Our Michigan Wolverine basketball team faces its first true test of this young season against one of the most athletic teams in the nation. Michigan is now 3-0, all home games vs very weak schools where we never looked consistent or comfortable. Memphis is 1-0 with a win against Belmont (who is one of the smaller schools who will make noise in the tournament again this year). Even though we have 3 wins compared to the Tiger's 1, that 1 win is more impressive than all 3 of ours. So, basically all of the chips are against us, and even though we are only rated a few spots below Memphis... this game has a feeling of us vs Duke in last years NCAA tournament. Lets jump into the preview:
Memphis is an up tempo team that would like to score 300 points in a game if they could (97 in the first game). They have a crazy athletic back court led by sophomore Will Barton. He is a high volume scorer that is capable of putting up around 25 points. With the quick pace of the Tigers offense, it allows Barton to drive to the hoop as much as he wants and this results in many trips to the free throw line. Another tough matchup in this game is against the 6'9" Wesley Witherspoon, he plays guard and forward and might be there best shooter (8-8 in game 1, 3-3 from Beilein land), he also is Memphis' best rebounder. It will be very important to keep him off of the offensive glass. The Tigers' coach is very young and is following in his mentors footsteps of collecting as many one-and-done players as possible. This results in a ton of young talent. I dont expect Memphis to make the Final Four when the real tournament comes along because I think they will make too many mistakes. This year's Memphis team will lose Barton to the NBA, Witherspoon graduating, and the crazy talented freshman Adonis Thomas.
After writing all of that, it is tough to see how many teams can match up with this quick scoring machine, especially our team which is still filled with quite a few slow gumpy dudes. But actually, Coach Beilein's style of play is EXACTLY the type that can compete with a run and gun team. The only way to beat a team like this is to slow down their pace of play. It is the easiest way to get Memphis uncomfortable and out of a rythm. Michigan would like a game in the 50s, while Memphis just wants to outscore you. Another part of the run and gun style, especially with young players, is turnovers. Memphis will be susceptible to many turnovers and "freshman mistakes," while a Beilein coached team is usually in the top 10 of turnover difference and total turnovers by the end of the year (this was even true in seasons where he lost a lot of games). The key for our success today will be to make all of those turnovers count for easy points on our end. I am guessing Memphis will end up with 15-20 turnovers, and from these we need to average about 1.5 points per TO (20-30 points).
Key matchup: The battle of the young guards... Trey Burke vs Will Barton. Barton is easily more talented and NBA ready than Burke at this point, but Burke is the one that will need to control the tempo of the entire game. If Trey can limit his turnovers against this high pressure defensive team, our offensive efficiency will go up and we will get some open jump shots. It will be important to keep Barton on the perimeter, since he is a drive first player and his shot is not as developed as some. Keeping Barton from the paint will also keep him from the line. Burke also has to stretch the Memphis defense like he has all season by knocking down his open looks. We will be pretty competitive if Burke and Barton cancel each other out in terms of points, so that will most likely mean Barton only scores 13 (10 below his average). The other key matchup is Smot vs Witherspoon. Smot cant come close to guarding this cat man to man, but he can box him out. If Smot can control the boards like a player his size should be doing, we can limit the 2nd chance points for Memphis.
Prediction: On paper it looks like this Michigan team is outmatched at every position on the floor, and while that might be true I have seen this team do near impossible things last year. Michigan might need to drop into their standard 1-3-1 zone often to keep Memphis from getting to the rim off the dribble, if this happens the important part is rebounding out of the zone which Michigan struggles to do at times. I am expecting (or hoping) for Burke to have a huge game (13 points, 6 assists, most importantly 2 TO's, while limiting the Memphis guards to under 20 points). It will be interesting to see how Memphis defends the pick and roll offense, and I think they will be overly aggressive, leaving us with some easy buckets. While in reality Memphis will likely pull away with a 68-60 win... I have to root for my Maize and Blue to come out on top with a 63-61 victory thanks to Timmy Jr hitting a huge 3 to win it. That would be nice!
Well enjoy the first week day of Ohio week, please do all you can to throw away any red, wear maize, or prepare yourselves for victory on Saturday.
Until then Go Blue!
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