2020-21 minnesota #2
1/16/2021 – Michigan 57, Minnesota 75 – 11-1, 6-1 Big Ten
This season, and the strangeness surrounding it, has forced a number of smaller conferences to adopt college-hockey-style scheduling: back to back games between the same teams, at the same place. This has led to a lot of results that are baffling. Check out Wright State's last six:
That makes no sense.
Meanwhile Colgate was briefly in the top 20 of the NET rankings because at the time all they had for the Fightin' Paste was a 101-57 win over Army. The next day they lost. To Army. Colgate has also made a habit of wildly divergent results. They've beaten BU by 44 and 7. They've beaten Holy Cross by 40 and 9. That's their whole season, alternating giant blastings of the opposition with competitive games.
As we sift through the ashes of an 18-point loss to a team Michigan hammered by 25 just ten days previous, we can take comfort in the fact that Michigan is far from alone in this department.
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That is a cold comfort because until Saturday we dreamed that Michigan basketball existed on another plane from the Colgates and Wright States of the world, a higher plane in which Michigan's suffocating defense and metronomically efficient freshman center insulated them from the wild swings buffeting mortal programs. Alas. Mortality returns.
I do not know but suspect that Liam Robbins yelled "Icarus shit!" after each of his three-pointers. Ditto Eric Curry whilst swishing face-up 18-footers. A 43-6 run against Wisconsin appears to be the limit. The basketball gods decided Michigan was flying too close to the sun, and zzzzzzzzap.
Whenever you get clunked that badly there are a bunch of different reasons it happened. In approximate order of lethalness: 20 turnovers, Minnesota doubling Hunter Dickinson into his worst game of the season, Eli Brooks sitting out, The bottom falling out of Michigan's shooting, Both Gach disaster contagion.
Everyone just kind of… played badly. Minnesota did crank up the intensity, did play much better on both ends, but also there's no Michigan player who didn't lose his composure and do some things that baffled. Maybe that's playing on the road, but with no fans I find that explanation lacking.
More likely is that they got punched in the mouth by a relative equal for the first time this season, without the guy they call "The Professor" and started pressing. Prior to this game Michigan only faced significant deficits against Oakland and UCF, and was able to overwhelm mid-major competition afterwards. They were down two to PSU late but that's not a situation like Minnesota's steadily burgeoning lead. That's a spot where you can call a timeout and work something out on the sideline; it's not that sort of glazed-eye panic Michigan has induced in most of their opposition and finally got hit with this weekend.
Ah well, burn the tape and build some more wings.
[After THE JUMP: keep the ball]
1 hour and 16 minutes
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1. Hoops vs Minnesota (the bad one)
starts at 1:00
Michigan gets the Barn. I guess Eli Brooks really does matter to this team. Twenty turnovers. We keep saying these two things, basically.
The rest of the writeup and the player after The Jump]
Eleven days and one starter can make a huge difference.
GAME DAY UPDATE
— Michigan Men's Basketball (@umichbball) January 16, 2021
The Wolverines will be without the services of the "Professor" Eli Brooks for this afternoon's game at Minnesota after he strained his (right) foot in practice; he is day-to-day ...
As coach always says ... NEXT MAN UP#GoBlue 〽️?#HailFromHome pic.twitter.com/DkzYkWNxFK
Less than two weeks ago, Michigan beat Minnesota 82-57. This afternoon, it was the Gophers holding the Wolverines to 57 points, their season low and only the second time they've been held below 80. Michigan shot 16-for-34 on two-pointers, hitting their lowest percentage this season. They committed 20 turnovers, tied with the hideous Oakland junk zone game for the season worst.
After a slow start for both teams, Minnesota put the game's first six points on the board, riding that run to a seven-point halftime lead. Michigan could never get enough going on offense to put the outcome in serious doubt. A three-pointer by Chaundee Brown, who started in place of Eli Brooks, cut the deficit to six points with 14 minutes to play, and he subsequently forced a ten-second violation pressing Marcus Carr.
But Liam Robbins stoned Austin Davis in the post, leading to a transition three-pointer for Gabe Kalscheur, before a couple poor plays from freshman Zeb Jackson preceded back-to-back dunks by Robbins and Carr. Michigan couldn't get within eight points afterwards, and the Gophers lead ballooned as high as 23 points before the bench mob hit a couple shots.
Hunter Dickinson had the worst game of his remarkable freshman season, scoring nine points on 4/5 shooting but turning it over five times, committing three fouls, and getting limited to 23 minutes. His seven-foot counterpart, Robbins, was the best player on the court, pouring in 22 points with two blocks and two steals in 22 minutes. That scoring matchup went 28-5 in favor of Dickinson in the game at Crisler.
Turnovers were an issue for everyone on the court except Franz Wagner, who had trouble getting good looks against Gabe Kalscheur, scoring eight points on ten shooting possessions. Mike Smith, in charge of running the offense for most of the game, had ten assists and three turnovers while going scoreless on six shots. Brown and Isaiah Livers combined for five three-pointers—and five turnovers.
The absence of Brooks also resulted in some untested lineups. Zeb Jackson tied his season high with nine minutes and got in for some of the first high-leverage playing time of his college career; he went 0/3 from the field with an assist and two TOs. When Brown got into foul trouble after Jackson's rough stint, Terrance Williams took the court. Austin Davis scored six early points but his defense was, as usual, targeted during his 14 minutes.
This is hopefully a game Michigan can write off—on the road, coming off a couple huge wins, and missing a starter, not to mention hitting only 6/22 three-pointers and coughing up 20 (TWENTY!) turnovers. An undefeated season was exceptionally unlikely. Even without Brooks, though, it was a disappointing, disjointed game from a team that had been hitting on all cylinders since Christmas. The Wolverines are still capable of beating anyone at any time. They're not perfect, though, and today put plenty of stuff on film for the team to work on.
Michigan (11-1, 6-1) maintains a half-game lead over 5-1 Iowa in the Big Ten pending Sunday's game between the Hawkeyes and Northwestern. They face a quick turnaround before facing another feisty team looking for revenge, Maryland, on Tuesday evening at Crisler. If Brooks isn't available, Juwan Howard is going to have to get creative.
[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]
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