LAS VEGAS — On the way from his postgame press conference back toward Michigan’s locker room inside Michelob Ultra Arena on Monday night, Dusty May pulled up the stat in question on his phone.
He already knew the numbers were good. What he found just confirmed it.
Advertisement
Michigan manhandled San Diego State 94-54 to open the Players Era Championship and improve to 5-0. The Wolverines doubled the cap on victory margin used for potential tiebreakers for later in the event. They’ll face Auburn on Tuesday (8:30 p.m. ET, TNT).
Michigan dominated its first game in Vegas largely by holding the Aztecs to 27% shooting. Michigan wants to force teams into the shots analytics likes the least: mid-range jumpers. San Diego State took a bunch Monday.
“Can you make enough to beat them?” San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher wondered after. “That’s the question.”
May is confident the answer is no.
Advertisement
“We’re pretty big at the rim,” May said. “I think when you get in the paint and Aday (Mara) swats a few of them and Morez (Johnson Jr.) comes out of nowhere to go vertical and block the shot, the next one you’re kind of looking around.
“And I think the perimeter guys have done a really nice job of scrambling, flying around and just making smart basketball plays on the fly and covering for each other.”
Modern basketball favors catch-and-shoot 3s and shots close to the rim. That’s what May wants for the majority of Michigan’s field goals. Naturally, he wants to deny opponents those looks, forcing them to take long 2-point shots, floaters and other types of high-risk, low-reward attempts.
Michigan did that Monday and has been for most of this young season. May said he is “ecstatic” with how Michigan has executed defensive game plans so far. Scrolling through his phone, he found the data. Through Michigan’s previous game, Wednesday’s win over Middle Tennessee, opponents had made just 13 of 39 mid-range shots and 7 of 29 floaters.
Advertisement
“Yeah, we’ll take that,” May said with a laugh.
Watching film in preparation for Michigan, Dutcher saw a pathway to offensive success. His team made enough floaters and short jumpers early on to hang around, but the Aztecs couldn’t sustain it.
May said he told his players leading up to this game that between his seven years as a head coach and Michigan assistant Mike Boynton Jr.’s seven years as a head coach their “plan” had cost them just one or two games combined.
“We were OK with giving up those (mid-range) shots,” May said. Teams lose games for a variety of reasons, but that half-court defense strategy has hardly even been the cause, he said. “Our plan has lost us one game in seven years based on giving up the middies and the floaters.”
Advertisement
Latest Michigan basketball news:
Read the original article on mlive.com.
