If someone missed the first half of last season’s National Championship Game and was posed the following question — which Michigan player went 4-of-4 from the three-point line and scored 17 points in the first half, the most common guesses would more than likely have been Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr., or Nik Stauskas. But the answer surprisingly turned out to be Spike Albrecht. The 5’11” sophomore guard only averaged 2.2 points and 8.1 minutes per game last year for the national runner-ups, but he turned in a memorable performance that kept Michigan in the game even after consensus National Player of the Year Trey Burke was saddled with first half foul trouble. After losing Burke and bringing in highly-rated recruit Derrick Walton, the question that remains to be answered is, how does Albrecht fit in this season?

Spike Albrecht will look to prove he is more than a one-hit wonder this season. (Getty)

By all accounts Walton is going to be very good. He averaged 26 points, seven assists and seven steals per game last season at Detroit’s Chandler Park High School. One would have to assume he will handle the majority of the play-making duties, using his quickness to get to the basket and dish to outside shooters. John Beilein‘s offensive philosophy has always been pretty reliant on shooting the three, so Albrecht could be one of the major perimeter weapons along with fellow sophomore Stauskas. Going small with a lineup of Walton, Stauskas, Glenn Robinson III, Mitch McGary, and Albrecht could be very effective offensively with Walton penetrating and working with ball screens and McGary drawing double teams in the high post and kicking it out to open shooters. One would think having Albrecht on the court when the Wolverines need shooting and floor spacing would be optimal. He also proved in short spurts last year that he can handle running the show when he took over for Burke in limited minutes. He will need to cut down on his 21.4 percent turnover rate, but with another year of familiarity and experience, this could very easily happen.

Where I would have questions with Michigan going with Albrecht and Walton for extended stretches is on the defensive end. Any team that has a good shooting guard with size will pose problems. The key would be finding opportunities where Michigan can hide him in short bursts against a team with a wing that isn’t strong offensively.According to Beilein, right now Albrecht and Walton are going to split the starting point guard spot in the early season, but ultimately Walton will probably win the spot. However, using a combination of the two like Indiana did last season with Yogi Ferrell and Jordan Hulls could be the best way for Michigan to maintain their number one ranking in offensive efficiency and make another deep NCAA Tournament run.

Brendan Brody (307 Posts)

Brendan Brody is in his fourth season covering the Big Ten for RTC. Email him at brendan.brody@gmail.com, or follow him on twitter @berndon4.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 25th, 2013 at 11:31 am by Brendan Brody and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: derrick walton, john beilein, michigan, nik stauskas, spike albrecht. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.