Michigan returns home before a back-to-back on the road in the lone installment of their rivalry series with Ohio State. The last time these two teams played was a Senior Day victory for the Wolverines where they never seemed like they would lose. Now, they brim with confidence yet again as they look for win number twenty on the season.
Ohio State -- An Overview:
After starting 12-1 with wins over teams like UCLA, Cincinnati, Creighton, and a pair of early conference wins, the Buckeyes were broken by Michigan State at home. That loss started a run of five losses in a row including a loss at Rutgers for the Knights' first Big Ten win of the season. That skid was snapped, however, at Nebraska with a comfortable ten-point win in Lincoln, perhaps an unlikely spot to snap a skid. Now 13-6, the Buckeyes have a bit of confidence now. That said, Kyle Young, a sophomore forward who followed Chris Holtmann over and was shooting 77.3% from two, is out for an indefinite time. This puts more pressure on the remaining forwards, particularly key big man Kaleb Wesson, in being productive on the block. OSU are the best team in the Big Ten at limiting attempts of their opponents, but they have given up the most free throw attempts which teams have hit for a combined 77.3% (ironically) helping an OSU scoring defense that is 35th in the nation cumulatively (65.3 points per game) sit at just ninth in the Big Ten (70.3 points per game). They are average-to-poor in all offensive stats in the conference as well and as a whole they will need fine-tuning on both sides of the ball.
Starting Five:
The main man for Ohio State is sophomore center Kaleb Wesson. The 6'9", 270-pounder is an absolute unit on the block giving the Buckeyes a legitimate post presence whenever he is on the court. The operative phrase, though, is "whenever he is on the court." In his last eight games, Kaleb has hit four fouls or a foul-out seven of those eight games. With the injury to Kyle Young, Chris Holtmann has really needed to trust him to stay out of trouble, but the past four games have seen him very inefficient. He's shooting just 33.3% over the last four on six attempts per game for 6.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. These numbers are far under his averages of 14.9 points per game and a shooting percentage of 51.1%, but they do hover around the 6.8 rebounds per game average -- up nearly two full rebounds from his freshman year. Kaleb has taken 121 free throws as well, marking him the eighth-most frequent visitor to the line in the Big Ten. A huge advantage for the big man is that he shoots 72.7% from there as well, meaning teams that do foul him are certainly not hacking a big man for his percentage. He has had some very good days, however, this season. He went for 25 points on nine-for-fifteen shooting and six-for-nine from the line against a very good Michigan State team. He also dropped 31 in on Youngstown State on ten-for-fourteen field goals and eleven-for-fourteen shooting from the line. Jon Teske will need to be at his best despite the slumping Kaleb, because he has proven against Nick Ward and MSU, among other schools, that he is one of the top bigs in the conference.
Running the show at point guard for the Buckeyes is C.J. Jackson. The senior point guard stands at 6'1" and has remarkably similar numbers this season as his last season. The only things vastly different are his true percentages as his points per game (12.6) are exactly the same as are his fouls (2.1). Any other key stat you can think of -- turnovers, rebounds, assists, free-throw percentage, attempts, and makes per game even -- are all within 0.5 per game of each other. The variation comes from a near-6% increase from three (37.9% to 38.5%) and a comparatively hefty drop in two-point percentage (45.3% to 42.4%) to result in a 14% drop in total percentage. Jackson's three-point shot is outstandingly inconsistent, and his key needs to be efficient. In games where Jackson has shot six or more threes (of which there are twelve), he is 16-for-50, exactly 32%. The two games with his most shots -- two-for-nine at Rutgers and two-for-eight vs. Syracuse -- both saw OSU lose. In games with four shots from deep are fewer, he is shooting nearly 54%. The key for Jackson in the offense has to be to find him a way to take smarter shots, not more shots. Doing that can see a boost in numbers overall for the senior, but against Zavier Simpson, very few point guards are able to find the space to get those sorts of good shots off with frequency.
Joining Jackson and his brother Kaleb as the only three players to start eighteen of the nineteen games this season is junior forward Andre Wesson. Andre is a dynamic 6'6" wing player that is the Buckeyes' available leader in two-point FG% with 58.1%. The older Wesson brother has made a huge leap in production as an upperclassman. Playing in ten more minutes per game has seen his points per game jump from 2.9 to 8.5, while his rebounding numbers have gone from 1.8 to 4.2 per game. He is taking over three-and-a-half more shots per game but shooting at nearly ten percent higher than last season overall, aided greatly by a jump from 28.6% from three to this season's 35.7% -- amounting to four more made threes this season in the same amount of attempts in all of last season. While, like his brother, Andre can be a bit over-aggressive with three games of four fouls and one foul out in the six games of 2019, he has shot 51.1% over those six games while averaging eleven points per game and shooting 41.7% from three. When it comes to Andre, the fact that he is developing in a way that is seeing him able to score in all facets of the game, the key being the development of a three-point shot along with his ability to get to the rim, has to have made him a bigger target on scouting reports now. His nine-for-ten night, including four-for-five from three, against Purdue, has been the real breakout. Michigan will have their attention on him now certainly, and I expect Charles Matthews to guard him in order to silence his offensive ability.
One of two top-75 recruits that Chris Holtmann brought in after his successful first season is Luther Muhammad. The 6'3" guard has made an immediate impact on his side. The freshman has averaged 9.9 points and three rebounds over the season, making him within spitting distance of being the third Buckeye to average in double figures. As a whole, Muhammad shoots nearly 45% with a near-43% clip from three on 49 attempts. When it comes to consistency, Muhammad may be the most consistent Buckeye. Only five times has he shot under 40% on a game, and just three of those were under 25%. The problem? Twice has he had one of those performances in the past month as he struggled against both Iowa and Maryland. He was the standout in Lincoln, however, with a career-high 24 points on seven-for-twelve shooting. Any misfires in previous Big Ten games are surely gone now as the freshman can play with a bit more confidence and spring in his step as a result.
The fifth man of the starting five has been rotating for Holtmann. I am expecting to see the man who started at Nebraska, sophomore guard Musa Jallow, in the starting five in Ann Arbor. A 6'5" guard, his minutes have been a bit limited, but he is a versatile player for Holtmann to have. Not relied on as a scorer, instead, Jallow rebounds well and plays tough, but also is athletic as well. He is shooting 38.1% from three on the season (8-for-21) but still needs to work out the inconsistency in his game while carving out a spot in the line-up. No better representation of that is a three-minute appearance against Maryland followed immediately up by 31 minutes and twelve points on five-for-seven shooting against Purdue. He played 23 minutes and went two-for-three for five points against Nebraska showing that while not a focal point of the offense, perhaps, he is able to contribute. On the season he averages 3.4 points and 2.6 rebounds per game, and his overall field goal percentage has jumped from 39.2% to 46.8% in similar amounts of shots. Jallow is a player who needs to find balance within the roster but is certainly making progress in that.
Bench Rundown:
Grad transfer senior Keyshawn Woods is a sixth man or potential starter that has proven to be a great pick-up on the transfer market for Chris Holtmann. Joining from Wake Forest, this is Woods' third stop as he spent his freshman season with Charlotte in the C-USA. Woods stands just 6'3" but at 205 pounds, he plays bigger than his height, and his stats correlate to that. He has been called on to do less with the cast around him in Columbus, but his production remains solid as ever. He is averaging 7.1 points, 2.8 assists, and 2.9 rebounds per game, with his assist numbers second on the team and a near-full assist better than last season. The concern is with a 29.8% three-point stroke, especially considering he shot a combined 45% between his first year at Charlotte and sophomore season at Wake Forest. His field goal percentage is a career-low at 41% and he's averaging just 4.3 points on 28.1% shooting (14.3% from three) and 1.5 assists in this calendar year, and that could be a large reason why players like Jallow and Duane Washington are getting looks in the starting line-up. Woods was added to provide a spark in conference play, he is going to need to turn it around and make that happen for Ohio State.
Speaking of him, another potential starter could certainly be Grand Rapids native Duane Washington. A freshman, Washington is a 6'3" freshman that Michigan spent plenty of time recruiting themselves. Washington has started two games, most recently starting against Purdue but only playing ten minutes. The guard does his damage from three as he takes one more attempt from three than two per game on average, at a clip of 33.8% (26-for-77) from downtown. His season peak thus far was six-for-nine from three against IPFW for twenty points, followed immediately by going three-for-four from three for twelve points against Creighton, then scoring fourteen against South Carolina State. Since that game against Creighton, though, Washington has hit three or more threes just once: when he went three-for-seven against Maryland for fourteen points. Washington has a solid two-point percentage (44.1%) but he really needs to be more efficient from the field while also improving from two, as he's shooting just 56.3% from the free-throw line.
One man who is set to see a bigger role with the injury to Kyle Young is that second top-75 freshman, forward Jaedon Ledee. Standing at 6'9", he is the lone true 'forward' off the bench for Holtmann and the Buckeyes. Ledee has played in seventeen games this season, and actually has seen some of his best performances earlier this season. He opened the season with sixteen points against IPFW on twelve-for-fourteen free throw shooting, and followed that up against South Carolina State with twelve points on six-for-eight shooting from the stripe. He is 76.3% for the season from the line, but despite this, he is not a serious scoring threat. He has made just one field goal since the game against Minnesota on December 2nd where he scored one bucket, he went two-for-seven against Iowa on January 12th. This is very much learning on the job for Ledee, and this experience should help him improve as a player even once Young comes back.
Rounding out the four players that come in off the bench with regularity is yet another freshman recruited by Michigan, forward Justin Ahrens. Standing at 6'5", the wing is the brother of Michigan State's Kyle Ahrens and has seen a massive expansion in his role as of late. Ahrens has lived outside the arc taking eighteen of his twenty shots from deep, and shooting 33.3% (six-for-eighteen) from deep. He has played ten minutes per game the past four and has gone four-for-eleven (36.4%) over the stretch. He is a player that has range, which is a large part of the reason Michigan liked him, but he has also rebounded better as well as eleven of his thirteen rebounds have been in this four game stretch. Ahrens is looking to be a four-year piece that Holtmann can do plenty with, this season is all about experience and seeing what he can do, any production is just extra.
Pre-Game Thoughts:
This is a big game for Michigan in terms of securing a win. A rivalry game at home against an Ohio State side that are looking to be a bit more confident as a result of a key road win in one of the toughest places to play in the conference. I, however, do not think this is a team that matches well for Michigan. I look at the line-up and wonder where the scoring will come from if not in the post. Jon Teske on Kaleb Wesson is a huge match-up and becomes even bigger if Kaleb gets into foul trouble as he has done in the conference play. Ohio State may have players who can score in multiple ways, guys like Andre Wesson and Luther Muhammad stand out as that, but can they put it together on the same night? Ohio State has had a different high scorer in each of their last three games, and none of them were Kaleb Wesson. Finding that consistency on one night to beat the Wolverines is going to be key for any team when facing off with Michigan and their vaunted defense. Ohio State will hope to be the first to do so on Michigan's home court.
Follow me on Twitter @RMAB_Ryan for plenty more Michigan basketball coverage, as well as AFC Ann Arbor and Liverpool FC coverage as well!
Ohio State -- An Overview:
After starting 12-1 with wins over teams like UCLA, Cincinnati, Creighton, and a pair of early conference wins, the Buckeyes were broken by Michigan State at home. That loss started a run of five losses in a row including a loss at Rutgers for the Knights' first Big Ten win of the season. That skid was snapped, however, at Nebraska with a comfortable ten-point win in Lincoln, perhaps an unlikely spot to snap a skid. Now 13-6, the Buckeyes have a bit of confidence now. That said, Kyle Young, a sophomore forward who followed Chris Holtmann over and was shooting 77.3% from two, is out for an indefinite time. This puts more pressure on the remaining forwards, particularly key big man Kaleb Wesson, in being productive on the block. OSU are the best team in the Big Ten at limiting attempts of their opponents, but they have given up the most free throw attempts which teams have hit for a combined 77.3% (ironically) helping an OSU scoring defense that is 35th in the nation cumulatively (65.3 points per game) sit at just ninth in the Big Ten (70.3 points per game). They are average-to-poor in all offensive stats in the conference as well and as a whole they will need fine-tuning on both sides of the ball.
Starting Five:
The main man for Ohio State is sophomore center Kaleb Wesson. The 6'9", 270-pounder is an absolute unit on the block giving the Buckeyes a legitimate post presence whenever he is on the court. The operative phrase, though, is "whenever he is on the court." In his last eight games, Kaleb has hit four fouls or a foul-out seven of those eight games. With the injury to Kyle Young, Chris Holtmann has really needed to trust him to stay out of trouble, but the past four games have seen him very inefficient. He's shooting just 33.3% over the last four on six attempts per game for 6.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. These numbers are far under his averages of 14.9 points per game and a shooting percentage of 51.1%, but they do hover around the 6.8 rebounds per game average -- up nearly two full rebounds from his freshman year. Kaleb has taken 121 free throws as well, marking him the eighth-most frequent visitor to the line in the Big Ten. A huge advantage for the big man is that he shoots 72.7% from there as well, meaning teams that do foul him are certainly not hacking a big man for his percentage. He has had some very good days, however, this season. He went for 25 points on nine-for-fifteen shooting and six-for-nine from the line against a very good Michigan State team. He also dropped 31 in on Youngstown State on ten-for-fourteen field goals and eleven-for-fourteen shooting from the line. Jon Teske will need to be at his best despite the slumping Kaleb, because he has proven against Nick Ward and MSU, among other schools, that he is one of the top bigs in the conference.
Running the show at point guard for the Buckeyes is C.J. Jackson. The senior point guard stands at 6'1" and has remarkably similar numbers this season as his last season. The only things vastly different are his true percentages as his points per game (12.6) are exactly the same as are his fouls (2.1). Any other key stat you can think of -- turnovers, rebounds, assists, free-throw percentage, attempts, and makes per game even -- are all within 0.5 per game of each other. The variation comes from a near-6% increase from three (37.9% to 38.5%) and a comparatively hefty drop in two-point percentage (45.3% to 42.4%) to result in a 14% drop in total percentage. Jackson's three-point shot is outstandingly inconsistent, and his key needs to be efficient. In games where Jackson has shot six or more threes (of which there are twelve), he is 16-for-50, exactly 32%. The two games with his most shots -- two-for-nine at Rutgers and two-for-eight vs. Syracuse -- both saw OSU lose. In games with four shots from deep are fewer, he is shooting nearly 54%. The key for Jackson in the offense has to be to find him a way to take smarter shots, not more shots. Doing that can see a boost in numbers overall for the senior, but against Zavier Simpson, very few point guards are able to find the space to get those sorts of good shots off with frequency.
Joining Jackson and his brother Kaleb as the only three players to start eighteen of the nineteen games this season is junior forward Andre Wesson. Andre is a dynamic 6'6" wing player that is the Buckeyes' available leader in two-point FG% with 58.1%. The older Wesson brother has made a huge leap in production as an upperclassman. Playing in ten more minutes per game has seen his points per game jump from 2.9 to 8.5, while his rebounding numbers have gone from 1.8 to 4.2 per game. He is taking over three-and-a-half more shots per game but shooting at nearly ten percent higher than last season overall, aided greatly by a jump from 28.6% from three to this season's 35.7% -- amounting to four more made threes this season in the same amount of attempts in all of last season. While, like his brother, Andre can be a bit over-aggressive with three games of four fouls and one foul out in the six games of 2019, he has shot 51.1% over those six games while averaging eleven points per game and shooting 41.7% from three. When it comes to Andre, the fact that he is developing in a way that is seeing him able to score in all facets of the game, the key being the development of a three-point shot along with his ability to get to the rim, has to have made him a bigger target on scouting reports now. His nine-for-ten night, including four-for-five from three, against Purdue, has been the real breakout. Michigan will have their attention on him now certainly, and I expect Charles Matthews to guard him in order to silence his offensive ability.
One of two top-75 recruits that Chris Holtmann brought in after his successful first season is Luther Muhammad. The 6'3" guard has made an immediate impact on his side. The freshman has averaged 9.9 points and three rebounds over the season, making him within spitting distance of being the third Buckeye to average in double figures. As a whole, Muhammad shoots nearly 45% with a near-43% clip from three on 49 attempts. When it comes to consistency, Muhammad may be the most consistent Buckeye. Only five times has he shot under 40% on a game, and just three of those were under 25%. The problem? Twice has he had one of those performances in the past month as he struggled against both Iowa and Maryland. He was the standout in Lincoln, however, with a career-high 24 points on seven-for-twelve shooting. Any misfires in previous Big Ten games are surely gone now as the freshman can play with a bit more confidence and spring in his step as a result.
The fifth man of the starting five has been rotating for Holtmann. I am expecting to see the man who started at Nebraska, sophomore guard Musa Jallow, in the starting five in Ann Arbor. A 6'5" guard, his minutes have been a bit limited, but he is a versatile player for Holtmann to have. Not relied on as a scorer, instead, Jallow rebounds well and plays tough, but also is athletic as well. He is shooting 38.1% from three on the season (8-for-21) but still needs to work out the inconsistency in his game while carving out a spot in the line-up. No better representation of that is a three-minute appearance against Maryland followed immediately up by 31 minutes and twelve points on five-for-seven shooting against Purdue. He played 23 minutes and went two-for-three for five points against Nebraska showing that while not a focal point of the offense, perhaps, he is able to contribute. On the season he averages 3.4 points and 2.6 rebounds per game, and his overall field goal percentage has jumped from 39.2% to 46.8% in similar amounts of shots. Jallow is a player who needs to find balance within the roster but is certainly making progress in that.
Bench Rundown:
Grad transfer senior Keyshawn Woods is a sixth man or potential starter that has proven to be a great pick-up on the transfer market for Chris Holtmann. Joining from Wake Forest, this is Woods' third stop as he spent his freshman season with Charlotte in the C-USA. Woods stands just 6'3" but at 205 pounds, he plays bigger than his height, and his stats correlate to that. He has been called on to do less with the cast around him in Columbus, but his production remains solid as ever. He is averaging 7.1 points, 2.8 assists, and 2.9 rebounds per game, with his assist numbers second on the team and a near-full assist better than last season. The concern is with a 29.8% three-point stroke, especially considering he shot a combined 45% between his first year at Charlotte and sophomore season at Wake Forest. His field goal percentage is a career-low at 41% and he's averaging just 4.3 points on 28.1% shooting (14.3% from three) and 1.5 assists in this calendar year, and that could be a large reason why players like Jallow and Duane Washington are getting looks in the starting line-up. Woods was added to provide a spark in conference play, he is going to need to turn it around and make that happen for Ohio State.
Speaking of him, another potential starter could certainly be Grand Rapids native Duane Washington. A freshman, Washington is a 6'3" freshman that Michigan spent plenty of time recruiting themselves. Washington has started two games, most recently starting against Purdue but only playing ten minutes. The guard does his damage from three as he takes one more attempt from three than two per game on average, at a clip of 33.8% (26-for-77) from downtown. His season peak thus far was six-for-nine from three against IPFW for twenty points, followed immediately by going three-for-four from three for twelve points against Creighton, then scoring fourteen against South Carolina State. Since that game against Creighton, though, Washington has hit three or more threes just once: when he went three-for-seven against Maryland for fourteen points. Washington has a solid two-point percentage (44.1%) but he really needs to be more efficient from the field while also improving from two, as he's shooting just 56.3% from the free-throw line.
One man who is set to see a bigger role with the injury to Kyle Young is that second top-75 freshman, forward Jaedon Ledee. Standing at 6'9", he is the lone true 'forward' off the bench for Holtmann and the Buckeyes. Ledee has played in seventeen games this season, and actually has seen some of his best performances earlier this season. He opened the season with sixteen points against IPFW on twelve-for-fourteen free throw shooting, and followed that up against South Carolina State with twelve points on six-for-eight shooting from the stripe. He is 76.3% for the season from the line, but despite this, he is not a serious scoring threat. He has made just one field goal since the game against Minnesota on December 2nd where he scored one bucket, he went two-for-seven against Iowa on January 12th. This is very much learning on the job for Ledee, and this experience should help him improve as a player even once Young comes back.
Rounding out the four players that come in off the bench with regularity is yet another freshman recruited by Michigan, forward Justin Ahrens. Standing at 6'5", the wing is the brother of Michigan State's Kyle Ahrens and has seen a massive expansion in his role as of late. Ahrens has lived outside the arc taking eighteen of his twenty shots from deep, and shooting 33.3% (six-for-eighteen) from deep. He has played ten minutes per game the past four and has gone four-for-eleven (36.4%) over the stretch. He is a player that has range, which is a large part of the reason Michigan liked him, but he has also rebounded better as well as eleven of his thirteen rebounds have been in this four game stretch. Ahrens is looking to be a four-year piece that Holtmann can do plenty with, this season is all about experience and seeing what he can do, any production is just extra.
Pre-Game Thoughts:
This is a big game for Michigan in terms of securing a win. A rivalry game at home against an Ohio State side that are looking to be a bit more confident as a result of a key road win in one of the toughest places to play in the conference. I, however, do not think this is a team that matches well for Michigan. I look at the line-up and wonder where the scoring will come from if not in the post. Jon Teske on Kaleb Wesson is a huge match-up and becomes even bigger if Kaleb gets into foul trouble as he has done in the conference play. Ohio State may have players who can score in multiple ways, guys like Andre Wesson and Luther Muhammad stand out as that, but can they put it together on the same night? Ohio State has had a different high scorer in each of their last three games, and none of them were Kaleb Wesson. Finding that consistency on one night to beat the Wolverines is going to be key for any team when facing off with Michigan and their vaunted defense. Ohio State will hope to be the first to do so on Michigan's home court.
Follow me on Twitter @RMAB_Ryan for plenty more Michigan basketball coverage, as well as AFC Ann Arbor and Liverpool FC coverage as well!
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