The Moving Screen is a podcast collaboration with The Athletic’s Brendan Quinn. We’ll be tackling Michigan, Michigan State and Big Ten basketball at large with a blend of rational analysis and hot takes.
Michigan State had a great week but lost another starter to an injury. We make sense of what Nick Ward’s injury means for the Spartans over the next few weeks.
Michigan bounced back from a bad loss at Penn State with a comfortable home win over Maryland. The conversation focuses on Jon Teske and Jordan Poole ahead of a Thursday night game at Minnesota.
Listen to “Ep 18: Storylines galore as mega-matchup looms” on Spreaker.
Timestamps:
(01:35) What does Nick Ward’s injury mean for Michigan State?
(15:11) Michigan beats Maryland, what to make of Jon Teske and Jordan Poole?
(29:58) Big Ten Power Rankings
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JJ3
On Nick Ward; not having him makes Teske’s life less strenuous on defense. Also prevents MSU from pounding it inside to get M in foul trouble. Ward was really MSU’s only low post threat. Tillman is a nice player but a low post threat he is not. As a great coach once said; “Where’s the threat”
Defending Cassius Winston; Make Winston a finisher in the lane. If Winston scores 30 and Goins, McQuaid, and Ahrens get minimal catch and shoot threes, is winning basketball. Winston is a fantastic shooter. Need to make him drive and finish when he has the ball. Better still if he doesn’t have the ball and someone else has to score or distribute.
Winston reminds me a little of Bobby Hurley in his Duke days. Hurley would kill M with dribble drives, draw two defenders, and distribute, or shooting top of the key 3’s. Hurley was not so great at the rim. I have similar thoughts on WInston.
On Pod you guys said M’s offense was a mess or something similar to that. I disagree. I think the offense is fine but shooting has been a mess. Uncommonly bad. Unsustainably bad. Beilein has said he has no answer other than taking open shots and making them. I agree. Have to ride this bad stretch out. Hope it ends at Minnesota. We’ve seen it before; Irvin’s senior year slump, Duncan Robinson last year, and there are others.
UMHoopsFan
Nice work, these pods are good stuff. And can’t accuse Dylan of just saying what the fans want to hear.
This is pretty much how I see it, too. I think it’s Dylan who said there are still open looks being generated. Easy to forget that on the season the team is basically an average 3pt shooting team (34%), that Poole is shooting 38%. Sure, the shots might not fall (as they failed to in most of the NCAAs last year), but it’s still an excellent place to be with the floor the defense provides and the upside still there on offense.
JBmoney
I actually think they ran some of the best offense in a while against Maryland. Crisp, good ball movement, extra passes, etc. Especially early.
umhoops
The offense can be running as efficiently as possible, but if you can’t make shots it is a mess. A mess probably isn’t the best word – did I say it on the pod or are you summarizing?
– but the offense is the weakness of this team. Specifically jump shooting and that’s becoming “messy” mentally IMO.
I agree that it is creating open shots, but all signs point toward Michigan not being very good at making open jump shots. Now obviously even bad shooting teams make shots sometimes, but the shooting has been pretty bad and we are a long way into the season.
It isn’t like John Beilein is going to forget how to coach offense. Obviously he can get Michigan open shots, but if they don’t fall then Michigan’s offense is going to be its Achilles’ heel.
UMHoopsFan
It’s pretty much the same offense as last year. For comparison, each of our last 3 games AdjO would have been the second best performance of the NCAA tourney run last year.