Michigan face perhaps the toughest Big Ten test of the season as they venture to take a team on who they are just 2-7 on the road against under John Beilein. Michigan ventures to Wisconsin in search of their eighteenth win to start the season and to keep pace with Michigan State as they come off a win in Nebraska. It is now up to Michigan to go on the road and win in a difficult environment. (EDITORS NOTE: Please note that all team-based national/conference rankings are accurate for games up to 1/17/19.)
Wisconsin -- An Overview:
The Badgers started the season off hot and seemed fully over the rough season that was 2017-18. The Badgers started the season off 5-0 with wins over Xavier, Stanford, and Oklahoma, and their first loss was to Virginia, nothing to scoff at. En route to a 10-2 start, it included wins to start the conference season in the early games at Iowa and against Rutgers, plus a win over North Carolina State. Then, the wheels fell off. Wisconsin is 1-4 in their last five games with losses at Western Kentucky and a pair of Big Ten home losses. Their only win in the stretch was a road blow-out against Penn State. Topping out at 12th in the AP Poll, Wisconsin are now unranked and desperate to get back on the right track. The 16th slowest team in the country, the Badgers have also played the ninth toughest schedule. With Michigan playing at the 31st slowest pace, we could be in for a slow, vintage Big Ten affair in the Kohl Center. That said, the Badgers are lethal from three as they have shot 39.1% from deep on the season (19th in the country) and 37.7% in their conference games (second in the Big Ten). Michigan's three-point defense is operating at a high level, this is a battle of strengths on both sides.
Starting Five:
The big man on campus in Madison is also the man that makes Wisconsin go. 6'10" fifth-year senior Ethan Happ is the team leader and most important player for Greg Gard's Wisconsin team. Happ was a Blue Ribbon First-Team All-American and a near-unanimous selection by any other media outlet for that same list. Happ leads the Big Ten in field goals taken, impressive considering all but four of them have been inside the arc. He is the conference-leader in two-pointers made and it is not very close, he leads Penn State's Lamar Stevens by thirty makes. He leads the Badgers in points (19.4), rebounds (10.4), and assists (4.6) per game. His point and rebound per game totals are second in the conference and, perhaps even more impressively, his assists per game are third in the conference trailing only the point guards of the top two teams in the conference. All three of those tallies are career-highs for the center whose 57.1% field-goal percentage is only nudged out by his sophomore year mark of 58.6%. Happ played well against Jon Teske in Teske's minutes played against Wisconsin in their previous meetings, the primary reason of that being the fact that he can play as basically a 6'10" point guard as Wisconsin can, and will, run sets that include Happ getting a rebound, taking it up the court, and taking his (usually slower-footed) center to the paint. Of course, Happ has his faults. He has no three-point shot to note despite the NBA specifically noting this as a source of needed improvement. Additionally, his free throw percentage of just 49.3% is a career low and has been the result of a steady decline combined with teams deciding to 'Hack-a-Happ', working best for Minnesota as Happ went just one-for-seven from the line. Happ makes this Wisconsin team go. If Teske can manage guarding the big man one-on-one and not need any help, that will be massive in silencing the Badgers' supporting cast.
Happ's deputy this season has been sophomore guard D'Mitrik Trice. Standing at 6'0", Trice is the brother of ex-Michigan State Spartan Travis Trice, and just like his brother, D'Mitrik can shoot. Trice started the season a scalding hot 60% from deep (thirty-for-fifty) for seventeen points per game in his first nine games. He has cooled considerably since then, shooting 32.1% from three in the eight games since then for 11.4 points per game, but even with the colder stretch, he's still 45.6% this season. He is second-highest on the team in points (14.6) and assists (2.8) per game and third in rebounds with 3.3 per game, highlighting the fact that on this Wisconsin team it's not about the size of the player, but the ability to do multiple things well. His last two games have seen him go seven-for-seventeen, the start to a return to form, perhaps? I expect Zavier Simpson to draw this match-up without question. Trice struggled from two against Purdue and really leaned into taking threes over twos against Maryland. I expect that will continue and Michigan will try to suffocate him early with Simpson on him. Jordan Poole may cover him as well, but setting the tone on defense on the road is key, and locking up Trice quickly should do that.
The third option has been another household name for those that watch Big Ten basketball, none other than Brad Davison. A 6'3" sophomore guard best known for taking charges that draw the ire of opposing fans, Davison was arguably the heart and soul of the Badgers the last season as he scored thirty on Michigan State despite a shoulder held together by an ace bandage and hope. He stepped up big when several Badgers (including Trice) went down to injury, but this year he has been needed less, and that has meant his production has stepped up. He is averaging 10.5 points per game, over a-point-and-a-half less than last season, but his shooting percentage is up to 44.8% (from 40.5%) largely due to shooting 43.8% from three, up from 35.5% from last season due largely to being one of few long-range options for the Badgers. He's eight-for-twelve in his last three from three, including two three-for-three nights from deep. I would hazard to guess Jordan Poole starts on the scrappy guard, but given the fact that both Trice and Davison can, a, play point guard, and, b, get hot from three, I would imagine that the hotter hand will get covered by Simpson for the important stretches of the game.
Four men have played in and started all seventeen games for the Badgers, and the fourth and final man is center Nate Reuvers. A sophomore standing at 6'11", the big man is currently fourth in the Big Ten in blocks per game, averaging 1.7 per game. Reuvers is averaging 8.2 points and 2.9 rebounds per game, but he has also been helped out by improvement from three as he shoots 38.6% on the season thus far (17-for-44). Reuvers has been able to, like Davison, make a big jump from freshman to sophomore, helped largely due to his important minutes played last season. He is better also from two as he is shooting 59.7% this season for a total field goal percentage of 50.9%. One idea could be to play Teske on Reuvers and have Ignas Brazdeikis and his improved mobility cover Happ, but the problem then becomes covering Happ on his back-ins to the basket as well as forcing Teske to worry about covering the three. I think it is an interesting idea in theory, but may not be the best idea to put into practice, given the high risk that could come with putting the smaller Brazdeikis on Happ. Reuvers will play an important part in the game, though, if he can find the basket and force tougher defense on him by the forward that covers him.
Rounding out the starting five is 6'5" forward Khalil Iverson. The senior missed one game, but Iverson has been vital in providing tough minutes for the Badgers. Not the biggest scorer, Iverson instead offers a driving presence and plenty of athleticism from the wing. Iverson averages 4.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, giving a good, brief, summarization of his game. Yet to make a three-pointer as an upperclassman, instead he prefers to attack the rim, where (inside the arc) he shoots 52.9%. He was a player that needed to step up last season with the injuries the Badgers had and take a bigger scoring role, and he did so to the tune of 8.6 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. Now, playing nearly six-and-a-half less minutes than he did last season, Iverson, like Davison, is asked to do less but is producing just as much as a result of a broader distribution. Charles Matthews will be tasked with guarding him. With some players that Michigan has played, I have made the case that it does not make sense wasting Matthews' perimeter defense on someone who does not shoot from deep. With a dangerous driver like Iverson, however, it would make sense to cover him up and kill his confidence quickly. With his bigger body, Poole could still guard him, but it would be a bit tougher. Regardless, I think Michigan like their odds of quieting Iverson to focus on the bigger scorers Wisconsin will throw at them.
Bench Rundown:
When Iverson missed a game, it was freshman guard Kobe King who filled the gap. Like Trice, King was ruled out of the season with injury last year in December and, also like Trice, he received a medical redshirt. Standing at 6'4", King is averaging nearly the same exact numbers as he was last season before his injury. One promising sign for the young guard is an improvement in three-point percentage up from 33.3% (7-for-21) up to 37.9% (11-for-29) on the season. He has seen a slight drop in two-point percentage and 0.3 points per game drop from his average down to 5.1 points per game, but King is offering sixth-man minutes, strong athleticism, but he needs to find the ability to have that killer instinct put give his team more points on the board with aggressive play. Doing so means the Badgers would find another huge offensive weapon to throw on the floor with the utmost confidence.
Also having played in every game, but off the bench, is 6'3" guard Brevin Pritzl. A redshirt junior, Pritzl plays about the same amount of minutes as King does, but offers a bit more maturity off the bench as a result of his now-four years spent in the program. Another player who saw a ton more time in the game from injuries last season, Pritzl's minutes are down by nearly ten per game from last year, but the talent remains there. The problem is that he has not shown the player that went six-for-nine for twenty points last season against Minnesota. In his last nine games, he is averaging 3.9 points and 2.2 rebounds in over twenty minutes per game on just three attempts (2.2 from three). Of course, part of that is something I have mentioned plenty in this preview, returnees from injury playing a key role, but the veteran guard and former top-100 recruit in the nation would figure to be a bigger piece of the puzzle. If he can turn things up a notch the rest of the way is yet to be seen.
Wisconsin frequently plays two more bench players, one averaging double-figure minutes per game, one seeing more 'bit' minutes, both having appeared in fourteen games. First is Aleem Ford, who is seeing 14.1 minutes per game and averaging 3.1 points and two rebounds on 33.3% shooting (30.8% from deep). Ford is, stop me if you've heard this one before, a sophomore who has seen a reduced role with a fully healthy Badgers team. Standing 6'8", the forward shoots primarily from deep and led Badgers regulars with 40.9% shooting from deep on 110 attempts. This season, Ford is playing over ten minutes less per game than last season. Still, he offers a shooting threat off the bench. Finally, we have Charles Thomas IV, a 6'8" senior forward, who is averaging 6.6 minutes per game. A true role player, Thomas is averaging 2.5 points and 1.9 rebounds per game in his limited minutes. He's 46.4% from the field (13-for-28) and has yet to see double figure minutes in a non-blowout game for the Badgers. Expect Ford and Thomas to combine to spell both Ethan Happ and Nate Reuvers when either man need a blow.
Pre-Game Thoughts:
When breaking down this Wisconsin team, I am more concerned for this Michigan team than I have been since the North Carolina game, and perhaps may be most concerned about this one as a whole. Kohl Center has been disastrous in Michigan's history and it will surely be rocking as it welcomes a top-two team into it. Michigan was number three with just one loss in 2013 when they were hit with a buzzer-beater to send it to overtime where they eventually lost. The key to me has to be the three-point shooting. Michigan has not faced a team like Wisconsin that can shoot the ball from deep from so many different sources. Teams that have troubled Michigan this season offer ways to score in multiple times. Western Michigan, for example, had a highly-productive point guard and center with post moves. That is, at its essence, what Wisconsin is, but the Badgers' version of the Broncos is on steroids. If they can match the Badgers slow pace by remaining in control of the game, even regardless of Wisconsin's ability to play at an ultra-slow pace, and chase the Badgers off the perimeter, then I feel better about this game. That said, I think Charles Matthews needs to be elite in Madison getting to the rim against a strong opponent, but one that is not of his caliber athletically. The other match-up is Ignas Brazdeikis' on defense. If he can match his bigger opponent's physicality, and even take him to the rim (if it's Nate Reuvers) then Michigan is in better shape offensively. This is a huge game for the Wolverines to get a big road win and continue Wisconsin's misery, the hope is they can walk out of the Kohl Center still 18-0 and remain in shouting distance of the number one spot in the AP Poll.
Follow me on Twitter @RMAB_Ryan for plenty more Michigan basketball coverage, as well as AFC Ann Arbor and Liverpool FC coverage as well!
Wisconsin -- An Overview:
The Badgers started the season off hot and seemed fully over the rough season that was 2017-18. The Badgers started the season off 5-0 with wins over Xavier, Stanford, and Oklahoma, and their first loss was to Virginia, nothing to scoff at. En route to a 10-2 start, it included wins to start the conference season in the early games at Iowa and against Rutgers, plus a win over North Carolina State. Then, the wheels fell off. Wisconsin is 1-4 in their last five games with losses at Western Kentucky and a pair of Big Ten home losses. Their only win in the stretch was a road blow-out against Penn State. Topping out at 12th in the AP Poll, Wisconsin are now unranked and desperate to get back on the right track. The 16th slowest team in the country, the Badgers have also played the ninth toughest schedule. With Michigan playing at the 31st slowest pace, we could be in for a slow, vintage Big Ten affair in the Kohl Center. That said, the Badgers are lethal from three as they have shot 39.1% from deep on the season (19th in the country) and 37.7% in their conference games (second in the Big Ten). Michigan's three-point defense is operating at a high level, this is a battle of strengths on both sides.
Starting Five:
The big man on campus in Madison is also the man that makes Wisconsin go. 6'10" fifth-year senior Ethan Happ is the team leader and most important player for Greg Gard's Wisconsin team. Happ was a Blue Ribbon First-Team All-American and a near-unanimous selection by any other media outlet for that same list. Happ leads the Big Ten in field goals taken, impressive considering all but four of them have been inside the arc. He is the conference-leader in two-pointers made and it is not very close, he leads Penn State's Lamar Stevens by thirty makes. He leads the Badgers in points (19.4), rebounds (10.4), and assists (4.6) per game. His point and rebound per game totals are second in the conference and, perhaps even more impressively, his assists per game are third in the conference trailing only the point guards of the top two teams in the conference. All three of those tallies are career-highs for the center whose 57.1% field-goal percentage is only nudged out by his sophomore year mark of 58.6%. Happ played well against Jon Teske in Teske's minutes played against Wisconsin in their previous meetings, the primary reason of that being the fact that he can play as basically a 6'10" point guard as Wisconsin can, and will, run sets that include Happ getting a rebound, taking it up the court, and taking his (usually slower-footed) center to the paint. Of course, Happ has his faults. He has no three-point shot to note despite the NBA specifically noting this as a source of needed improvement. Additionally, his free throw percentage of just 49.3% is a career low and has been the result of a steady decline combined with teams deciding to 'Hack-a-Happ', working best for Minnesota as Happ went just one-for-seven from the line. Happ makes this Wisconsin team go. If Teske can manage guarding the big man one-on-one and not need any help, that will be massive in silencing the Badgers' supporting cast.
Happ's deputy this season has been sophomore guard D'Mitrik Trice. Standing at 6'0", Trice is the brother of ex-Michigan State Spartan Travis Trice, and just like his brother, D'Mitrik can shoot. Trice started the season a scalding hot 60% from deep (thirty-for-fifty) for seventeen points per game in his first nine games. He has cooled considerably since then, shooting 32.1% from three in the eight games since then for 11.4 points per game, but even with the colder stretch, he's still 45.6% this season. He is second-highest on the team in points (14.6) and assists (2.8) per game and third in rebounds with 3.3 per game, highlighting the fact that on this Wisconsin team it's not about the size of the player, but the ability to do multiple things well. His last two games have seen him go seven-for-seventeen, the start to a return to form, perhaps? I expect Zavier Simpson to draw this match-up without question. Trice struggled from two against Purdue and really leaned into taking threes over twos against Maryland. I expect that will continue and Michigan will try to suffocate him early with Simpson on him. Jordan Poole may cover him as well, but setting the tone on defense on the road is key, and locking up Trice quickly should do that.
The third option has been another household name for those that watch Big Ten basketball, none other than Brad Davison. A 6'3" sophomore guard best known for taking charges that draw the ire of opposing fans, Davison was arguably the heart and soul of the Badgers the last season as he scored thirty on Michigan State despite a shoulder held together by an ace bandage and hope. He stepped up big when several Badgers (including Trice) went down to injury, but this year he has been needed less, and that has meant his production has stepped up. He is averaging 10.5 points per game, over a-point-and-a-half less than last season, but his shooting percentage is up to 44.8% (from 40.5%) largely due to shooting 43.8% from three, up from 35.5% from last season due largely to being one of few long-range options for the Badgers. He's eight-for-twelve in his last three from three, including two three-for-three nights from deep. I would hazard to guess Jordan Poole starts on the scrappy guard, but given the fact that both Trice and Davison can, a, play point guard, and, b, get hot from three, I would imagine that the hotter hand will get covered by Simpson for the important stretches of the game.
Four men have played in and started all seventeen games for the Badgers, and the fourth and final man is center Nate Reuvers. A sophomore standing at 6'11", the big man is currently fourth in the Big Ten in blocks per game, averaging 1.7 per game. Reuvers is averaging 8.2 points and 2.9 rebounds per game, but he has also been helped out by improvement from three as he shoots 38.6% on the season thus far (17-for-44). Reuvers has been able to, like Davison, make a big jump from freshman to sophomore, helped largely due to his important minutes played last season. He is better also from two as he is shooting 59.7% this season for a total field goal percentage of 50.9%. One idea could be to play Teske on Reuvers and have Ignas Brazdeikis and his improved mobility cover Happ, but the problem then becomes covering Happ on his back-ins to the basket as well as forcing Teske to worry about covering the three. I think it is an interesting idea in theory, but may not be the best idea to put into practice, given the high risk that could come with putting the smaller Brazdeikis on Happ. Reuvers will play an important part in the game, though, if he can find the basket and force tougher defense on him by the forward that covers him.
Rounding out the starting five is 6'5" forward Khalil Iverson. The senior missed one game, but Iverson has been vital in providing tough minutes for the Badgers. Not the biggest scorer, Iverson instead offers a driving presence and plenty of athleticism from the wing. Iverson averages 4.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, giving a good, brief, summarization of his game. Yet to make a three-pointer as an upperclassman, instead he prefers to attack the rim, where (inside the arc) he shoots 52.9%. He was a player that needed to step up last season with the injuries the Badgers had and take a bigger scoring role, and he did so to the tune of 8.6 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. Now, playing nearly six-and-a-half less minutes than he did last season, Iverson, like Davison, is asked to do less but is producing just as much as a result of a broader distribution. Charles Matthews will be tasked with guarding him. With some players that Michigan has played, I have made the case that it does not make sense wasting Matthews' perimeter defense on someone who does not shoot from deep. With a dangerous driver like Iverson, however, it would make sense to cover him up and kill his confidence quickly. With his bigger body, Poole could still guard him, but it would be a bit tougher. Regardless, I think Michigan like their odds of quieting Iverson to focus on the bigger scorers Wisconsin will throw at them.
Bench Rundown:
When Iverson missed a game, it was freshman guard Kobe King who filled the gap. Like Trice, King was ruled out of the season with injury last year in December and, also like Trice, he received a medical redshirt. Standing at 6'4", King is averaging nearly the same exact numbers as he was last season before his injury. One promising sign for the young guard is an improvement in three-point percentage up from 33.3% (7-for-21) up to 37.9% (11-for-29) on the season. He has seen a slight drop in two-point percentage and 0.3 points per game drop from his average down to 5.1 points per game, but King is offering sixth-man minutes, strong athleticism, but he needs to find the ability to have that killer instinct put give his team more points on the board with aggressive play. Doing so means the Badgers would find another huge offensive weapon to throw on the floor with the utmost confidence.
Also having played in every game, but off the bench, is 6'3" guard Brevin Pritzl. A redshirt junior, Pritzl plays about the same amount of minutes as King does, but offers a bit more maturity off the bench as a result of his now-four years spent in the program. Another player who saw a ton more time in the game from injuries last season, Pritzl's minutes are down by nearly ten per game from last year, but the talent remains there. The problem is that he has not shown the player that went six-for-nine for twenty points last season against Minnesota. In his last nine games, he is averaging 3.9 points and 2.2 rebounds in over twenty minutes per game on just three attempts (2.2 from three). Of course, part of that is something I have mentioned plenty in this preview, returnees from injury playing a key role, but the veteran guard and former top-100 recruit in the nation would figure to be a bigger piece of the puzzle. If he can turn things up a notch the rest of the way is yet to be seen.
Wisconsin frequently plays two more bench players, one averaging double-figure minutes per game, one seeing more 'bit' minutes, both having appeared in fourteen games. First is Aleem Ford, who is seeing 14.1 minutes per game and averaging 3.1 points and two rebounds on 33.3% shooting (30.8% from deep). Ford is, stop me if you've heard this one before, a sophomore who has seen a reduced role with a fully healthy Badgers team. Standing 6'8", the forward shoots primarily from deep and led Badgers regulars with 40.9% shooting from deep on 110 attempts. This season, Ford is playing over ten minutes less per game than last season. Still, he offers a shooting threat off the bench. Finally, we have Charles Thomas IV, a 6'8" senior forward, who is averaging 6.6 minutes per game. A true role player, Thomas is averaging 2.5 points and 1.9 rebounds per game in his limited minutes. He's 46.4% from the field (13-for-28) and has yet to see double figure minutes in a non-blowout game for the Badgers. Expect Ford and Thomas to combine to spell both Ethan Happ and Nate Reuvers when either man need a blow.
Pre-Game Thoughts:
When breaking down this Wisconsin team, I am more concerned for this Michigan team than I have been since the North Carolina game, and perhaps may be most concerned about this one as a whole. Kohl Center has been disastrous in Michigan's history and it will surely be rocking as it welcomes a top-two team into it. Michigan was number three with just one loss in 2013 when they were hit with a buzzer-beater to send it to overtime where they eventually lost. The key to me has to be the three-point shooting. Michigan has not faced a team like Wisconsin that can shoot the ball from deep from so many different sources. Teams that have troubled Michigan this season offer ways to score in multiple times. Western Michigan, for example, had a highly-productive point guard and center with post moves. That is, at its essence, what Wisconsin is, but the Badgers' version of the Broncos is on steroids. If they can match the Badgers slow pace by remaining in control of the game, even regardless of Wisconsin's ability to play at an ultra-slow pace, and chase the Badgers off the perimeter, then I feel better about this game. That said, I think Charles Matthews needs to be elite in Madison getting to the rim against a strong opponent, but one that is not of his caliber athletically. The other match-up is Ignas Brazdeikis' on defense. If he can match his bigger opponent's physicality, and even take him to the rim (if it's Nate Reuvers) then Michigan is in better shape offensively. This is a huge game for the Wolverines to get a big road win and continue Wisconsin's misery, the hope is they can walk out of the Kohl Center still 18-0 and remain in shouting distance of the number one spot in the AP Poll.
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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