Michigan’s matchup with Colorado State on Thursday, honestly, seems like the Wolverines' best possible draw for the first round. As many have reported already, the Wolverines have a major size advantage in the post with the starting center for CSU, Dischon Thomas, standing at 6’9”. The Wolverines need to feed Hunter the ball in the post to be successful in this game because the Colorado State Rams will double team Dickinson in the post as I will discuss later. In this article, I wanted to outline some of the Rams’ strengths, some offensive sets for them, and the defensive strategy they will take against Michigan. Colorado State’s best offensive player David Roddy gets in a lot of advantageous positions on the offensive end, and he can drive, shoot, and post up. A versatile offensive player like Roddy, coupled with the strong movement and execution of the Rams’ offense could be difficult for Michigan to handle.

Offensive Sets for the Rams

Colorado State’s best offensive player David Roddy gets in a lot of advantageous positions on the offensive end, and he can drive, shoot, and post up. A versatile offensive player like Roddy, coupled with the strong movement and execution of the Rams’ offense could be difficult for Michigan to handle. CSU utilizes a lot of “DHO” actions, which stands for “dribble-handoff”. This means the player that has the ball will literally dribble over to another player to hand them the ball. This usually results in some sort of screen, and these can be difficult to guard often because of the speed of these plays. Michigan runs multiple “DHO” plays as well, and Purdue is one of the best teams in the country at this style. While CSU does not have the same complicated sets as Purdue, the execution of their handoffs and overall movement of the offense makes them difficult to handle.

1. Dribble Handoffs from “Home plate” style offense

So I explained the “DHO” or dribble handoff, but the “Homeplate” style that often goes with the dribble handoff is better explained by looking at the following play from Colorado State’s game against San Diego State from last week.

So this is a set you will see CSU in a lot of the game. They like to have the big man in the middle of the floor so he can have the ability to dribble to the right or left and hand the ball to a guard. The drawing above shows why this is called a “home plate” because of the spacing and location of the Colorado State players in the white jerseys. This set will be difficult for Michigan because it will pull Hunter Dickinson away from the basket and force him to move his feet with the smaller, quicker players on CSU.

At the top of the key, the middle player (usually the big man) will dribble to a certain side and set a ball screen. The tough part about Colorado State is that every player does this dribble handoff play. You’ll see David Roddy do a DHO, Isaiah Stevens, the point guard, dribble handoff and set

a screen. Every player has this capability in the Rams’ offense, so the Wolverines need to communicate switches and talk through screens quickly and effectively.

2. David Roddy Isolation and Driving from Top of Key

David Roddy utilizes his superior strength to overpower smaller defenders and his overall quickness to beat bigger defenders. He’s a mismatch for most teams at the power forward position. Colorado State puts him at the elbow, or at the top of the key to play to his strength of driving and scoring at the basket.

In this isolation play, Roddy, who is at the top of the three point line, looks to drive to his right hand. At the same time, a smaller CSU guard comes up from the baseline and sets a fake screen (also known as a slip screen) for Roddy. This slip screen serves as a decoy, it fakes out the man guarding Roddy at the top of the screen and sometimes it causes this defender to freeze. A lot of defenders expect a screen when someone runs close to them, and this sometimes creates a small sense of indecision.

Roddy then drives all the way to the rim, where he is most dangerous. If he establishes himself early in the paint, look out for more three-point shots later on. He can score at the rim and from three, and he will try to take advantage of Michigan’s defenders.

Defensive Strategies against Dickinson

CSU’s major disadvantage in this game will be in the post against Hunter Dickinson. After watching the Rams’ game against San Diego State, I think they will still utilize their “no middle” strategy in the post, and soft hedge ball screens to prevent Dickinson from getting to good positions to score.

● “No Middle” double-teaming strategy

Colorado State prides itself on preventing post players from dominating the game. They will prevent Hunter Dickinson from getting to the middle of the floor on his post-ups as shown at the bottom of the following image.

This “no middle” philosophy can be seen above. Notice the CSU defender’s feet. He completely angles his chest and tries to force the post player to turn back toward the baseline. This strategy works for various reasons. A spin to the baseline makes it a harder shot for the offensive player.

In addition, it makes passes harder. A pass from the baseline would be much more difficult to make because of the distance needed to make a skip pass.

CSU will send another man from the baseline to double team Hunter as well. Notice at the 1 marker, how the CSU defender plays the “no middle” style and forces the big man towards the baseline. At the 2 marker, #1 on CSU runs to perform a double team from the baseline side. Finally at the 3 marker, the CSU defender will go under the basket to guard the other person under the rim.

Wolverines Emphasis in Practice, What They Need to do Defensively to Win

As a former player and scout team member, I noticed a lot of these shorter preparation games require a lot of practice on defensive schemes and preparing for the opponent’s personnel. I believe the Michigan coaching staff will be focused on these two aspects to slow down Colorado State.

1. “Win the Elbows”

This defensive philosophy is simple to describe but hard to execute on the floor. Colorado State relies on movement on the perimeter and the creation of driving lanes. San Diego State did a great job of sliding their feet defensively and actively cutting off driving lanes. This forced Colorado State into really difficult shots and forced a lot of turnovers. Michigan needs to play defense under control and cut off drives to the middle of the floor to win this game. If Michigan can beat the CSU players to the elbow on the free-throw line, then they can make it difficult on players like David Roddy and Isaiah Stevens.

2. Communicating Switches and Fighting Through Screens

Colorado State runs a lot of plays that involve backscreens between different-sized players. This will require elite communication from Michigan so they can navigate complex screens, and work through size mismatches as quickly as possible. Communication is always key, but in the NCAA tournament when you have less time to prepare for teams, communicating quickly and effectively is more important than ever. As shown in a prior situation, the smaller guards on CSU will set screens as well which makes some of these plays hard to guard. In the following play, I have noted a particular situation where the Rams do a good job of setting a backscreen and creating confusion for the defense.

This play utilizes the smaller player circled at the elbow as a screener to create confusion. Since the defense usually has bigger players guarding the forwards, CSU tries to create situations where teams can’t switch screens due to the size difference.

Once #21 inbounds the ball, the player at the elbow sets up a screen for #21. The player setting the back screen will usually be smaller, to try and force confusion. Once the screen is set, the screener pops back out to catch the ball.

On this pop-out, the guard now has created separation and gets an open shot. San Diego State did not communicate the switch on the play, and the CSU guard got a wide-open shot. Michigan needs to communicate screens between guys like Brandon Johns, Moussa Diabate, Terrance Williams, Eli Brooks, Frankie Collins, and Kobe Bufkin. There will be a lot of pressure on these players to perform defensively against this tough motion offense of Colorado State.

Summary

Michigan needs to be properly prepared for this game against Colorado State by working on switching patterns and communicating the movement of the Colorado State Rams. Offensively, the Wolverines will have an easy look at Hunter Dickinson in the post, but they must be wary of traps, and they need to utilize their size advantage at each position throughout the game. The Wolverines can easily win this game, but as we know, anything can happen in March.

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