Michigan Preview: Rutgers

It comes as no surprise that Michigan’s Team One has struggled. Their last realistic chance at victory comes tomorrow evening, on the road at Rutgers.

Rutgers

Word Art.

7 p.m. EST April 21, 2012
Yurcak Field, Piscataway, N.J.
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2012
5-8 (1-4 Big East). #44 Laxpower, #47 Tempo-Free.

Tempo-Free Profile

Raw season numbers here, explanations, adjustments, and much more detail below.

Things that are better than the Rutgers defense: the sound of nails on a chalkboard, the 2011 Indianapolis Colts, the Michigan defense… wait, what? Yes, adjusted for schedule strength, Rutgers’ defense is actually worse than Michigan’s, coming in a .351 compared to the Wolverines’ .349. The offense isn’t a whole lot better, though it gets adjusted upward to .273.

The thing that’s preventing Rutgers from being Michigan-level bad this year is a stalemate in possession. The Scarlet Knights are just barely above .500 on faceoffs, and although their opponents have more clearing attempts (hello, inept Scarlet Knights offense), RU is riding them pretty successfully to stay even in that metric.

Overall, what you seem to have here is a team that is not particularly talented on either end of the field, but good enough going up and down it to stay competitive.

Offense

Senior midfielder Will Mangan leads the team in goals and points, putting in 26 himself and assisting on five others. His fellow senior Mike Diehl is big (6-3, 225) and as the team’s fourth-leading scorer, has a similar tilt toward goals with 18 and only 3 assists. The starting offensive midfield is rounded out by a freshman, Brian Goss. He’s a little more balanced with 10 goals and eight assists.

The primary starting attack is comprised of a senior and two sophomores. Redshirt soph Scott Klimchak (whose twin brother Matthew doesn’t play at all) has 19 goals and six assists, and is the only guy on the unit who could reasonably be considered a finisher. Sophomore Nick DePaolera is the best feeder on the squad, with an even split between goals and assists on his 30 points. Senior Kevin Hover is sixth on the team in scoring with 5 goals and seven assists.

Outside of those guys, nobody has taken double-digit shots this year, aside from redshirt sophomore middie Benjamin Schwing. Senior attack Duncan Clancy has also seen playing time with sporadic starts, but has played in just eight games, presumably due to injury. He is a feeder when he’s on the field, with two goals and six assists this year.

Outside of a couple guys, this is not an assist-heavy team at all. That is reflected in a poor offense (off-season project: determine how assist rate relates to overall offensive efficiency), and Rutgers has broken double-digits only twice this year – albeit once more than Michigan has done the same.

Defense

The same three defensemen have started every game. Sophomore Nick Contino leads the team in caused turnovers with 19, reshirt sophomore Christopher Zybrick isn’t too far behind with 15, and senior Jacob Fradkin adds 12 of his own. That group doesn’t have tons of experience, but after starting 13 games together, you have to imagine they have good chemistry. Stats say otherwise, of course. Senior Ryan Warnick also gets time on the unit.

Redshirt freshman Andrew Parrilla is the primary long-stick midfielder, and leads defensive players in GBs with 26. Based on the stats, there are a few suspects for defensive midfielder, primarily Anthony Terranova (10GB, 7 shots) and Zachary Zenda (5 CT, 5 shots).

In goal, there has been a cast of thousands for the Scarlet Knights. Steven Lusby (seven games) and Rudy Butler (five games) have started every contest they’ve played in – meaning that neither has ever been replaced by the other, but rather always by Joseph Donnelly, who has also started a game himself.

The junior Donnelly has played about half the minutes between the pipes that either of the other two has. He also has the worst numbers, saving just .455 of shots faced and allowing 11.48 goals per game. His fellow junior, Butler, has the best goals-against average (9.60), but isn’t saving balls at quite the rate (.484) as is sophomore Steven Lusby (.492).

Butler started the first several games before presumably getting replaced (maybe due to injury, though I see no mention of it). At that point, Donnelly started one game, then Lusby has started the most recent seven, with Donnelly getting relief appearances in each of the last three. Expect Lusby to start, with a chance to see Donnelly, as well.

Special Teams

Freshman Joseph Nardella has been Rutgers’ go-to faceoff specialist, winning .539 of his draws. His fellow freshman, longpole Blake Burkhart, has taken a third as many draws, and won .515 of them. A couple other players have taken just a handful of faceoffs, none winning any better than .500.

Rutgers’ clear is pretty good, No. 17 nationally. Of course, they’ll be seeing different tactics with Michigan’s 10-man, and it will be interesting to see if that is something they exploit or succumb to. The Scarlet Knights are a middle-of-the-pack riding team, and shouldn’t exploit Michigan’s poor clear all that much.

Rutgers commits more penalties than opponents on the year, but both sides are converting at identical 40% clips. Michigan’s man-up is pretty bad, but they’re also not a penalty-prone team. I foresee a stalemate there.

Big Picture

At this point, Michigan is not expected to do a whole lot. They got their win against Mercer, got beat up against some good teams, and had narrow losses – some excruciating – in a number of other contests. Any win doesn’t validate them as a good team (or even prove they’re not a bad one), it simply sets a good vibe going into the offseason.

That said, Rutgers looks pretty exploitable. Their only win in the past six games was over a one-win Providence squad, and even that came in overtime. They’ve been pasted in each of the last three.

Rutgers isn’t a good team, and Michigan isn’t (quite) as bad as their record indicates. Stealing a win here, at the very least, is a feel-good moment going into the offseason.

Predictions

This is going to be far from a clash of the Titans. Each team is trying to salvage a little respect for their season – any other goal has long since passed. In my opinion, that means Michigan has more to play for. It was impossible for their season to not live up to expectations, and they’ve been playing for the future all along. Sure, Rutgers has their Senior Night happening, but teams limp to the finish all the time in this situation.

• Rutgers wins more than half of the game’s faceoffs, but they don’t get to 2/3. That’s an average performance for Michigan at X, especially against a decent unit.
• Michigan has the easiest time scoring in the 6-v-6 since the Mercer game. I’m hardly going out on a limb, given that Rutgers is the worst defense they’ve played since Mercer.
• We don’t see a youth movement – yet. Michigan might not have much to play for this season, but getting that second win of the year could be a big confidence-builder for next year. JP will play whomever he thinks will help him win this game – he’s not sacrificing this one in the name of the future. He’ll save the youngsters for next week’s shellacking at North Carolina (unless even there, he doesn’t want to hurt their psyche).
• Michigan’s defense looks better than it has at times in recent weeks against a mediocre Scarlet Knights offense, and Emil Weiss makes a couple plays to rob Rutgers (but also lets in a softie or two).

I really want to go out on a limb and pick the Michigan win here. I think the season-long momentum favors the Wolverines (other than the Bellarmine game, they’ve improved steadily through the second half of the season), they have a bit more to play for, and the matchups don’t look scary in the least. However, until they’ve proven they can do it, I’m not picking Michigan over an “establishment” team, bad though Rutgers may be. Michigan falls 11-9 in Piscataway.