Your 8-1 #14th ranked Michigan Wolverines take on Coach Cal's 7-2 and just outside the top 25, Arkansas Razorbacks. Tonight 9pm est in Madison Square Garden. ESPN. Michigan -3.5
Before we get into the specifics about this game, I think this is a good time to look at where Michigan excels and where we have room for improvement. I also put that this is a 4 game season in the title. We have 4 games left before we get back into conference play. At a minimum we must go 2-2 to stay on track. 3-1 in this stretch and we may sneak into the top 10. 4-0 and we may sneak into the top 5. We have an exciting 3 weeks of basketball ahead of us and it starts tonight.
Part 1:
Michigan through 9 games The Good: (Rankings based out of 364 D1 Teams)
Michigan through 9 games The Bad: (Rankings based out of 364 D1 Teams)
How are we 8-1? Defense travels. It's no more complicated than that. Usually at this level, it takes to around Christmas break to have sound defensive rotations, especially with this many new faces. We started the year off with Sound Defensive rotations. That's an incredible accomplishment by Dusty. I'm in awe of it. We rarely "Over-help." Everyone trusts their teammates to do their jobs. If we can cut down our turnovers and say, get our rankings into the mid to low 200's in that category, pencil us in for a sweet 16 at a minimum.
Part 2 on deck:
Before we get into the specifics about this game, I think this is a good time to look at where Michigan excels and where we have room for improvement. I also put that this is a 4 game season in the title. We have 4 games left before we get back into conference play. At a minimum we must go 2-2 to stay on track. 3-1 in this stretch and we may sneak into the top 10. 4-0 and we may sneak into the top 5. We have an exciting 3 weeks of basketball ahead of us and it starts tonight.
Part 1:
Michigan through 9 games The Good: (Rankings based out of 364 D1 Teams)
- Opponents pts per game 63.1, Michigan ranks #23rd
- Opponents assists per game 8.3, Michigan ranks #4th
- Opponents Assists per turnover, Michigan ranks #2nd
- Opponents are shooting 41.7% from two against Michigan which puts us at #8th
- Opponents are shooting overall 37.3% against Michigan which puts us at #10th
- Opponents are snagging only 18 defensive rebounds per game which ranks Michigan #9th
- Michigan is holding opponents to 31 second half points which puts Michigan at #7th
- Michigan averages 5.2 blocks per game ranking us #22nd
- Michigan is shooting the ball 60.7% from 2 which ranks #9th (Makes sense with two 7 footers starting)
- Michigan is shooting the ball 50% from the field which ranks us #21
Michigan through 9 games The Bad: (Rankings based out of 364 D1 Teams)
- Free Throw Percentage 68.7% ranks us #259th
- We only make 13.3 free throws a game which ranks us #216th
- We only rebound on 70.7% of our opponents misses which ranks us #239th
- We average 15.1 turnovers which ranks us #336th
- We turn it over on 18.3% of our possessions which ranks us #326th
How are we 8-1? Defense travels. It's no more complicated than that. Usually at this level, it takes to around Christmas break to have sound defensive rotations, especially with this many new faces. We started the year off with Sound Defensive rotations. That's an incredible accomplishment by Dusty. I'm in awe of it. We rarely "Over-help." Everyone trusts their teammates to do their jobs. If we can cut down our turnovers and say, get our rankings into the mid to low 200's in that category, pencil us in for a sweet 16 at a minimum.
Part 2 on deck:
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