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Michigan 68, Rutgers 57 Comment Count

Ace

You need to know four things about this game:

1. Michigan couldn't hit a shot. They dug an early hole after starting 0/5 from the field and finished the first half 6/18 from three. The outside shots started falling in the second half, but the Wolverines still finished only 20/49 from the field—not for lack of open looks, but much like the Minnesota game, they missed a lot of shots they'd normally make.

2. Mark Donnal sparked the run Michigan needed. With Michigan losing by three with 5:30 left in the first half, Donnal stuffed a shot by Jonathan Laurent, assisted Aubrey Dawkins for a three on the other end, took a charge, drew a foul and hit both free throws, then took another charge. After that sequence, Zak Irvin hit a three, and Michigan suddenly had an eight-point lead. Rutgers couldn't pull closer than five points for the duration.

3. With 1:30 left in a ten-point game, Rutgers committed a shot-clock violation. That is not ideal.

4. On the next Michigan possession, Irvin missed the front end of a one-and-one, Rutgers center Greg Lewis rebounded the miss... and passed the ball to the official standing out of bounds. It took a while, but we hit peak Rutgers.

Duncan Robinson (18 points, 4/9 3P) and Aubrey Dawkins (11 points, 3/4 3P, one spectacular missed dunk) were the two players who found any consistency with their shot. Zak Irvin went 2/8 from the field but hauled in 12 boards and dished out eight assists.

This was Minnesota 2.0: Michigan proved fortunate to play a bad team when they had an off night. Because that team was Rutgers, they won by double-digits anyway.

Comments

TheBigPrince

January 27th, 2016 at 11:41 PM ^

Man some people are just so negative on here. We have 0 bad losses this year. Last year we lost to NJIT and EMU with Caris healthy for both of those games. Teams have off games, it happens. Only losing to Purdue and Iowa, both on the road, without your best player in eight Big Ten games is pretty dang good in my opinion.

Joined: 03/26/2014

MGoPoints: 372

jim4blue

January 28th, 2016 at 10:34 AM ^

You can see after the miss that the ref signals to the scorer table "1", which typically means he has one more shot.  If his left hand would have been in the air on the first shot, he would have been anticipating starting the clock after a miss.  I think the officials weren't on the same page, and the Rutgers coach spotted that.

 

Joined: 08/26/2008

MGoPoints: 522

funkywolve

January 28th, 2016 at 10:54 AM ^

You can't see the official by the scorer's table but neither of the officials in the video had their hand in the air.  Like you mention, if the officials were signaling one shot their hand would have been in the air and as soon as the Rutgers player touched the ball, the hand would have dropped signaling the clock to start.  

Joined: 10/08/2008

MGoPoints: 20263

dieseljr32

January 28th, 2016 at 10:47 AM ^

Mark Donnal reminds me of a more skilled Jordan Morgan.  Good hands, runs the floor well..a bit more athletic.  He seems to be coming on.  Probably struggles against the brutes of the Big Ten. 

 

Joined: 04/19/2009

MGoPoints: 4795

PeteM

January 28th, 2016 at 11:18 AM ^

Maybe this was answered above and I missed it but what happened after the one and one that Rutgers didn't realize was a one and one?  Did Rutgers get the ball out of bounds?  DId it come back to us?  I've never seen that before, and though I was at the game by that point I wasn't really paying much attention.

Joined: 09/15/2008

MGoPoints: 3471