Against Cleveland State on Monday, the Michigan men’s basketball team put up 101 points on 68.4% percent shooting from the floor. With a performance like that, it’s hard not to talk about the offensive output — the defense could’ve allowed 100 points itself and the Wolverines would still be 1-0.
But Michigan isn’t going to shoot that efficiently every night, and it can’t phone it in on defense expecting the offensive output to carry it to a victory. That doesn’t look like it’ll be an issue for the Wolverines, though, as even amid the blowout, their defense was staunch and cohesive.
Offense and defense aren’t mutually exclusive in basketball: Good defense initiates good offense with fast-breaks and transition buckets, and good offense facilitates good defense by buying more time to set up in the half-court. The two forces worked in tandem for Michigan, allowing the Vikings to score just 53 points, a result Wolverines coach Dusty May believes is a solid building block for the future.
“If you’re very intentional and you have an intelligent group, which we do, we should be able to improve every single game,” May said postgame Monday. “Even when we’re not playing well offensively, or the other team has good shooting performance, or whatever, you’re trying to build to have the best habits by January, February, March, when it really matters.”
May has a somewhat peculiar roster — one with both size and versatility, headlined by a 7-footer that he can trust on the perimeter in junior forward Danny Wolf. And with his peculiar roster, May can run a relatively peculiar defensive scheme: switching everything.
Of the nine or 10 players that get consistent, meaningful minutes, only graduate center Vlad Goldin doesn’t switch nearly every screen. That means strange switches happen like 6-foot-3 junior guard Tre Donaldson and 7-foot Wolf are often rotating assignments on ball screens. While this strategy sets up a couple of mismatches, it also provides a new, confusing look to opposing offenses that can blow up set plays.
“It allows us to guard defensively in a totally different way,” Donaldson said Monday. “And it’s hard for offenses to catch a real feel for the game offensively, because we’re able to switch, or we can stay sometimes, we switch it up. But it just opens up so many gateways for us defensively and allows us to affect the offense.”
The scheme certainly appeared to affect Cleveland State. Michigan racked up 11 steals and eight blocks while forcing 21 turnovers. And those blocks, steals and turnovers, more often than not, turned into fastbreak opportunities. The Wolverines’ offense took advantage of these chances, scoring 29 points off of turnovers alone.
While Wolf had quite an impressive offensive showing, the Vikings couldn’t shake his presence on defense, either. In his 29 minutes, he swatted three blocks and collected three steals as well. While Wolf’s guard-like skillset at 7-foot is certainly rare, May’s system is allowing him to disrupt opponents even more.
“I think there was a stretch in the second half where my matchup was one of their point guards or shooting guards,” Wolf said Monday. “(It’s) just a lot of work and practice and just trying to get the nuances of how to switch, when to switch, and where to be positioned. But we have a great defensive minded coaching staff. I don’t know if there’s much better out there, and they really help us succeed in those ways.”
Just like the defense could’ve allowed 100 points and still collected the win, the offense could’ve put up a stinker and scored 54 to the same end. It’s that kind of insurance that playing both ends of the floor affords. Against Cleveland State, Michigan showed that when both the offense and defense are in lock step, it’s going to be a team to reckon with.
Not too many college teams have the size and versatility to switch screens one through five. But the Wolverines do, and they’re going to take advantage of it.
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