Last Time The Road Team Won Both Basketball Meetings
Given that Michigan lost at home to MSU, I was curious to find out when the last time was that they lost in Ann Arbor, but won in East Lansing in the same season.
You have to go all the way back to 1992 to find such a season. Michigan won in East Lansing by a score of 89 to 79 on January 29, 1992. They lost at home by a score of 70 to 59 on February 15.
I would say we're due for something like this to happen again. Go Blue! Win the Rematch!
February 25th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
Just win. Not worried about streaks. We got a good squad that should go deep into the tournament. Go Blue
February 25th, 2019 at 11:49 AM ^
IMO this team has two issues that really manifested themselves in the last 10 minutes or so of yesterday's game: depth (only six players get meaningful minutes) and shooting.
I hope we split with MSU - we're certainly have enough talent - but I worry about a deep tourny run given what we saw yesterday.
February 25th, 2019 at 11:53 AM ^
What killed us yesterday was defense, not our lack of shooting. We wouldn’t have had to launch a bunch of threes to try to get back in the game if we just stopped them every once in a while. We are supposed to be one of the best defenses in the nation and MSU scored 1.24 points per possession. Our defensive game plan was awful and that’s on the coaches.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:49 PM ^
Eh, when the team goes over 10 minutes (over 1/2 of the 2nd) scoring only 4 points during that drought, you surely can’t point fingers at the defense.
The offense took a nosedive in the 2nd and then went frantic for the last couple minutes.
And had Cassius Winston not been sent to the stripe 20 times during the scramble to make up for lost time, Sparty would have been held to 70 or so.
Can’t blame the defense this year. The offense (just flat out putting the ball through the cylinder) has struggled a number of times.
***The team missed 19 3-pointers.***
February 25th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
Yeah but even with all of our 3 jacking to get back into the game, we shot better from 3 than MSU and they missed 15 three pointers. I’m not blaming the defense this year, just this game. Our offensive and defensive numbers are similar to last year and we were just fine
February 25th, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
This is giving me flashbacks to the OSU football post-game discussions. We were winning the game until we went on a massive scoring slump. We hardly scored for like 7 minutes. Unless you also prevent the other team from scoring at all, then that's on the offense.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:58 PM ^
People make shots in basketball, it happens. That’s why the best teams are balanced, what we saw yesterday in MSU is a team that’s top 10 in both offense and defense, they can use either side to win. Being able to do that is the difference between a sweet 16 team and a championship team and unless the offense wakes up we are in that sweet 16 camp
February 25th, 2019 at 1:10 PM ^
Respectfully disagree. When you can't muster more than ~ seven points in almost ten minutes, that's all on the offense. After Iggy threw down that dunk, the offense cratered, and it didn't matter what the defense could do after that.
Definitely agree that it was not the best performance for the defense yesterday, and Winston ate our lunch, but MSU has been ruthlessly efficient with its offense this year, so we shouldn't have expected a fully dominant defensive performance. Had Michigan kept pace on offense, the outcome likely would've been different. The game was highly back and forth up to that point.
February 25th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
Sure, but Michigan's offense was also 1.13 ppp against the #9 defense in the country. It was an atypical game across the board for both teams.
The gameplan wasn't great, but credit to MSU for playing well enough to win. They had one stretch there where they manufactured points and Michigan couldn't. I assume the coaches will make adjustments on both sides, and we'll see. But some people are acting like MSU blew Michigan out of the water on both ends when they categorically did not.
February 25th, 2019 at 11:57 AM ^
Overall, I agree with this and would add that not having an alpha scorer (a guy who can get take the ball during a cold stretch and get us points) has hurt us this season. Our good teams have consistently had this guy (Burke, Stauskas, LeVert, Walton, Rahkman) - we desperately need this guy because our offense often has cold stretches we cant seem to pull out of.
That said, MSU was 19-28 on 2-pt FGs. Thats why we lost the game. If we hold them to 50% (still over our season average), we win the game.
February 25th, 2019 at 1:21 PM ^
Yep, that's the big difference this year. You have guys on the team who have the potential to be difference-makers, specifically Matthews and Poole. They've shown that they CAN do it. But unfortunately, you can't rely on them to do it night in, night out like Burke and Stauskas could do. One night, Poole can go off for a double-double, and then the next two to three nights, he almost disappears entirely.
Hard to get too upset about it. Very few people anticipated we'd be in this position heading into March. Aside from Matthews, everyone should be coming back next year, and then a big-time recruit in Jalen Wilson will be arriving on campus this summer.
Next year, we should be just as good, if not better.
February 25th, 2019 at 11:57 AM ^
we scored 70. shooting wasn’t the issue. defense was the problem
February 25th, 2019 at 11:57 AM ^
the next time it happens?.....2019
Go Blue
February 25th, 2019 at 11:59 AM ^
Charles tweaked that ankle. That hurt us, If he is ok we are good. He can switch to Winston if necessary. We didn't see that yesterday. Go Blue.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:12 PM ^
My friends said the same thing but I disagree. Matthews has been off for way too much of the season and yesterday was no exception. He needs to get it going again if we are going to make a tourney run.
Edit: In the Wisky, Iowa, and MSU games he averaged 5.0 ppg. He is our X-factor.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:04 PM ^
Can someone who is basketball savvy explain how Michigan should have changed up their pick and roll defense? My bad if they talked about it already in the podcast, haven't had the chance to listen to it yet.
February 25th, 2019 at 12:23 PM ^
The plan yesterday was largely to force the ball out of Winston hands by hedging Teske hard and extending it out as far as Winston would take it. That backfired spectacularly as 1) Winston was not afraid to back out of the offense completely to draw Teske literally 30 feet from the basket, 2) Teske was very slow to recover back into any kind of defensive position, and 3) all of our rotations on defense were brutally slow(this part was evident from the opening tip).
We possess possibly the best on the ball defensive point guard in the conference if not the country. Let him fight through and under ball screen to recover and scrap. There is a lot of talk that Winston "torched" Simpson. For the most part it was not even Simpson really "guarding" Winston in the way that we thought he would be and he seemed visibly frustrated about it. I would have liked to see that matchup but that is not what we got. We got a seven footer chasing Winston off of threes that he did not even seem that interested in taking and leaving a gaping void in the middle of our defense. That kind of hedge is essentially a cheat for suspect defensive teams. There is no reason to employ it with this team.
I would not trade our coaching staff for any staff in the country but this was both a very bad and very bizarre defensive strategy for this game. Our players and coaches did not appear to be on the same page in this game on either end of the floor.
February 25th, 2019 at 1:14 PM ^
This assessment feels SPOT ON to me! That hedge was frustrating the hell to me, in particular how much more effort it required from Teske. And the thing is, I thought we'd see a much different defense in the 2nd half and we just didn't. I think it was the first time in a long, long time that I can say Izzo and his crew outcoached Beilein and his team but it happened yesterday.
February 25th, 2019 at 1:17 PM ^
You can’t just fight through a ball screen and be in a good guarding position that’s why they are effiictive. You either double, hard hedge, soft hedge or switch. We hard hedged and they passed better than we rotated and got easy baskets.
msu on the other hand just switched because they knew we wouldn’t go to teske on the block even when Winston was on him. It opened up simpson’s offensive game but killed the flow. Each answer has pluses and minuses but if you are just telling simpson to fight through it’s just going to be a lot of easy drives to the basket or drives to kick to wide open threes
February 25th, 2019 at 1:35 PM ^
Well of course there is going to be some kind of hedge. What you saw yesterday looked more like Jordan Morgan hard hedging a PG out to half court. Michigan has not played the ball screen like that in quite some time that I can remember and I don't know why they started yesterday. We didn't even double up or hard hedge Jalen Brunson last year in the national title game and Simpson stayed in his pocket for the most part. Winston is a good player but he is not unguardable even coming off ball screens.
February 25th, 2019 at 1:39 PM ^
February 25th, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
I have always thought going into this season that we would split the series with them, which is perfectly fine. They essentially cancel each other out in that case. I will say, though, that while it sucks losing your home game, it's more impressive to the selection committee to win the difficult road games, especially versus rivals. I said weeks ago I'd certainly be OK with losing the home game if it meant winning the road game. Now, the pressure is going to be on and it will be a difficult game in the most hostile environment UM has faced this season, but they can still do it.
EDIT: That PSU loss is really kicking us in the balls now. We'd still be tied with MSU had we defeated them like we should have.
February 25th, 2019 at 1:34 PM ^
I think we have some obvious adjustments we can make on both ends of the court. But MSU also might have Ward back and be jacked for a night game at Breslin on senior day.
We'll probably be 6-7 point dogs in that game, we were 4.5 point favorites yesterday.
February 25th, 2019 at 1:39 PM ^
Michigan should’ve went to a zone for a few possessions yesterday when they couldn’t stop MSU ball screen. A least throw them off a little.
February 25th, 2019 at 4:18 PM ^
Disagree. We tried that against them in 2016 when they were running a similar offense and they buried us because of it.
I mean we could have tried it, but usually that will leave guys open for 3, which is something we weren't in a position to do.
February 25th, 2019 at 2:11 PM ^
Matthews hit for a whopping 4 pts. and our best shooter Livers played a whopping 18 minutes.
Anyone care to explain this?
February 25th, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
Matthews missed almost the entire first half with "foul trouble" and an injured ankle. He just never got into the flow of the game. I think you may see him sit out the Nebraska game. My guess is that his ankle is quite sore today.
So, our bench in that game will consist of...... hmmm, wait a second?
February 25th, 2019 at 3:38 PM ^
Any team can get on a roll in the tourney. We've looked unbeatable (NC, Nova) and we've looked like an NIT team. Who knows which team will get on a run in March. This team has the talent so there's always a shot. Should be a fun ride. As far as winning on sparty's floor, could easily happen. Could also get blown out. Either way, doesn't change the fact that we could go deep in tourney or lose in the second round. How's that expert analysis? Still a great time of year!
GO BLUE!!
February 25th, 2019 at 3:59 PM ^
This will be a really tough feat. Not impossible, but it will be hard to win at Breslin on the final game of the year. Yesterday was the big opportunity for us for a B1G title and we definitely blew it
February 25th, 2019 at 7:18 PM ^