THE ESSENTIALS

Fran McCaffrey is absolutely correct about Big Ten officiating.

THE US

Michigan overcame the Trohl Center in their most recent outing, and now they get the platonic opposite of the deliberate, steady, clang-tastic Badgers. Michigan's offense continue to oscillate between clobberin' and clobbered, with little in between. This is going to have to be a clobberin' outing, what with Iowa's miserable defense and excellent offense.

This is Michigan's last should-win of the season, with a home game against a very good OSU team next and then two road games against high NIT seeds to finish the season. Losing this one would be a bleah lead in to crunch time.

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

THE THEM

Tyler Cook: very good at basketball, CRAZY EYES

This is a fairly typical Iowa team in that they have an enormous fleet of tall guys and a bench that never ends. There is one rotation player shorter than 6'4", point-guard-type-substance Jordan Bohannon. There are only two other guys outside the gray shorter than 6'7". And as far as that bench goes: three Iowa "starters" average under 60% of available minutes; the rotation goes legitimately 11 deep with guys getting at least eight minutes a game.

It's also a fairly typical Fran McCaffrey team in that their offense is better than their defense, but rarely has the gap been so stark. Iowa enters this game with Kenpom's #28 offense... and its #248 defense. That's the next section, mostly, but keep it in mind as we run down a squad that's got legitimately intimidating offensive stats: they are 3-11 in conference for a reason that individual stats largely fail to cover.

Anyway. Back to Bohannon: despite being miscast as a point guard by virtue of being the only short guy on the roster, he's coping pretty well. He's got a top 100 assist rate and is a knock-down shooter (44%) from deep, on high volume. He's also an 89% FT shooter. His main weakness is that if you can force him off the line without opening up an assist, he's hitting 41% from two. Hopefully Simpson will be able to force Bohannon into those two pointers that don't go so well.

I-guess-we'll-call-him-a-shooting-guard Isaiah Moss is a similar player at 6'5". He's not as good of a 3P shooter but he's pretty good (38%); he's fairly dire inside the line. The main difference between Moss and Bohannon is the frequency with which Moss ventures inside: 60% of Moss's shots are twos that he hits at 43%. Bohannon takes two thirds of his shots from deep. Moss does not offset this with additional foul calls because he does not drive to get to the rim; he drives to set up pull up jumpers. He's actually very good at them (42%), but those are bad shots. Somehow they're better than his shots at the rim.

Michigan's defense will be playing well if Moss and Bohannon are getting a lot of usage from two.

It will not be playing well if PF Tyler Cook is getting the lion's share of usage inside the arc. You probably remember Cook from the first matchup. If you do not remember the guy who went 10/15 from the floor and 8/11 from the line, please seek medical attention. Cook is a dude, a high-usage, high-efficiency post who is constantly fouled. He's eh from the line (66%) and isn't a shooter, but he's a rebound vacuum at both ends and is not a person Mo Wagner can check without help, probably.

Those three guys all play at least 60% of Iowa's minutes and have defined roles. The rest of the roster isn't so much two starters and a bench as it is five dudes who all play 16-20 minutes a game.

Freshman post Luka Garza is inching towards 24 minutes a game as the season progresses and is the most starter-ish of the five; he is a 6'11" guy with a top 50 OREB rate, a Beilein-worthy TO rate, and 24% usage who is shooting 59% from two and has a little bit of stretch in him. Like many freshman posts he can have issues with foul trouble, but if you close your eyes and ignore Iowa's defensive stats Garza looks like the next star center in the league.

Nicholas Baer, Cordell Pemsl, and Jack Nunge, and Maishe Dailey are the 16-minutes-a-game brigade. Nunge is the backup center (ish—Cook fills that role on O when Garza is out); he's another near-seven-foot freshman with three point range. His main issue right now is rebounding, and how he doesn't do it on defense.

Pemsl is a burly PF sort who vacuums in rebounds and wants nothing more than to pound your face in at the rim. He's not a shot creator; he's the guy dunking on you after someone else forces your help defense to rotate. Baer is similar; he's not quite as much of a DREB beast but he hits the offensive boards and is a defensive pest. Unfortunately for him he's a 30% three point shooter who takes most of his shots from out there.

Dailey is 6'7" and gets classified as the backup PG by Kenpom because he does not OREB. He's not much of an A:TO guy. He is another 40% three point shooter whose efficiency collapses inside the line.

An astounding six other guys show up on Kenpom, but none of them have seen more than 4 minutes a game over Iowa's last five games, so they're unlikely to have a big impact. FWIW, Brady Ellingson is guard sized at 6'4" and has hit 40% from three in limited opportunities so far. The other fringe guys are bad at offense.

THE TEMPO-FREE

So: those defensive numbers. The raw numbers look insane to anyone used to Beilein ball, and then you check the tempo. Iowa is 70th in adjusted tempo nationally, and if they had their druthers it would be a heck of a lot faster. They're 32nd on offense, by far the fastest team in the plodding Big Ten. (The B10 is 30th of 32 conferences in tempo.)

But those OREBs come at a price. Iowa's giving up 59% eFG in transition and has a big chunk of their defense (21%) in that phase. Michigan, by contrast, is at 47% eFG. 

Iowa's other main issue is preventing shots from the good bits of the floor. Compare it to Michigan's system, which is making chicken salad nightly. The following  chart is a breakdown of where opponent shots come from:

That 3 point number isn't that bad, it's average. The rim number is.

Iowa's other other main issue: forcing turnovers. They're in the 300s in that department, and since they're mediocre at DREBs the opposition gets a lot of shots up. Those shots are at the rim or from three, and opponents tend to make those shots.

This probably has something to do with Iowa having just one guard on the roster, and that guy is Jordan Bohannon. For all of Bohannon's many assets, being able to stay in front of people is not one of them.

On the bright side for the Hawkeyes, their offense is a beautiful thing, with a top-ten assist rate nationally, excellent shooting from both two and three, and a near-clobbering OREB rate. Clean up your turnovers and Iowa's O could be top ten. And since Iowa is 333rd in experience this year and returns literally everyone except Dom Uhl... oh no I've just talked myself into "Iowa's going to be good next year" again.

THE KEYS

Repeat your DREB performance from game one. Iowa's nonstop board assault didn't amount to much at Carver-Hawkeye; they managed to grab seven of their misses, 23%. Michigan was just one OREB behind. That is a big W against the #1 OREB team in the conference. Nothing since has indicated that was a fluke.

Help Mo. Wagner had a dud of a game in the previous matchup, scoring four points on six shot attempts and turning it over twice. He got a brutal matchup against Cook, which didn't go well on the defensive end and may have hurt him on offense. He got just 16 minutes. Michigan played Teske and Mo together in the last game for a little bit and that could be a way to get him an easier matchup, especially if Garza is off the floor.

The other thing Michigan might consider is doubling off of miscellaneous Iowa guys who aren't Bohannon or Moss. Cook's assist rate is just okay, and he offset his offensive performance in the previous game with four turnovers.

Z is gonna give it to Bohannon. The previous game was Simpson's breakout: 15 points on 10 shot equivalents, seven assists, no turnovers. Bohannon cannot stay in front of him, and once the Iowa defense starts rotating bad things happen for them. Simpson's usage has to hit 20% here, and his hockey usage* should be even higher.

*[A term I just made up that gives credit to the guy who unbalanced the defense and caused the rotation that led to an assist, even if that wasn't the most recent pass.]

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 11.