Michigan-Minnesota MBB postgame snowflakes
All of the elements of an upset were present, and it took them all for Michigan to go down:
Road game: Don’t know what helps Minnesota play so much better at home, but kudos to them.
Motivated team: Carr and Robbins came to play, and the early post doubles were very effective.
Good guard play for the underdog: Once Carr became a passer, without Eli Brooks it was going to be tough sledding
Rough whistle: the clothesline on Smith was inexcusable, and tough calls seemed to take Michigan out of their element.
Uncharacteristically poor shooting: rough outing for Dickinson and Wagner.
Poor guard play from the favorite: Mike Smith is going to need to reevaluate his passing lanes and decision making. He was clearly not prepared to contend with Minnesota’s pressure on drives.
What did you notice?
January 17th, 2021 at 1:42 AM ^
I’m not typically one to blame refs. I believe you have to adapt to what the refs are calling just like you have to adapt to how an individual or team is playing you.
That said, I think the refs have some culpability in the outcome of today’s game. I don’t think the game was called evenly in the first half. There were easily a handful of calls made against Michigan which were not made against Minnesota. That is very difficult to adapt to. Instinctually if you are getting fouled pretty hard without it being called, you are going to start playing D with more physicality. It’s not that Michigan ended up in significant foul trouble, but Minnesota was allowed to play more freely while Michigan had to be more careful.
I still give Minnesota credit for playing hard and Robbins had the game of his life, but this is one of the few times I would say the refs had a larger impact than they should have.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:06 PM ^
The main problem for Smith was that his shot wasn't falling, and he wasn't getting the foul calls.
Wagner was 0-4 from outside.
Turnovers killed us -- most by Dickinson in limited minutes.
Missed a couple of bunnies.
Missed Eli on defense.
Decent game by Livers.
Decent game by Brown.
Needed more minutes for Johns?
January 16th, 2021 at 4:09 PM ^
Chaundee is great off the bench
He probably shouldn't ever be putting up double digit shot attempts on this team
January 16th, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
He shot 50% from the field and was our leading scorer, far from the issue. If it wasn’t for his shooting it could’ve been a lot worse with nobody else shooting well...
We shot 27% from 3 and turned it over it seemed like every other position...
January 16th, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
Johns is not good enough for more minutes.
The biggest problem I saw was *everyone* missing the easy shots: layups, FT, open threes... nothing was going in reliably. Moreso than any other game so far.
Second biggest problem was the unforced errors: wild passes, lost dribbles, etc.
The team just looked off. Need to work on getting them ready on road game days... and staying healthy.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
Hunter certainly had his worse game. Hopefully games like this convince him to stay another year.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:39 PM ^
Wagner lacked the confidence he's shown previously. He threw up knuckleball threes and missed a breakaway layup. When he goes without hesitation, he's awesome; when hesitates, he's fucked.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:08 PM ^
I was at the office all afternoon.
Just what the fuck did you guys do to my basketball team today?
January 16th, 2021 at 4:08 PM ^
He kept Dickenson out of the game for too long but don’t let this loss become two. Get ready for Maryland. Beat them and your still #1 in the big ten!
January 16th, 2021 at 4:08 PM ^
The weird B1G season finally hit Michigan this game. Hopeful that they learn from it.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:08 PM ^
Can’t lose Smith or Brooks. We got 0 depth at guard. Both of those need to stay healthy for us to make any run.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:17 PM ^
Zeb just not showing it yet (wonder if/when we'll see it?)
January 16th, 2021 at 4:23 PM ^
He’s a freshman.
January 16th, 2021 at 6:37 PM ^
People said the same thing about Brooks his first three years and called Beilein crazy for giving him minutes.
I think it was good Zeb got in and made some horrible mistakes. That’s how you learn. If we’re going to give him some experience outside of garbage time, it’s good to give it during a disaster game when Wagner and Dickinson were playing just as poorly and we weren’t going to win.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:24 PM ^
true. but dickinson is the most important player on this team.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:51 PM ^
And return next season.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:09 PM ^
First big road game and we play like shit. Hope it is not a preview of the rest of the year. Smith with zero points what the fuck. 37 minutes played and can’t score. Not good.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
Adjustments on Def,by Minny from 1st game.When you beat a team by 25 you're not going to make adjustments,when you lose by 25 you are..Dickinson was most effected by the adjustments (doubling post) today.Big 'shot our wad' win vs Wis. then go on road against a good team (at home) easy to do the math.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
We looked like shit. No need to discuss it for the next 3 days because there’s nothing you’re going to do about it.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
Well we aren’t going to talk about football. I guess hockey won a game.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:24 PM ^
Play another tonight at 7pm on BTN.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
At least they have some really bad tape to coach off of.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:11 PM ^
a lot of bad turnovers! Minnesota played great D, and Michigan was careless with the ball.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:11 PM ^
a lot of bad turnovers! Minnesota played great D, and Michigan was careless with the ball.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:11 PM ^
Better now than later - this may prove to the team that yes, you are all good but no, you're not the Dream Team and the opposition are not the Washington Generals.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:11 PM ^
Poor play all around on offense, especially bad passing to generate 20 turnovers, causes 57 points.
Time to start a new winning streak.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:13 PM ^
I noticed your post was wrong.
When you lose by 20, you don’t need all of the elements you listed to be present.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:15 PM ^
You are confusing cause and effect.
January 16th, 2021 at 5:20 PM ^
No, I’m not. You flip any of your factors and we lose by 12 instead of what happened.
January 16th, 2021 at 6:47 PM ^
That is curiously specific - so each factor is 8pts, eh?
January 16th, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
This one surprised me as I thought we had enough senior/upperclassman leadership to not play a stinker like this. Glad we have a game Tues., back at home. Should be able to handle Maryland.
I would drop us out of the Top Ten to #11 if I had a vote.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:38 PM ^
Drop us out of the top 10 after destroying Wisconsin and losing our senior leader to an injury for a game that resulted in a loss against a top 25 B1G team on the road? Harsh dude. I would still move them up to a top 5 team the way they destroyed ranked teams the prior 3 games. 1st loss of the season. These things happen. Its also important to compare with how other top 10 teams have been performing. You can't get over-reactionary from 1 bad loss.
January 16th, 2021 at 10:25 PM ^
Every team, no matter how great, lays a few turds throughout an entire season. Did you see Wisconsin's senior laden team lay a giant turd against us a few days ago? It happens.
This is arguably our second or third turd this year. We fought through the other two (Oakland and Penn St.) and got ugly wins. Let's hope they learn from this and move on to Maryland.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
Worst officiated game I've see all year (only really watch Michigan games though).
January 16th, 2021 at 4:21 PM ^
coach needs to get those young talented guys playing better. The youth got challenged by a good MN defense but I think they will improve.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
It was horrible officiating - not just judgment calls but flat out misses and peculiar calls on a lot of mild bumps.
Still prefer to have it in a game where it doesn’t decide the outcome because UM wasn’t winning today with no offensive flow.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
The officials had little to do with us losing the way we did, IMO. The team didn't look focused from the jump -- 20 turnovers and missed shots around the rim. And wide open looks not falling for much of the game. Not enough intensity on defense. There were lots of issues that did not involve the refs.
January 16th, 2021 at 6:49 PM ^
Completely agree that the team had problems - still a poor ref show today. Heck, both Dakich and Bennetti called out some of it.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
This game really shows how little depth this team has. We have 7-8 playable guys and if a starter gets injured, we're gonna have issues
January 16th, 2021 at 4:27 PM ^
BS! This team has great depth and it’s shown in their previous few games. No one got hot today as opposed to 3-4 the previous games. Juwans rotations the past few weeks could do no wrong.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:43 PM ^
How is it BS? Brooks being hurt completely fucked our rotations and you can think about how our rotations would be just as fucked if other players got injured. Honestly Wagner or Livers getting injured would probably have the least impact on this team since Johns can play the 4
January 16th, 2021 at 4:31 PM ^
8 man rotations are pretty common in college basketball, and I'd add Williams in there as a "playable" guy who could easily be added to the rotation.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:44 PM ^
PG depth is limited but Terrance Williams is a much better "depth" player than Zeb currently. Same with Brandon Johns. We don't have as much backcourt depth.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
No snowflakes today, only slush.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
Michigan has played much better than I thought they would before the season started. I thought this season they would finish the B1G around .500. I think they will bounce back and contend for the B1G regular season title through the remainder of the season. But they will have a few more road losses.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:27 PM ^
i would take 5 losses. that would likely be good enough to win the conference; or at least a share.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:51 PM ^
Road losses to MSU, OSU, and Wisconsin
Hopefully just lose one home game between Iowa and Illinois, and that's a big ten title then
January 17th, 2021 at 1:04 PM ^
Have you seen MSU play? We ain't losin to Sparty!
January 16th, 2021 at 4:21 PM ^
GAAAAA I take back every good thing I've said about Michigan basketball this season!!!!!
/s
Rough outing. Minnesota's D accounted for a small portion of our struggles but a lot of our mishaps were self-inflicted. How many shots around the rim did we miss? And the 20 turnovers were uncharacteristic. Seems like we forgot what got us to 11-0. Juwan is a good coach. I am expecting much better outcomes in the next games.
January 16th, 2021 at 4:52 PM ^
I'm not sure how uncharacteristic the turnovers are, aren't we last in the conference in them? Plus we had 20 earlier this season against Oakland too
It's a real weakness