2022-23 maryland #2

The 2022-23 Michigan Wolverines are a young college basketball team and with that comes quite a few ups-and-downs. Players who can look awesome one day can look terrible a few days later. And matchups with the same opponent can look totally different the second time around. That's more or less what happened tonight: Michigan's second meeting with Maryland was entirely different than the lopsided first meeting and Wolverine players who excelled on Sunday against Northwestern struggled through a bad night. It was a battle on the glass and finding consistency at both ends of the floor and in the end, the Wolverines succumbed to the Maryland Terrapins 64-58 tonight in College Park. 

The first matchup was defined by Michigan's red hot start out of the game, leading by a score of 17-0 at one point in that game. Though Michigan got the first bucket tonight, it was decisively not that kind of game. Maryland opened the game showing a 2-3 zone defensively, slowing down Michigan's offense and taking advantage of a few missed Jett Howard open 3's to hold the Wolverines at bay. On the other side of the court, Maryland got to the rim with ease in the first few minutes and were able to eventually build a 15-6 lead when Juwan Howard called his first timeout- bolstered by a four minute stretch in which Michigan scored two points total. 

Michigan ended the offensive funk when Tarris Reed Jr. drove the rack and slammed home a resounding dunk and that's around the team that the perimeter shooting started to heat up. Jett Howard knocked down a triple to make it 21-13 and the Wolverines mostly hung with the Terps for the next several minutes before mounting a surge late in the half. Over the last five or so minutes of the opening stanza, the defense started to tighten up for the Wolverines. They held Maryland to five points in five minutes during the waning moments, battling through continued defensive rebounding problems to get stops, and started to hit timely threes. Hunter Dickinson stepping out from beyond the arc gave Maryland a bit of trouble, hitting two threes late, including one with under ten seconds to go. Dug McDaniel fouled Jahmir Young with 0.9 left in the first half, giving him a one-and-one (which Young went 1/2 on), and after which the halftime score stood at 34-32 Terrapins. 

[Paul Sherman]

It was an odd feeling at halftime, the defensive problems at the rim, rebounding the ball, and offensive rhythm standing out as particularly ugly, yet Michigan trailed by just two points. Hunter Dickinson and Jett Howard led the way with 10 and 11 points, respectively, as those two accounted for five of Michigan's six made threes in the first half, while offensive contributions were pretty minimal elsewhere. Young led Maryland with 11 points, while Hakim Hart and Donta Scott each had 5 for the Terps, who shot a dismal 2/10 from three but were very efficient inside. 

The second half got off to a sleepy start for both teams, six total point scored between the two teams in the opening four minutes, and ten total points in the first six minutes. A spurt from Terrance Williams II consisting of a pair of offensive rebounds culminating in a put-back and then a drive and score tied the game at 42, the first time it had been tied since the early stages of the first half. The score stayed close for the next few minutes, before Maryland stitched together a 7-0 run around the midway point of the second half. Hakim Hart swished a three, an extended possession ended in a Donta Scott dunk, and then a Kobe Bufkin turnover ended in a Hart layup to make it 51-44 Maryland. 

That 7-0 run coincided with the beginning of a sequence in which the teams combined to score on five straight possessions, a rare of opening up of offense in the back 30 minutes of the game, Michigan getting five from Joey Baker but unable to pair it with enough stops. After Young toasted Dug McDaniel, Juwan called a timeout with the score 55-49 Terrapins and 7:20 to go in the game. The timeout didn't do much, as Maryland scored the next four after it to bump the lead all the way up to double digits, while Michigan did not score for nearly four minutes until a Dickinson three snapped the skid with 4:05 remaining. 

After that three, the score stood at 59-52 Maryland and the Dickinson make didn't wake Michigan back up. In fact, neither team would score for another 2.5 minutes, when Jahmir Young hit a free throw to finally put a point up on the board. Michigan was getting stops, but nothing was falling on the offensive end. Terrance Williams II made a layup to trim the lead to 60-54 with 1:26 left and after a miss from Donta Scott, Michigan ran the floor and Hunter Dickinson got an offensive board off a Williams missed three and put it back in. 60-56 Maryland. The problem was the time, just 40 seconds remaining in the game and Michigan had to foul. Williams sent Young to three throw line, and he made them both, making the score 62-56 with 33 seconds remaining.

[Paul Sherman]

Michigan failed to get a bucket and even though Ian Martinez missed the front-end of a 1-and-1, Michigan wouldn't get points back on the board until there were five seconds remaining. Those were two free throws from Hunter Dickinson, which made it 62-58, but once Young went back to the line to swish two, the game was over. When the horn sounded, it was a 64-58 Maryland win. 

For Michigan, it was a story of younger pieces who had strong games against Northwestern having a regression to the mean sort of game. Dug McDaniel, coming off the best game of his young career, was miserable tonight. He shot 2/10 from the floor, turned it over three times, and fought through defensive problems on and off for much of the night. Kobe Bufkin, strong recently, was 1/6 from the field and 0/2 from three for two points. Tarris Reed Jr., coming on strong recently, had four points but went 0/4 from the free throw line, including one ugly airball. Will Tschetter was also quiet, with two points on one attempted field goal. Hunter Dickinson and Jett Howard were the rocks for Michigan, but they needed more from the supporting cast, and didn't get it. 

Maryland was powered by Young's 26 points, doing so on 9/19 shooting from the floor and 8/10 from the line, including those clutch free throws late. Julian Reese put up nine crucial rebounds, including four offensive, a number matched by Donta Scott. Scott's day offensively was subpar (3/11 from the floor), but he did a lot to challenge Michigan on the glass. Maryland shot a horrible 3/15 from three, struggling on other twos as well, but did enough inside to get the win. They also rebounded 44% of their misses, a number that is Michigan's worst since the CMU upset. In other words, frustrating old tendencies were back in order tonight. 

Juwan Howard's crew will be looking to shake those tendencies on Sunday when they take the court again against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Michigan pounded Minnesota at The Barn back in December and will look to bank another comfortable B1G win at Crisler. That game is scheduled for 1:00 pm EST and is set to be broadcast on BTN. 

[Click the JUMP for the box score]

THE ESSENTIALS

THE OVERVIEW

Michigan is the underdog in a matchup they won by 35 points just 18 days ago. Those algorithms don't take "These teams just played" into account, but then neither does basketball. It does care about venue--they give the home team about a +3 margin--but probably doesn't know about Hunter Dickinson's white-hot hatred of the local basketball outfit. Both he and fellow DMC native Terrance Williams II have played some of their best games before family in College Park.

They may be on shakier ground with the other 29 points of swing. Not too much has changed between these teams in the last two weeks, except Maryland's ranked 17 spots lower after beating just one top-200 outfit since early December. After Michigan's 81-46 win in Ann Arbor both teams have gone 1-2 with two Big Ten losses on the road, one of them to Iowa. Michigan's Ls were much closer, so I guess to the fancystats beating #18 Ohio State at home is just that much more impressive than finding yourself in a game with Northwestern. Which, fair.

Said defeat of Ohio State wasn't a fluke, though. PG Jahmir Young went off for 30 points, and also collected a Derrick Walton Jr-esque five offensive boards. That game also turned on some clever coaching: Maryland came out at halftime with a press that confounded Ohio State, generated a handful of turnovers, and kept Chris Holtmann's vaunted offense to 7 points in 10 minutes.

Start watching at 13:57 if it doesn't put you there.

What Maryland hasn't found in that time is an answer for Michigan's size. One thing I forgot to mention about the above game is the Buckeyes were without Zed Key, who's really their only post presence. If anything Maryland's forward situation has gotten worse, since their top backup left with a foot injury and hasn't played since.

In fact if anyone's found another playable center in the interim it's Michigan, who recently introduced a two-bigs lineup to get more minutes for Tarris Reed at the four. Reed was able to counter the bullyball of Kris Murray and provide enough offensive rebounding to combat small lineups. It also worked against Northwestern, which has one excellent rim protector, but their four is just another small forward.

This will be an interesting test of Maryland's new coach, Kevin Willard, a defensive guy who came up under Rick Pitino. Does he just go small all game and live with the results? Did he notice something late in the first game? Does he follow Michigan's last few opponents in denying Hunter the rim at all costs, and let threes fall where they may?

THE US

My graphic [click to embiggen]:

faq for these graphics

Tarris Reed moved up to 6th man and I've swapped Will Tschetter (11 and 10 minutes the last two games) for Isaiah Barnes (DNP) since. Williams is getting 10-12 fewer minutes per game.

THE LINEUP CARD

My graphic [click for big]:

Maryland is expected to still be without forward Patrick Emilien, a weird 6'7" center type. Maryland was more or less running a six-man lineup without Emilien before he got roughed up pretty badly trying to help on Dickinson.

I've replaced Emilien this week with Noah Batchelor, who's larger than his listing but not THAT much larger. Batchelor played 22 of the 32 minutes he's been on the court this month in that game as a small five while Julian Reese sat with foul trouble. Maryland also tried inserting a 6'11" freshman, Caelum Swanton-Rodger; the Michigan game was his longest appearance this year as well.

[Hit THE JUMP for Returtle.]