Michigan opened Big Ten play with a pair of victories this week, winning on the road at Wisconsin before escaping a late scare against Iowa. The Wolverines have matched their win total from last season and are off to a coveted 2-0 start in league play.
Dylan and Eric discuss some key takeaways from both games, potential issues still looming, and what’s most exciting about this team going forward.
The podcast is available everywhere you listen to podcasts (YouTube will be coming soon).
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Royalman10
For some reason this podcast really makes me want to buy paint at Lowe’s
eddieben
Regarding the chatter about Walters and his shot. Could it be as simple as he’s hurt and that’s effecting things? Had the wrap on his wrist, was listed as questionable. Hopefully as health improves he’ll go back to knocking some shots down. And he very much seems like a player whose defense is better in games when his shot is falling. I’m not giving up on the guy just yet.
DMB43
@umhoops and @eric_shap you guys talked about our defensive rebounding struggles and the reasoning behind it. Sorts of feels like there’s a hodgepodge of things contributing to it as you guys discussed. I had another thought that I’m curious to hear what you guys think. I am wondering if our average length of possessions on defense are contributing to this. Especially since the average possession length between offense and defense is so stark, our players are essentially playing a relatively substantial total amount of minutes more on defense than offense through the course of a season. Asking our players to defend and stick to the defensive principles for as long as we do might just take tons of exertion and lead to poor rebounding? Basically, asking a team to defend longer at such a high level is going to have to lead to some area of the defense underachieving.
I looked at some KenPom data to compare. Here’s a list of teams with their average defensive possession lengths equal to or even longer than Michigan’s and their DR%:
Maybe there is some validity to teams that have long defensive possessions and have a larger difference between defensive and offensive possession lengths struggle? Not sure, but maybe just another piece to the puzzle.
umhoops
So, the one thing you are missing in your analysis is that giving up a defensive rebound extends a possession.
So it isn’t that long defensive possessions lead to offensive rebounds allowed its that offensive rebounds allowed lead to long defensive possessions.
umhoops
Don’t think anyone said give up on the guy. Just that he needs to hit shots for this offense to reach its ceiling.