record of 15-5 in the B1G and a worst record of 11-9. 5 losses in the B1G MIGHT keep you on the
1-seed line, but I think Michigan would fall to a 2-Seed with 5 losses. That’s independent of the B1G Tourney which,
in the past, hasn’t proven to have much sway with the committee. Conference Tourney Champions haven’t moved
up into the 1 or 2-Seed lines in the past, so I wouldn’t expect it this season,
either.
Never the less, a high seed (4
or better) based on the early season results is probably within reach, even
with 6, 7 or 8 losses.
I project that Michigan will be
looking at a difficult game up in the Troll Center in Madison on January 19th. Up to that point, Michigan should roll…
Of course, this
is college hoops and anything can and usually does happen!
The Mailbag
A long and insightful note
from SuperFan:
Hi
MMQ,
So
I embarked on a mission to document how bad Jimmy is doing and I convinced
myself otherwise. However, I can say definitively that he is getting
worse rather than better, so that is an indication that his ability to get good
players is nowhere near as good as one would think.
Jimmy's
first two seasons are his best. Let's recap season 1:
A
7 pt loss @ Utah with several ints is not horrible.
Defeated
3 ranked teams decisively.
The
loss to the slime was complete Bull shit. We won the game if not for the
most unlucky string of ball bounces AND terrible officiating. Jimmy does
deserve serious scorn for not going for the TD from the 3 in the 3rd qtr, but
otherwise he deserves no blame for that loss.
A
3 pt win @ Minn and needing OT @ IU are not proud moments, but still Ws.
A
12 pt W @ PSU is nothing to sneeze at.
We
end with a weak effort against the suckeyes at home, but then we destroy F in
the bowl game. Basically, very hard to argue that wasn't a very
successful year, barring one bad rivalry game and one freakish fluke
accompanied by a horrible no call that would have countered the freakishness.
Season
2:
Here
we have a 3-loss season; a 1 pt loss @ Iowa, a 3 pt double OT loss @ ohio, and
a 1 pt loss to a 10th ranked FSU in what was basically a home game for
them. BUT, the loss @ ohio was courtesy of the third most egregious
officiating screw jobs in M football history. Thus, like the slime loss
in season 1, this is really not a loss that can be hung on the coach.
Even without the screw-job, a 3 pt double OT loss to a top team in their house
is hardly something that can be deemed a failure in any way.
The
loss to FSU in the bowl game SEEMED so horrible because it was our second
consecutive loss AND because we looked like shit in the 1st qtr, down 17-3.
We
beat the slime by 9 in their house, without the aid of freakishness.
Season
3:
Here
is where things start going down-hill. Based on the results of his first
2 years, it seemed reasonable to expect a marked improvement in his third
season, BUT NO. However, we did have to play the #2 and #5 teams away,
both resulting in losses, one being a humiliation. We lost to both the
slime and the suckeyes at home AND had a 14 to zip lead on the suckeyes....AT
HOME; and ended up losing by 11, so that was a terrible collapse....AT
HOME! Then, to cap it off, we lost to SC in the bowl game, and looked
like crap doing it, even though it was only by 7.
Season
4:
OK
M fans; this is our year. And it was.....UNTIL it wasn't. Yes the
ND loss no longer seems so bad, BUT we began the slow start trend that haunted
most of the rest of the games, falling behind 14-0 and 21-3.
We
didn't score against SMU....SMU ....AT HOME....until 7 min remained in the 2nd
qtr.
We
trailed NU 17-0.
Trailed
Maryland at home until 10 min remained in the 2nd qtr.
We
beat the slime and Wisky with ease, but were scoreless in both 1st qtrs.
We
destroyed R, but our first score was in the last seconds of the 1st qtr.
We
trailed IU (AT HOME) until 10 minutes to go in the 2nd qtr.
And
then the ohio disaster; where we never led, scored with 41 seconds left in the
half and gave up a FG before the half. It was effectively a 30-point
loss, as our final TD was garbage time.
Then
the destruction by F. The game was over by early in the 4th.
So
it sure feels like his first two seasons were more successful than his last
two, which is very disturbing. We just look bad far too often on both
sides of the ball.
Had
we managed to just be competitive against the suckeyes and lost by less than
10, we would have had a real case that we were the better team over the entire
season, as their loss to P was FAR worse than our loss to them, and they had
several games where they looked horrible and barely won, whereas we only had
one near loss and a one score loss to ND at their house.
Then
the F destruction to cap off the disgusting conclusion to what had been a very
good season, at least on paper if not from appearance.
After
watching LSU, I really don't want to hear the excuse of top players sitting
out. If Jimmy was as good as we expected, we should have enough depth by
now to overcome these things, at least to the point of not looking pathetic.
So
how do we get to the next level? It sure sounds like Jimmy is getting a
rep that is going to make recruiting more difficult. And based on his
first 4 seasons, his results were better with Fred's (Hoke) players than with
his own???
It
is all very perplexing and disturbing, from a trend standpoint, but I guess it
is also clear that three of the last four years were actually rather good
overall. I think that the timing of things is just very bad, in that it
is always painful to get worse and losing the last 2 games of every year
(except year 1), with several of those losses being embarrassments, makes the
losses more painful.
SuperFan – This is a great
summary and very close to a compilation I was starting to put together. I focused a little more on the QB
dilemma and tried to tie in the fact that in Harbaugh’s first two or three
seasons, he didn’t really have a QB. Ruddock developed tremendously in the first
season but was still arguably not a guy that was going to lead you to the
promised land. Speight in 2016 showed so
much promise for the future. The
injury to Speight in Season 3 (2017) was critical. I thought Speight could have been something
special but 2017 was another disaster after Speight went down and I really
thought this year with Patterson would be better. But First Season in a new (and somewhat
complicated) offense proved to be a test for Patterson at times. Can next year be different? Dunno…
I still think Michigan is recruiting better than just about everyone in the B1G with the exception of the STU. That may chance now that Mattison's gone...
I will say that the NC
game this season (and in the past) have re-inforced a narrative that is BEDROCK
in NCAA Football: Without a great QB,
you don’t have a even a whisper of a chance at winning the whole enchilada.
I agree that the “trend” of
the last two seasons is disturbing.
Losing the last game by double digits is a major, major issue. And one that needs to be looked at and
understood as to what exactly went wrong.
So if Patterson isn’t the guy,
I agree with you. Next man up and let’s see who’s
ready to be the new gun-slinger in Ann Arbor.
McCaffery or Milton – Whadaya’ got for us?
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