As the non-conference portion of the season starts to wind down, the Florida Gators (7-3) will have one more opportunity to take down a high-major opponent when they take on the Michigan Wolverines (5-5) in the Jumpman Invitational, taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In a lot of ways, the Gators are catching the Wolverines at the best time considering both on and off the court issues the program is having. On the court, the Wolverines are missing a key guard in Jaelin Llewellyn, a Princeton transfer who the Gators once had interest in while he was in portal. They’re also missing Jace Howard, a 6’7” guard providing wing depth. Off the court, a well-publicised confrontation between head coach Juwan Howard and nationally respected strength and conditioning coach Jon Sanderson has been making headlines for the wrong reasons.
For a variety of reasons, the Wolverines now find themselves 2-5 in their last seven. In fairness to that tough spell and the 5-5 record–Michigan has challenged themselves with a very different schedule. They’ve yet to play a bad opponent, with six games coming against high-major programs, one game coming against Memphis who is functionally a high-major opponent, and then three mid-major games against teams picked to finish at the top of their leagues. Michigan’s wins have come over Iowa, Stanford, St. John’s Youngstown State, and UNC Asheville (who is technically the worst opponent Michigan has faced, and they’re 228th in KenPom) while their losses have come to Indiana, Oregon, Texas Tech, Memphis, and worst of all–Long Beach State. The Long Beach State loss might look bad, and while it’s still certainly a game Michigan would like back, the Beach (yes, Long Beach State’s team name is “Beach”) are 123rd in KenPom and have also beaten USC and DePaul.
When it comes to Michigan’s successes, it has been all about offense. Currently ranked 22nd in adjusted offensive efficiency according to KenPom the Wolverines can put up points in a hurry and they can score in multiple ways. It all starts with point guard Dug McDaniel, one of the most fun players to watch in the country. Listed generously, perhaps even extremely generously at 5’11”, McDaniel is an electric guard that seems to be able to get wherever he wants on the floor using his quickness and a compact frame that can find creases in a defense. So far he is averaging 18.6 points and 5.1 assists per game, leading the Wolverines’ attack as their most important offensive player.
It’s not just McDaniel who can fill it up as the Wolverines also have production from the inside coming from a name that will be awfully familiar to Florida fans–Olivier Nkamhoua. Nkamhoua played for Tennessee for four seasons and contributed heavily to their culture of physicality and defense, though now that he’s at Michigan he looks like a completely different player. Peaking at 10.8 points per game at Tennessee, he has thrived in a new role at Michigan now averaging 16.8 points per game while still bringing physicality and defense averaging 7.1 rebounds per game. With the Wolverines Nkamhoua is used in the high post as someone who can create with the dribble, a skill we really didn’t see utilized at Tennessee. After taking 88 threes in four years at Tennessee he has already taken 32 this season and is hitting 38% of them–adding to his newfound offensive versatility. Nkamhoua largely plays the power forward spot for Michigan at 6’9” and 235 pounds and it will make for a tremendous matchup against Tyrese Samuel who has been an extremely important player for the Gators. Whichever team gets the most out of the matchup could get a huge advantage in the outcome of the game.
Not only does Michigan have a couple of talented players but they have excellent complimentary pieces in massive 6’10” center Tarris Reed, intelligent 6’4” defender Nimari Burnett (who played at Alabama last year), and savvy, physical wing Terrance Williams. The Wolverines have a great offensive scheme which has allowed them to score efficiently from everywhere on the floor, ranking 51st in the country in three-point percentage and 19th in the country in two-point percentage.
So, the Wolverines can really fill it up–so why have they lost so many games?
Defense hasn’t been a strength of the Wolverines as they are ranked 123rd in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency. Michigan has physicality and bulk but they don’t have great athleticism, and they have particularly struggled with transition defense. This isn’t a group with great team speed as they are much more on the strength and size end of the spectrum and this could be an area the Gators look to exploit given how fast they have played so far this season.
Depth has also been a huge issue for Michigan. Their starting five is talented, they play cohesively, and they have good size–but right now they are getting very little from their bench. This has probably played somewhat of a role in their poor defense, especially at the end of games, where their starters seem to run out of steam.
So far in the non-conference season the Gators are yet to pile up quality wins and while you can’t really say it has been a disappointing start to the season–it would be hard to argue it has been a successful one. With Michigan being the last power conference opponent on Florida’s schedule this game could really determine whether or not the non-conference was a success. Michigan is currently 66th in the NET and given that this game is at a neutral site it will currently be considered a quad-2 game for the Gators who will hope that the Wolverines take a jump in the metrics to make it a quad-1 game. Right now the Gators are 1-2 in quad-1 games and 1-1 in quad-2 games, adding to the importance of this game and a swing point as to whether or not the non-conference has been successful or not.
Florida and Michigan will tip off on December 19th at 7 PM ET and it will be televised on ESPN.