Michigan looks to make yet another deep NCAA Tournament run as the round of 64 begins for the Wolverines in Des Moines, Iowa, at approximately 9:10 PM against the Montana Grizzlies. It is the second 2v15 seed in John Beilein's coaching history at the University of Michigan, the first being a grind-it-out victory over Wofford with his Big Ten winning 2013-14 Wolverines. In a rematch of last season's first round match-up, Michigan will hope to knock off Montana once again this season.
Montana -- An Overview:
Winning the Big Sky outright, and the conference tournament, for the second season in a row, has set Montana up for their second straight date with Michigan in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Topping in at 137th in KenPom rankings and finishing the season with a 26-8 record, they were the top fifteen seed according to the tournament committee's seeding, despite sitting seven spots behind Colgate in KenPom. Montana played a pair of Quadrant I games (according to the BartTorvik rankings) but lost both -- those two being away games at Creighton and UC Irvine. They went 1-1 in Quadrant II games, beating South Dakota State on the road but losing at Arizona. In conference play, they went on a ten-game win streak over a month-and-a-half to help secure an outright conference championship by a game. They also, however, lost twice to second place Northern Colorado, who slipped up in the conference tournament to Southern Utah and allowing Montana to take down Eastern Washington in the finals, albeit, EWU was a team who beat Montana at home and only lost by one in Montana. Montana also lost twice to Portland State who finished as the five seed in the Big Sky. This is a strong Montana team, especially offensively where they finished seventh in field-goal percentage and 25th in three point percentage in the entire NCAA, but they are not without their flaws as well. Especially as they are without a frontcourt star in Jamar Akoh, and have been for half the season. Regardless, they are a veteran team with backcourt leadership.
Starting Five:
The key man for Montana both this season and last has been Ahmaad Rorie. The 6'1" senior is in his final season with the Grizzlies having spent his freshman season with Oregon, then transferring over in 2015. When it comes to the Grizzlies, he has had a massive effect on the program. He was the Team MVP as a sophomore and junior while also becoming the quickest player to 1,500 points in program history. He was a Second Team All-Big Sky member as a sophomore before making the jump to First Team All-Big Sky as a junior, and retaining membership this season. He was the MVP of the conference tournament as well, surely aided by a 28 point night against Weber State where he went ten-for-fourteen with four-for-seven shooting from three. He has led Montana in PORPAGATU! in all three years with the program, and currently sits with a 3.4 this season. Despite a drop in raw points per game each season (from 17.6 to 17.2 to fifteen-even) he is maturing. Despite playing 34.6 minutes per game, he is averaging just 1.5 turnovers compared to a career-high four assists per game. He's also at a career-high in rebounds per game (4.1) while making a massive leap in two point percentage from 46.8% to 54.7%, helping lead to a jump in field goal percentage as a whole from 42.2% to 47.1%. He is also shooting 36.8% from three and 80% from the free throw line. He can do a little bit of everything and that makes him a terror. As a senior, he is set to leave a stamp on the program as a whole, more so than he already has. It is going to be Zavier Simpson's job to slow his role as a whole. Against Simpson last meeting, he went six-for-seventeen with fifteen points and seven rebounds, but just two-for-seven from three and only a pair of assists. If Montana pulls the upset, it is going to start with production out of Rorie.
Joining Rorie in the backcourt is Michael Oguine, a fellow senior. Standing at 6'2", Oguine makes up the second half of what Blue Ribbon described in their preseason guide as "what might be the best backcourt in the Big Sky". Oguine made the Third Team All-Big Sky Conference Team marking the third season in a row he has been on an all-conference team (Third Team All-Conference as a sophomore, Second Team All-Conference as a junior) and has followed up his Conference Defensive Player of the Year season with similarly strong defensive effort. A four-year starter, Oguine is averaging 13.2 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, again, an example of a Montana player playing bigger than his height. He is shooting 35.7% from three, equaling his percentage last season, but with is just buoyed by a seven-game stretch of at least one three made through December where he shot 48.4% on 4.4 attempts per game. He was named to the All-Tournament Team as he measured similar stats over the three games as the entire season. His overall FG% of 50.4% is a career-high and his jump from 51.4% to 58.3% in two point percentage was key in making that leap forward in his game. As a defensive stopper, it is interesting to ponder who he will draw in the match-up against Michigan. He was good against Michigan last meeting, with fifteen points on five-of-eleven shooting (four-for-eight from two) and he will hope to have a similar intensity on both ends of the court this meeting.
This season, of players that have played the full season, there is no one scoring more points per game than Sayeed Pridgett. The junior guard stands at 6'5" and is a two-time recipient of Montana's Most Improved Player Award. This season, he was honored as a member of the First Team All-Big Sky Conference Team as well. He is averaging 15.1 points and 4.9 rebounds per game this season while serving as a true breakout star of the season. Pridgett is not only effective, but efficient. He is an over-60% shooter from the field on 10.8 attempts. Additionally, while shooting 48.7% from three, he is 19-for-39, a sign of understanding how to play within himself. His last twelve games, that is, the amount of games Montana have been without Jamar Akoh, have been ever more impressive, as he has averaged 19.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 2.9 assists on 66% shooting from the field while going 63.6% from three on eleven attempts in that span. With Akoh out, the Grizzlies may have crumpled if they had no one else to pick up on the big man's production, and fortunately for them that space has been filled expertly. He can play bigger than he is, which makes him a likely target on defense for Ignas Brazdeikis to take. The freshman has been better on defense especially as of late, and Pridgett will certainly be a test for the Canadian's speed and rebounding ability. He was just three-for-eleven against Michigan in last tournament, scoring seven points off the bench.
Rorie and Pridgett have started in all 34 games of this season, and they are joined in that category by Bobby Moorehead. Moorehead is a 6'7" senior who is listed as a guard despite being the tallest member of the starting five. He has played at least 44% of minutes in each of his four seasons with the Grizzlies, topping out last season with 78.2% of minutes played. The winner of the Defensive Player of the Year Award as a junior last season, he has started the past 68 games straight, and is set to make it 69 in a row to close out his career. He is averaging 5.4 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, solid numbers for a player described by Travis DeCuire to Blue Ribbon as their "most important rebounder". Offensively, though, Moorehead is not going to be a massive concern. With a usage rate of just 11.3%, that is lowest of any player to be involved in at least 10% of the teams' minutes. His field goal percentage is at 35.5% and he is shooting just 30.8% from three, down from 35.2% from last season. Going up against Jon Teske to likely start the game, he may look to try to set the tone from long range instead of down low, where despite his rebounding strengths, he will be giving up a massive height gap. Despite playing 39 minutes in the last meeting of these two teams, he was just one-for-five with three points, but he snagged a team-high nine rebounds. Teske will need to be alert on that end.
Rounding out the starting five is sophomore Timmy Falls, a recent addition to the starters' group. Falls won himself a starting role in the last four games of the season, and the 6'2" guard offers a glimpse into the future. Falls has played a similar role this season to last, though the addition to the starting rotation has been new to this season. He started three games earlier this season, but moved to the bench to offer a consistent sixth man presence off the bench. He is shooting just slightly more threes and fewer twos than last season, but the percentage trends are in the opposite directions -- he is up from 41.9% to 46.2% from two, but down from 40.7% from three to 33.8% from three. After his team-high percentage from deep last season, it has seen a drop, but he still plays an important role for the team as a whole. He has upped his assists from 1.5 to 2.3 per game, and still hovers at 4.6 points per game. Despite a PORPAGATU! in the negatives (-0.3) he can still be a problem from deep if ignored by the Wolverines. He played fifteen minutes off the bench in last season's meeting, shooting once, missing a three, and fouling out.
Bench Rundown:
The man getting the most minutes off the bench for this Montana side is Kendal Manuel. Manuel is yet another Pac-12 transfer, having spent two seasons with Oregon State, including last season, but the 6'4" redshirt junior was immediately eligible. He has played for Mozambique in FIBA World Cup qualifying as well, given his dual citizenship with the United States and the African nation. Manuel played a big role for the Beavers in their 5-26 season as a freshman, where he started and averaged 7.8 points per game. After a decreased role in his sophomore season, he decided to jump over to Montana where he has found a superb role for himself and even won the Big Sky equivalent to Sixth Man of the Year. He is averaging a career-high in points per game (8.9) despite minutes per game down from 28.8 as a freshman to 19.4 this season as a junior. He is also shooting 43.8% from the field, 43.2% from three, and 85.7% from the free throw line, in what is the biggest jump up, even more impressive considering the larger sample size. He can get hot from three and impact the game, made clear over his three games where he went thirteen-for-fifteen from deep. He will be called up to hit some big shots off the bench and adds a dimension to the Montana attack that they did not have last season.
Prior to Timmy Falls starting, that role as fifth starter after Jamar Akoh's injury was Donaven Dorsey. Dorsey is a redshirt senior who joined the team in 2016 from Washington, but sat out the entirety of last season with a hip injury. He is a 6'7" guard who has made ten starts this season. Like Manuel, coming to the mid-major ranks from the Pac-12 has led to an increased freedom in his role, as well as increased production. He is up from 36.8% with Washington as a sophomore to 49.3% as a senior, having had two years on the sideline to watch and gain an understanding of the system. With comparable attempts (89 to 86) from three as a freshman to his senior season, he is also up from 33.7% to 45.3% from beyond the arc, impressive regardless of the season-to-season jump. Averaging 6.1 points per game, he is a reliable role player option who can come off the bench and also get hot in a hurry. He has eight double-digit scoring games, including a twenty point night with six-for-seven shooting from three. It will be essential to cover Dorsey on the outside of the perimeter.
Rounding out the bench players who have the potential to see minutes in the tournament are a pair of bonafide bigs. First, and the most likely of the two, is Mack Anderson, a 6'9" true freshman from the state of Montana. Anderson has had two of his six highest minute played games over the conference tournament, and he went a combined five-for-seven from the field. His top performance of the season was a 22 minute, six-for-eight, twelve point and four rebound game where he helped Montana top Idaho State on the road by twelve. He is averaging 2.2 points and 1.6 rebounds while seeing action in 27 games. He is also shooting an impressive 27-for-41 (65.9%) from the field on the season. Next, is 6'10" redshirt freshman Kelby Kramer who, despite a pair of starts, has not played five minutes or more since the Grizzlies' 41-point blowout victory over Idaho. Kramer played thirty minutes in a start at Arizona in response to Akoh missing that game (his seventh of the season at the time) and performed well and within himself. He has only made two field goals in a game once and is eight-for-thirteen from the field (61.5%) on the season, all from two. He may see spot minutes if needed.
Final Thoughts:
The idea of playing the same team in the first round two seasons in a row may be disappointing for some who wanted a fresh match-up, but the fact is that this is a nuisance-filled 2v15 game. For Michigan, I think we'll see plenty of Isaiah Livers at the center, but there is also the question of if Montana wants to give one of their two bigs that see occasional minutes some playing time against Jon Teske, especially if the big man is having a big night against the undersized swing-men that are the largest men on the court for Montana. Michigan also has to be concerned with the availability of bench shooting for the Grizzlies, both players with high-level experience. When, say, Kendal Manuel, is substituted in the game in exchange for someone like Timmy Falls, who has seen production drop off a bit from his freshman to sophomore season, that could mean a full upperclassman line-up with the ability to space out the floor. Of course, this also brings about questions of whether or not Montana will have the size and strength to answer Michigan's bigger line-ups. If Teske gets extended run, surely it will be Montana that has to bring a counter for Michigan, and not vice versa. The shooting of Montana is a concern, but Michigan's three point defense is giving up the fifth-lowest percentage in the nation while conceding the fewest makes in the country. Still, Montana has the sixth-highest EFG% in the country as well, according to BartTorvik, making this game a strength vs. strength match-up. This is also a Montana team that 'overnight' went from middling-offensive side to a powerhouse from three. The battle of the three-point arc is surely what needs to be win for one of these teams to come out victorious, and Michigan will need to hit some of their own to take control of the game themselves.
Follow me on Twitter @RMAB_Ryan for plenty more Michigan basketball coverage, as well as AFC Ann Arbor and Liverpool FC coverage as well!
Montana -- An Overview:
Winning the Big Sky outright, and the conference tournament, for the second season in a row, has set Montana up for their second straight date with Michigan in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Topping in at 137th in KenPom rankings and finishing the season with a 26-8 record, they were the top fifteen seed according to the tournament committee's seeding, despite sitting seven spots behind Colgate in KenPom. Montana played a pair of Quadrant I games (according to the BartTorvik rankings) but lost both -- those two being away games at Creighton and UC Irvine. They went 1-1 in Quadrant II games, beating South Dakota State on the road but losing at Arizona. In conference play, they went on a ten-game win streak over a month-and-a-half to help secure an outright conference championship by a game. They also, however, lost twice to second place Northern Colorado, who slipped up in the conference tournament to Southern Utah and allowing Montana to take down Eastern Washington in the finals, albeit, EWU was a team who beat Montana at home and only lost by one in Montana. Montana also lost twice to Portland State who finished as the five seed in the Big Sky. This is a strong Montana team, especially offensively where they finished seventh in field-goal percentage and 25th in three point percentage in the entire NCAA, but they are not without their flaws as well. Especially as they are without a frontcourt star in Jamar Akoh, and have been for half the season. Regardless, they are a veteran team with backcourt leadership.
Starting Five:
The key man for Montana both this season and last has been Ahmaad Rorie. The 6'1" senior is in his final season with the Grizzlies having spent his freshman season with Oregon, then transferring over in 2015. When it comes to the Grizzlies, he has had a massive effect on the program. He was the Team MVP as a sophomore and junior while also becoming the quickest player to 1,500 points in program history. He was a Second Team All-Big Sky member as a sophomore before making the jump to First Team All-Big Sky as a junior, and retaining membership this season. He was the MVP of the conference tournament as well, surely aided by a 28 point night against Weber State where he went ten-for-fourteen with four-for-seven shooting from three. He has led Montana in PORPAGATU! in all three years with the program, and currently sits with a 3.4 this season. Despite a drop in raw points per game each season (from 17.6 to 17.2 to fifteen-even) he is maturing. Despite playing 34.6 minutes per game, he is averaging just 1.5 turnovers compared to a career-high four assists per game. He's also at a career-high in rebounds per game (4.1) while making a massive leap in two point percentage from 46.8% to 54.7%, helping lead to a jump in field goal percentage as a whole from 42.2% to 47.1%. He is also shooting 36.8% from three and 80% from the free throw line. He can do a little bit of everything and that makes him a terror. As a senior, he is set to leave a stamp on the program as a whole, more so than he already has. It is going to be Zavier Simpson's job to slow his role as a whole. Against Simpson last meeting, he went six-for-seventeen with fifteen points and seven rebounds, but just two-for-seven from three and only a pair of assists. If Montana pulls the upset, it is going to start with production out of Rorie.
Joining Rorie in the backcourt is Michael Oguine, a fellow senior. Standing at 6'2", Oguine makes up the second half of what Blue Ribbon described in their preseason guide as "what might be the best backcourt in the Big Sky". Oguine made the Third Team All-Big Sky Conference Team marking the third season in a row he has been on an all-conference team (Third Team All-Conference as a sophomore, Second Team All-Conference as a junior) and has followed up his Conference Defensive Player of the Year season with similarly strong defensive effort. A four-year starter, Oguine is averaging 13.2 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, again, an example of a Montana player playing bigger than his height. He is shooting 35.7% from three, equaling his percentage last season, but with is just buoyed by a seven-game stretch of at least one three made through December where he shot 48.4% on 4.4 attempts per game. He was named to the All-Tournament Team as he measured similar stats over the three games as the entire season. His overall FG% of 50.4% is a career-high and his jump from 51.4% to 58.3% in two point percentage was key in making that leap forward in his game. As a defensive stopper, it is interesting to ponder who he will draw in the match-up against Michigan. He was good against Michigan last meeting, with fifteen points on five-of-eleven shooting (four-for-eight from two) and he will hope to have a similar intensity on both ends of the court this meeting.
This season, of players that have played the full season, there is no one scoring more points per game than Sayeed Pridgett. The junior guard stands at 6'5" and is a two-time recipient of Montana's Most Improved Player Award. This season, he was honored as a member of the First Team All-Big Sky Conference Team as well. He is averaging 15.1 points and 4.9 rebounds per game this season while serving as a true breakout star of the season. Pridgett is not only effective, but efficient. He is an over-60% shooter from the field on 10.8 attempts. Additionally, while shooting 48.7% from three, he is 19-for-39, a sign of understanding how to play within himself. His last twelve games, that is, the amount of games Montana have been without Jamar Akoh, have been ever more impressive, as he has averaged 19.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 2.9 assists on 66% shooting from the field while going 63.6% from three on eleven attempts in that span. With Akoh out, the Grizzlies may have crumpled if they had no one else to pick up on the big man's production, and fortunately for them that space has been filled expertly. He can play bigger than he is, which makes him a likely target on defense for Ignas Brazdeikis to take. The freshman has been better on defense especially as of late, and Pridgett will certainly be a test for the Canadian's speed and rebounding ability. He was just three-for-eleven against Michigan in last tournament, scoring seven points off the bench.
Rorie and Pridgett have started in all 34 games of this season, and they are joined in that category by Bobby Moorehead. Moorehead is a 6'7" senior who is listed as a guard despite being the tallest member of the starting five. He has played at least 44% of minutes in each of his four seasons with the Grizzlies, topping out last season with 78.2% of minutes played. The winner of the Defensive Player of the Year Award as a junior last season, he has started the past 68 games straight, and is set to make it 69 in a row to close out his career. He is averaging 5.4 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, solid numbers for a player described by Travis DeCuire to Blue Ribbon as their "most important rebounder". Offensively, though, Moorehead is not going to be a massive concern. With a usage rate of just 11.3%, that is lowest of any player to be involved in at least 10% of the teams' minutes. His field goal percentage is at 35.5% and he is shooting just 30.8% from three, down from 35.2% from last season. Going up against Jon Teske to likely start the game, he may look to try to set the tone from long range instead of down low, where despite his rebounding strengths, he will be giving up a massive height gap. Despite playing 39 minutes in the last meeting of these two teams, he was just one-for-five with three points, but he snagged a team-high nine rebounds. Teske will need to be alert on that end.
Rounding out the starting five is sophomore Timmy Falls, a recent addition to the starters' group. Falls won himself a starting role in the last four games of the season, and the 6'2" guard offers a glimpse into the future. Falls has played a similar role this season to last, though the addition to the starting rotation has been new to this season. He started three games earlier this season, but moved to the bench to offer a consistent sixth man presence off the bench. He is shooting just slightly more threes and fewer twos than last season, but the percentage trends are in the opposite directions -- he is up from 41.9% to 46.2% from two, but down from 40.7% from three to 33.8% from three. After his team-high percentage from deep last season, it has seen a drop, but he still plays an important role for the team as a whole. He has upped his assists from 1.5 to 2.3 per game, and still hovers at 4.6 points per game. Despite a PORPAGATU! in the negatives (-0.3) he can still be a problem from deep if ignored by the Wolverines. He played fifteen minutes off the bench in last season's meeting, shooting once, missing a three, and fouling out.
Bench Rundown:
The man getting the most minutes off the bench for this Montana side is Kendal Manuel. Manuel is yet another Pac-12 transfer, having spent two seasons with Oregon State, including last season, but the 6'4" redshirt junior was immediately eligible. He has played for Mozambique in FIBA World Cup qualifying as well, given his dual citizenship with the United States and the African nation. Manuel played a big role for the Beavers in their 5-26 season as a freshman, where he started and averaged 7.8 points per game. After a decreased role in his sophomore season, he decided to jump over to Montana where he has found a superb role for himself and even won the Big Sky equivalent to Sixth Man of the Year. He is averaging a career-high in points per game (8.9) despite minutes per game down from 28.8 as a freshman to 19.4 this season as a junior. He is also shooting 43.8% from the field, 43.2% from three, and 85.7% from the free throw line, in what is the biggest jump up, even more impressive considering the larger sample size. He can get hot from three and impact the game, made clear over his three games where he went thirteen-for-fifteen from deep. He will be called up to hit some big shots off the bench and adds a dimension to the Montana attack that they did not have last season.
Prior to Timmy Falls starting, that role as fifth starter after Jamar Akoh's injury was Donaven Dorsey. Dorsey is a redshirt senior who joined the team in 2016 from Washington, but sat out the entirety of last season with a hip injury. He is a 6'7" guard who has made ten starts this season. Like Manuel, coming to the mid-major ranks from the Pac-12 has led to an increased freedom in his role, as well as increased production. He is up from 36.8% with Washington as a sophomore to 49.3% as a senior, having had two years on the sideline to watch and gain an understanding of the system. With comparable attempts (89 to 86) from three as a freshman to his senior season, he is also up from 33.7% to 45.3% from beyond the arc, impressive regardless of the season-to-season jump. Averaging 6.1 points per game, he is a reliable role player option who can come off the bench and also get hot in a hurry. He has eight double-digit scoring games, including a twenty point night with six-for-seven shooting from three. It will be essential to cover Dorsey on the outside of the perimeter.
Rounding out the bench players who have the potential to see minutes in the tournament are a pair of bonafide bigs. First, and the most likely of the two, is Mack Anderson, a 6'9" true freshman from the state of Montana. Anderson has had two of his six highest minute played games over the conference tournament, and he went a combined five-for-seven from the field. His top performance of the season was a 22 minute, six-for-eight, twelve point and four rebound game where he helped Montana top Idaho State on the road by twelve. He is averaging 2.2 points and 1.6 rebounds while seeing action in 27 games. He is also shooting an impressive 27-for-41 (65.9%) from the field on the season. Next, is 6'10" redshirt freshman Kelby Kramer who, despite a pair of starts, has not played five minutes or more since the Grizzlies' 41-point blowout victory over Idaho. Kramer played thirty minutes in a start at Arizona in response to Akoh missing that game (his seventh of the season at the time) and performed well and within himself. He has only made two field goals in a game once and is eight-for-thirteen from the field (61.5%) on the season, all from two. He may see spot minutes if needed.
Final Thoughts:
The idea of playing the same team in the first round two seasons in a row may be disappointing for some who wanted a fresh match-up, but the fact is that this is a nuisance-filled 2v15 game. For Michigan, I think we'll see plenty of Isaiah Livers at the center, but there is also the question of if Montana wants to give one of their two bigs that see occasional minutes some playing time against Jon Teske, especially if the big man is having a big night against the undersized swing-men that are the largest men on the court for Montana. Michigan also has to be concerned with the availability of bench shooting for the Grizzlies, both players with high-level experience. When, say, Kendal Manuel, is substituted in the game in exchange for someone like Timmy Falls, who has seen production drop off a bit from his freshman to sophomore season, that could mean a full upperclassman line-up with the ability to space out the floor. Of course, this also brings about questions of whether or not Montana will have the size and strength to answer Michigan's bigger line-ups. If Teske gets extended run, surely it will be Montana that has to bring a counter for Michigan, and not vice versa. The shooting of Montana is a concern, but Michigan's three point defense is giving up the fifth-lowest percentage in the nation while conceding the fewest makes in the country. Still, Montana has the sixth-highest EFG% in the country as well, according to BartTorvik, making this game a strength vs. strength match-up. This is also a Montana team that 'overnight' went from middling-offensive side to a powerhouse from three. The battle of the three-point arc is surely what needs to be win for one of these teams to come out victorious, and Michigan will need to hit some of their own to take control of the game themselves.
Follow me on Twitter @RMAB_Ryan for plenty more Michigan basketball coverage, as well as AFC Ann Arbor and Liverpool FC coverage as well!
Comments
Post a Comment