By Aidan Joly
On Monday night, Michigan delivered an impressive 89-73 win against St. John’s, spoiling Rick Pitino’s return to Madison Square Garden.
The win improved the Wolverines to a 3-0 start after blowout wins against UNC Asheville and Youngstown State to begin the season. It also propelled them to within the top 25 in Tuesday’s KenPom rankings after starting the season outside of the top 40. It was the first big test for this team and it passed with flying colors.
In Monday’s win, sophomore Dug McDaniel was fantastic, scoring 26 points on 8-16 from the field, dished out seven assists and grabbed six rebounds. On top of that, Nimari Burnett dropped 21 points on 8-13 shooting, while Terrance Williams II had 12 points, Will Tschetter had 10 off the bench, and Olivier Nkamhoua had nine.
It’s a big step for McDaniel, who is averaging 21.3 points per game through the team’s first three games, one of five Wolverines who has averaged double figures through the first three games.
This was almost not expected out of the Wolverines, who lost their star in Hunter Dickinson to the transfer portal, and also lost Jett Howard and Kobe Bufkin to the NBA, both of whom ended up as top-15 picks. It added the aforementioned Nkamhoua from Tennessee in the portal, a very good defensive player, but it remained to be seen how much of an impact he would have on offense.
They are also doing it without head coach Juwan Howard, who is dealing with health issues. Right now, assistant coach Phil Martelli is running the team.
There are a whole bunch of stats that make Michigan look like a better team than it was last year. So far this season, the team’s effective field goal percentage is 62.1, good for 10th in the country so far and much improved from last season’s mark of 51.6, which put Michigan 115th in the country. This means that the team is taking smarter shots and making them at a much higher rate.
It is making its threes at 41% to start the season, up from 35.1% last season. All of this is shot selection. According to cbbanalytics.com, Michigan is taking 8.5% more shots at the rim compared to last year, 5.8% less mid-range shots from two, and 2.7% more threes from the corner.
On KenPom, its adjusted offensive rating has also taken a bit of a jump. Last season it was 112.3, 48th in the nation, and so far this year it has moved up to 113.9, 17th in the country.
Is this a small sample size? Of course. The Wolverines have only played three games and only one of them has been against a quality opponent. Regression should be expected. Michigan has a game on Friday against Long Beach State in Ann Arbor before it heads to the Bahamas for three games, the first of which is against Memphis the day before Thanksgiving.
After that, it plays a true road game against Oregon on Dec. 2, then a few conference games against Indiana and Iowa, then its last real non-conference test comes on a neutral floor against Florida on Dec. 19.
All of this being said, it will be fascinating to see how the Wolverines look the next few weeks, and especially how its Feast Week MTE goes.
AJ Hoops 