Happy Valentine’s Day!
8A — Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By LEV FACHER
Managing Editor
Muhammad-Ali
Abdur-
Rahkman’s missed attempt at a
buzzer-beating 3-pointer Sunday
afternoon at Indiana was emblem-
atic of the Michigan men’s basket-
ball team’s midseason malaise in
more ways than one.
Had the freshman guard’s shot
found its way in, the Wolverines
would have forced overtime. The
game continued Michigan’s trend
— with an ugly 72-54 loss to Iowa
on Feb. 5 serving as the excep-
tion — of taking high-profile Big
Ten opponents down to the wire
before faltering when it matters
most.
On Jan. 24, sophomore guard
Derrick Walton Jr., currently
confined to the bench with a foot
injury, hit a game-tying 3-pointer
to force overtime against Wiscon-
sin. The Badgers used the final
five minutes to take a five-point
lead, eventually pulling away for a
69-64 win.
On Feb. 1 in East Lansing, senior
forward Max Bielfeldt’s tip-in
forced overtime against Michigan
State. But Michigan couldn’t get
anything going in overtime and
lost, 76-66.
The 2014-15 Wolverines aren’t
as good as the 2013-14 squad for
many reasons, some more appar-
ent than others. On the surface,
the biggest issues stem from
the loss of Michigan’s two most
productive players this season:
Walton and junior guard Caris
LeVert. Losing three players to
the NBA — Glenn Robinson III,
Mitch McGary and Nik Stauskas
— hasn’t helped, either.
The Wolverines also suffer
from a general lack of size at the
forward spots, with 6-foot-6 soph-
omore Zak Irvin often forced to
play power forward and 6-foot-7
Max Bielfeldt getting substantial
minutes at the ‘5’ spot.
Below, the Daily breaks down
how those changes have manifest-
ed themselves numerically (many
of the numbers were calculated
by college basketball statistician
Ken Pomeroy), discussing five
key statistical categories in which
the Wolverines have improved,
regressed or maintained their
level of play from last season.
SHOOTING: As simple as it
seems, Michigan is losing games
it would have won in 2013-14
because the Wolverines aren’t
shooting the ball the way they
used to.
Last year, Michigan ranked
fourth nationally in 3-point shoot-
ing percentage, at 40.2 percent.
This season, the Wolverines are
ranked 155th in the category at
just 34.5 percent.
The drop-off from inside the
arc has been just as substantial.
The Wolverines’ 52.7 percent
field-goal shooting ranked 26th
nationally last season, but this
year, Michigan is converting on
just 46.3 of its attempts, good for
227th nationally out of 351 Divi-
sion I teams.
Given that the Wolverines rank
33rd in the country in
3-point attempts per
field goals attempted
(41.7 percent), it’s no
wonder the six-point
drop-off in conversion
rate from beyond the
arc is leading to severe
consequences.
That’s what losing
Stauskas did — now
playing for the NBA’s
Sacramento
Kings,
the Canadian stand-
out
attempted
208
3-pointers for Michi-
gan last season and
converted
on
44.2
percent of them.
TURNOVERS:
As much as Michigan
coach John Beilein’s squad has
seen offensive drop-off from last
year to the current one, turnovers
haven’t been the issue.
The 2013-14 Wolverines turned
the ball over on 14.8 percent of their
possessions, giving them the coun-
try’s 16th-lowest turnover rate.
This year’s team is lagging behind
slightly at 16.2 percent, but that fig-
ure still puts them at 26th nation-
ally. That’s impressive, especially
in light of the fact that Michigan is
currently starting two guards who
hadn’t had substantial experience
in college basketball prior to Janu-
ary: Abdur-Rahkman and fellow
freshman Aubrey Dawkins.
Defensively,
the
Wolverines
are actually forcing more turn-
overs than they did last season —
Michigan’s opponents are turning
the ball over on 20.6 percent of
their possessions, higher than the
national average of 19.5 percent.
Last year, the Wolverines ranked
245th nationally in forced-turn-
over rate, forcing their opponents
to cough the ball up on just 17.1
percent of possessions, compared
to the national average of 18.3.
BLOCKS:
The
Wolverines,
likely due to their smaller ros-
ter, are getting shots blocked at a
higher clip than they did last sea-
son. Michigan is getting stuffed
on 9.2 percent of its 2-point shot
attempts, compared to 8.4 percent
last season.
Worse, on defense, the Wolver-
ines rank 332nd in block percent-
age, making contact with just 5.3
percent of opponents’ attempts
from inside the arc. It wasn’t pret-
ty last year, either, but the 2013-14
team’s 6.3 percent block rate put it
substantially closer to the national
average.
Beyond the roster’s smaller size
is its inexperience — while last
year, the bulk of Michigan’s min-
utes at the ‘5’ came from veterans
like Jordan Morgan and Jon Hor-
ford, inexperienced players have
accounted for most of the playing
time in the low post this season.
PACE: Beilein’s teams are noto-
rious for taking their time on the
offensive end — the Wolverines
currently have an average offen-
sive possession length of 20.4
seconds. That’s seven-tenths of
a second higher than last year’s
figure, which isn’t a substantial
difference. Both this year and last,
Michigan spent roughly two more
seconds on each possession than
the national average.
BENCH MINUTES: Perhaps
least surprising of all, Michigan is
asking for roughly one-third more
minutes from its bench this year as
compared to 2013-14. The Wolver-
ine bench currently accounts for
33.3 percent of Michigan’s total
minutes played — last season, it
made up for just 25 percent. That
brings Michigan in line with the
national average of 32.5 percent.
That figure is also deceptively
low, as Abdur-Rahkman, Dawkins
and even junior guard Spike
Albrecht — who leads Michigan’s
active scorers — might not be fix-
tures in the starting lineup were
it not for the injuries to LeVert
and Walton. Effectively, the vast
majority of the Wolverines’ min-
utes are going to players who were
expected to come off the bench as
of early January.
52.7%
46.3%
14.8%
16.2%
17.1%
20.6%
8.4%
9.2%
6.3%
5.3%
25%
33.3%
SHOOTING
SHOOTING
TURNOVERS
BLOCKED SHOTS
PACE
BENCH MINUTES
TURNOVERS
2013-14
SEASON
2014-15
SEASON
BLOCKED SHOTS
PACE
BENCH MINUTES
3-POINT
FIELD-GOAL
COMMITTED (% POSS.)
FORCED (% POSS.)
‘M’ SHOT ATTEMPTS
OPPONENT SHOT ATTEMPTS
% OF TEAM MINUTES PLAYED
19.7 SEC
40.2%
34.5%
20.4 SEC
AVERAGE OFFENSIVE POSSESION LENGTH
infographic by Emily Schumer
‘M’ by the numbers
MEN’S BASKETBALL