College basketball week 18: 5 important things to know

We’re less than a week from Selection Sunday. Here are five things we learned from last week’s college hoops action.

Welcome to March! The best month of the year is upon and we’re less than a week out from Selection Sunday. Five schools have already punched their tickets to the NCAA Tournament and several others will be looking lock up automatic bids this week. From Michigan’s Final Four credentials to bubble teams to one-bid leagues. Here’s what you need to know about the week that was and what’s to come.

5. Michigan’s new look defense makes it a March threat

For the second straight year, the Wolverines are Big Ten conference tournament champions and for the second straight year, they look like a threat to make some noise in March. Last season’s Michigan was a legitimate feel good story, swiping an automatic bid before making a run to the second weekend. This season’s Michigan is significantly more dangerous.

Why? These Wolverines are playing defense.

Michigan head coach John Beilein is well-known for his player development and impressive offensive schemes, but he’d never had a top 10 defense based on adjusted efficiency in the 17 seasons of the KenPom era until now.

The Wolverines rank sixth nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency and their high level statistics suggest a modern tilt that takes advantage of some of basketball’s latest trends.

For starters, Michigan has almost entirely abandoned the offensive glass in favor of getting back in transition. When a shot goes up, the Wolverines sprint back. They have rebounded just 26.0 percent of their own misses this season. That’s proven valuable as it’s allowed them to take away easy transition opportunities from their opposition.

Michigan’s opponents have attempted just 18.4 percent of their shots in transition — defined as an initial field goal attempt in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock — this season, per Hoop-Math. That’s the 59th best mark in Division I. Eliminating transition chances that are normally high percentage looks is well correlated with an improvement in adjusted defensive efficiency as you can see in the below chart:

With opponents relegated to operating in the halfcourt, Michigan has a greater ability to attempt to influence where those opponents are taking their shots. A number of quality individual perimeter defenders allows the Wolverines to more aggressively push opponents off the 3-point line. Just 30.2 percent of opponents’ field goal attempts have come from behind the arc this season, per KenPom, the ninth lowest mark in Division I.

Instead, opponents are forced into difficult 2-pointers. Hoop-Math measures two types of 2s. First, there are shots at the rim, which are classified as layups or dunks in the play-by-play data. Second, is any other type of 2, be it a long jumper or a tough floater in the lane. 45.9 percent of the Wolverines’ opponents’ shots are classified as the latter, the highest in the country by over four percent. And wouldn’t you know it…forcing teams to take inefficient 2s away from the rim is associated with a better overall adjusted defensive efficiency:

Eliminating transition opportunities and forcing opponents into inefficient, difficult 2-pointers are hallmarks of many of the NBA’s best defenses. Most college teams have already caught onto the first part of the puzzle. Offensive rebounding is down across the board in Division I, but plenty of good college teams are still content to sit back and let opponents launch 3s over the top. Not 2017-18 Michigan. And that’s why the Wolverines could make their way to the Final Four later this month.

Note: Chart data excludes Sunday’s Big Ten title game against Purdue.