On basketball, Crisler, and atmosphere

I went to last night's Michigan/NC State matchup on a whim. I was sitting in a class that runs until 7 pm, concerned about leaving early so that I could drive home and watch the whole game, when I realized that I was in Ann Arbor and there might be some tickets available on Craigslist. Then I remembered it was Michigan basketball and there were probably seats available on the official site. There were. Pretty good seats, too. There's not a whole lot I can tell you about the game that you can't gather by watching it: Nik Stauskas is a sharp shooter who can't play defense yet, Tim Hardaway Jr. has--mostly--accepted his role as a slashing 2-guard, Trey Burke is a magician with the basketball, and the big men are underwhelming but they work hard.

The stadium is beautiful and feels like a pro arena. There are escalators and waterfall fixtures and glass facades and poor wayfinding. And when the team was introduced after warmups, the lights dropped and this happened:


At some point in the last 3 months, someone in the athletic department had to arrange a time with Tim Hardaway in order to film him screaming into a camera. This is where Michigan basketball is at.

The Michigan blogging community is pretty disheartened by the Crisler experience. There's pump up videos and t-shirt cannons and free pizza giveaways and the problem is that this is not Michigan basketball. But you want to know what was actually missing from Crisler last night? Flames. Giant fucking flames shooting out of the scoreboard that you can feel hundreds of yards away during player introductions.

Basketball is a game about style. That's how this happens


and this


Since Beilein came to Michigan, I was never his biggest fan. He doesn't didn't recruit the players that I like to watch and the players that I think are true game changers. His results spoke for themselves, but basketball is a beautiful game and Michigan was playing and winning in ugly ways. With this edition of the team, that's all changed. This made me literally jump off my couch:


Michigan doesn't have a basketball culture. I know that because I bought tickets against a ranked opponent a mere hours before tip. I know that because the people that did come to the stadium last night were comatose, except maybe for the high school kid sitting next to me in a Tim Hardaway jersey that was tucked into a pair of basketball shorts. (Question for That Kid: Did you come dressed like that? Where's your coat? It was cold out.) The problem with the Crisler experience is not that they play Lil Jon tracks for literally three seconds after a Let's-Go-Blue chant. It's that they wasted time with the Let's-Go-Blue chant in the first place.

The Big House has long been known as the quietest 110,000 people in the world. That's not a mistake: with a relatively old fanbase, you get a student section (sometimes) filled with screaming co-eds and then the geriatrics who like to sit around fill the rest of the stadium. When you have 15,000-20,000 students yelling in unison, you can at least mask the poor showing from the rest of the crowd. With a capacity of 12,000 fans, Crisler arena is not so forgiving. But it's not quiet because people come and don't care about the team; the difference in volume from the crowd between The Victors and literally any other chant is embarrassing. It's quiet because there's never been a culture of Michigan fans screaming a slur of obscenities at an opposing player as he sits on the bench. To complain about a lack or destruction of an arena/experience/environment, there has to be something to destroy.

Some of this is the fault of the athletic department. The student section is relatively small save for overflow areas that are up in the rafters behind the baskets. With only a half of the student section able to really cheer in unison, you're basically killing any chance for an intimidating environment. But you can't fault Dave Brandon for not sacrificing the best seats in the house to put more drunk, probably late students. This is the equivalent of moving the student section in the Big House to mid-field, which is insanity. But this also makes building any kind of culture basically impossible. The best chant the student section could muster when NC State was at the foul line was "You're gonna miss it". Really? "You're gonna miss it" is the very best we can come up with?

The problem is, in the modern era, any Michigan basketball culture that's worth remembering has been explicitly forgotten. The Fab Five, for better or worse, have defined what Michigan basketball is for the last 20 years or at least should have. That was a team that typified style and culture, but most importantly talented, winning basketball. But they were also as far from a college experience as you could get.

Last night, Michigan basketball ran a ranked opponent out of the building, despite the closer-than-actual final score. Sometime in the second half incensed by the fans' lethargy and invigorated by the play on the court, Tim Hardaway Jr bounced down the court asking the fans to finally get on their feet. They did, but that takes balls. "I want more from you." It also takes balls to throw alley-oops in traffic. This is Michigan basketball now, the only Michigan basketball that matters.

Walking into the stadium, I commented to my friend that I've always wanted an NBA team to sell-out on style and skip the campy "YMCA"s in favor of playing "Hustlin" during every timeout. The Jay-Z owned Brooklyn Nets are my great hope. Now Michigan is inching toward that goal. Keep the band around for The Victors and halftime, but the crowd is clearly not responding to their calls for cheers. Crisler stadium will never be Assembly Hall or the Dean Smith Center. It's a pro arena.

We've been here before. The 2012 recruiting class is not the Fab Five, but they might take Michigan to the same heights without, ya know, all the cheating and improper benefits. Embrace the culture that's budding here. Crisler will also never be Yost or the Big House, places that will always do better what bloggers are calling for and what Crisler is half-heartedly doing. You can build a unique culture that doesn't include unenthused fans muttering out chants and it starts with the play on the court.

We've been here before

This would have been up yesterday, but I spent the entire day driving back from Chicago on a MegaBus which said it had WiFi but definitely did not have WiFi.
Michigan 21 - Ohio 26

Daniel Brenner | AnnArbor.com

And so it finally, unmercifully, comes to an end. After two years of miserable playcalling, shoddy quarterback play, and more turnovers than you can shake a stick at, Michigan can finally say goodbye to Denard Robinson, he going out exactly the way he played: turning the ball over on a crucial drive. Al Borges will take the blame for the playcalling in this game, but he's not the one giving the ball away on three second-half drives. He's not the dual-threat senior quarterback that in his third year as a starter doesn't know how to protect the ball. But he is the one that's telling the Buckeyes exactly what's going to happen just by the personnel on the field.

I can understand Borges' thinking on playcalls in this game. I spent most of the weekend playing darts at various bars around Chicago. When you're an amateur playing another amateur in Cricket, there's a very specific strategy you should employ to ensure the best possible results: aim for the bullseye. The logic shows that with natural variance and drift on your shots, you're just a likely to hit one of the six other numbers you're supposed to, reducing rounds that you don't mark at all and optimizing your ability to get lucky. I don't throw this way despite my status as Amateur. If you're relying on noise, you'll never truly get better; push yourself to do the hard stuff and eventually it'll come naturally.

Unfortunately for Michigan, Denard and Devin on the field at the same time is not noise as Borges likely thinks of it (trick plays that are just as likely to get you zero yards as 60). Against OSU, Borges was throwing at the triple 20 over and over again and kept hitting triple 1. If you can hit your spot every time (say, running under-center power on third and three), there's no problem attacking that spot repeatedly, but Borges needs to accept that the status of his offensive line and running backs is not such that you can confidently rely on. Take the yards where you can get them and play your best strategy.

It was hard to watch this game and see Michigan's players just continually beaten, both physically and mentally. Stephen Hopkins was abhorrent and played perhaps the worst game I've ever seen from a fullback. The offensive line was tossed around like ragdolls. Michigan's corners completely unable to guard anyone and JT Floyd getting turned around like he did against Penn State two years ago. At times, this was men against boys, something I had thought was extinct after how well the team had played the last two years.

So now there's a bowl game left, but it feels like a punishment more than a reward. I don't want to watch this football team play another game. I'm tired of seeing the offensive line lost and unfit to play with the elite. I'm tired of Denard Robinson. I'm tired of JT Floyd. I'm tired of not having a viable running back on the roster. We're officially ushering a new era after this season: Borges will get his passing-capable QB, Hoke gets his offensive line of fridges with feet, the secondary rids itself of its most inadequate piece, and the more time that passes, the further we get from Rich Rodriguez's recruiting disasters.

2013 will hold better things for a Michigan team that was probably a lot better than its record showed. Having even a remedial offense coupled with an all-world defense is the way that LSU and Notre Dame and Alabama have won national championships in the recent past. They were bolstered by an excellent running game, the likes of which Michigan can't match, but perhaps the new offensive linemen will be a revelation. I'm excited for the future of this team, but I'm tired of where they've stalled this season.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

Bullets

• Lawdy lord, the defense. This defense rules. I cannot wait to see them in the future. They bend-don't-break'ed an offense that if you're bending, you're typically breaking. Jake Ryan's ability to stay with Braxton Miller's jukes in space is a revelation. Have fun on Sunday's sweet prince.
• Howeva, the defensive line was struggling to hold up against double teams the way they had in previous weeks. That allowed OSU offensive linemen to release to the second level and seal off Michigan's linebackers. That ended poorly for Michigan and well for Carlos Hyde.
• The Wolverine defense will get way better without JT Floyd, though. His weakness as a cover corner significantly limits Mattison's schemes. Next year we should see the defense take another step up when Mattison feels confident leaving Countess and Taylor out on islands.
• No seriously, Stephen Hopkins was horrible. How he isn't smart enough to play fullback, I'll never know.
• Devin finally came back down to earth. One of the main reasons is that the OSU defensive line play gap-sound and didn't allow him to break the pocket much. Gardner had no where to run on drop backs, something that they clearly gameplanned for.
• Speaking of stopping QB scrambles: I hate rushing only two defensive linemen on third-and-long. That never seems to work. It allows the opposing quarterbacks to sit in the pocket and receivers to find holes in the zone defense which always develop with enough time. I think I remember Michigan doing this twice and neither time did it provide any results. Mattison, stick with your gut: blitz from one side of the field and force a scramble into your zone defenders like you've done all year.

Preview: Ohio 2012

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#19 Michigan vs. Ohio

Ohio Stadium, Columbus, OH

Kickoff 12:00 pm EST

ABC

Forecast: High-30s, 0% chance of rain 

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Last week
Ohio State 21 - Wisconsin 14 (OT). Ohio State continued its meaningless undefeated season last week by beating Wisconsin in overtime. Wisconsin's third starting quarterback this season, Curt Phillips, acquitted himself well by completing 14 of 25 passes for 154 yards and 1 TD. Meanwhile, Monte Ball did his Monte Ball thing by averaging  4.9 YPC on 39 (!!!) carries. Sacks removed, Wisconsin actually managed 4.69 YPC as a team. Those sacks may be what won Ohio State the game. Defensive end terror John Simon was nigh unblockable, marking the team's four sacks. The rest of the team managed only five tackles for loss.

Braxton Miller had a typical day: 10/18 through the air for 97 yards, and 20 carries for 70 yards. Carlos Hyde also had a good game averaging 5.8 YPC on 15 carries. Despite these performances, Ohio State was only able to manage 14 points in regulation. In overtime, the Buckeyes got away with a couple of glaring holding calls that allowed them to march into the endzone on four plays. And Wisconsin couldn't move the ball at all, resulting in an undramatic extra period.

Offense vs. Ohio State

Despite the Buckeyes' undefeated season, this is not a vintage OSU defense. A quick rundown of their statistical rankings proves as much: 17th in rushing defense, 28th in pass efficiency defense, 38th in total defense, 34th in scoring defense, 34th in sacks, and tied for 77th in tackles for loss. Those are good numbers, but they're not typical Ohio State numbers.

The defense is led by defensive end John Simon who is a scary dude. On the season, he has 22 solo tackles, 22 assists, 14.5 TFLs, and 9 sacks, in addition to 4 PBUs and a forced fumble. The scary thing for Michigan's offense is that Simon will probably be lined up across from Michael Schofield who I spent the better part of the first few games this season bemoaning his lack of speed and strength. This could be bad. Next to Simon is manchild Jonathan Hankins, an NFL-sized nose tackle that has lived up to every bit of his hype this season. Hankins has 23 solo tackles, 29 assists, 4 TFLs, and a sack, but his biggest impact is the ability to get into the backfield and disrupt plays.

So running the ball on Saturday is going to be difficult. Given the weakness of Michigan's offensive line and the strength of the Buckeye D-line, moving the ball on the ground will take some sort of randomness. Fortunately, Michigan showed a whole bunch of new running formations against Iowa with Denard Robinson in the backfield intended to get to the outside of the field where Michigan can make hay against OSU.

the Buckeye linebacker corps is led by sophomore Ryan Shazier who leads the team with 68 solo tackles. He's also marked 14.5 TFLs, 4 sacks, 1 interception, and 12 PBUs. He is the heart and soul of OSU's defense, but he's also mistake prone. If Michigan can get him moving in the wrong direction on counter plays, he's liable to overrun plays. The LOLZ from OSU's defense come at the middle linebacker spot where converted fullback Zach Boren has taken over the starting position. Boren began the season as a fullback by moved to the other side of the ball when the existing linebackers proved to be miserable. Think Rich Rodriguez moving Mark Moundros to linebacker. How did that turn out? At the final linebacker spot is senior Etienne Sabino, who feels like he's been around forever. Sabino is and always has been good-not-great, and his numbers this season back this up: 24 solo tackles, 19 assists, 3 TFLs, 2 sacks, 1 INT.

So despite a hilarious middle linebacker situation, OSU's front seven is relatively stout. The weakness of the defense is, shockingly, in pass defense. When's the last time OSU didn't have a fleet of lightning fast corners that locked down receivers? Sophomore Bradley Roby and senior Travis Howard are the two Buckeye corners. Howard is the better shutdown man but Roby has more physical gifts. And neither of the starting safeties Christian Bryant and CJ Barnett are particularly threatening. Of concern for Ohio State is that three members of the secondary are in the team's top-five tacklers. They allow a lot of completions: against Big Ten competition, the OSU secondary has allowed QBs to throw for 144/256 through the air (56%) with 10 TDs and 6 INTs. Calibrate for the awfulness of Big Ten quarterbacks, and you have a secondary that's giving up a lot of completions and not particularly threatening with regards to turnovers.

With Michigan's newfound ability to throw the ball, this matchup actually slides slightly toward Michigan. OK, so Michigan's wide receivers are bad, but Michigan may not need to break a ton of long plays if OSU is allowing a bunch of mid-range throws that Devin Gardner has proven to be really accurate on. Running is going to be a harrowing affair, so getting John Simon blocked on drop backs (paging AJ Williams or Devin Funchess' non-existant blocking abilities) and giving Gardner time to survey the field and possibly scramble for first downs will be crucial for Michigan's offensive success.

Defense vs. Braxton Miller

So a few years ago, Michigan fans had to listen to that ridiculous stat that Denard Robinson accounted for 197% of Michigan's offense and every time someone said that, I got especially stabby. That receivers are not "responsible" for any of the yards on catches and YAC is dumb, but I digress. Now its Ohio State who has a quarterback responsible for their entire offense, but because Miller is an OSU quarterback and never gets injured, and because the Big Ten is atrocious and OSU hasn't played a decent defense to date, you don't hear the same conditionals about Miller's play: he is unequivocally awesome if you ask the media. And OK, fine, he's really good but he also has obvious limitations.

Miller is completing just 56% of his passes on the season with 14 TDs and 6 INTs. His yardage total is also fairly impressive but largely because safeties are bugging out against the run and getting caught out of position. He also has Devin Smith to throw to, which doesn't hurt. You might remember Smith from making one of the best catches of the season in week one. Or from any one of his long touchdown catches this season (he's averaging 19.8 yards per reception this year).

The rest of the OSU receiver corps is acceptable without a ton of gamebreakers. Corey Brown leads the team in receptions but is basically just a possession guy. And the name that you already hate and probably will more after Saturday's game is Jake Stoneburner, a senior wide receiver whose catches are all one yard further than the necessary yardage for a first down.

So that's passing which will be an annoyance but won't be a major threat to Michigan's defense like it was in last year's The Game. Beating the Buckeyes stops and ends with stopping their running game, which is no small feat. The offensive line starts four juniors and a senior and don't have any particularly weak spots. Combine that with rumbleback Carlos Hyde and Miller's top-end speed, and you've got a scary offense. Miller leads the team in carries and yards (207 and 1,416 respectively) and is averaging 5.9 YPC. He has breakaway speed, but he's less effective between the tackles and among defenders where he doesn't have the shake that someone like Denard does. Keeping outside leverage on Miller is essential, and hopefully Mattison has the defense better prepared to maintain the QB than they did against Northwestern. Hyde, meanwhile, is averaging 5.2 YPC this season and makes a lot of yardage after contact.

The one thing that has gone unmentioned is Greg Mattison who was Urban Meyer's defensive coordinator at Florida. Mattison has struggled with option teams in his two years at Michigan mostly because his gameplan is deficient heading into the game. He has something theoretical that he draws up which doesn't actually work. Against Meyer, you would expect Mattison's schemes to be more effective because of his familiarity with Meyer's schemes. If the linebackers and defensive ends properly execute whatever containment scheme Mattison has for the running game, I expect Michigan's playcalling on this side of the ball to produce good results against OSU.

Prediction
How does Michigan win? Shut down Braxton Miller and don't turn the ball over. Despite Miller's gaudy numbers this season, the Buckeyes have had a tendency to have sub-par offensive outputs. Given the state of the Big Ten, that's especially damning. If Michigan can allow Miller to gain over 4 yards per carry instead of 5 or 6, OSU will eventually sputter out offensively. On the other side of the ball, Gardner needs to build upon the performances he's shown the last three weeks. Michigan has new wrinkles in the offense now that will allow Denard and a fleet of blockers to get to the outside, away from OSU's defensive strength. Hold onto the ball and Michigan can probably move the ball more consistently.

How does Ohio State win? Braxton Miller and sacks. Miller has to throw the ball a lot better than he has all season because Michigan's front seven is stout while the secondary will struggle against faster receivers like Devin Smith. If Michigan's gameplan isn't designed to shut down Miller, this will be an ugly, frustrating day. They also need a big performance from John Simon who, if he is going up against Schofield, will almost certainly be able to produce.

Arbitrary chance Michigan wins: 50%

Final Prediction. In my heart of hearts, I want to predict a Michigan victory. Gardner is playing really well, the defense has the speed to shut down OSU's rushing attack, and I firmly believe that Mattison will be a game changer. But... I just can't. This is Michigan and Ohio State in Columbus. Michigan has a QB who has been notoriously bad until the last three weeks. The Wolverine offensive line is bad. The defensive secondary is not good. And I can see nothing but Braxton Miller scampering for 19 yards over and over and over again. So if I'm being honest, 28-17 Ohio State. But like, fuck it, Michigan 23 - Ohio State 21.

Run defense vs Iowa

Though Iowa was able to check down to its tight ends to keep drives alive throughout the game, I was more concerned with Michigan's running defense against a team with a makeshift offensive line and no dynamic running backs. It became pretty clear what Iowa was doing to have success and you could see the difference between their success and Michigan's lack of success running under center.

Iowa shows a two-TE  ace formation with two wide receivers to the boundary. Michigan is in its 4-3 under with Jordan Kovacs rolled into the box. Iowa will run an inside zone to the weakside of the field.

The key to this play is the block on Campbell and the weakside B gap (highlighted), where the play is intended to go. On the snap, Michigan's defensive line slants toward the weakside of the play. Campbell engages the playside offensive guard. The right tackle will get a free release to the second level.

Campbell has now been sealed to the inside despite slanting toward the play. He's gotten decent penetration, but the offensive guard is allowing him to get inside. Craig Roh is in the process of overrunning the play.

Despite Campbell's penetration, he hasn't kept gap responsibility because the offensive guard pushed him beyond the point of attack. Roh has been sealed to the outside. And the linebacker who was supposed to cover this gap (James Ross) has gotten a free-releasing offensive tackle in his face (Iowa's #70).

Roh and Campbell both reach to make the tackle but can't stop Mark Weisman who has a full head of steam.

And this is where Brady Hoke gets upset....

...because JT Floyd gets absolutely trucked and can't stop Weisman from picking up the first down.

Video

The Takeaway
This play starts with Campbell and the offensive guard getting playside of him. Campbell starts this play outside of the guard and, without any blocking help, allows the guard to seal him back to the inside. That's bad and that's why there's such a gaping hole here, but watching this play in contrast to Michigan's under-center runs highlights a stark contrast: Michigan doesn't create gaps like this. Despite the fact that Campbell doesn't play this particularly well, he's able to get good penetration and into the backfield, but the offensive guard helps him along, knowing that even if Campbell gets into the backfield, as long as he's kept to the inside, Weisman will have a lane to run through. Michigan's blocking schemes have confused the offensive line all season and may contribute to this lack of holes for running backs. Regardless, it's disheartening watching Iowa's mediocre offensive line able to create holes and separation for their running backs in ways that Michigan's line can't, but I'm hoping this is talent-related (Michigan's interior line is really weak) and not scheme-related.

A ray of hope

Iowa 17 - #21 Michigan 42

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

I'm supposed to have something poetic to say about Denard Robinson, but Saturday's game left me cold. Denard lining up as a running back is not how this is supposed to go, not in college football where he turns dropped snaps into 43-yard touchdowns and made an entire fan base invent a whole new vocabulary to grapple with what he was doing on the field. For the last three years, Michigan fans have held their collective breath as Denard did whatever he could to get the ball 10 yards further toward the endzone. We usually exhaled pleasantly surprised.

The lasting image of Saturday's game for me, however, will be Fitz Toussaint's gruesome broken leg. In real time, there wasn't much to see but the slow-motion replay was one of those scenes they'll never show again and that I unfortunately saw before I could cover my eyes. Those are the kinds of injuries that end careers. For a player who has spent the last 11 games unsuccessfully fighting off tacklers in the backfield, in one of the first times all season he gets to the light of day and that happens. It all just seems unfair.

Toussaint has another season if he's able to recover, a luxury that's not afforded to Denard who lost his season to a similarly unfair albeit less horrifying injury. Denard's last game in the Big House felt like a dud though, and the heckling he'll get from Ohio State fans won't even be deserving of a his success. He'll be on the sideline rather than letting the "boos" rain down on him on the field. Denard Robinson's final game in a Michigan jersey will be in a half-filled stadium somewhere far away from Ann Arbor.

Of course Jordan Kovacs and Will Campbell and Roy Roundtree also touched the banner for their final time in maize and blue and unlike Denard, it's unlikely any of these guys will sniff the NFL. Were it not for Denard the last three years, this would probably go down as one of the most forgettable senior classes in Michigan history. Recruited by Rich Rodriguez, he specialized in finding the diamonds in the rough, of which none ever developed at Michigan. Three straight classes of pedestrian talent held together by Denard's heroics.

I think that's why Denard became so beloved. Put aside his smile or the fact that he's a talent that Michigan had never seen before. He was a ray of hope during the program's most devastating three years. Were it not for Denard, Michigan's abhorrent record during his tenure would have been even worse. There's a reason that there are multiple instances of Denard's first snap on YouTube with 60,000-plus views. He was Michigan football over the last year, both figuratively and literally.

With only two games left, Denard will be unceremoniously sent off to the NFL where his career will probably be a flash in the pan, not unlike his time at Michigan.