THE ESSENTIALS

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan has already replayed three of its four most respectable wins of this season. The 90-75 romp in Minnesota became a sleepy, too-close 60-56 Sunday in Crisler. Blowouts at home over Maryland (81-46) and Penn State (79-69) were flipped into indefensible 64-58 and 83-61 road embarrassments. The Torvik Game Score margins in those three replays (out of 100): –50, –43, and –74.

Due to the nature of road basketball, Michigan arrives in Evanston as even bigger dogs than they were against #1 Purdue at home. Their 85-78 victory a few weeks ago proves they can come away from this one with a sweep and their first Q1 victory of the season. They also could very well ruin the last good thing from their Big Ten season.

That was the game where Jett couldn't miss from three (or make from two), Chase Audige was held to 3/14 from the floor, and 7-foot rim protector Matthew Nicholson was outrebounded by Tarris Reed. There was a stretch of a gazillion turnovers and some strikingly efficient minutes from the gumps on Northwestern's bench in the first half, but if you told me one of these teams would come into the second meeting among the AP poll's "others receiving votes"…well, I'd have still said Northwestern because their next three games were Wisconsin, Minnesota, and at Nebraska.

The Wildcats did get Iowa'd at Carver-Hawkeye on Tuesday, so they're also a little tired. Keeping Jett hot remains the key keeping up with Northwestern's RNG-based offense, and avoiding yet another sloppy second.

THE US

My graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Michigan got Jett Howard back, though even he couldn't keep up with Penn State pooping out 83 points on 63 shot equivalents.

THE LINEUP CARD

My graphic [click for big]:

Note that Northwestern is the other team that benefits from MSU-like assist rate inflation at home; knock about 30% off of those assist rates to get something more comparable to the charts you normally see.

Julian Roper II has missed Northwestern's last three games with an ankle injury. The prediction when it happened was he'd be back for Iowa on Tuesday or Michigan on Thursday, but as of Tuesday even a Thursday return seemed a bit dubious. Brooks Barnhizer has been filling in. Grow-a-stretch true freshman C Luke Hunger wasn't going to factor much.

The only other difference in the team sheet is I've downgraded Northwestern's defense to this guy (Memo) from this guy (Data) because their defensive efficiency has actually fallen below their offensive efficiency. Iowa is still kings at refusing two's.

[After THE JUMP: Still them.]

THE THEM

[Campredon]

This is another return game so you can go read the first preview to get an overview of the roster. Updates:

• PG Boo Buie is a shoot-from-anywhere bricker. He creates the majority of those shots himself, but few of them go in—he's 1/12 from two and 12/54(!!!) from three on stepback jumpers this season. Buie's bad aim actually generates more offensive rebounds than they should have because they're so often caroming back out to the perimeter. If they're going in it's just not your night.
• SG Ty Berry is another lengthy jump-shooter whose 3P% might be higher if more of them were open, as evidenced by his 6/12 night against Nebraska. In the other four games since our last preview he's only taken five.
• SF Chase Audige is Buie but taller and more insane. He's also drawing fouls at an insane rate lately, and keyed the Northwestern comeback against Michigan by coming away with five steals. Most of his shots are bad ones, but he's good enough at making them to give the Northwestern offense a decent floor. Changing the arc tends to alter the math; he was 7/19 from the floor (1/5 from three) on Tuesday with Kris Murray on him, and 3/14 (2/7 from three) against Jett Howard and Michigan.
• PF Robbie Beran hasn't had a turnover since January 8th. He's an opportunistic scorer and Michigan's historically dealt with him using their center, but Beran did better against Dickinson last matchup than he had previously. NW used him as a small five during their 19 pts in 4.5 minutes offensive explosion in the latter part of the first half, and he went on a personal 5-0 run after that.
• C Matthew Nicholson is a pure rim protector. Michigan tried to hid Terrance Williams II on him last time but TW got outworked so badly he got pulled for most of the game. Michigan had some success with their two-bigs lineup because Nicholson could only guard one, and Reed had no trouble guarding Nicholson. Northwestern will have a plan for that now.

Bench updates:

• Northwestern had a short bench before they lost Roper. Brooks Barnhizer has stepped into the 6th man role but that's just added another guy who takes and misses everything. The guy with the hateable bowl cut scored an infuriating 10 points (plus 2 assists) against Michigan but any Barnhizer attempt that's not at the rim is a win for the defense.
• Big Tydus Verhoeven was 1 rebound away from a 9 trillion in the box score vs Michigan.  He's a back-to-the basket 6'9" guy they don't really want to use against larger frontcourts.

THE TEMPO FREE

Buie's been drawing a lot of contact this year. [Campredon]

Now that they've had another five conference games added there have been a few interesting shifts in two-point land.

Nicholson will still block everything at the rim, but everyone else is going for turnovers—they're up to 26th in the country in steals (and 4th in preventing them). Northwestern has improved their shooting somewhat in Big Ten play, but their gorgeous defensive numbers from the nonconference have come way back down to Earth. For one, neither Nicholson nor Beran can defend the perimeter, and failed attempts steals lead to a lot of open threes.

The bigger issue is the effect of Nicholson's rim protection has not held up in the Big Ten; they're now 11th/14 in conference play at defending 2s, down to 4th in the conference in block rate, last in effective FG%, and giving up more assists than anybody in the country. This has largely been an effect of drawing Nicholson away from the basket with small lineups; Synergy now has him defending more spot up possessions than post-ups & Isos combined, which wasn't even true two weeks ago. Hunter only tried one three last time we met but they might explore more of that this time since the doubles he was trying to fight through seemed to bother him.

On offense, the one thing that's been going for them in-conference is Big Ten refs love the Wildcats nearly as much as they despise Michigan hockey. The league is known for swallowing whistles in general, but Northwestern's FT/FGA rate is over 36% against Big Ten opponents; next-highest Iowa more the 5 points lower. Even more interestingly, those extra free throws are almost all going to the guards. Boo Buie, a 90% free throw shooter, is taking 3 free throws for every 8 field goal attempts in conference play this year, which is triple his nonconference rate. On defense, their team foul rate has, like many Big Ten teams, dropped off a cliff, but again at Northwestern that's been disproportionately shifted to the guards. Nicholson's foul rate is actually way up in conference play, while those of conference vets Buie, Beran, and Chase Audige, who's leading the conference with 4.7 steals per game (5.8 in Tier A games) have decreased by 40 percent or more. My guess is this is one of those unseen bonuses of low turnover; the players are familiar with the officials and vice versa.

THE KEYS

Maybe stretch them a bit more? [Campredon]

Bombs over Baghdad. Northwestern can summon at best three rim protectors, none of whom can get to Jett's launch point.

Throw Your Hands Up. When a team is taking bad shots all you can do is make them worse shots, and rebound.

What About Your Friends. Dug and Kobe combined for 8 of Michigan's 18 turnovers by getting stuck on Northwestern's press and trying to do too much in the lane. They'll have a better plan this time than letting the young guards figure it out.

Players' Ball. Reed had another three of those turnovers, but also 8 boards and a couple of dunks in his 18 minutes because Northwestern couldn't put their one big on both of Michigan's. Cut down on the turnovers and two-big is playable.

High Schoolin. Don't be the unlucky team that gets the night when the silly Buie/Audige shots are all going down. Luck's been bad enough without adding a 22% shooter taking over the game.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Northwestern by 5.