jahmir young

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]