One of my goals with this project is to help readers understand what they’re seeing on the court. I’ve realized a lot of my past coverage used a lot of advanced stats that weren’t always explained to people who weren’t already familiar with basketball geekery.

Today, I’m featuring seven numbers that are key to this Michigan team. When appropriate, I’ve explained the stats in a way that hopefully means no prior knowledge is necessary. This program deserves accessibility and some of these stats help show why this is a special, fun team. (Sorry in advance about the last one, which is less fun. Also about the pun in the title, which may recur, we’ll see.)

Let’s dive in.

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Michigan’s current placement in the NET rankings, which the selection committee will lean on for NCAA Tournament seeding. Moving up is going to be difficult barring a collapse from #5 LSU, which would delight Kim Mulkey haters, myself very much included.

The four projected one-seeds — UConn, UCLA, South Carolina, and Texas — have been all but locked down from the get-go. Michigan has played two of them down to the wire but needed to finish the job at least once to be in one-seed contention.

As for the conference tournament, Wyatt Crosher has a detailed breakdown over at Hoopla, his fantastic newsletter on Big Ten women’s hoops. The Wolverines are all but guaranteed a double-bye (94.8%) as one of the top four seeds based on projections from CBBAnalytics. They control their own destiny for the two-seed behind UCLA, which is functionally guaranteed to earn the top spot:

Michigan’s odds of the two-seed are at 64.8% and they face the other two teams with more than a tiny chance of vaulting to that position: Iowa (17.3%) and Ohio State (14.4%). They can also go a long way towards dashing Michigan State’s slim hopes of a double-bye on Sunday at Crisler, which would be a delightful way to celebrate Naz Hillmon’s jersey retirement day.

Thank you to standout Michigan Daily alum and current Tennessean writer Aria Gerson for digging this one up:

According to Bart Torvik’s invaluable stats page, 86 players fit that criteria in the Power 4 conferences (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, and SEC) while playing at least 40% of their team’s minutes through Tuesday’s games.

To put this in context, let’s define the stats. Usage rate is a measure of how often possessions end in a particular player’s hands by either a field goal attempt, free throws, or turnover; when Olson is on the floor, she “uses” 25.3% of U-M’s possessions, a high but not extreme number for a team’s leading scorer.

Turnover rate measures the percentage of a player’s possessions that end in a turnover. Olson’s 12.0% mark is elite, as you probably gathered already. That low a percentage is usually seen in spot-up shooting specialists who don’t put the ball on the floor. Olson is doing that while frequently attacking the basket off the dribble.

Against UCLA, Olson became the third-fastest WBB player in school history to reach 1,000 career points. Her exceptional shot-making is obviously the biggest factor there but it sure doesn’t hurt that she rarely loses control of the ball on her way to those shots.

The combined three-point percentage of Michigan’s top eight players in the rotation so far this season: the starting five, Kendall Dudley, Te’Yala Delfosse, and Macy Brown.

Syla Swords sits at 34.6% on a team-high 162 attempts and also takes difficult, off-the-dribble threes more than anyone else, and she’s a hair behind Mila Holloway’s 34.8% mark. Olson’s 3-for-5 performance against UCLA raised her average above 30% after it’d dipped as low as 26.4% in early January; she shot 38.3% from beyond the arc last season, so the upward trend could continue.

Otherwise, there’s not much for opponents to fear on the perimeter. Dudley and Ashley Sofilkanich aren’t outside shooters; neither is Brooke Quarles Daniels, who opponents give huge amounts of space when she has the ball until she reaches the paint. Delfosse is still getting comfortable from range after being a non-factor last year. Brown just can’t seem to find a rhythm in her more limited minutes.

The reason for hope beyond improvement from Swords/Olson/Holloway/Delfosse is a breakout by freshman McKenzie Mathurin, who’s looked like a sniper in the making in her short time on the floor. Mathurin is 13-for-31 (41.9%) on three-pointers and has shown the ability to make them as a spot-up shooter and off the bounce.

I’m a broken record on this point but I’d love to see Mathurin get enough minutes in this stretch run — particularly in Thursday night’s Northwestern game, which should be a comfortable victory — to have Kim Barnes Arico’s trust in the postseason.

The number of players in the Power 4 conferences listed at 5’9” or shorter with a better offensive rebounding rate than Brooke Quarles Daniels.

Offensive rebounding rate is the percentage of a team’s missed shots a player rebounds themselves. BQD is pulling down 12.2% of Michigan’s misses on her own when she’s on the floor. Only two other players in the sample top ten percent and the #4 player on the list is down at 8.9%.

Quarles Daniels is listed at 5’6”. She’s almost always the shortest player on the court. Her positioning, instincts, and effort are unmatched for a player her size.

I don’t know what else to say. That’s absolutely bonkers. She’s a huge reason why Michigan ranks sixth nationally as a team in OR% despite lacking a dominant post presence.

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Mila Holloway’s shooting percentage on midrange two-pointers, which ranks her 11th among Power 4 players who’ve attempted at least 50 such shots — she’s 31-for-63. She drilled a couple pull-up jumpers over 6’7” shot-blocker extraordinaire Lauren Betts in Sunday’s loss to UCLA.

I highlighted Holloway’s significant improvement scoring at the basket earlier this season and that’s continued to be a strength. Adding a dangerous midrange game has helped her become a much better pick-and-roll player (see above) and a reliable late-clock scorer.

Opponents have to account for Holloway no matter where she is on the floor, which opens up passing lanes that she’s very willing to take. She’s developing into a complete point guard before our eyes in her sophomore season.

Michigan’s steals per game, which ranks 24th out of 363 D-I teams, per Her Hoop Stats. If you prefer advanced stats, they’re 23rd with a 13.6% steal rate.

The Wolverines frequently deploy a full-court press with aggressive trapping at halfcourt after made baskets. This leads to both the kind of live-ball turnovers that often result in fast break layups and opponents sailing desperation passes out of bounds. The pressure from Quarles Daniels and timely trap from Olson force an excellent senior point guard, Kiki Rice, into a traveling violation before she throws the ball to the U-M bench.

As you’d expect, BQD is a menace on the press, pilfering 2.3 steals per game. Olson, Swords, and Holloway all average between 1.5 and 1.8 steals. Delfosse doesn’t have the same raw numbers but her length and speed make her halfcourt traps particularly effective. This helps U-M generate stops and some easy offense that offsets a not-quite-elite halfcourt defense.

That cursed number is Michigan’s current percentage at the free throw line. Nobody in the rotation* is above the 80% threshold, only Olson and Holloway top 75%, and half of the top eight are somewhere between struggling (BQD at 61.1%, Sofilkanich at 53.4%, and Brown at 63.6%) and brutal (Dudley’s 29.7%).

This is a problem that’s going to stick around given the number of poor shooters getting significant minutes. It’s already cost U-M in their trio of three-point losses to top-five teams. Opponents are making 74.0% of their freebies. That’s a huge gap and one that may very well keep this team from advancing as far as their seeding would suggest in the postseason.

*I’m not counting Mathurin because of her limited playing time and commensurately small sample but it’s worth noting she’s 14-for-17 (82.4%).

Header image courtesy of UMichWBBall on Instagram.

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